Blogging for Freedom

Before my raid, I was making and using a skin cream for my chronic skin irritation and inflammation due to Vitiligo. I knew cannabis is of the willow bark (aspirin) family so it logically followed that the cannabis plant had anti-inflammatory properties. This article (source MAP) confirms what I have been saying for years.

Click to read more ...

Medical marijuana patient, Christine Baggett is 66 years old with impaired vision, two kinds of arthritis and a chronic ankle injury which forces her to use a cane. In August 2006, Christine purchased an ounce of marijuana which she claims eases her pain. She cannot take prescription narcotics because of the side-effects.

Click to read more ...

"If I were a rapist, the government couldn't take my farm," Bernie Ellis says. "I grew cannabis and provided it free of charge to sick people, so I run the risk of losing everything I own. That just doesn't compute to me."

But a strange thing has happened while the US federal government has been trying to make an example out of Ellis. Colleagues, friends and neighbors are rallying around him -- along with a whole lot of people who had never heard of him before. The balding, bespectacled 57-year-old with the amiable manner of a favorite uncle has become an improbable cause celebre. National organizations working for the liberalization of drug laws are hailing Ellis as a folk hero and a martyr of the medical marijuana movement.

Life came unglued for Bernie Ellis on the day drug agents raided his farm like it was the fortified villa of a South American cocaine kingpin. Ellis was bush-hogging around his berry patches when two helicopters swept low over the treetops. Then, rumbling in on four-wheelers, came 10 officers of the Tennessee Marijuana Eradication Task Force. The war on drugs had arrived, literally, in Ellis' backyard. It was a major operation to strike a righteous blow against the devil weed.

It must have been a real disappointment. Ellis, a public health epidemiologist, readily acknowledged that he was growing a small amount of medical marijuana to cope with a degenerative condition in his hips and spine. He was giving pot away to a few terminally ill people too. There were only a couple dozen plants of any size scattered around his place -- enough to produce seven or eight pounds of marijuana worth about $7,000.

"I'm not ashamed of what I was doing," he says. He has provided pot over the years to perhaps a couple dozen terminally ill people -- mostly with AIDS or cancer -- who were referred to him through social workers and others. As he says, "Three things happen to marijuana users. They talk too much, they laugh too much and they eat too much. I don't see a problem with any of those things happening with sick folks." At the time of the raid, he was giving pot to four people. Three of them died within months.

Ellis, who has a proud face and talks in a warm, disarmingly direct manner, explains that he couldn't turn away a person in need. "I've grown marijuana off and on for 20 or more years," he says. He started giving it to sick people in the late 1980s when he was helping establish the AIDS program for the state Department of Health. "I decided back then if I'm going to take the risk to grow this for my own use, I need to at least be willing to help other people if they need help."

Read the entire story on Cannabis Culture.  The feds are trying to seize his land.  Save Bernie's Farm!

From the New York Times:   "Three Atlanta police officers, whose no-knock drug raid resulted in the death of a 92-year old woman last November, were indicted today on multiple charges, including felony murder.  The woman, Kathryn Johnson, died in a hail of bullets after three plain-clothes police officers burst into her home without warning, acting on a tip from an informant who said that drugs were being dealt from that location."

 It became apparent to us long ago in the medical marijuana movement that the militarization and Rambo-esque tactics of drug police was resulting in innocent deaths and trauma.  I am actually surprised there aren't more violent incidents.   It is not safe for anyone, including police officers and authorities who need to carry out legitimate operations.  We support the police.  We want them to do their jobs effectively and safely.  But, they have ratcheted up the level of confrontion and aggression that it's force - by it's very nature - will be met with same.

We are a peaceful people! In my case, 14 DEA agents, county drug task team and various city police officers raided my home in full SWAT gear.  Like a raid on a home of a suspected terrorist.  They knew I was a medical marijuana activist and anti-war protestor.  I have no criminal history.  I am absolutely dedicated to peace and love.  I'm an old hippie, for God's sake!  They could have knocked on my front door with a warrant saying, "OK, the gig is up." I would have fully cooperated while calling my attorney.   Peace Brother.

But, no.  They treated me like I was a dangerous criminal terrorist drug kingpin poisoning the neighborhood children.  Murderers and child abusers are treated with more respect and dignity. If anyone had been home at the time, no telling what could have happened.   I thank the Lord I was spared the horrer of experiencing black-hooded government officials trashing my home, laughing at my work and service and beliefs, stealing my belongings and threatening my neighbors and friends.

All because they saw me at a legal assembly for medical marijuana. They put me under investigation and surveillance. They acted to arrest me and put me in prison.  They meant to silence me.  

Dick Cheney appeared on Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer this morning and again he speaks propaganda.  By calling the Democratic Congress irresponsible and motivated to end the war in Iraq for purely partisan reasons, he continues to sow the seeds of division and disunity.  We are condemned as a nation to failure and shame, he emphatically states, if we don't support the war and the president without question.  This administration has made it clear they simply will not tolerate any limitations on how they are conducting the war or accept oversight of what they are really doing in our names.

I am reminded of the hackneyed phrase "Follow the money".  In the case of America's War on Terror, the greatest beneficiary of government contracts has been the private mercenaries, soldiers of fortune and profiteers (carpetbaggers) that have seen billions of dollars stream into their own pockets.  VP Cheney would have at least a sliver of credibility if he wasn't so heavily invested and compensated by the biggest looter of federal taxpayer funds, Halliburton and KBR.  Let us never forget, the night US forces droppped "shock and awe" bombs on the city of Baghdad and the civilian population, Cheney threw a cocktail party with his friends (Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Kissinger, Perle, Libby, etc) in celebration.  What kind of human being, I ask, celebrates when we pre-emptively invade and kill innocent civilians in a poor struggling nation that DID NOT ATTACK US ON 9-11?

Bill Richardson, governor of  New Mexico and Democratic presidential candidate, promises so much more hope for our future.  He has proven himself to be a peacemaker and an honest broker in very difficult international arms and weapons negotiations.   He does not own controlling stock in corporations directly benefiting from the continuance of wars.  He does not have a personal stake in war profiteering. 

He is a leader we can trust and look up to.  We need his ability to bring different views to the table and find consensus that benefits all.  Our children need him.  Our country needs him.