As of 2011 Federal law (cited below) specifically forbids tobacco manufacturers from using pesticide contaminated tobaccothat exceeds US pesticide residue standards for domestic tobacco whether that tobacco is domestic or imported. Every tobacco company, US and international, is in gross, reckless and conspiratorial violation of this law.
The law has been on the books since 2011 but apparently nobody at FDA is testing, reporting, or investigating anything. I looked hard and saw zero evidence of concern but who knows, maybe I missed something.
Since I couldn’t find any evidence that FDA was doing its job, or get any response from them when I asked, I just paid for the lab tests that FDA should be doing and am publishing data below showing that every brand we tested violates 907(a)(1)(B) of Section 907 of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. These products we tested and reported to FDA in January 2019 (“Potential Tobacco Violation Report ID 19C00160“) should be re-tested on a national scale and if they are in violation they should be withdrawn and the manufacturers subjected at least to fines. I am of course holding my breath.
Here’s the core language of the Federal statute which along with the accompanying language gives any health authority at any level powers to act immediately in protection of public health and safety.
907(a)(1)(B) of Section 907 of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act: (B) ADDITIONAL SPECIAL RULE. “Beginning 2 years after the date of enactment of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, a tobacco product manufacturer shall not use tobacco, including foreign grown tobacco, that contains a pesticide chemical residue that is at a level greater than is specified by any tolerance applicable under Federal law to domestically grown tobacco.”
Here is violation of the law.
Community Tobacco Control Partners Test Results 12/18
The law says and means “any tolerance” which means no DDT (zero tolerance under US law), no Carbendazim (zero tolerance under US law), and none of about 13 others just in the little sample of tobacco products we sampled in December 2018. The tobacco material in at least one of the products – Swisher Sweets – violates this law multiple times with contaminants that are a clear and present danger to public health.
The Feds know what the industry is doing, because they wrote this law forbidding it. But they have never published one single test or as far as I can tell conducted one inspection of pesticide residue contaminants in cigarettes or any other tobacco product, which means that since 2011 they haven’t prevented one single pregnant teen from inhaling DDT from a Swisher Sweet their older friends bought at the bodega.
There are quite literally thousands of pregnant teens inhaling DDT today in the Us. The reason this is critically important is that DDT is a severe hazard to human fetal development. By imposing reasonable pesticide regulations based on existing, effective Cannabis pesticide limits in Oregon and other states, millions of smokers could be protected from exposure to pesticide residues in tobacco products (shown below) that are strongly associated with or in some cases proven to cause breast cancer, testicular cancer, obesity, diabetes, prostate cancer, liver cancer, childhood leukemia (ALL), atrophied testicles, compromised immunity and ruined HIV/AIDS treatments. And there’s more, but I hope this awful list of preventable slaughter is enough to demand that 907(a)(1)(B) of Section 907 of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act: (B) ADDITIONAL SPECIAL RULE. be enforced. Here is the full data
Tobacco Product Pesticide ResidueTest Sample #1: 12/15/2018Community Tobacco Control Partnersbilldrake4470@gmail.com
It’s probably fair to say that I was in on the beginnings of the contemporary Cannabis revolution, since I wrote the “Cultivators Handbook of Marijuana” in 1968. So, I am as happy as most other fair-minded people over the (almost) final liberation of this great natural gift, in spite of the noxious efforts of pathetic, twisted souls gathered together in government agencies and corporations to first suppress and then exploit it for their private political and economic benefit. Our planet has been good to people, giving us vast riches that unfortunately, for the most part, we seem to take for granted, as though this is all our birthright to use and exploit as we see fit. But we are learning.
I thought that I knew the true nature of the gift of Cannabis. I had discovered Cannabis when I was young, and it had changed my mind from an unfocused, struggling half-awake consciousness to a consciousness that could think clearly, discover and appreciate insights, see through and beyond illusions, deceptions and lies, and find and express truth and beauty in places where I would never before have been inspired to search, much less recognize those rare gems when they were put before me by the spirit in my mind.
In short, I thought that the gift of Cannabis was the heightened consciousness that I could achieve as long as I was moderate in its use and careful not to assume that it would always work for me, like some dependable mechanical device. By that I mean found that I could not just smoke it, lay back, and let it do the work of thinking and gaining insight for me. I was lucky enough to discover that smoking Cannabis and automatically receiving the grace of consciousness was no more possible than simply picking up a hammer and watching it build a house for me while I lay back and congratulated myself on my skills.
Attaining and then understanding and employing consciousness for the benefit of self and others is hard work, and Cannabis is one of the very best tools that Mother Earth has put in the hands of humans to use in this endeavor, but it is not magic. It doesn’t just happen – although at first, when a young person encounters Cannabis, it certainly seems that way. Ideas begin to flow, the underlying structures and beauty of music appears, colors and shapes reveal themselves, our bodies suddenly become fully sensate, and truth and beauty seem to be everywhere we look.
But that is a friendly illusion, and it does not last. Soon, if you are fortunate, you realize that what seemed to be a pure gift when you were young must become a consciously wielded tool as you grow older. Discoveries come harder and must be validated in the real world, which usually isn’t friendly to real discoveries because they upset the way things “are supposed to be”. Great ideas must be expressed so that they can be communicated effectively in terms that others cannot only understand, but so that they can see why they should care. Ideas are no longer something solitary – for an idea to come alive others must grasp it and be moved by it. It must change lives.
I thought that I understood all this, and that in doing so I had fully understood the nature of the gift of Cannabis. But I was very, very wrong. Although the gift of enhanced consciousness remains, in my mind, one of the great gifts of this sacred plant, it is the gift of natural medicine that marks Cannabis as a truly profound grace bestowed by Mother Earth upon her people, and am not ashamed to admit that I have only recently discovered this truth. It humbles me, once again, to find that I have lived a life best described by the Amish observation: “Too soon old; too late smart.”
Here’s the story.
My wife and life companion has always been the smartest, most vital, strongest, most loving and caring person I have ever been graced to know. Up until a few years ago her health, while not perfect, was always good. A small person, she could perform physical feats that would make big men strain and weep. And she was emotionally resilient, scrupulously honest, rigorously fair, and had an unfailing bullshit detector.
Then in her late fifties she had a health crisis and, thinking that we were doing the right thing, we allowed doctors to do what they confidently said was necessary, which included dosing her with a cocktail of antibiotics. Though we had told them specifically which antibiotics we knew would be harmful, because of her childhood experiences, they were careless and stupid, and she wound up with a destroyed gut.
That was the beginning of years of suffering – SIBO, IBS, Barrett’s esophagus, leaky gut and worst of all, malnutrition. Her body could no longer tolerate almost all foods. Grains, dairy, citrus and most other fruit, many vegetables including legumes. No “nutritional supplements” worked – many of them were poison, especially zinc and other metals. No bread, no pasta, no shellfish and ultimately only one or two kinds of fish, no poultry or eggs. There is a long list of foods that cannot even touch her lips or she will have days of cramping, sweating, joint-wracking pain. And no sleep, or very little sleep. Failing energy, fading vision, and her passion for creating beauty only faintly present on good days.
She beat the SIBO and IBS and she beat Barrett’s. The Doctors didn’t believe that, although it was confirmed by pathology tissue samples. That never happens, they said. Our initial diagnosis must have been wrong. Actually, we pointed out, your initial diagnosis was based on lab tissue pathology reports. Lots of head-scratching and hemming and hawing.
But food and sleep have eluded anything she tried. Through iron will she has managed to find the dozen or so foods that she can eat, and we have survived. She keeps making art when she can, and our days are filled with loving each other, laughing at the small wonders of life, and dreaming of better days.
Now, finally, although many will say that we should have known earlier, we have found what appears to be true hope. It is a gift from Cannabis, and its name is Cannabidiol or CBD.
Without overwhelming you with details, at age 70, after years of suffering that we both thought would continue unto death, my wife began taking 40 mg daily of organic, high quality CBD oil in capsules. Although years of suffering and many false starts, it appears that CBD is working. Whether our hopes will last long-term remains to be seen. But her gut pains after every meal, and even after drinking water, have stopped completely. Her digestion and bowels are no longer a source of continual agony. Her appetite is better, although we are still both afraid for her to do something really dangerous like eat an egg or a piece of toast. She is sleeping a full night of restful sleep, every night. She no longer twitches and moans in her sleep. Her eyes are bright all day, and her voice is strong. It is too early to know if her boundless energy, her ability to tolerate normal food, or her pleasure in art will fully return, but even if not, just the relief she has been given so far is a gift beyond measure. For what it’s worth we researched the market and found a little company in Vermont that we like.
The reason that I am telling this story is to say to you that much of what you are reading and hearing about the medicinal value of CBD oil is true.
If you or someone you love is suffering from any of the diseases or conditions that research is now saying might be helped by CBD then run, don’t walk to the nearest place where you can buy high-quality, laboratory-tested, organic, non-chemically extracted CBD oil and try it.
May it help to heal you or one who you love. It certainly cannot hurt – there are no side-effects. It is a true natural medicine.
CBD is a gift from Mother Earth even greater than THC, and Cannabis is without doubt one of the greatest apothecaries of healing medicine ever given into human hands by the Great Spirit.
Way too many people now accept the concepts of Terrorists and Terrorism without question, so maybe it’s time to think about how and why certain words are imposed on our minds. I think it’s called “managing perceptions”.
For example – did anyone in America think of our country as “The Homeland” before government propagandists coerced the mainstream media into using the term endlessly, and re-named every possible government agency and function as Homeland this and that? The Nazi propagandists would be proud that their legacy lives on.
And then there’s all those wars and military operations with catchy names designed to hide their true nature. “Operation Enduring Freedom” and pathetic shit like that.
So, to the subject of this post. Can anyone enlighten me on exactly when a particular group is to be called “militants”, “terrorists”, or “freedom-fighters”? I would really like to know who I should be hating on. Hate needs a target, doesn’t it?
Most people, whether informed or not, reasonably accept the idea that people who deliberately target, maim and kill vulnerable men, women and children, and who intentionally inflict fear, pain, suffering and death, are properly called “Terrorists”, and their actions are properly termed “Terrorism”.
We all hate and fear Terrorists, don’t we, and of course we all support the idea that “all options are on the table” to deal with them, right? We all want to do the right thing. Naturally. What “true patriot” wouldn’t feel that way?
But whoa there little patriot podners – let’s back up for a moment. I have a few questions here.
Don’t governments routinely inflict fear, pain, suffering and death upon vulnerable people in their own and other countries? Sure, they use organizations called “the military” and “law enforcement” to legitimatize their actions, but so what? We should, but don’t generally ask – what is the motive? What is the proper term for the people who commit these acts under cloak of being a “government”?
Don’t corporations routinely inflict fear, pain, suffering and death upon vulnerable people in their own and other countries? Sure, they use a metaphor called “business” to legitimatize their actions, but so what? We should, but don’t generally ask – what is the motive? What is the proper term for the people who commit these acts under cloak of “business”?
Don’t powerful and wealthy people routinely inflict fear, pain, suffering and death upon vulnerable people in their own society and worldwide? Sure, they use legal fictions like “politics” to disguise and hide their actions, but so what? We should, but don’t generally ask – what is the motive? What is the proper term for the people who commit these acts under cloak of being “the ruling classes”?
Don’t financial institutions routinely inflict fear, pain, suffering and death upon vulnerable people in their own countries and worldwide? Sure, they use a metaphor called “the economy” to legitimatize their actions, but so what? We should, but don’t generally ask – what is the motive? What is the proper term for the people who commit these acts under cloak of “managing the economy”?
Don’t religious institutions routinely inflict fear, pain, suffering and death upon vulnerable people in their own countries and worldwide? Sure, they use a metaphor called “God” to legitimatize their actions, but so what? We should, but don’t generally ask – what is the motive? What is the proper term for the people who commit these acts under cloak of “the will of God”?
All of these institutions, groups, institutions and organizations deliberately inflict fear, pain, suffering and death in service of their own agenda. Every one of them. They justify what they do in the name of something that they have carefully arranged to be perceived as socially acceptable – even beneficial. After all, government, business, money, and God are all good, right?
Somebody, I forget just who, said “By their deeds ye shall know them.” Seems to me that if it acts like a Terrorist, creating fear, pain, suffering and death, then it’s a Terrorist.
So, if the actual deeds of all these self-proclaimed good guys are terrorism, even if they try to hide their true nature under another name, then aren’t they revealed as Terrorists simply by their deeds?
All of these closet terrorist organizations that want to be seen as legitimate work tirelessly to distract the public mind by creating a special category composed of “Islamic radicals”, whose images and actions can easily be manipulated using the “Big Lie” technique.
The Big Lie has to be simple, because it is the simple-minded who are the targets. Government, business, wealth, military, church, and God – good. Terrorists – bad. Radical Islam – really, really bad. (Wrong God)
But – what if enough people stopped buying into the underlying agenda of the institutional use of words “Terrorist” and “Homeland” and started calling these people designated as radical Islamic terrorists – whose acts are truly despicable – something like “Revolutionaries”?
That word has a whole different set of connotations, and none of these meanings can be co-opted by governments, corporations, the wealthy, banks, or churches – because all of them try hard to portray themselves as “good guy” revolutionaries. Clearly there’s no such thing as a good-guy “Radical Islamic Terrorist”.
Revolutionaries, on the other hand, can be good. Revolutionary deodorants. Revolutionary erectile dysfunction drugs. Revolutionary Coca Cola.
No question about it – revolutionaries can be bad, especially political and economic revolutionaries. These revolutionaries engage in all the evil that those who they are fighting also engage in, and even though they may claim superior motives and morality, history has shown that most political/economic revolutionaries are simply thugs, like those they fight against. But even that kind of Revolutionary is different from a Terrorist, and so from time to time it suits even the ruling classes to portray themselves as revolutionaries, but never as terrorists.
Words matter, and the words “Terrorism” and “Terrorists” are an outstanding example of “The Big Lie” technique at work. We here in America – not the “Homeland”, but America – should be smart enough to not fall for the Big Lie technique – again. But, evidently, we are collectively not that smart.
That too is deliberate strategy.
Dumb them down, drug them up, keep them poor, make them hate each other, scare the shit out of them, control what they think, grab all the money and power and rule forever.
Works for the closet terrorists. Always has. Always will.
From time to time I find it useful to read the US Constitution, especially when the United States government is attempting to assert a claim to its power to enforce any law passed by Congress that infringes unconstitutionally on the rights of the People and the States. So please bear with me as I explore what appears to be a renewed attack by the United States on the rights of the States and the People with regard to Cannabis.
I do understand that dissertations on Constitutional law by “jailhouse lawyers” can be tedious, so I’ll do my best to make this relevant to the Cannabis community and the challenges we appear to be facing from Daffy Don and his gang that can’t shoot straight.
The Constitution gives the United States the power to make laws, which must in every case be consistent with all provisions of the Constitution. This power to make laws is given to the US Congress, which has a long history of making laws that ultimately, when challenged, do not meet the test of Constitutionality. They are, after all, largely a band of fools.
However, all Federal (United States) agencies operate under the cover of laws passed by the Congress, which is why we have agencies like the DEA and FDA exercising powers and creating regulations that are not specifically authorized by the Constitution, but which are permitted by the enabling legislation passed by Congress – which they have a right to do as long as those powers and regulations, along with the enabling legislation, do not violate the Constitution.
This is where I would argue that attempts by agencies operating under laws passed by Congress to prohibit medicinal and recreational Cannabis violate the Constitution and are egregiously illegal and therefore are not enforceable.
Under Article 10, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
So according to Article 10, since the power to regulate natural substances with medicinal or recreational value is not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor is it prohibited by those States that have legalized either or both medicinal and recreational Cannabis, then any such powers of regulation of natural substances with medicinal and/or recreational value including Cannabis are “…reserved to the States respectively, or to the People”.
Now, if it weren’t for the 18th Amendment there would be absolutely no precedent for Congress trying to regulate substances. But they did pass the 18th amendment, asserting that the People did not have a right to consume “intoxicating liquors”, and that the United States had the right to regulate those particular substances (intoxicating liquors) and proceeded to enforce that assertion by the creation of police and judicial powers.
However:
Merriam Webster defines “liquors” as
Alcoholic drink, especially distilled spirits.
Merriam Webster defined intoxicating as
of (alcoholic drink or a drug) liable to cause intoxication.
And, Merriam Webster defines intoxication as
an abnormal state that is essentially a poisoning (carbon monoxide intoxication; the condition of having physical or mental control markedly diminished by the effects of alcohol or drugs (drank to the point of intoxication), (cocaine intoxication)
It is obvious that there is no basis in scientific or medical literature to classify Cannabis as an “intoxicating” substance, and it is of course not a “liquor”, nor is there any basis for claiming that the effects of Cannabis can be defined as intoxication. Alcohol of course is an intoxicating drug and does operate through selective poisoning (intoxication) of the body.
Clearly the Constitution is focused on intoxicating liquids or substances that produce intoxication. And, there is overwhelming scientific and medical evidence that Cannabis does not operate on the human body or mind through the process of intoxication.
However, even with all that, under the 21st (Repeal) Amendment, the US government admitted that it did not have the authority to prohibit the People’s right to possess and consume “intoxicating liquors”, except in those states that themselves prohibited that possession and consumption. (Think of “Wet” and “Dry” counties in some States, and the reservation of the right to sell beer and alcohol by the State to itself, as in “State Stores” in Pennsylvania.)
Taking the above arguments into full account, it is clear that the only way that Congress can Constitutionally pass laws that empower United States agencies to enact regulations that prohibit the States and the People from possessing, growing, buying and selling, transporting and consuming Cannabis is by making an Amendment to the Constitution. Good luck with that, assholes.
So what the Cannabis community should be doing right now is working with the Attorneys General of those States that have legalized Cannabis to ensure that they are fully prepared to defend the Constitution when Daffy Don’s gangsters come calling, to the point of ordering State Police and the State National Guard to arrest and deport beyond State borders (preferably doing the Perp Walk in cuffs across the State line) any United States agents who attempt to violate the Constitutional rights of the People who it is their sworn duty to defend. The AG’s should also lock all offices of these Federal agencies in the state and seize all weapons. They might go further and issue arrest warrants for any Congressmen who passed the enabling legislation, as well as any officials of any of the agencies who are attempting to enforce these unconstitutional laws if they should ever set foot in the State. That would include the President.
People in the Cannabis business know that people over 65 are perhaps the largest untapped market for their Cannabis goods and services, and the resistance of many of these Seniors is legendary, even in states where Cannabis is legal for all of their medical, spiritual, creative, and sensual needs. All over the US adults are trying to convince their aging parents to try Cannabis for some of the simple but terrible ills that plague their lives, but without success. It’s fear that is holding them back, and they have been made afraid deliberately.
Whether you’re in the Cannabis business, or you’re a concerned son or daughter, or maybe both, here’s why I think it is going to be hard to reach many of these older people with conventional thinking.
People in their late 40s/early 50’s today were toddlers just as the War On Drugs machine went into action. People who are in their 60s/70s today were those kid’s parents. They suffered the WOD propaganda machine running full bore through their psyche.
The War On Drugs worked through the schools by design, so parents and children in the 1970s were continuously subjected to the best behavior modification and propaganda techniques that tax money could buy, which continues quite pathetically today. And speaking of schools, who can forget Nancy Reagan and her screeching “Just Say No” contribution to the WOD of the 1980s. Those poor kids! Those poor parents!
The fear messages proved so effective in the 70s that they have been continually updated decade by decade ever since. Who can forget Crack in the Ghettos? Meth in the Hollers? And now, ta da, Opioids In The Burbs!
But wait! There’s something brand new that will really scare the shit out of you if drugs in the streets don’t do the job. Now we’re giving you Terrorism and Security to worry about. So just like parents in the 70s and 80s and onward permitted – no, insisted – on body searches and blood tests for drugs to keep their kids safe, they are now insisting on total surveillance of every school, to keep the kids safe.
Is the War on Terror any different than the War On Drugs? Well, the actual number of kids per year being killed by strangers, much less terrorists, in schools around the country has never ever been even close to the number of kids killed at home, nor in car wrecks. But using exactly the same “Assassin of Youth” fear tactics that proved so successful in terrorizing people for the War On Drugs, the War On Terror now has bombers and shooters lurking everywhere, and enough crazies are rising to the occasion, that American parents are in full-on fear. They are demanding universal surveillance and armed police in every school. And who can deny them – obviously America is under attack from obscure outside forces who will stop at nothing to destroy the American way of life. So giving up huge chunks of the American way of life in order to protect it from terrorists has once again been sold to the gullible public. And of course American entrepreneurs are ready and able to rise to the challenge of providing 100% security for everyone, and especially for the children.
So, with all this manipulation at every level for decades of their lives, is it any wonder that so many Seniors are, shall we say, leery of Cannabis?
Their raw numbers are huge, any way you cut it. Even segments of the potential, but non-responsive over-65 market for Cannabis products & services are huge. 43 million people live at home with full-time caretakers. That’s some 86 million people in 43 million households living with intense health issues hands-on, day after day.
Many of the things making life most difficult for these 43 million old, sick people and their 43 million caregivers, could be alleviated and even cured in some cases by judicious use of the right Cannabis strains, whether used as beverages, tonics, and foods or as medications, but often best taken by a puff or two of a beautiful Cannabis flower.
My wife and I cared for both our Mothers Laurie and Elizabeth for many years in our home, and we held Elizabeth’s hands when she died. I was also a single parent of a toddler son for years, so I understand what it takes to give care to another person. But I also had to learn to respect the personhood that remains strong even in someone who is growing older and sicker and further from life day after day, over many years, and not to make them feel helpless with my caregiving. Caregiving can be easily consumed with tasks that must be performed by all caregivers, many of them associated with small breakdowns of the body.
For so many millions of older people at least some of these little but vastly debilitating health issues like sleep, appetite and mood, don’t have to happen as long as the caregivers, and those cared for, are able to understand the truth about Cannabis as a natural medicine, and equally important, if they understand the healing power of sensual pleasure and how this aspect of Cannabis can give crucially important parts of life back to them. Too many younger people simply assume that old, sick people have forgotten about, and don’t need, sensual pleasures in their lives.
So why don’t Seniors accept what Cannabis can offer them? Why are people over 65 the age group that is most resistant to using Cannabis for healing medicine, let alone for healing pleasure.
We all also know that almost all people over 65 have some level of daily pain, some trouble sleeping, some gut issues, and other conditions that copious amounts of pharmaceuticals aren’t helping, and in the Cannabis industry we know that the right strain of Cannabis used in the right way could treat and even help heal older people suffering in these ways.
The really short answer is – fear. But that fear is many-sided, and can’t be dismissed, or made illegitimate, or over-ridden, or even reasoned with or cleverly avoided by Cannabis growers and manufacturers that want to reach a nice-sized segment of these 100 Million and more fearful Seniors.
As we all know fear gets expressed in a lot of ways, but here are some of the most common ways that millions of Seniors express their fear of Cannabis.
My doctor will think I’m crazy for asking and might turn me in
The federal government still forbids it
It is against my religious beliefs. God forbids it
I don’t know anything about medical marijuana and I don’t want to look foolish
I’m afraid I’ll become addicted
My doctor will find out when they test my blood
I’m afraid I’ll fall
Only addicts and criminals use marijuana
I’m not convinced about marijuana’s medical usefulness
Each of these fears, and all the others so carefully planted and nurtured over decades, can best be addressed with love, compassion and careful questioning and listening. If you are in the Cannabis business, you will have to also address fears like these effectively in order to be successful with seniors. That will also require love, compassion and careful listening on the part of your company if you want to understand and address the largely unrecognized needs of this diverse, suffering group of people.
But if an older person who you love lives near you, and you live where medical Cannabis is legal, and if they are resistant, why not spend a little extra time thinking about why they are fearful. As you know, older people express fear in different ways. Think of what you can do to help them overcome that fear, which only they can do for themselves but which is a lot easier if you have someone you love helping and caring. It may be that one of the finest gifts you can offer to an older person you love would be to help them decide to bring pure, natural Cannabis Flowers into their life, to share a place alongside aspirin in the medicine chest and organic Tea in the pantry.
Some effective pain relief, at least a little better appetite, a little better sleep for sure, more fun listening to music, and more vivid dreams and memories.
I was looking at a map of the spread of Zika virus the other day and something struck me as odd. I noticed that 100% of the Coca growing region in the Amazonian territories of Brazil, Colombia and Peru and the Opium Triangle in SE are flooded with the virus.
The global health authorities are wringing their hands over how this could have happened.
I happen to have a suggestion – look at covert US drug programs and I’ll bet you find both the funding and the research to validate that this is a CIA/DEA atrocity and is very deliberate. (Of course such info could only be obtained if you were a US senator and stayed out of hot tubs.)
Does it strike anyone else as odd that the core of Zika is devastating two regions in particular – the Coca growing regions of the Amazon basin and the SE Asian home of the Opium Poppy?
Imagine yourself a Coca farmer in the Colombian Amazon, or a Poppy grower in the hills of Laos. The US has been sending full-scale military warfare against you, your family, your village and your livelihood for decades, and you have always bounced back. Those American’s aren’t so tough, right.
Now suppose that all over the Amazon Basin or the Laotian hills sweet-looking (native) public health nurses begin showing up in villages. You are gathered together to hear the nurse who shows up in your village, and she begins by showing some truly terrible pictures of malformed infants. Everybody gasps. Mothers clutch their bellies. Fathers look disgusted. This, the nurse tells you, is what the Zika virus will do to your children, your grandchildren, and anybody else who stays within the infected area. Then she shows you a map of the infected area and there’s your village – right in the middle of the dead zone.
Then she tells you that in men the Zika virus nests in your balls, and when you have sex your partner gets infected – if she isn’t already infected by a mosquito bite. The women inch away from the men on the benches where they’re sitting. The men glance around nervously. There are a lot of shriveled penises in the audience.
In women, the Nurse explains. the Zika virus just circulates in the blood, seeking our rapidly-dividing tissues and generally lying in wait for the big feast – pregnancy. There is no escaping getting bitten and getting infected, the Nurse tells the villagers – the only way to ensure maximum survivability it for the entire village to be transported to a Zika-Safe Zone declared by the government.
In the distance helicopters are approaching. The villagers are told that they have ten minutes to decide whether to stay or go. They will have to leave everything behind – anything could be a hiding place. Those who want to go are sprayed copiously with a toxic cocktail and bundled onto the choppers.
When the choppers have disappeared the nurse climbs back in her US AID jeep and leave, as soldiers emerge from the brush and gun down and then burn everybody who didn’t leave.
It won’t matter. Nobody will ever discover their crime. This part of the Coca growing region, or the Opium Poppy growing region, will never be visited again. These areas will be uninhabitable for a very long time.
Too far-fetched? May I remind you of Agent Orange? What about Paraquat? US agencies have a long history of mass chemical murders in the name of their “War On Drugs” and the Zika Virus might just be the most effective way ever devised of de-populating drug-growing regions.
Of course it is getting just a teeny bit out of control, but bioweapons aren’t perfect. That’s why they have to be tested occasionally, like the Zika virus. (Which by the way is wholly owned, with a full 1947 patent, by the Rockefeller Foundation whose Siamese twin relationship with the CIA is beyond dispute.)
Maybe this looks & sounds familiar, like maybe Oliver Stone familiar?
Helicopters flown by CIA mercenaries, filled with government troops and US advisors, swoop down on jungle villages at dawn in a tropical country. They come in firing and dropping gas and napalm and they quickly round up everyone in the village.
A few selected villagers are immediately shot “trying to escape”, while the rest are made to stand by while their homes and belongings are burned.
Women and little girls are taken aside for raping, runny-nosed children hide anywhere they can, and old people are beaten with rifle butts for various reasons. There are no young men left in the village to beat, arrest or kill.
Since the villagers obviously are guilty of consorting with the enemy the entire village, or what remains, is taken on a forced march to a government relocation camp, built by US aid.
Meanwhile back at the village aircraft piloted by other CIA mercenaries begin flying low over the landscape for miles around the village dumping hundreds of tons of toxic chemicals that poison the land, water, plants and animals, destroying all possibility of the people ever coming home.
But this is not Vietnam – it is Colombia.
Beginning with the election in 2000 of George Bush and his White House full of would-be foreign policy Machiavellis, and followed by eight years of the Gang Who Can’t Shoot Straight, Americans have had sixteen years of the enormous distractions of Iraq and Afghanistan to keep them from realizing that the US was playing out the Vietnam War all over again in Colombia.
This war has been going on for over sixteen years, and according to the US there is just as much Coca being grown and Cocaine being produced in Colombia in 2014 as there was in 1999. So like most US wars of aggression masked by any of the usual deceits – “War On Terror”, War On Drugs”, or War To Save Democracy” – the war in Colombia accomplished nothing but destroying the lives and the environments of millions of innocent people and further enriching politicians and generals. Per usual.
However, since this particular war was at its most brutal in the beginning, which coincided with the US invasion of Iraq, it was most conveniently overlooked while it was going on, and has since been filed along with yesterdays news by those who control the media in the US. But it happened.
Plan Colombia refers to a One Billion US/year bundle of “programs”, an innocent word for a bunch of deviously-named, US-sponsored state terrorism strategies in Colombia. Beginning in 2000 the US began sending waves of “advisors” to Colombia, accompanied by all the usual military hardware. There these US soldiers hooked up with large right-wing paramilitary organizations and the piddling little Colombian Army and Air Force and began raining violence and death down on millions of people who lived in the Coca-growing regions.
Colombian paramilitary death squads operating under the direct control of the US military would helicopter into a village just before dawn – lessons learned in Vietnam – and begin pulling “suspected guerillas and criminals” from their homes and executing them on the spot, or hauling them to waiting helicopters. Those left behind were told to pack up and move to government “relocation centers” or the soldiers would be back to burn their village and kill them. There were a number of “My Lai” incidents during these raids involving US personnel that were totally suppressed. Nobody has ever been held accountable.
From 2000 – 2003 nearly 2 million people were first sprayed with poison, then bombed with fire, then attacked by soldiers, and then “relocated”. In this same period over 3000 civilians were executed by US-sponsored death squads and many more simply disappeared.
Now in 2016 the villages are mostly abandoned and those that remain are pitiful shells of the prosperity that Coca growing brought them. As part of “Plan Colombia” the US did its usual “lets give the natives another way to make a living” routine and spent millions upon millions building idiotic “aid projects” like Yucca mills in the middle of nowhere that formerly semi-prosperous Coca growers were supposed to keep supplied with Yucca roots, at pennies a kilo, to be ground into flour. Brilliant. Just fucking brilliant.
There are dozens of these monuments to stupidity (or maybe something a bit more sinister) lying around rural Colombia, and meanwhile the Coca growing has moved on to other parts of Colombia, FARC has signed a peace treaty with the government, and the US president has just had a smileyface press moment with the president of Colombia as they celebrate victory in the war on whatever it was.
“Criminals like Guzman-Loera are responsible for bringing hundreds of tons of illicit drugs into the United States every year, and are responsible for tremendous amounts of violence and death in our own country and across the world,” the US State Department said yesterday, referring to the most recent capture of Mexico’s Al Capone.
A very standard bit of official verbal misdirection there, but especially annoying when you ask yourself what the hell the Department of State is doing in the drug kingpin commenting business. Of course the answer is – it’s just another use of the Big Lie technique by one of the major Police State conspirators.
“Criminals like Guzman-Loera” would not exist, and the violence and death would not exist, if the US had not erected a Police State structure of Drug Laws that create the criminals and make the violence and the deaths inevitable.
The criminality, the illicitness, the gross profitability, the violence and the death would disappear not if every so-called “kingpin” like Sr. Guzman-Loera were to be arrested, but they would end toot sweet if all the laws against the natural drug plants and their minimally-processed derivatives were simply abolished.
OMG – a Kingdom with no Drug Laws? Imagine.
A US without Police State Drug Laws might still import hundreds of tons of cocaine, heroin and Cannabis until domestic growers and producers got going, but without legal or police interference in the traffic those imported items would be priced by the simple process of supply and demand just like Papayas and Bananas.
There would be no incentive for smuggling.
There would be no violence between drug gangs for territories. How many drive-bys do you see between rival beer or cigarette distributors?
There would still be people who abuse the natural drugs and become addicted to them, and maybe even more than today (though studies suggest not), but the lifestyle consequences of addiction would be far, far less harsh for many if not most addicts.
People who chose to waste their lives spaced out 100% on drugs would do so, just like they do now, but people who simply like to maintain a daily buzz – exactly how people do now with Coffee & Sugar, not to mention Alcohol – would be able to do so with no social issues attached.
Finally if drugs were legal and priced at liquor store levels there would be far fewer drug-related crimes like robbery and prostitution. Not a lot of alcoholics rob or fuck strangers simply to buy alcohol. But to buy Cocaine or Heroin in the Kingdom of the Drug Laws you have to have some serious money, and that means stealing or hustling. And the Police State likes it that way just fine – or it wouldn’t be that way, would it?
So if the Drug Law Police State were abolished, the US Department of State and the rest of the government structures supported by Drug Law money, wouldn’t be able to use people like Sr. Guzman-Loera as a boogeyman anymore.
And their budgets would shrink drastically.
That is why it is very important to the US Department of State for Mr. and Mrs. USA to believe their line of evil bullshit even though that is clearly, at least to some of us, exactly what it is.
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.
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