DEA twitter account promotes Anslinger

Posted on March 9, 2018 by Pete

Via Tom Angell

Tom responds

https://twitter.com/tomangell/status/971840775939149824

This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.

41 Responses to DEA twitter account promotes Anslinger

  1. Will says:
    March 9, 2018 at 10:50 am

    .
    .
    #TBT? Nope, I’d say #TUT #ThrowupThursday.

    This retrospective endorsement and praise is so astonishingly bad, it’s hard to believe it isn’t a joke. But of course it isn’t. Jeff Sessions is surely nodding in approval.

  2. Yeah But says:
    March 9, 2018 at 11:54 am

    “Though the symptoms of narcotic addiction were
    known, they were not recognized in Main Street America, except
    as signs of rare moral degeneracy in minority groups or immigrants,
    essentially a vice or sickness of outsiders.”

    “Moral degeneracy” indeed. The DEA is devoid of shame. They are still using the language and tone of a monster like Anslinger to vilify non-white races. Rosenberg and his cronies might just as well be the Klan.

  3. Servetus says:
    March 9, 2018 at 12:49 pm

    The Drug Enforcement Administration is living inside its own private DEA. It’s so bad they’re waxing nostalgic for Harry Anslinger. It’s predictable. Gone are the days when planting marijuana in a black man’s car at a police traffic stop was the best way to prevent black people from moving into white neighborhoods. Times change, but the DEA doesn’t.

    The proper way to deal with Anslinger was explained in 1966 by poet Allen Ginsberg in The Atlantic:

    “A marvelous project for a sociologist, and one which I am sure will be in preparation before my generation grows old, will be a close examination of the actual history and tactics of the Narcotics Bureau and its former chief Power, Harry J. Anslinger, in planting the seed of the marijuana ‘menace’ in the public mind and carefully nurturing its growth over the last few decades until the unsuspecting public was forced to accept an outright lie.”

    Anslinger is remembered as being very quotable. In the following quip, Anslinger displays not only his racism for blacks and Hispanics, but for Filipinos as well. He detests entertainers of all stripes. Hollywood’s demons must have kept him up at night:

    “There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the U.S., and most are negroes, hispanics, filipinos and entertainers. Their satanic music, jazz and swing, result from marijuana use. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with negroes, entertainers and any others.”

    https://prohbtd.com/was-harry-anslinger-a-racist

    Harry was among other things a strong Presbyterian. His religious extremism placed him somewhere to the right of Jerry Falwell politically, thus making him a true believer in the menace posed by “godless commies” — just in time for the McCarthy Era:

    “Marihuana leads to pacifism and communist brainwashing” — Harry J Anslinger

    We know Anslinger supplied morphine to an opioid addict in the Senate to reduce the possibility the politician would be scandalized should anyone discover he had a problem. That addict is suspected of being Senator Joe McCarthy. Red baiter Roy Cohn was McCarthy’s main legal counsel. Before finally being disbarred, Cohn was also a legal counsel and a big influence on Donald Trump.

    Anslinger’s charge of “pacifism” among marijuana consumers directly contradicts all his other propaganda claiming cannabis leads to violence and murder:

    …”Mr. Chairman and distinguished members of the Ways and Means Committee,” said Anslinger at the hearing, “this traffic in marihuana is increasing to such an extent that it has come to be the cause for the greatest national concern. This drug is as old as civilization itself. Homer wrote about it, as a drug that made men forget their homes, and that turned them into swine. In Persia, a thousand years before Christ, there was a religious and military order founded which was called the Assassins and they derived their name from the drug called hashish which is now known in this country as marihuana. They were noted for their acts of cruelty, and the word ‘assassin’ very aptly describes the drug.”

    Anslinger’s propaganda machine was far more blatant in spreading lies to the public, but his congressional testimony was still filled with false information and assertions. He called the resin “dangerous,” claimed 14 percent of Egypt were cannabis addicts and said the “staminate leaves are about as harmless as a rattlesnake.” In making his argument that cannabis is worse than any narcotic, Anslinger testified, “Here we have a drug that is not like opium. Opium has all of the good of Dr. Jekyll and all the evil of Mr. Hyde. This drug is entirely the monster Hyde, the harmful effect of which cannot be measured.” […]

    “The 80-Year Anniversary of Harry Anslinger’s Huge Lie to Congress” — https://prohbtd.com/harry-anslinger-lied-to-congress-80-years-ago-today

    Fortunately, the great white hopes and dreams of the DEA embodied by Harry J Anslinger are as dead as Anslinger.

    ***

    Writings and References for H J Anslinger:

    “The Traffic in Narcotics” -written by Harry Anslinger

    http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/people/anslinger/traffic/default.htm

    General References to Anslinger:

    http://druglibrary.org/schaffer/people/anslinger/index.htm

  4. Will says:
    March 9, 2018 at 1:54 pm

    .
    .
    One of the better responses to the DEA’s tweet, from WokeChicken;

    “Are y’all just trolling at this point?”

    It hurts to laugh at an agency as tone deaf as they are grievously dangerous to humans far and wide.

  5. DdC says:
    March 9, 2018 at 7:55 pm

    DEA Thanks Godfather of Prohibition
    https://www.marijuana.com/news/2018/03/dea-thanks-godfather-of-prohibition/

    The Endocannabinoid System: What Nobody is Actively Discussing – https://hightimes.com/sponsored/endocannabinoid-system-nobody-actively-discussing/

    What Is Delta-8-THC and How Is It Different from Delta-9? | Leafly https://www.leafly.com/news/science-tech/what-is-delta8-thc #cannabis #leafly via @Leafly

    Dissolvable THC & CBD Powder: The Future of Marijuana Edibles | Leafly https://www.leafly.com/news/strains-products/dissolvable-cannabinoids-the-future-of-marijuana-edibles #cannabis #leafly via @Leafly

    • DdC says:
      March 10, 2018 at 12:10 am

      The Future: THC & CBD Powder

      The Past: ELI LILLY CANNABIS POWDER:
      MIGRAINE HEADACHES Chapter 9
      http://antiquecannabisbook.com/chap9/Migraine.htm

      Two pages from an Eli Lilly price and product sales book. Before being outlawed Cannabis (in powered form) was sold by almost all major pharmaceutical houses.

      The pain killing properties of Cannabis were known to western medicine since the time of the Roman Empire. But it wasn’t until after O’Shaughnessy (1839) published his findings on the medical properties of Indian Cannabis that its use in western medicine became wide spread. Soon the Medical Journals were carrying article after article, praising its general pain killing properties. But oddly enough, it wasn’t until the 1870s that its use for migraine headaches began, and not until the 1880s that it was widely recommended and used for migraine.

      http://antiquecannabisbook.com/images/IMG_1445.jpg

      The Present: Just in: Federal judge acknowledges plaintiffs’ claim that “medical marijuana has, quite literally, saved their lives,” dismisses rescheduling lawsuit anyway. https://t.co/pENPUEcJID

      DEA Thanks Godfather of Prohibition

      ✦ …the primary reason to outlaw marijuana is its effect on the degenerate races.

      ✦ Marihuana influences Negroes to look at white people in the eye, step on white men’s shadows and look at a white woman twice.

      ✦ Reefer makes darkies think they’re as good as white men.

      ✦ Colored students at the University of Minnesota partying with (white) female students, smoking [marijuana] and getting their sympathy with stories of racial persecution. Result: pregnancy.

      ✦ By the tons it is coming into this country – the deadly, dreadful poison that racks and tears not only the body, but the very heart and soul of every human being who once becomes a slave to it in any of its cruel and devastating forms. Marihuana is a short cut to the insane asylum. Smoke marihuana cigarettes for a month and what was once your brain will be nothing but a storehouse of horrid specters. Hasheesh makes a murderer who kills for the love of killing out of the mildest mannered man who ever laughed at the idea that any habit could ever get him.

      ~ Harry J. Anslinger
      Godfather of Prohibition

  6. Yeah But says:
    March 10, 2018 at 1:48 pm

    https://twitter.com/DEAHQ

    This is straight out of 1984. These people are even more dangerous than I thought.

  7. Mike says:
    March 10, 2018 at 10:03 pm

    President Trump tonight in PA speech talking

    more hurt for drug offenses.

    • DdC says:
      March 10, 2018 at 11:44 pm

      At Pennsylvania rally, Trump again calls for the death penalty for drug dealers
      https://twitter.com/DendeCannabist/status/972700904439783424

    • DdC says:
      March 11, 2018 at 12:31 am

      A Look at Prohibitionist Rhetoric and Its Consequences
      by Julian Heicklen February10, 1998

      “DEATH TO THE DRUGGIES”

      Senator Orin Hatch, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and 28 Senate co-sponsors have introduced Bill S. 3 that mandates that a person convicted of bringing into the United States “100 usual dosage amounts” of several illicit substances including two ounces of marijuana be sentenced to life without parole for a first offense and death for a second offense.

      Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and 37 House co sponsors have introduced Bill H. R. 41 with the identical provision. On May 8, 1997, Speaker Gingrich said: “If you sell it, we’re going to kill you.”

      William Bennett, the first U. S. “Drug Czar” has said: “The non-addicted or casual irregular user is likely to have a still-intact family, social and work life. These are the users who should have their names published in local papers. They should be subject to drivers’ license suspension, employer notification, overnight or weekend detention, eviction from public housing, or forfeiture of the cars they drive while purchasing drugs.”

      On “Larry King Live,” June 15, 1989, a caller to the national cable television show suggested to Drug “Czar” William Bennett: “Behead the damn drug dealers.” Mr. Bennett’s response was: “I mean what the caller suggests is morally plausible. Legally, it’s difficult But somebody selling drugs to a kid? Morally, I don’t have any problem with that at all.” Mr. Bennett reiterated his position the next day in a written statement that told drug dealers: “You deserve to die.”

      Thomas J. Gleaton, Director of PRIDE has said: “We, as parents of all nations, must say to our local law enforcement officer, ‘If my child, my loved one, or my friend breaks the law by using illicit drugs, please arrest him or her.'” Folks, this is your America. Because of the hysteria of our national leaders, not only has reason left the land, but so has the law.

    • DdC says:
      March 11, 2018 at 2:27 pm

      American D.E.A.th by Drug War
      https://twitter.com/USHEMP/status/972856805016551426

      Cannabis Shrinks Tumors: Government Knew in 74
      http://endingcannabisprohibition.yuku.com/topic/588

      It is estimated that 16,700 adults (9,620 men and 7,080 women) will die from primary cancerous brain and CNS tumors this year. @ 16k/yr x 44yrs = 704000 Americans

      Ganja 4 PTSD & Depression
      http://endingcannabisprohibition.yuku.com/topic/1632

      5000 suicides in the United States alone occurred as a result of combat-based PTSD

      Hemplastic or Fossil Fools Crud
      http://endingcannabisprohibition.yuku.com/topic/1659

      Why are America’s farmers killing themselves in record numbers?
      https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/dec/06/why-are-americas-farmers-killing-themselves-in-record-numbers

      The suicide rate for farmers is more than double that of veterans.

      Arizona voted for Medical Marijuana with a 65% margin in 1996 and Republicans nullified the vote. Think of the kids that needlessly suffered and died just from seizures since that time. Republicans should pay restitution for the damage they have done to Arizona.

      Collaterally Damaged Kids
      Drug Worriers preferred methods of treatment…
      http://endingcannabisprohibition.yuku.com/topic/1945
      Preferred Treatment of Racketeering Opponents
      of a 4 yr old girl using cannabis for Epileptic seizures
      http://endingcannabisprohibition.yuku.com/sreply/1001

  8. WalStMonky says:
    March 11, 2018 at 2:17 pm

    .
    .

    Well here’s a surprise:
    Jeff Sessions says prosecutors won’t pursue “small marijuana cases”

    Will the sycophants of prohibition who claim that he’s “just following orders” when he enforces codified stupidity notice that he’s invoking prosecutorial discretion?

  9. Haran Yahoo says:
    March 11, 2018 at 5:04 pm

    Alcoholic who let home be used as drug factory was paid in vodka

    https://tinyurl.com/BestHeadlineAward

  10. Mike says:
    March 11, 2018 at 8:09 pm

    interesting what Arizona does allow

    driver less trucks hauling freight

  11. Servetus says:
    March 11, 2018 at 9:35 pm

    Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III is as quotable as Harry Anslinger.

    The two petty tyrants have much in common. As both Sessions and Anslinger are or were deeply religious men, they tend to be sanctimonious about the virtues of ignorance and stupidity:

    The more learned and witty you bee, the more fit to act for Satan you will bee.—John Cotton (1585 – 1652), Puritan

    Jeff Sessions’ fitness to act for Satan can be measured by Sessions’ insistence that the US Constitution doesn’t support separation of church and state. His beliefs about church-state separation means he’s an avowed dominionist. Dominionists want a theocracy, not a democracy. They want an authoritarian state like that currently plaguing Iran. Their addictive need to prohibit certain chemical substances emerges due to so many drugs being better suited to solving social, medical, and psychological problems that were once considered the exclusive province of the religion du jour.

    It is therefore fitting and ironic that Jeff’s prescient namesake, Thomas Jefferson, commented on theocrats such as Anslinger and Sessions:

    In every country and every age the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in line with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for his own protection. — Thomas Jefferson

  12. kaptinemo says:
    March 11, 2018 at 11:00 pm

    They show a pic of President Kennedy shaking hands with Anslinger; what the DEA doesn’t tell you is that after Rufus King made tapes of Anslinger’s debates and public pronouncements available to the White House, Kennedy sacked Anslinger.

    Taken from Mike Gray’s Drug Crazy, the juicy details can be found here: http://www.libertary.com/books/chapter-4-the-devil-and-harry-anslinger/ with the directly relevant information beginning on Page 86.

    • Yeah But says:
      March 14, 2018 at 3:10 am

      Trouble in River City. (From page 77 of DRUG CRAZY)

      ‘Hobson had been completely reinvigorated by the anti-marijuana campaign. And though Harry Anslinger despised the man (a dilettante, said Anslinger, who lived off his wealthy female financial backers)[29] Hobson could still ignite middle America like a prairie fire. Dispatches from the western States to the New York Times headlined: “STATE FINDS MANY CHILDREN ARE ADDICTED TO WEED,” “POISONOUS WEED SOLD FREELY IN POOL HALLS AND BEER GARDENS,” “USE OF MARIJUANA SPREADING IN WEST,” “CHILDREN SAID TO BUY IT.”’

      Hobson sounds like he might be the model for Harold Hill:

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LI_Oe-jtgdI

      • kaptinemo says:
        March 14, 2018 at 1:07 pm

        All of these ‘crusades’ follow a pattern that was actually described in (of all things) a NIDA publication: Themes in Chemical Prohibition by William L. White from: Drugs in Perspective, National Institute on Drug Abuse, 1979. http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/history/ticp.html

        A review of chemical prohibitionist literature reveals eight themes which appear to emerge from the tactics of most such movements. The tactics utilized to produce these themes are as follows:

        1. The drug is associated with a hated subgroup of the society or a foreign enemy.

        2. The drug is identified as solely responsible for many problems in the culture, i.e., crime, violence, and insanity.

        3. The survival of the culture is pictured as being dependent on the prohibition of the drug.

        4. The concept of “controlled” usage is destroyed and replaced by a “domino theory” of chemical progression.

        5. The drug is associated with the corruption of young children, particularly their sexual corruption.

        6. Both the user and supplier of the drug are defined as fiends, always in search of new victims; usage of the drug is considered “contagious.”

        7. Policy options are presented as total prohibition or total access.

        8. Anyone questioning any of the above assumptions is bitterly attacked and characterized as part of the problem that needs to be eliminated.

        Over and over, again and again, without fail. And the lionization of those perpetrating the fraud of prohibition via those themes is nothing new, either: The Forgotten Drug War: One Million Drug Addicts, Part II https://pointsadhsblog.wordpress.com/2015/10/29/the-forgotten-drug-war-one-million-drug-addicts-part-ii/

        One can argue that the prohibitionist side requires charlatans and hucksters, whereas those they supposedly oppose, the drug cartels, in comparison, have very honest motives.

        • Yeah But says:
          March 14, 2018 at 2:32 pm

          ‘4. The concept of “controlled” usage is destroyed and replaced by a “domino theory” of chemical progression.’

          This is the biggest con of all. “Chemical progression” is entirely the result of prohibition and the surrender of the drug market to criminals. Strange though that this came from NIDA. Sounds like a confession to me.

        • Servetus says:
          March 14, 2018 at 10:54 pm

          One of the first critics of Anslinger’s drug war was an Indiana Univ. sociology professor named Alfred R. Lindesmith. Prof. Lindesmith had the temerity to suggest that Anslinger was correlating drug use and addiction with every possible negative aspect of despised and hated subgroups. Drug addicts were always lazy bums, crazy dangerous people, criminals, entertainers, Black or Hispanic or Filipino, etc. The FBN didn’t appreciate Lindesmith yanking the sheets off them:

          The fact that Lindesmith’s work threatened the emerging demonization of heroin, etc., is clear from how the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN)—predecessor of the DEA—worked to discredit him. This is outlined in a paper by Galliher, Keys, and Elsner, “Lindesmith v. Anslinger: An Early Government Victory in the Failed War on Drugs”.[5] As early as 1939, FBN director Harry Anslinger had the Chicago District Supervisor of the Bureau notify Indiana University that one of their professors was a drug addict. An internal FBN memo also suggests that, some years later, a wire-tap may have been placed on Lindesmith’s phone by the Bureau. Incidentally, there is no evidence that Lindesmith ever used illegal drugs. As Galliher et al. point out, “the targeting of Lindesmith was possible because Lindesmith acted virtually alone in standing up against federal drug control policies.”

          In his book The Addict and the Law,[6] he presents a detailed account of U.S. laws, regulations, police practices and court procedures, often in painful detail. He was describing what we now know as the beginning of the “war on drugs”, although that term was not coined until 1971. It was published just 3 years after Anslinger retired. In his book, Lindesmith expressed hope that the relatively liberal drug policies of the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations would continue, but that was not to be. wiki

          Before it was the Drug Policy Alliance, it was the Lindesmith Center.

  14. Francis says:
    March 12, 2018 at 11:36 am

    That little bio is something else.

    Anslinger accomplished much in his decades leading America’s battle against drug trafficking, drug abuse, and organized criminal groups that sought to profit from the spoils of this enterprise.

    One would be forgiven for assuming that such a claim would be followed by some kind of support, maybe a brief summary of all that he accomplished in that decades-long battle. Instead, the next sentence is:

    Unlike the FBI’s J. Edgar Hoover, Anslinger has been largely a forgotten leader.

    I guess there were just too many accomplishments to even attempt a summary.

    A man influenced by the times he lived in and the events happening around him, he was not without controversy.

    Well I guess that’s one way of glossing over his virulent racism.

    He has been criticized most harshly by those opposed to laws governing marijuana. Those laws were passed by Congress during the time Anslinger was in charge of FBN in the 1930s.

    Wow. The clear implication there that Anslinger had little or nothing to do with the passage of “those laws” is staggeringly dishonest. Although I guess the upshot of that pathetic little attempt to whitewash the history of Anslinger’s role is the implicit recognition of how shameful it was.

  15. Servetus says:
    March 12, 2018 at 2:18 pm

    A Republican senator from Wisconsin, Ron Johnson, is confused about whether to execute drug offenders:

    Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) on Sunday said that he was “not sure” if the death penalty should be applied to drug offenses.

    During an interview on CNN, Johnson was asked if he agrees with President Donald Trump’s recent assertion that drug dealers should be executed like they are in China. […]

    “I’m a supporter of the death penalty, but only in those types of incidences where we absolutely are a 100 percent certain that the person is 100 percent guilty,” the Republican senator opined. “I’m not sure it would be applicable to drug offenses.”

    https://crooksandliars.com/2018/03/ron-johnson-im-not-sure-if-drug-offenders

    Ron Johnson rejected a state bill that would have eliminated the statute of limitations for child sex abuse in a show of support for pedophiles. Johnson also opposes the idea that humans are affecting the climate.

    Wisconsin marijuana consumers are likely to be 100 percent certain Ron Johnson is a nincompoop when they vote him out of office.

  16. Servetus says:
    March 13, 2018 at 11:21 am

    Scientists have announced a discovery that may have profound effects on preventing the severe social damage done to citizens by arch prohibitionists exemplified by Harry Anslinger and Jeff Sessions.

    A team including V Warrier, K L Grasby […] S Baron-Cohen at Cambridge has determined that roughly ten percent of a person’s empathy is genetically determined. The discovery could lead to understanding how empathogens such as psilocybin and MDMA enhance feelings of empathy in humans.

    11-MAR-2018 — Fifteen years ago, a team of scientists at the University of Cambridge developed the Empathy Quotient (EQ), a brief self-report measure of empathy. The EQ measures both parts of empathy.

    Previous research showed that some of us are more empathetic than others, and that on average, women are slightly more empathetic than men. It also showed that, on average, autistic people score lower on the EQ, and that this was because they struggle with cognitive empathy, even though their affective empathy may be intact. […]

    The new study has three important results. First, it found that how empathetic we are is partly due to genetics. Indeed, a tenth of this variation is due to genetic factors. This confirms previous research examining empathy in identical versus non-identical twins.

    Second, the new study confirmed that women are on average more empathetic than men. However, this difference is not due to our DNA as there were no differences in the genes that contribute to empathy in men and women.

    This implies that the sex difference in empathy is the result of other non-genetic biological factors, such as prenatal hormone influences, or non-biological factors such as socialisation, both of which also differ between the sexes.

    Finally, the new study found that genetic variants associated with lower empathy are also associated with higher risk for autism. […]

    Professor Simon Baron-Cohen added: “Finding that even a fraction of why we differ in empathy is due to genetic factors helps us understand people such as those with autism who struggle to imagine another person’s thoughts and feelings. This can give rise to disability no less challenging than other kinds of disability, such as dyslexia or visual impairment.

    AAAS Public Release: Study finds that genes play a role in empathy

    Genome-wide analyses of self-reported empathy: correlations with autism, schizophrenia, and anorexia nervosa, by V Warrier, R Toro, B Chakrabarti, iPSYCH-Broad Autism Group, Grove J, Borglum AD, D Hinds, T Bourgeron, and S Baron-Cohen. Translational Psychiatry.

    Implications of the genetics research include the possibility of a drug treatment regimen for prohibitionists with extremely low EQs, people who want drug offenders executed—burned at the stake if possible—people such as Donald Trump or Rodrigo Duterte; and of course Bill Bennett, who has always preferred decapitation.

    One could easily speculate the Cambridge discovery will lead to a new form of guerrilla-like chemical warfare. The strategy would involve groups such as Antifa arming themselves with concealable blowguns loaded with darts containing sympathy juice and deploying them against fascists at close range. No fascist would remain safe from the immediate effects of empathy.

  17. Servetus says:
    March 14, 2018 at 11:46 am

    Harry Anslinger’s weed hysteria destroyed the hemp industry in the US and added to America’s environmental problems due to the consequent intensification of cotton production, a water, insecticide and fertilizer demanding crop. In a counter example, farmers in Puglia, Italy, have grown hemp for several years as a means of cleaning toxins from farm soil:

    In the fields around Taranto, Puglia, more and more farmers are sowing fields of cannabis in a bid to save their precious soil which has been rendered unsafe thanks to years of pollution from Europe’s biggest steel plant. […]

    The cannabis revolutions started in 2011 with the creation of CanaPuglia, an association seeking to help pollution-hit farms facing ruin turn things around by planting bumper crops of the five-leaf plant.

    “Cannabis roots are capable of cleaning the polluted soils by absorbing all manner of pollutants, from radioactive compounds to heavy metals and dioxins,” CanaPuglia president Claudio Natale told The Local.

    The extraordinary ability of the plant to not only survive in pollution-hit soils, but also to clean them, was discovered in the early 1990s by agriculturalists carrying out experiments in the radioactive earth around Chernobyl, Ukraine.

    “The plant is very effective at reducing dioxin levels and as a result there are now around 100 farmers living around the Ilva plant who are experimenting with the crop,” Natale explained. […]

    Farmers are growing a legal variety of the Cannabis Sativa plant which contains extremely low-levels of the psychoactive compound THC.

    While this makes the plants useless for recreational smoking, they still have plenty of more interesting uses such as producing hemp fibres, bio-fules, animal feed and insulation. […]

    Local building company, Vilbrotek, is already experimenting making materials from hemp, while one of two hemp processing plants in Italy is in Taranto.

    “It’s likely to be a long road to recovery,” said Natale. “Cannabis crops have a very low value and our farmers can’t survive on this alone.” […]

    https://www.thelocal.it/20160603/puglias-farmers-sow-fields-of-cannabis-to-save-soils-from-steel-plant-pollution

  18. Servetus says:
    March 15, 2018 at 12:40 pm

    There is more to the relationship between coffee and cannabis than just the coffeeshops in Amsterdam. This fact has been illustrated by new research conducted by Marilyn Cornelis, assistant professor of preventive medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine:

    15-MAR-2018 — …In a study of coffee consumption, Northwestern scientists were surprised to discover coffee changed many more metabolites in the blood than previously known. Metabolites are chemicals in the blood that change after we eat and drink or for a variety of other reasons.

    The neurotransmitters related to the endocannabinoid system — the same ones affected by cannabis — decreased after drinking four to eight cups of coffee in a day. That’s the opposite of what occurs after someone uses cannabis. […]

    In addition, certain metabolites related to the androsteroid system increased after drinking four to eight cups of coffee in a day, which suggests coffee might facilitate the excretion or elimination of steroids. Because the steroid pathway is a focus for certain diseases including cancers, coffee may have an effect on these diseases as well. […]

    Blood metabolites of the endocannabinoid system decreased with coffee consumption, particularly with eight cups per day, the study found.

    The endocannabinoid metabolic pathway is an important regulator of our stress response, Cornelis said, and some endocannabinoids decrease in the presence of chronic stress.

    “The increased coffee consumption over the two-month span of the trial may have created enough stress to trigger a decrease in metabolites in this system,” she said. “It could be our bodies’ adaptation to try to get stress levels back to equilibrium.”

    The endocannabinoid system also regulates a wide range of functions: cognition, blood pressure, immunity, addiction, sleep, appetite, energy and glucose metabolism.

    “The endocannabinoid pathways might impact eating behaviors,” suggested Cornelis, “the classic case being the link between cannabis use and the munchies.”

    Coffee also has been linked to aiding weight management and reducing risk of type 2 diabetes.

    “This is often thought to be due to caffeine’s ability to boost fat metabolism or the glucose-regulating effects of polyphenols (plant-derived chemicals),” Cornelis said. “Our new findings linking coffee to endocannabinoids offer alternative explanations worthy of further study.” […]

    AAAS Public Release: The coffee cannabis connection: Coffee affects cannabis and steroid systems

    The social group best known for rejecting the consumption of coffee are members of the Mormon church. It is thus no coincidence that the authoritarian religion adamantly favors drug prohibition to the degree that many authoritarian-prone Mormons find work in drug enforcement and the prison industrial complex. The forgoing research points to a new way to spot Mormon drug agents: they are likely to be obese, diabetic, cancerous, and debilitated by an over-accumulation of metabolic steroids.

  19. Hope says:
    March 16, 2018 at 6:14 am

    Because of Anslinger and his cannabis mania, and the troglodytes that followed him like sick, thoughtless, little minions, the birds everywhere sing less sweetly and with less joy. The same birds aren’t as smart as they were at finding food sources since they have been denied the nutrients they got in natural hemp seed, too. They probably have a cannabinoid receptor system, that is getting no cannabinoids, like us, as well. Years ago I read a study about hemp seed and birds. Songbirds denied this seed, in it’s natural unsterilized form sing less joyfully and sweetly. A sadly proven fact. Now that’s sad, people. I believe Anslinger was a bad, bad man.

  20. Servetus says:
    March 16, 2018 at 12:28 pm

    Once again science proves Anslinger and his little minions wrong. The March 2018 issue of the European Journal of Internal Medicine focuses exclusively on demonstrating cannabis-based therapies are effective and safe:

    Amsterdam, March 15, 2018 — Medicinal cannabis is safe and effective in pain relief, and researchers are calling for the treatment to be properly established in our modern medical arsenal. […]

    “We feel it is absolutely imperative to not only present the current state of affairs, but also propose the development of the scientific research program within the paradigm of evidence-based medicine,” said Prof. Victor Novack, guest editor of the special issue and a professor at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel. “Our ultimate aim should be to scientifically establish the actual place of medical cannabis derived products in the modern medical arsenal.”

    Cannabis has been used for centuries in pain relief, as a sleep aid and for many other purposes, yet there is little evidence on its safety and effectiveness. This is in part due to relatively recent legal restrictions on its use, which have hampered research efforts and resulted in doctors having little to no understanding of its use.

    However, there has been an explosion in the number of studies published since 2012. The new special issue provides two major studies on the use of cannabis in cancer patients and the elderly, as well as a comprehensive overview of the evidence, regulations, ethics and practical use. […]

    In a study led by Prof. Novack, a team of researchers from Israel analyzed data collected during the medicinal cannabis treatment of 2,970 cancer patients between 2015 and 2017. The two main problems patients were hoping to overcome were sleep problems and pain, and cannabis has been shown to be effective in alleviating both. 95.9 percent of the patients reported an improvement in their condition.

    The same team also analyzed the effectiveness of medical cannabis in elderly patients who were being treated in 2015-2017 for a variety of issues, including pain and cancer. The researchers conclude in their paper: “Our study finds that the therapeutic use of cannabis is safe and efficacious in the elderly population. Cannabis use may decrease the use of other prescription medicines, including opioids. Gathering more evidence-based data, including data from double-blind randomized-controlled trials, in this special population is imperative.” […]

    AAAS Public Release: Medicinal cannabis is safe and effective — it’s time to reboot research: New special issue of the European Journal of Internal Medicine aims to bring cannabis into mainstream medicine

    European Journal of Internal Medicine single issue on Cannabis (no paywall): http://www.ejinme.com/issue/S0953-6205(18)X0003-X

    Most downloaded articles from the EJIM March (Vol 49) issue:
    Practical considerations in medical cannabis administration and dosing, Caroline A. MacCalluma, Ethan B. Russob.

    The therapeutic effects of Cannabis and cannabinoids: An update from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine report, Donald I. Abrams.

    • Will says:
      March 16, 2018 at 4:08 pm

      .
      .
      From the linked article by Donald Abrams;

      […] Clearly there is preclinical evidence that cannabinoids may have antitumor activity. However, at this point the data suggesting a clinical benefit in people with cancer is entirely lacking. The US Food and Drug Administration issued a warning in November 2017 to companies promoting Cannabis-derived products that claim to cure cancer [26]. Increasing numbers of patients in states where medicinal Cannabis is available are seeking highly concentrated THC or CBD preparations or elixirs with mysterious and magical ratios of THC:CBD in an effort to cure their cancers. When patients forego conventional cancer care in hopes that this unproven intervention will have therapeutic benefit, the results are often horribly disappointing with previously curable malignancies progressing to metastatic disease.

      Knowing Mr. Abrams’ position on the therapeutic value of cannabinoids, I’m going to chock the above passage up to his likely frustration that there has been, due to prohibition, a paucity of observable ‘clinical’ data to verify certain claims.

      Specifically this;

      Increasing numbers of patients in states where medicinal Cannabis is available are seeking highly concentrated THC or CBD preparations or elixirs with mysterious and magical ratios of THC:CBD in an effort to cure their cancers.

      The above sentence reminds me of a case study, published in November, 2013, regarding the story of a patient known only as P.K., a young teenage girl diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. It’s likely that many of you couch dwellers are familiar with this case. If not, I highly recommend reading the entire account. In many ways it illustrates “patients in states where medicinal Cannabis is available are seeking highly concentrated THC or CBD preparations or elixirs with mysterious and magical ratios of THC:CBD in an effort to cure their cancers”. [Note: P.K. was treated in Canada] P.K.’s unfortunate saga began in March of 2006 eventually leading to her family reaching out to Rick Simpson who helped them prepare their first cannabis oil. Subsequent cannabis oil concoctions were obtained from other sources. Various charts show the efficacy of blast cell reduction coincident with certain batches of oil administered. Sadly, there is no data in the case study revealing the “mysterious and magical ratios of THC:CBD” that P.K. was given. But, also clearly, she saw observable benefit from some of the concoctions. It’s a sickening shame that cannabinoid treatment was a last ditch effort to save her life rather than a first line therapy. Among many others, the story of P.K. further solidifies my desire to see the DEA and the remains of Anslinger both be dragged and swallowed up by a giant sinkhole. Read;

      Cannabis Extract Treatment for Terminal Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia with a Philadelphia Chromosome Mutation

      https://www.karger.com/Article/FullText/356446#AC

      BTW, for some strange reason, the above link might take you to the bottom of the article. If so, scroll up to start from the beginning.

  21. Servetus says:
    March 16, 2018 at 9:24 pm

    I think what Dr. Abrams is saying is that expecting cannabinoids/terpenes to be a silver bullet against cancer is expecting too much. A drug cocktail of the sort given to HIV patients is the trend, as in oncology. As with HIV/AIDS, cannabis should be used in conjunction with all other available treatments.

    Dr. Abram’s warning may allude to Steve Jobs, who rejected conventional cancer treatments in favor of spiritualist remedies and other things improperly researched or confirmed. Steve Jobs died, but not before issuing a warning not to do what he did.

    I don’t doubt that cannabinoids can cause apoptosis of cancer cells because it’s been confirmed to occur in vitro. The problem in attacking cancer is to get the medicine to the cancer cell to kill it, because most cancer-killing chemicals also kill living cells. So does radiation. But because apoptosis occurs at the splitting of a cell into two cells, and because cancer cells grow faster than normal cells, the fast-growing cells are killed off first. Cannabis doesn’t kill healthy cells, fortunately, so you can saturate the organism with THC/CBD etc. and possibly cure the cancer in that way. Or not. Everyone’s body chemistry is different in certain distinct ways.

    Getting cannabinoids to concentrate exclusively on cancer cells would be preferable but requires chemical trickery, and lately techniques involving nanoparticles that encapsulate a drug and deliver it only to cancer cells seem like a path to victory. Evidence has shown that the nanoparticles themselves appear to create an additional therapeutic effect.

    • Will says:
      March 17, 2018 at 10:28 am

      .
      .
      Yeah, I’m sure Dr. Abrams is lamenting the idea that many cancer sufferers are eschewing all other traditional cancer therapies for cannabis only. But he’s obviously lamenting the ‘black box’ nature of much of the cannabis oil preparations that people are, at times, through sheer desperation, predominantly relying on to treat their disease. Referring to the example in my post regarding P.K., one of the cannabis oil preparations she took was derived from the ‘Chronic’ strain (which, of course, can have many unknown variations). What the hell does that even mean? What was the cannabinoid breakdown of the particular phenotype used? Similarly, another oil preparation was from an Afghan/Thai cross. Which tells you what exactly? Pretty much nothing, except that based on a decade ago both strains used were likely (possibly?) high THC/low CBD strains. It was noted in the study that P.K. had difficulty with the ‘psychosomatic effects’ of some of the oils, which leads to the possibility that a more optimal THC:CBD ratio could have mitigated those effects, while still reducing blast cell counts. But it’s difficult to know that for sure since no THC:CBD ratio analysis was reported.

      To your point about drug cocktails, here’s part 2 of a series of articles on cannabinoids and cancer describing the synergistic effect of traditional chemotherapy/radiation treatments in conjunction with cannabinoid therapy (with links to research);

      CANNABIS AND CANCER, PT. 2: THE TRIPLE THREAT OF THC, CBD, AND CONVENTIONAL TREATMENT ON CANCER

      https://tinyurl.com/ybyo5fgf

  22. Servetus says:
    March 17, 2018 at 8:09 pm

    For decades prohibs pushed silly and unconfirmed propaganda that claimed young men were at risk from growing manboobs if they smoked marijuana. Today endocrinologists led by investigator J. Tyler Ramsey announced the discovery of actual chemical initiators for gynecomastia. None of them occur in cannabis:

    17-MAR-2018 — A new study lends further evidence to a suspected link between abnormal breast growth in young boys–called prepubertal gynecomastia–and regular exposure to lavender or tea tree oil, by finding that key chemicals in these common plant-derived oils act as endocrine-disrupting chemicals. The study results will be presented Monday at ENDO 2018, the Endocrine Society’s 100th annual meeting in Chicago.

    Lavender and tea tree oil are among the so-called essential oils that have become popular in the United States as alternatives for medical treatment, personal hygiene and cleaning products, and aromatherapy. Various consumer products contain lavender and tea tree oil, including some soaps, lotions, shampoos, hair-styling products, cologne and laundry detergents.

    “Our society deems essential oils as safe,” said study lead investigator J. Tyler Ramsey, a postbaccalaureate research fellow at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), part of the National Institutes of Health. “However, they possess a diverse amount of chemicals and should be used with caution because some of these chemicals are potential endocrine disruptors.”

    An endocrine-disrupting chemical is a chemical in the environment that interferes with hormones and their actions in the body. […]

    Ramsey and his NIEHS colleagues went a step further. From the hundreds of chemicals that comprise lavender and tea tree oil, they selected for analysis eight components that are common and mandated for inclusion in the oils. Four of the tested chemicals appear in both oils: eucalyptol, 4-terpineol, dipentene/limonene and alpha-terpineol. The others were in either oil: linalyl acetate, linalool, alpha-terpinene and gamma-terpinene. Using in vitro, or test tube, experiments, the researchers applied these chemicals to human cancer cells to measure changes of estrogen receptor- and androgen receptor-target genes and transcriptional activity.

    All eight chemicals demonstrated varying estrogenic and/or anti-androgenic properties, with some showing high or little to no activity, the investigators reported. Ramsey said these changes were consistent with endogenous, or bodily, hormonal conditions that stimulate gynecomastia in prepubescent boys.

    “Lavender oil and tea tree oil pose potential environmental health concerns and should be investigated further,” he said.

    AAAS Public Release: Chemicals in lavender and tea tree oil appear to be hormone disruptors

    Somehow I don’t see the anti-marijuana lobby switching to the prohibition of lavender and tea tree oils. Lavender and tea tree oils don’t get people high or compete with Big Pharma’s drug products.

  23. Yeah But says:
    March 19, 2018 at 9:08 am

    Trump opioids plan includes death penalty for drug dealers. Weird picture of Trump and Melania (Nancy Reagan with tits) proposing new Just Say Die laws.

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/mar/19/donald-trump-death-penalty-drug-dealers-opioids-new-hampshire

    • WalStMonky says:
      March 19, 2018 at 10:39 am

      .
      .

      Do you think that the fact that there’s no way that the SCOTUS will sign off on the Constitutionality of the death penalty for crimes which don’t include an intentional aggravated homicide make it easier for politicians to propose the death penalty for crimes which aren’t in that category? They get to pose all “tough on crime” but don’t have to worry about push back from the civilized members of society.

  24. Mouthy says:
    March 19, 2018 at 2:52 pm

    Who wants Scott Pruitt as AG of the U.S.? With what happened to our ballots in 2016, let’s keep Sessions as AG. Trump has removed everybody from Washington, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he replaces Sessions with Pruitt.

Comments are closed.