Hello! This blog post is now part of my newly published ebook “Smoke No Evil“.
There’s nothing wrong with smoking Tobacco.
It’s as safe as wine, beer, or cheeseburgers.
It’s the Tobacco Cartel’s products that sicken and kill.
“Smoking-related Death” has nothing to do with Tobacco.
Many people understand the truth, but don’t know the whole story.
Here it is.
Hi! Thanks for visiting. Just click here to request your free review copy of “Smoke No Evil”. After you read it, I hope that you’ll add your voice to those demanding investigation and accountability for the Tobacco Cartel. My hope is also that the knowledge in this book can be life-changing for smokers who are trapped in addiction to commercial Tobacco Cartel products, and life-affirming for those who already understand and smoke or vape only organic tobacco whenever possible.
Whether you smoke, vape, or chew tobacco this book destroys the myth that tobacco is going to harm you. Using data and hard evidence, this book proves that it’s not tobacco killing millions of smokers every year, and it never has been. You’ll see how the “science” used to prove that Tobacco is a killer is pure fraud and deception on the part of the Tobacco Cartel, and pure hypocrisy on the part of regulators and anti-tobacco propagandists.
Just click hereand I’ll email you a link to a free Apple bookstore download of “Smoke No Evil” that you can read on any device.
My hope is that the knowledge here can be life-changing for smokers who are trapped in addiction to commercial Tobacco Cartel products.
Studies show that 90% of Saudis over age 60 have osteoporosis due to Vitamin D deficiency, in spite of living in one of the world’s sunniest regions. This means that virtually all Saudi women over 60, and most of the men, have this crippling bone disease simply because their body doesn’t get enough sun to make the Vitamin D they need for maintaining natural good health. The reason is simple – women are covered head to toe to protect men from “lustful thoughts”, which of course, also blocks the sun and prevents natural Vitamin D formation. It’s ironic that the same thing happens to many Saudi men – though not, of course, to the elite who only “cover up” when its time for a photo opportunity and otherwise wear Western clothes.
Severe Vitamin D deficiency is not a minor issue, and its effects are not limited to osteoporosis. It is a widespread, very dangerous condition that gives rise to all kinds of crippling, often lethal diseases and conditions. It causes, at any age, impaired immune system function, insulin resistance & diabetes, cancer, multiple sclerosis, hypertension, stroke, heart disease, infant mortality, chronic pain, anxiety and depression, and infertility. The fact that the full-body covering for women demanded by conservative Islam is responsible for the worldwide Vitamin D deficiency in Muslim women is indisputable. See here, and here – just two of many examples.
So, the role of mandatory Islamic dress for women in causing Vitamin D deficiency is well-established. But that is not the topic of this post.
Readers should know that there is another equally insidious, perhaps even more severe health issue caused by the medieval Islamic dress codes for women that has never been discussed in any research that I can find.
Without making any comment on the cultural, religious or moral issues raised by those who oppose women being forced to wear the Burqa by Islamic law, there is another severe health threat created just by those little black full-face masks that women and girls are forced to wear.
Quite plainly, being forced to wear a Burqa chronically exposes Muslim girls and women throughout their lives to highly toxic, potentially crippling and even lethal poison gas.
The mechanism by which this happens should be obvious, even though it seems to never have been studied. Wearing the Burqa traps CO2-laden exhaled breath so that it is continually re-inhaled. A Burqa-wearing woman is never breathing fresh air – she is always re-breathing her own exhaled gasses, heavy with CO2. This increases the level of CO2 and lowers the O2 levels in a woman’s blood all day, every day, to the point that it can endanger her health, quality of life, and longevity, and almost certainly the health of her children.
While the mechanism by which Burqas poison their wearers is obvious, as just pointed out there is not a single piece of medical and scientific research that examines the impact of wearing the Burqa on blood CO2 and O2 levels. Do you find that as odd as I do? Has this research topic simply been overlooked? Or has it been suppressed?
Fortunately, there actually is research on the impact of wearing surgical masks on the blood CO2 and O2 levels of surgeons, and the conclusions are quite straightforward – although, oddly enough, this is also not a well-researched area.
What the available research shows is that wearing surgical masks for an extended period day after day, as surgeons do, significantly increases their blood CO2 and decreases their blood O2 levels.
Here is a brief quote from one of the few papers I was able to find on the topic.
“Carbon dioxide rebreathing in respiratory protective devices: influence of speech and work rate in full-face masks.”
Smith CL, Whitelaw JL, Davies B.
“Carbon dioxide (CO2) rebreathing has been recognized as a concern regarding respirator use and is related to symptoms of discomfort, fatigue, dizziness, headache, muscular weakness and drowsiness.”
Well, that doesn’t sound too bad, does it – unless you are being operated on by a dizzy, weak, fatigued and drowsy surgeon.
But let’s dig a little deeper into the health consequences of prolonged exposure to CO2 at levels above what we would encounter breathing normally, with nothing covering our mouth and nose.
The following table summarizes the results of chronic CO2 exposure at low levels, but in excess of what would be inhaled under normal conditions. It is a reasonable assumption that these consequences are also incurred by women wearing Burqas, particularly since, as you will notice, the length of exposure in the various studies were only a matter of days or weeks of exposure, whereas women wear Burqas for large portions of the day throughout their lifetimes.
After giving us this table, that summarizes over a dozen research studies, the DOE goes on to explain the health consequences of CO2 exposure noted in the studies.
“Lung dead space volume is a volume of air where gas exchange does not occur. The larger the dead space, the less gas exchange, which can be important for those with pulmonary or cardiac problems. Patients with severe CO2 retention (PaCO2 >95 mmHg) are invariably acidotic and will be at greater risk for profound acidosis with elevated ambient CO2 concentrations because they cannot further compensate for elevations in PaCO2, except with limited increases in ventilation. In addition, although the CO2–induced increase in the dead space volume was reported to be reversible in healthy subjects, it is not known if this reversal also occurs in patients with pulmonary disease.”
“Elevated systemic and pulmonary blood pressure is well tolerated by healthy individuals but can exacerbate preexisting systemic or pulmonary hypertension. Increased cerebral blood flow and increased intracranial pressure can put preterm infants at increased risk for intraventricular hemorrhage. Adults with brain injuries, tumors, bleeding, or increased intracranial pressure are also at risk with further increases in intracranial pressure.”
“Slightly decreased bone formation and increased bone resorption in healthy young individuals may have no long-term consequences but may be detrimental to persons with bone disease, such as osteoporosis. Another potential problem is increased blood calcium, which is related to changes in the bone. In guinea pigs and rats, focal renal calcification has been observed with prolonged exposure to concentrations of CO2 ranging from 0.3 to 15% [42-48]. The authors characterized the kidney calcification as an adaptive disease. Studies of humans have not examined calcification in the kidney or other organs.”
Bottom line – neither science nor medicine has paid much attention to the health consequences of daily exposure of health care workers to even slightly increased level of CO2, much less to the life-threatening health issues experienced by millions of Muslim women forced to wear Burqas or be publicly flogged.
If Muslim women are being deprived of Vitamin D and are being chronically poisoned by CO2 as a direct result of how they are forced to dress by the male-dominated religious societies into which they are unfortunate enough to have been born, isn’t this as horrific a crime against humanity as female genital mutilation, another travesty imposed on women by these same male “religious” criminals?
Of course it is. The question is – when is the non-Muslim world going to recognize that an enormous criminal conspiracy, inspired by hatred and fear of women, exists in many if not all Muslim countries, and when are the Muslim leaders of these misogynisticgangs masquerading as religious organizations going to be indicted by the World Court for the genocide they are surely committing?
I’m not very good at Photoshop – but that is a closeup of an asshole where Daffy Don’s mouth used to be. Cheers!
One of the looming tragedies in America is what Daffy Don and his hate-filled followers are about to do to access to health care for poor people.
One part of the tragedy is that so many of the people who oppose Daffy Don’s attack on the poor wind up fighting for the right of poor people to have access to a failed medical system that can do nothing for them but hook them on the products of Pig Pharma without even beginning to treat or cure them of the killer diseases that afflict them.
But an even greater tragedy is that so many of the health conditions that plague poor people especially hard like Diabetes, Obesity, Heart Disease and Depression could be effective treated and cured by a few cups of Coca Leaf tea a day, resulting is far less need for health insurance, pharmaceuticals, or ER and doctor visits.
This isn’t a pipe dream, although it is a dream. I’ve been providing documentation for many years in this blog for the efficacy and safety of Coca Leaf in treating and potentially reversing and curing many of the diseases that maim and kill poor people in the US. I’ve even provided what I believe are cogent arguments for the use of Coca Leaf in treating diseases like Alzheimer’s that afflict and torture people without regard to their economic status.
The bottom line is that all of the hater’s arguments about the costs of ObamaCare could be undercut and rendered pointless if American’s simply had full legal access to Coca Leaf medicines, which they could brew up themselves on their kitchen stoves. I’ll bet that within a year or two of having cheap, daily access to Coca Leaf tea the need for “health care” would decrease so dramatically that even the most hate-filled of Daffy Don’s followers would have to admit that it’s a good idea.
In fact, I am quite sure that many of these obnoxious little Brown Shirts would be clandestinely sipping a few cups of Coca Leaf tea every day for their high blood pressure and sick hearts and who knows – they might even mellow out a bit.
Nah – that’s hoping for too much, and for the wrong people.
But those who are stunned by how this administration is turning the War On Poverty into the War On The Poor ought to get behind medical Coca Leaf with all the energy that they are now, quite rightfully, devoting to the cause of Medical Cannabis. That would take care of a huge part of the problems that poor people have with the so-called health care system in the US.
The Government of Peru is a major buyer of Coca Leaf in the Valley of the Apurimac-Ene-Mantaro Rivers, referred to in ever-charming government acronym style as “The VRAEM”. This Valley lies at the heart of the Andean mountain chain and could easily have been the model for Shangri-la. As it is, the Peruvian government, in league with the US Police State, has turned the Valley of the Apurimac-Ene-Mantaro Rivers into a war zone targeting peaceful Coca growers.
Interestingly the Peruvian government is also a major buyer of the Valley’s Coca Leaf, but the government buyers are well-known as cheapskates. That’s probably because – officially – government buyers and selected foreign buyers like Coca Cola are supposed to be the only buyers in the valley. They figure they’re doing the Coca growers a favor.
Of course, the Cocaine Cartels beg to differ with that, as do a substantial proportion of valley residents. And so there is no peace in the valley.
The Peruvian government owns and controls the non-Cocaine use of Coca Leaf through a monopoly named ENACO. This state-run company produces the official line of Coca tonics, medicines drinks and snacks for domestic consumption.
Peru’s politicians are in the Coca Leaf Remedios business because Coca Remedios are so deeply ingrained in Peruvian society that their use cannot be stopped – oh, and also because it’s a handy way to make some very nice revenue.
However, private entrepreneurs are not allowed to compete with the government monopoly, so Peruvian Coca Leaf products remain stuck with an incongruous “Soviet” look and excruciatingly ho-hum marketing. Too bad for Peru – Bolivian entrepreneurs and government officials are already making creative headway in the world markets for Coca Leaf and Coca Leaf medicines. (Pretty soon some country in Europe like the Netherlands or France is going to open up to Coca leaf entrepreneurs. The US is probably going to keep its Federal asshole puckered but one or two of the states ought to give Coca Leaf legalization a good hard look. )
Meanwhile, back in Coca Valley. At the same time that it low-balls the farmers’ Coca Leaf and makes cheesy Coca Leaf products, the Peruvian government wages war against any “extra” Coca growing by the people of Coca Valley. If they grow more than they are told to by the government, or if they refuse to sell to ENACO because of its ridiculous prices for their precious leaf, GOP burns and poisons their fields and makes their lives as miserable as possible. After all, their bottom-line motive is to satisfy the requirements of the US Police State that wants to be able to show the world that Peru is trying very, very hard to eradicate illicit Cocaine production. Very hard.
But Aha! Peru has come up with a plan! GOP wants the people of Coca Valley to grow only enough Coca to satisfy the government’s requirements, and then to convert to growing crops like bananas and cocoa – assisted of course by friendly “experts” from the US and UN.
Of course if you are a farmer in Coca Valley and your family has been growing Coca for generations and you don’t happen to like the chintzy prices the government is willing to pay, are you going to let the police rip out your Coca plants and make you start over with Bananas? Quite a few Coca Valley residents have not been pleased when approached by men with guns proposing this plan, and a few have gotten downright rowdy. Thrown rocks ‘n stuff. You know – terrorism.
So to complete the farce the Peruvian government declared the VRAEM a war zone a few years back, it ever since has been battling against the quickly shrinking remains of the once-powerful Shining Path rebels – as of late 2015 SL is down to under 100 guerillas, mostly old men and teenagers.
To go after this fearsome band the Peruvian government keeps sending in waves of troops, missiles and helicopters, while the US leaps in with space-based surveillance, military aircraft, dark ops and night raiders, chemical warfare assistance and high tech drones. All this firepower is arrayed against ragtag remnants of what was once a well-organized and very effective rebellion.
These survivors fight on, using the vast forests and jungles of the Coca Valley, an area the size of Switzerland, to hide in.
So this is the threat – a hundred tired rebels who are definitely at the end of their Shining Path. Can you imagine, a hundred guys getting together in the mountains almost anywhere else in the world and the central government spending $250 Million a year to try to get rid of the rebels and eradicate a few thousand hectares of croplands at the same time – and failing?
“The Peruvian government’s (2014) counternarcotics strategy includes ambitious goals for eradication, interdiction, and alternative development, and addresses associated issues such as the control of precursor chemicals, organized crime, money laundering, and the rule of law. The Humala Administration increased its counternarcotics budget from $220 million in 2012 to $256 million in 2013. For the first time, Peru contributed $11.6 million towards eradication efforts and concomitant aviation support, which historically has been funded by the United States.” US Department of State
OK, so the Peruvian government spends $256 Million of mostly US money a year to – what – combat terrorism and cocaine trafficking and deal with other related dangers to the children, like free speech? And the US is right there helping out with money, technology, guns and manpower, just like the US was when the Fujimori government, funded by US foreign aid money, forcibly sterilized hundreds of thousands of Indian women in the 1980s in so-called “population control” programs.
Speaking of terrorism, let’s look at the terrorist activities of the Shining Path guerillas that are being used to justify all this government-initiated violence a little more closely.
So, how big a threat to the peace and tranquility of Peru is the Shining Path, actually? Here’s the US Department of State list of every one of the terrorist incidents involving the Shining Path in 2014. (Don’t worry – it isn’t a real long list)
On April 9, Peruvian police arrested 28 leaders of the Movement for Amnesty and Fundamental Rights – a front organization that advocates for the release of imprisoned SL founder Abimael Guzman. Those arrested included two of Guzman’s long-time lawyers, Afredo Crespo and Manuel Fajardo. The 28 were charged with terrorism and terrorist financing using narcotics revenue. On August 4, the National Anti-Terrorism Court, citing lack of evidence, ordered that the 28 be released from pre-trail detention. Although the court ordered the detainees released, it did keep the charges intact so the trial can move forward.
A May 16 clash between security forces and the SL in the Junin region left one SL guerilla dead and another wounded. The rest of the column was able to escape, but soldiers recovered weapons, ammunition, and communication equipment.
On June 17, a combined Peruvian military and police force killed three SL terrorists in the VRAEM emergency zone. The joint patrol recovered a number of weapons, including a heavy machine gun that SL fighters reportedly stripped from a Russian-made Mi-17 helicopter they shot down in a 2009 attack that killed three soldiers.
In August, security forces rescued six adults and three children from a work camp in the VRAEM used by SL to provide food and logistic support for its members.
In August, police officers in the UHV arrested Oscar Silva, who is believed to have been the second-in-command to “Comrade Artemio,” who was captured in February 2012.
In September, soldiers rescued 11 people, including six children, who were being forced to work for SL in Junin’s Satipo district.
On November 2, security forces announced the arrest of Filemon Huillcayaure, considered one of the top financiers of SL in the VRAEM.
OK – there you are. That’s the Peruvian government’s 2014 body count in the US-sponsored War On Narco/Terror in Coca Valley. The totals include: 0 soldiers dead or wounded; 4 SL terrorists killed, 1 wounded; and 20 people including children rescued from slave labor for the Shining Path.
And that’s after a full year of running around this valley the size of Switzerland with thousands of troops, helicopters, attack jets, tanks, HumVees, guns and rockets, and the latest ground, air & space-based surveillance technology courtesy of the US. All this technology and manpower chasing approximately 100 Shining Path guerillas (now minus 4) as they shake down Coca growers, take pot shots at soldiers, hide in the jungle, enslave the occasional villager, and make Coca Base to generate an income.
So, now that we all know how well the “War On The Gang Of 100 Terrorists” is going – how about the “War On Coca Plants”?
“Peru remained the world’s top potential producer of cocaine for the third consecutive year, and was the second-largest cultivator of coca, with an estimated 50,500 hectares (ha) of coca under cultivation in 2012, the most recent year for which data is available. The majority of cocaine produced in Peru is transported to South American countries for domestic consumption, or for onward shipment to Europe, East Asia, and Mexico via private and commercial aircraft, and land and maritime conveyances. Peru is a major importer of precursor chemicals used for cocaine production.
“ President Ollanta Humala dedicated substantial resources to implement Peru’s 2012-2016 counternarcotics strategy. The strategy calls for a 200 percent increase in the eradication of illicit coca by 2016. The Government of Peru remains on pace to meet its ambitious targets in this area, and in 2013 eradicated in the Monzón River Valley, a hostile area with little state presence, for the first time in decades. Sendero Luminoso (SL or Shining Path) operating in the Apurimac-Ene-Mantaro River Valley (VRAEM) relied on cocaine trafficking for funding, and killed and wounded several police and military personnel during counternarcotics operations.”
Oops. It looks like even with hundreds of millions of dollars, armadas of military-scale technology, thousands of heavily armed soldiers and police, and humungous firepower applied year after year, you still can’t (or conveniently don’t want to) deal with 100 guerillas operating in an area the size of Switzerland, and at the same time in spite of this all-out War you also still have the distinction of being the world’s top potential producer of cocaine for the third consecutive year, and you were the second-largest cultivator of coca in 2014.
This whole US-promoted War On Drugs/War On Terror thing really isn’t working for you is it?
Respectfully, I have a suggestion to offer.
Peru has a world-class renewable natural resource in the Coca plant and the people who have grown it for centuries. Why not go with what you have instead of playing a losing game in return for Yankee dollars? Why not just tell the US to go home, make peace with the Cartels and let them make and export all the Cocaine they want as long as they pay taxes, work with the indigenous people to build a Coca Leaf-based economy throughout the country, build a health industry based on Coca Leaf treatment at spas scattered throughout the mountains, and allow private enterprise to apply the entrepreneurial spirit to development and global sales of Coca-based medicines?
Next, pay off Shining Path and let them go home for God’s sake – including those you are holding in prison. I imagine that $50-$100K per SL guerilla would do it – a total of $5-10 Million (one-time investment) to get the whole hundred of them to lay down their weapons, for which they receive amnesty and a piece of land to grow Coca. And the SL in prison who agree to go home and live peacefully ought to get the same deal.
So Government of Peru, instead of spending hundreds of millions every year on a couple of wars that are going nowhere and aren’t even yours, plus terrorizing whole communities of your People, why not lead the world and declare that Coca is a gift from nature and that the Peruvian government will no longer stand in the way of those who wish to make their living by growing and making products from it – including Cocaine. What the rest of the world thinks shouldn’t matter.
I mean, hey there, government of Peru – don’t you have better things to do than chase 100 members of the Gang Who Can’t Shoot Straight, a bunch of peaceful Coca growers, and gangs of very determined Cocaine makers? Didn’t that US-sponsored clown Fujimori bring down enough evil on Peru to make the government finally decide to work for rather than against the People? If everybody’s happy in Coca Valley who cares what the US thinks?
It can happen. The US isn’t so tough anymore. Just ask your neighbors in Bolivia.
“The Intercept” has just run an excellent piece outlining the lobbying efforts of the Opioid Manufacturing sector of the Pharmaceutical Industry to scuttle new Federal regulations that would attempt to make it harder for doctors to prescribe Opioid drugs like Oxycontin. The major manufacturers involved in the lobbying are Purdue, Cephalon, Endo, and Janssen (a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson).
The efforts of these parasitical manufacturers to maintain open season on the wholesale addicting of new “patients” while at the same time keeping up the flow of millions of tablets of these drugs that somehow manage to leak into the street market ( who, us?), is symptomatic of the thug-like nature of virtually the entire pharmaceutical industry.
When you look at the numbers you see that pills are the main “Opioid” killers, not Heroin, not Morphine, and certainly not Opium from the Poppy, and for all the hype about synthetic Opium pills like Oxy, the job they do of relieving pain is no better than a pipe of good opium. Of the 47,000+ drug overdose deaths counted by the CDC in 2014, 8800 were due to Heroin, which leaves +38,000 due largely to pills.
The single justification for the “Opioid” pill industry’s existence is that their products are claimed to be safer than natural Opium, Morphine, or Heroin. If you want to find the reason for the industry’s panic at the increase in Opioid pill deaths, look at the ratio between deaths from the dreaded slayer of youth Heroin and the supposedly safe if used as directed wonder pill.
If a huge part of your industry’s claim to fame is that your product is safer than the juice of the poppy then you have to be pretty upset when people are finally realizing that your pills are killing users nearly 5:1 compared to the fruits of the little flower.
Consider for a moment two possible tracks for our society – the one we are on and the one that could have been, and yet might be.
The track our society has taken is to turn our health, just like we’ve turned most of the other key aspects of our lives, over to highly intrusive institutional management. Most of us no longer have any management role in our food, our children’s education, our family and community security, our finances, or our privacy. One of the results of our capitulation to pervasive institutional management of our lives is that the exponentially-growing health industry, always quick to spot (or make) an opportunity, responded by creating vast numbers of expensive, enormously profitable drugs for all those astounding new diseases of modern society that patients are required to take by their doctors who give no natural options in place of the medical management system’s proprietary pharmaceuticals.
The second track, which might have been, is that all of the medical knowledge gained by doctors, patients and society at large in the 1700s and especially the 1800s regarding three of the great natural drugs – Opium, Coca and Cannabis – might have been kept and nurtured rather than discarded and largely forgotten. Had those three natural medicinal drugs not been demonized and outlawed as part of the warped spiritual movement of the early 1900s that gave birth first to Prohibition and later to the War On Drugs, these three great natural drugs would be available today as a part of the :People’s Pharmacy” just like hundreds of other herbal, natural medicines.
The industrial pharma industry would still have developed, and a lot of people would still be victims of their concoctions, but without the legal framework lovingly erected over decades by authoritarian conspirators there would be a whole segment of the Medical industry devoted to the use of all natural medicines, not just those permitted by the state as part of its role in enforcing the monopoly of Industrial Pharma over medicinal products.
Even more important, a nationwide, community-bases network of natural medicine practitioners would have evolved – people in every community who knew how to grow all of the ancient medical herbs and who utilized the advances of technology to produce ever-more effective but still natural medicines.
Of course we have a great model for this system in the network of Medical Cannabis growers and patients who are finally emerging after the long night of Prohibition – which is still in the very earliest stages of dawning – to point to and see what might have been for ALL the great natural medicines and not just Cannabis, and not just in a few states in the US and a few countries in the world.
In a society where those who wanted any form of any natural drug could grow and prepare it for themselves, or could go to a reputable dispensary or belong to a regulated collective, then we would certainly have some addicts among these people, but they would be able to lead as normal a life as they chose to live without the constant suffering, pain, and jeopardy of addiction to “illegal drugs” and all the horrors that go with that scene.
People with little income would not be driven to prostitute themselves and do violence to feed a drug habit if the drugs they wanted were freely available in safe, natural forms. It is possible, is it not, that given access to natural drugs in a climate free of violence and exploitation many if not most people could use drugs and still lead a normal life even if trapped in circumstances of poverty.
I believe that centuries of recorded experience in societies worldwide shows that the overwhelming problem with addiction is how society treats addicts. If an addict is free to lead an otherwise productive and normal life, many will do so, and those who won’t would have been lost whether drug laws made them criminals or not.
Perhaps what makes addiction so awful for so many people isn’t what the drug does to them, it’s what society does to them as a consequence of their addiction. The popular image of addiction is what is used to sell all the prevention/intervention programs that flourish around addicted people. Human degradation in every form is shown as a consequence of drug addiction, and many people buy that and think no further. But consider the number of people who are technically addicted who lead normal, productive lives in comparison with those whose lives are supposedly ruined by addiction, you begin to realize that plenty of people are addicted to drugs and other substances and don’t descend to street prostitution, emaciation, bleeding scabs and sleeping in alleys. It seems that one begins to see that maybe it is circumstances and not the drugs themselves that determine the direction that addiction takes. Remove all the harsh punishments for addiction and I wonder – what would happen to addiction?
If the illegal status of drugs and the consequences for addiction were removed, at least drug addiction would no longer be part of the trap that ensnares millions of people in the US. Poverty and exploitation would continue in other ways – unless of course (you never know) some kind of new dynamic was released in poor communities by removing the key role of criminalized drug addiction in keeping the iron collar of poverty and exploitation firmly clamped around their necks.
The scientific and medical literature of the 1800s gives us thousands of case studies primarily from Europe, Canada and the US, as well as somewhat limited published research, on the role of Coca Leaf preparations in treating and healing an impressive range of conditions and diseases.
In these case studies Coca Leaf was almost always consumed by the patient as tea (hot water extract) or tonic (alcohol extract), which means that the initial site of almost all the recorded medical action of Coca Leaf on the body was the human gut.
The same has been true for hundreds of generations in the Andes – they chew Coca first to bathe their gut with the healing, balancing juices, and from there the healing influences radiate throughout their muscular, endocrine and nervous systems.
So according to the historical evidence, the healing action of Coca Leaf appears to be centered in the gut.
Fast forward to today.
We now know that it is the health and balance of an individual’s gut microbiome that determines their overall state of health. We know that when that balance is upset gut diseases occur, and we increasingly understand how metabolic and neurological diseases are linked to disturbances of the gut microbiome.
Human adults carry about six pounds of bacteria in our gut, and in this mass of living organisms there are literally tens of thousands of species – most of them still unidentified. However we do know the major players in the human gut, and increasingly we are finding out that changes in the populations of these major players, plus blooms of pathogenic players like klebsiella and c. dificil, seem increasingly likely to be causing serious human illness.
So it may not be making too much of a speculative leap to say that it is likely that one of the important things that 19th Century science is telling us is that Coca Leaf helps to maintain, and works to restore a healthy gut microbiome, although of course those 19th Century doctors knew nothing of the gut microbiome. But they did know that Coca Leaf preparations worked on a wide range of diseases – better than almost anything else in their apothecary.
It certainly wouldn’t take a major research project to confirm or to disprove what I believe the 19th Century medical literature so clearly suggests. As part of the work I’m doing in trying to find funding for “Centros de Coca Curación” I intend to include funding for research studies in this and related areas, engaging reputable degreed scientific and medical researchers in Peru, Bolivia and any other country where they would be free to conduct their work and publish the results.
Readers of this blog know that in past posts I have engaged in a lot of speculation on the modern implications what 19th Century science knew about the healing properties of pure, natural Coca Leaf. I believe that the richness of the human experience recorded in those days by people of science and medicine can guide us today, lost as we are in the machinations of the pharmaceutical and allopathic medical “industries”.
Isn’t it time to begin demanding that legislators in states that have legalized Medical Cannabis now move to legalize first the import of fresh Coca Leaf and Coca Medicines and also to legalize cultivation of Coca Leaf in the United States for general consumption as well as medical purposes?
Long-time readers of Panaceachronicles know that the human gut is one of my passions and that I have been an advocate for the use of probiotics as both preventative and healing medicines. A good understanding of the role of probiotics in controlling, treating and even curing inflammatory gut disease is even more important now that in many states patients have access to medical marijuana for relief of symptoms. Combining the symptomatic relief of Cannabis with the right probiotics to help heal the gut and prevent further colonization by pathogens is without doubt the natural path to effective treatment.
It is well-known that there are significant differences in the effectiveness of different brands of commercial probiotics. A quick glance at the labels will confirm the great discrepancies between brands. Since there are important differences in the species of bacteria they provide, the concentrations of each species, the viability of those bacteria, the methods used to culture the bacteria, the sources of the extraction base, and the matrix in which the bacteria are stabilized for human consumption, being an informed probiotics buyer is a critical part of healing yourself.
Probiotics appear to be one of those classes of products where you really do get what you pay for – although a high price is not a guarantee of a more effective medicine. Just because a particular brand is very expensive, or contains an impressive list of species, doesn’t mean that it is the right choice for you. You have to do your homework on your own gut biome, and it is important that the probiotics you choose are tailored to the gaps or weaknesses in your own gut microbes.
If you are serious about getting a hand on an inflammatory gut issue and haven’t yet had your gut biome profiled, you may want to consider participating in the crowd-sourced “American Gut Project”. This project is not limited to people in the US, by the way.
However, this blog post is to alert readers to something new and very important that is emerging in the field of probiotics, specifically that there is now a highly concentrated form of probiotic called “Amanlac probiotics”, that appears to be far more effective against a wide range of inflammatory gut diseases than even the best “commercial” probiotics.
In an article in the June 2012 Journal of Food & Drug Analysis entitled “High Concentrated Probiotics Improve Inflammatory Bowel Diseases Better Than Commercial Concentrations”. The article details Korean research into Amanlac probiotics – it seems that Korean and Japanese microbiologists are far ahead of the west in understanding how specific probiotic configurations can be used to treat specific inflammatory gut diseases. Here is how the researcher’s describe their findings in the article abstract:
“Probiotics have been clinically administered to improve intestinal inflammation in Inflammatory Bowel Disease. In this study we identified that higher concentrations of probiotics called “Amanlac” probiotics protected intestinal tissues with the regulation of cytokine production and the improvement of intestinal injury in mice with dextran sodium sulfate (DSS)-induced Colitis much better than commercial probiotics. Amanlac probiotics significantly ameliorated both gross and pathological scores caused by DSS in a concentration-dependent manner, based on the following mechanisms: inflammatory markers such as IL1-β, TNF α, and COX-2 as well as MMPs and ICAM1 were significantly lower in probiotic-treated mice following DSS treatment compared with DSS-treated control mice, but the overall efficacy of “Amanlac” probiotics was significantly improved over conventional concentration of probiotics. In conclusion, administration of higher concentration probiotics helps to successfully maintain intestinal homeostasis while also improving intestinal inflammation.”
While there may be other “Amanlac” probiotics available, the brand that my wife and I have found to be remarkable in its ability to restore normal, healthy, pain-free intestinal functioning is Dr. Ohhira’s Professional Formula. These probiotics are manufactured in Japan using both traditional and state-of-the-art fermentation methods and incorporate a very wide range of traditional Japanese plants in the base mixture from which the probiotics are fermented and extracted.
If you are using a commercial probiotic and are having limited success you may want to read this research paper in its entirety and consider choosing an “Amanlac” probiotic rather than the one you are currently using.
Past posts on this blog have discussed the healing potential of Coca Leaf for a wide range of diseases associated with inflammation, as well as the role that medical Cannabis is playing in helping people deal with the symptoms of, and in some cases successfully treating inflammatory disease. Healing and treating these devastating diseases is a good thing, but the real question is why are they occurring in the first place?
Many people have recognized that the incidence of inflammatory diseases has spiked over the past several decades and wondered what is causing this sudden explosion of suffering and death. Now it is possible to point to at least one of the major highly probable causes – the murderous pursuit of profit by a giant American company that is so powerful that it has gone unregulated by government and unaccountable to legal standards – so far.
Monsanto has claimed for years that their immensely profitable weed-killer Roundup™ works by targeting an enzyme found only in weeds and poses no threat to humans. However, research results are now coming in around the world that say otherwise, as my two previous posts have shown.
Not only is it now known that Roundup™ targets and destroys key enzymes found in the beneficial bacterial colonies that protect the human gut, but that once these bacteria are compromised or destroyed the way is open for gut diseases like Crohn’s, Ulcerative Colitis, IBS, Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis, and perhaps Pancreatic and Colon cancers.
Along with many others I have wondered why these inflammatory gut diseases, which were rare a generation or two ago, now seem to be epidemic in the populations of “advanced” societies – in other words, in societies where companies like Monsanto have come to dominate the processed food chain with their toxic chemicals and genetically engineered food plants like soy, wheat and corn.
A recent study is typical of many that have tried to find causal factors for the remarkable rise in Inflammatory Bowel Disease. The conclusion is right up front.
Current Trends In Inflammatory Bowel Disease: The Natural History
“During the last decades we have seen a steady increase in the incidence of IBD, especially CD (Crohn’s) and to a lesser extent in UC (Ulcerative Colitis), pointing to environmental factors as responsible for the rise in incidence, since genetically determined diseases have a stable occurrence.”
OK, so environmental factors are likely to be the cause of the rise in IBD because if IBD were genetic in origin the incidence of these diseases would be stable.
And not only are the causes environmental, but they must be increasing in incidence in order to explain the increase in incidence of IBD.
By now most people know that correlation is not causation, but take a look at just a few of the hundreds of graphs showing the rise in the use of Roundup™ on food crops over the past decades.
It is clear that Roundup™ is increasingly in every part of the human food chain.
When you overlay Roundup™ use on food with any IBD – in this case Celiac Disease – the results are the same.
The deadly impact of Roundup™ in the food chain is not limited to IBD – here’s a look at Diabetes.
When you combine the strong evidence that Roundup™ causes multiple Inflammatory Bowel Diseases (IBD) by destroying key microbes and their crucial metabolites with the irrefutable evidence that there is a powerful correlation between the increase in the use of Roundup™ in every part of the human food chain and the increase in the incidence of IBD worldwide, it would be hard not to conclude that Monsanto is responsible not only for mass murder but also for a hefty portion of increased health care costs. But these greedy scum saw that a day of reckoning was coming and in 1997 they executed a nifty little strategy to avoid accountability.
You can easily trace the thinking behind this whole scheme. According to Monsanto’s own website:
“ Prior to Sept. 1, 1997, a corporation that was then known as Monsanto Company (Former Monsanto) operated an agricultural products business (the Ag Business), a pharmaceuticals and nutrition business (the Pharmaceuticals Business) and a chemical products business (the Chemicals Business). Former Monsanto is today known as Pharmacia LLC. Pharmacia is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Pfizer Inc., which operates the Pharmaceuticals Business. Solutia is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Eastman Chemical Company, which operates the Chemicals Business. Today’s Monsanto includes the operations, assets and liabilities that were previously the Ag Business.”
In other words, prior to 1997 Monsanto was in the Ag business, the Chemicals business, and the Pharmaceuticals business. At some point in the mid-1990s Monsanto must have realized what their products were doing to people and to the environment and decided to protect themselves by fancy legal footwork that now allows them to say “Who – Us?” when they are accused of profiting at every point in a long causal chain of sickness and death. “We’re just a little old ag company – we don’t have anything to do with chemicals or pharmaceuticals.”
But given how the greedhead corporate mentality works, it isn’t surprising to find that Monsanto is back big time into the health care business with Monsanto Health Solutions, a company that “helps physicians manage their practice”. What a scheme. Get rich making people sick, and get richer by raking off profits from their treatment.
The corporate world is full of evil people with vile souls, but the executives, board of directors, legal staff and shareholders of Monsanto are at or near the top of the list of pure criminality. Please do what you can to support the current lawsuit in California that has a significant chance of bringing this evil empire to its knees. You can read about this courageous lawsuit here.
Diabetes, Cancer, Alzheimer’s and Heart Disease eat up well over 50% of the costs in the American health care system, and yet simple, natural Coca Leaf medicines – simple teas and tonics really – could virtually eliminate the bulk of the costs associated with Heart Disease and Diabetes, and could significantly reduce the costs associated with Alzheimer’s and Cancer.
But of course reduced costs would mean reduced profits for a host of players, so even though millions of lives could be saved and vast suffering and pain could be eliminated Coca Leaf medicines are not going to happen in America without some other reason. So how about this for a reason – saving tens of billions of health care dollars and keeping those savings right in the pockets of millions of Americans?
Considering the dramatic increases in health insurance costs being imposed on every single American by Obamacare, doesn’t it make sense for at least one state to take the initiative, legalize the importation of Coca Leaf by licensed Medical Marijuana dispensaries, and then research the impact on health care costs of people having access to this natural healing medicine? A state like Oregon, Washington, California or Colorado could take the lead in this initiative and would no doubt have such popular support that the Federal Government could simply be told to fuck off.
A quick glance at this graph should convince any sane person that health care costs are on a path to destroy Americans’ financial lives.
The dramatic increases in health care costs caused by out-of-control Pig Pharma, combined with the mandatory participation in Obamacare, means that the burden of higher insurance costs are being imposed primarily on the young and middle-aged. These are the people who have been the driving force behind the legalization of Medical Marijuana, and since they are the ones who will suffer most financially from Obamacare, I hope that they will come together and demand that Coca Leaf be made a legal, unregulated, freely available natural medicine as a health care cost containment strategy.
Readers of this blog know that I believe in the wisdom of the Indigenous Peoples of the Andes – “La Coca no es La Cocaine”.
This of course is not a clever slogan, but the truth. However since those of us who live in the North have been deprived of any knowledge of medicinal Coca for over a century, we have no way of finding this truth for ourselves. Not so in Peru, Bolivia and now Uruguay.
The Bolivian company IngaCoca is the manufacturer of an extensive line of medicinal tonics and salves that combine the healing power of Coca Leaf extract with the healing power of a wide range of traditional medicinal herbs, many of them also not familiar to us in the North.
Several things stand out about the IngaCoca website and the products that this company produces. First, while the healing power of Coca takes the lead role in all of their preparations, none of the preparations are simply Coca extract. The Indigenous Peoples of the Andes are not mono-maniacs when it comes to the medicinal properties of Coca. They do not see Coca as a stand-alone cure-all – although in some cases this great plant comes as close as anything else in nature’s pharmacy to being a true panacea. So the products of IngaCoca always incorporate other, complementary medicinal herbs to form a complete healing solution for specific diseases and ailments.
Second, not a single one of IngaCoca’s products can possibly get you high – which is the excuse given by the USA and other authoritarian governments for banning trade in Coca Leaf. (By the way, IMO there’s nothing wrong with getting high, but Coca Leaf isn’t going to do it for you.) The products that Ingacoca produces are proof positive that there is a vast range of medicinal applications of Coca Leaf that have nothing to do with recreational drug use. This is unlike Cannabis, which opponents of Medical Marijuana frantically point out – “Well, OK – it might possibly be good for you but MY GOD – IT GETS YOU HIGH!!!!” Venemous idiots, of course, but Cannabis does give them an opening while Coca Leaf does not.
As I have pointed out elsewhere in this blog, you could not chew enough Coca Leaves, or drink enough Coca tea, to get anything more than a mild coffee-style buzz. Coca Leaf is not about having fun – unless you think that preventing or curing dozens of nasty diseases and conditions is fun – which I happen to think it is!
The last thing that strikes me about the curative tonics and salves produced by IngaCoca is how many of the diseases and conditions that plague Americans and Europeans are NOT addressed by any of their products. None of their products are designed to address killer diseases like Congestive Heart Failure, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, neurological diseases like MS and ALS, or Alzheimer’s, that carry away tens of millions of Northern Hemisphere dwellers every year, and that there is plenty of evidence could be prevented treated, or even cured by having access to pure, natural Coca Leaf.
After pondering this for a few minutes it occurred to me – IngaCoca doesn’t make these products because the people of the Andes don’t need them. In another post on this blog I took a look at the 50 leading causes of death in Peru and noticed that the diseases that are true plagues upon the People of the North are minor factors in Peru and, as I check the same database, the same is true of Bolivia. Sure there is some Heart disease – almost all in urban dwellers. There is Diabetes – also mostly among urban dwellers. There is also a very low incidence of Lung disease. And – most interesting to me – there is zero Dementia/Alzheimer’s. Nowhere in the 50 leading causes of death in the Andes.
Does that suggest something to you about our toxic environment, and most likely our industrialized food chain, in the North?
So, as you have probably noticed if you’ve already clicked through to the IngaCoca website, it is in Spanish with no English language option. After all, why would they bother since our government won’t let us have access to their products? So I have done my best to translate the website for readers of PanaceaChronicles, with apologies for any errors that my rudimentary Spanish may have caused. I have also annotated IngaCoca’s product descriptions whenever a medicinal herb is mentioned in the ingredients that most readers outside of the Andean region may not be familiar with. Some of these herbs are available in the US and Europe and have VERY interesting properties.
IngaCoca are pioneers, and deserve great credit for demonstrating conclusively that their national treasure is far, far more than the white powder that gives the governments of the world an excuse to make Coca Leaf illegal. We all understand that this is about protecting the global Pharmaceutical industry, and giving free reign to the Cartels and their Big Bank money launderers and co-conspirators, and to a few less obvious stakeholders like the anti-drug police bureaucracies.
Perhaps, in time and with increasing enlightenment of the people, a few legislators in the US or elsewhere will grow at least some tiny Cojones and do something about this farce which is actually a death sentence for millions of people whose interests they claim to care about. Without access to pure, natural medicines, and condemned to use only the toxic products of the greedheads who run Pig Pharma, that is exactly the result of the “War on Drugs” – mandatory death sentences for millions.
In the meanwhile I would like to encourage readers of this blog who live in countries that are enlightened enough to recognize the difference between Coca Leaf medicines and Cocaine to look into helping IngaCoca reach people in your country with its products. This seems to be to be not only a humanitarian effort, but quite possibly an excellent business opportunity.
Products of IngaCoca
Tonics
This Tonic Is Effective For: Cough , Asthma , Bronchitis , Tonsillitis
Composition : It is a natural compound of Coca , Wirawira , Cardosanto and Eucalyptus.
Wirawira is known as a remedy for coughs, bronchitis, hoarseness, high fever, stomach ache, indigestion, sores and wounds, inflamed throat, colds and flu. This herb has proven antibiotic and antiviral activity.
The flowers of Cardo Santo are a natural remedy for anemia, loss of appetite, migraines and inflammatory conditions.
This Tonic Is Effective For: Prostate, Bladder inflammation
Composition: Natural therapeutic compound of COCA from Kishuara , Yareta and Flower Of The Valley . It is used in pain, obstruction and hypertrophy of the prostate, and inflammation of the urethra and bladder.
Yareta or llareta is a flowering plant in the family Apiaceae native to South America. It resembles a large mound of green moss rather than a flowering plant, and is found primarily in remote, arid regions of the Altiplano region of Bolivia.
This Tonic Is Effective For: The Nerves Composition: A natural composition of Coca, Matico, Totongil , Valerian and Rosemary possess excellent therapeutic properties which facilitates oxygenation to the brain. You can use as an Antidepressant, for Stress, Nervous Tension, Insomnia, and Dizziness.
Matico has strong styptic properties are due to the volatile oil, and it is used for arresting hemorrhages, as a local application to ulcers, in genito-urinary complaints, atonic diarrhoea, dysentery, etc. In Peru it is also considered an aphrodisiac. It is effective as a topical application to slight wounds, bites of leeches, or after the extraction of teeth. The under surface of the leaf is preferred to the powder for this purpose.
Totongil, or Melissa, is also known as lemon balm, lemongrass or lemon leaf. Totongil is used as a tea as a natural tranquilizer with anti-spasmodic properties. It is used in the resuscitation of fainting and as a natural painkiller. Other medicinal properties include treatment of Tachycardia or palpitations of nervous origin, where lemon balm calms the heart muscle and restores normal rhythm to the heart.
This Tonic Is Effective For: Ulcers
Composition: A natural composition of Coca, phasa, matico, mauve and thusca. Possesses therapeutic properties for stomach ulcers and gastritis; helps prevent ulcerative disorders that affect the gut.
This Tonic Is Effective For: Weight Loss
Composition: natural composition Coca, chick (?), lupine and others. Contains Egnonina. Therapeutic for metabolizing fats and carbohydrates, eliminating obesity, purifying the blood and regulating cholesterol.
This Tonic Is Effective For: Anti-Diabetic
Composition: Natural extract of Coca, sage, lupine and dandelion, forms a therapeutic substance that normalizes the functioning of the pancreas, regulating the secretion of natural insulin.
This Tonic Is Effective For: Energy
Composition : The natural essence of: Coca, Alfalfa, Beet Root , Spinach and Abeja honey. Works effectively as a powerful stimulant of blood, and muscle system develops more force if energy is depleted, in cases of Hemorrhage, Anemia, diminished Mental Activity, Sexual Function, and/or Appetite
This Tonic Is Effective For: Liver Conditions
Composition: Coca, Chanca Piedra, Boldo, Grass And Artichoke. Therapeutic properties assist in the normal functioning of the liver and bile secretion, eliminating harmful and toxic blood wastes.
Boldo (Peumus boldus) is native to the Andes and is a common medicinal tea. The leaves, have a strong, slightly bitter flavor and an aroma reminiscent of Bay or Camphor.
Grip Grass, also known simply as Grass, is used as a folk medicine for treating kidney disorders. It is a powerful herb and should not be used by diabetics.
Chanca Piedra is a powerful medicinal herb that has many applications in kidney and urinary tract disorders, and is especially effective in helping to eliminate kidney stones.
This Tonic Is Effective For: Anti-Rheumatic
Composition: Coca, eucalyptus, molle (?), nettle; containing therapeutic properties that remove uric acid substances, and therefore is effective against rheumatism, joint pain, arthritis, gout, and varicose veins .
This tonic has therapeutic properties that reduce inflammation and clean the excess fat from the Liver and Kidney and also facilitate filtration
Ortiga (ortiga verde) is a member of the stinging nettle family of herbs. The Nettle family has a worldwide reputation as an effective treatment for purifying the blood, fighting inflammation and internal infections, and promoting digestive health.
This Tonic Is Effective For: Parasites
COMPOSITION : A natural compound Coca, Yerba Buena, Papaya Seeds, and Squash. It works effectively in expelling existing parasites within the body.
Coca-Based Salves
This Salve Is Effective For: Rheumatic, Muscular, Varicose Veins And Bone Pain
Extracted From: Coca, eucalyptus and molle, enabling high levels of penetration to the bone marrow. To treat, use massage on the affected parts before sleeping; for varicose veins massage gently upwards, then lie down for about 15 minutes with feet elevated.
This Salve Is Effective For: Arthritis & Gout
Extracted From: Coca and nettle ; massage the affected part before bedtime.
This Salve Is Effective For: Fungal Infections Extracted From: Coca and aloe if the problem is in the feet/toes, first washing with plain soap fragrance, then freshly dry and apply the ointment 2 times a day.
This Salve Is Effective For: Hemorrhoids Extracted From: Coca, dandelion, kara launa. First after passing stools in the morning, do a sitz bath in cold water infused with Chamomile for 15 minutes, then apply ointment or oil, preferably both in the morning and evening
