All evil is ignorance – Plato

01-23-2011 As the science of human psychology develops, more and more experts start accepting the main premise of Holistic Theology that we, as humans, have only two basic, primal emotions from which all our other emotions, and moods, and dispositions, and worldviews subsequently arise; these primal emotions are love and fear. The great spiritual classic, “A Course in Miracles” summarizes this proposition in a following way: “The fundamental conflict in this world is between creation and miscreation; all fear is implicit in the second, and all love in the first. The conflict is therefore one between love and fear”.

On or about December 24, 2010 there was a “revolt” of the jury pool in Montana when the potential jurors informed the prosecution that they were not willing to convict the defendants of a “crime” of marijuana possession; not only was this event highly significant from the legal point of view, but it also served as a shining example of the repudiation of fear, of the rejection by ordinary people of the hateful and irrational government policies towards Cannabis consumers. And this happened in a State where Medicinal Cannabis use is legal, and where people can evaluate for themselves the effects of even highly limited Cannabis freedom as opposed to unbridled repression! The fact is that if we look back in time on our own society and its many civil rights struggles, we will not only see that the “politics of fear” are not by any means something “new” when it comes to Cannabis Liberation Movement, but that fear-tactics have remained basically the same, using similar intimidation techniques, the same appeal to ignorance, disinformation and intolerance.

The good news is that these politics of fear are eventually and inexorably defeated, as the premises that they try to advance are in direct contradiction of Reality, the Reality that can be ascertained by either the “correspondence” with known facts or by an appeal to our moral judgments. I remember when, just a few short decades ago, the fear mongerers did all they could to prevent or delay the Gay equality using their favorite and enduring “argument” of What would happen with our children if they believe that it is OK to be Gay!! We must save our society from “homosexual agenda” and the “activist judges” who try to “promote” it! As we can see now, these and similar scare tactics were bound to collapse as they had no “correspondence” with any material facts and had no chance of withstanding the moral challenge to their premises, so that when we now look back we are incredulous that many people actually did believe this nonsense. Indeed, as we look back now at the Gay equality Movement, or Black Civil Rights Movement, or Feminist Movement, we can see and appreciate that the “alternate realities” created by the fear mongerers at those times, the “alternate realities” unsubstantiated by facts, will inexorably and miserably fail as our information improves and our consciousness evolves towards freedom.

This is precisely the way that the Cannabis Liberation Movement will undoubtedly develop and succeed in the future, as there is absolutely no “foothold” in Reality for the DEA “dogma” that Cannabis is a “dangerous drug with no accepted medical use”. When this country’s first “Chief Narc” Harry Anslinger, obsessed with his hatred towards the Plant, devoted his whole life to demonizing it and making sure that all the “loopholes” with regard to Cannabis Freedom are closed, what did he use as his reasoning?! That the Jazz musicians create their “demonic music” under the influence of marijuana and then seek sexual relationship with White women; and that the main reason for marijuana prohibition is its effect on the degenerate races?! Do these appear to our contemporary consciousness as valid “reasons” for outlawing the Plant? Well, if not then we have to admit that the original “reasoning” for Cannabis prohibition was deeply flawed to really say the very least about it. Or take President Nixon in 1972 who said in response to the findings of Shafer Commission that recommended immediate marijuana decriminalization that “Every one of the bastards advocating for legalization of marijuana is Jewish”. Is this what the Founding Fathers envisioned the President’s “proper” response to the recommendations of a scientific Commission should be?! The Shafer Commission was absolutely correct in asserting that Cannabis prohibition and criminalization was incompatible with the Presumption of Liberty that is the very essence of the Constitution and a new Promise that was this country upon its creation by the Founding Fathers.

Let’s now examine how the contemporary ideological heirs to Harry Anslinger and Richard Nixon apply the anti-Cannabis fear-tactics in their futile attempts to combat what seem to be the inevitable and time-honored conclusions of science and philosophy. This is necessary for the understanding of why these “efforts” will undoubtedly collapse as the time goes on. First of all, the denial of facts is the pre-eminent feature of any “alternate reality”, including the one “created” by the Cannabis prohibitionists. The remarkable medicinal properties of the Cannabis Plant which have been used by humans for thousands of years are denied; the non-toxicity of Cannabis with not one single death or overdose attributable to it is ignored; the fact that Cannabis is so much safer than alcohol and most pharmaceuticals is disregarded; and the truth of paramount significance that Cannabis use suppresses violent urges and behaviors is not even mentioned by the DEA prohibitionists.

This last fact deserves further elucidation. Despite the DEA propaganda machine being put in an “overdrive” when it comes to anti-Cannabis hysteria, we hear a lot about all kinds of violence and mayhem caused by alcohol, but not Cannabis; there is not one single case in point when an act of violence was committed under the influence of Cannabis, while there are millions that have been committed under the influence of alcohol and/or hard drugs, or even the dangerous, physically addictive prescription drugs. Let’s do ourselves a favor, America: we hear the “drug commercials” by the “Big Pharma” companies all the time on TV; let’s pay more close attention to the potential “side-effects” of all those chemicals and try to compare them with the non-toxicity of Cannabis. Let’s then try to decide what remedy would we prefer in many cases for our own selves, or for our loved ones, if and when the need arises. This is not to say that most pharmaceuticals do not have “their place”, but it is to say that Medicinal Cannabis is a valid therapeutic choice, and that it should never, ever be kept from the patients in need.

In its vicious fight against the Medicinal Cannabis and patients’ rights the DEA not only denies the existing realities, but it also “twists the arms” of politicians to act on the basis of “realities” that do not exist at all. The glaring example of this is the so-called “gateway drug” theory that is by now completely discredited by serious science. Another DEA propaganda tool is its assertion that the drug Marinol, a synthetic THC analogue, is the same as Medicinal Cannabis, something that is such a scientific and philosophical fallacy that it can only be “fairly compared” with the racist craziness of Harry Anslinger himself. But this does not even end there. The DEA and its henchmen are actually saying this: Medicinal Cannabis does not really help anyone medically, and all the cancer, chronic pain, glaucoma and chemotherapy sufferers are simply lying in order to be able to “get high”. Can you imagine the utter ignorance, presumptuousness and arrogance in making these kinds of assertions?! These assertions go beyond the simple denial of Reality, they are a direct assault on Reality! When people of the future look at this outrage from the “consciousness of the future” perspective, they will be totally aghast at such a “position”, and may not even believe that it really formed a basis for the DEA public policy.

Back in 1996, when the courageous people of California first approved the Legalization of Medicinal Cannabis in their State, the DEA blatantly resorted to undisguised scare tactics, threatening Doctors with the loss of a special DEA Number and Medicare participation if they so much as “discussed” the Medicinal Cannabis with their patients! Back then, and even right now, the DEA has always readily embraced the philosophy of “radical pragmatism” that basically disregards the ethical need to “prove” its position as a “truth claim”, and then it has acted in accordance with its own “agenda” as if it were the truth! Because of its firm ideological grounding in “radical pragmatism”, the DEA has felt free to ignore the facts, suppress the dissent, and even take political prisoners like Canadian businessman and politician Marc Emery and the Medicinal Cannabis grower Chris Bartkowicz! No wonder the people like George Soros (and myself) who came from the backgrounds of an intimate knowledge of fear (and the philosophy of “radical pragmatism”), are so vehemently pro-Cannabis Freedom, as we see clearly the moral bankruptcy of its opponents.

There is one more interesting point that needs to be brought up. On one recent occasion the DEA let slip the remark that it is really “only a police Agency” that is “enforcing” the existing Federal Law. Really?? What is the DEA doing then trying to dictate the drug policies? Because if the DEA is “only a police Agency”, but yet it influences the social policies as much as it does, then it follows that this country is a police State. California Proposition 19 directly challenged the DEA “dogma” about Cannabis, and so 9 previous DEA Directors urged the Attorney General to sue California if the Proposition passed. The Attorney General Eric Holder threatened to practically take a military action against the President’s most loyal voters if they defied the DEA and passed Prop. 19! The Attorney General also said something to the effect that the current Cannabis laws cannot be changed by voting. Then, Mr. Attorney-General, pray you can tell us how such “laws” can be changed, for surely you do not mean to say to the American people that what was created by the racist Harry Anslinger and and his paranoid admirer Richard Nixon is practically “written in stone” and unchangeable, like the Law of gravity! During the recent Senate confirmation hearings for an anti-scientific extremist Michele Leonhart to be the new head of the DEA, both she and the arch-Conservative Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) vowed to continue to disregard the voters’ will in the States that Legalized Medicinal Cannabis. Is this the “democracy” that the Founding Fathers strove to establish in this country, a system where the voters actually decide on the country’s policies?!

However, not all of us are ignorant, and in 1988 the DEA Administrative Law Judge, Francis Young called for decriminalization of the Plant, calling marijuana “one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man”. But yet again, in what was in my view a defiance of Constitutional authority, the DEA simply refused to comply with the judicial decision. There are other considerations that the government of this country will have to take into account when the new, constructive and Reality-based approaches are devised with regard to Cannabis Plant. Our society is the one with ever increasing stress and anxiety levels, it is a contentious, and angry, and often violent society. So, it is extremely important that the people be able to safely relax and “take the edge off”. Neither alcohol, nor hard drugs, nor the prescription “pills” will satisfy this purpose; in many ways the substance use in the future will be subject to an “education effort” for the purposes of “safe substance use” (just as about the “safe sex”), and this is the only viable option that is left for the Government to take, not a kind of “drug free Utopia” advocated by the DEA and its minions, which is nonsense as we are surrounded by unsafe drugs such as alcohol, nicotine and others on all sides.

Very recently, on 12-14-10 the government released the study about the “teenage drug use” that both the Government and the “yellow media” grossly misrepresented to the public. The study showed that, while the Cannabis use among teenagers rose slightly, the binge-drinking and smoking fell in this age group! These latter facts are a huge positive development, as the truly dangerous substances are beginning to be perceived as such, and a much less dangerous substance is chosen instead. And even though I am not about to condone any teenage drug use, it is still clear to me that even the young people “experimentation” with Cannabis is much safer than a similar experimentation with alcohol, pills, or hard drugs. We should also make a point that the decrease in nicotine and alcohol use among teenagers may at least in part be attributable to the anti-smoking and anti-alcohol abuse education which, as opposed to anti-Cannabis propaganda, does have a strong “foothold” in Reality, what with all the disease and deaths attributable to their use, the facts that can be easily shown to anyone!

Well, you can say, then what is the problem in the face of such overwhelming facts in favor of Cannabis/Medicinal Cannabis Freedom? The problem is the DEA and its Prison-industrial Complex. As even the former US Surgeon-General Joycelyn Elders noted on CNN in October 2010, we criminalize more people in this country than all other countries of the Civilized World”, and that our prison population virtually “exploded” after 1970 when the DEA and its so-called “Controlled Substances Act” were allowed to take over the social policies of this country. Just look at the overcrowding of prisons, in California for example, and see for yourselves the inhumanity and the spiritual degradation of those who would keep the present system intact.

But the Prison-Industrial Complex in this country is like a monstrous spider that could not care less about Reason, humanity or basic human rights; it even objected to enacting Bill 1449 in California which finally decriminalized small Cannabis possessions in that State! Truly, these people’s appetite for human blood is without limits! In order to maintain the “status quo”, the DEA and its allies have created an almost air-tight and elaborate system of repression; for any politician to even talk about greater Cannabis Freedom is an “unforgivable heresy”; while any mentioning about cutting the huge DEA budget (in the face of an ever-increasing deficits) is an even greater “heresy”! Any Doctor in this country who practices and advocates for Cannabis/Medicinal Cannabis Freedom is at a great risk of losing his DEA “number”, or even his license. So, what will happen if the DEA continues to ignore the facts of Reality and persist in its anti-Cannabis repression? Can this succeed? I am delighted to be able to give my answer to this “proposition” that it will NOT! The “dogmas” that have no counterpart in Reality will not survive in a long run, as they never have. More and more the people in this country will “wake up” and realize that the irrational, crude, hateful, fear-mongering games that are being played on them by the DEA are completely counter-productive; the employers of this country will have no choice but to realize that when they fire good, conscientious workers for being positive for Cannabis, they are left with alcohol, hard drug and prescription drug abusers, including millions of people who are forced to “drink themselves to sleep” every night (or to take addictive sleeping pills, or both), and then go to work and try to “produce” in the morning! The DEA can, of course, still disregard all this, but the longer it is allowed to do so, the greater will be the condemnation of its policies by the consciousness of the future.

From the Holistic perspective, Cannabis is markedly pro-evolutionary as it increases appetite, induces rest, suppresses violent urges, and enhances the sexual experience. Dr Lester Grinspoon, Professor of Psychiatry of the Harvard Medical School, said it best to the Los Angeles Times on May 6, 2005: “Cannabis will one day be seen as a wonder drug, as was penicillin in the 1940s. Like penicillin, herbal marijuana is remarkably non-toxic, has a wide range of therapeutic applications and would be quite inexpensive if it were legal”.

Cannabis Freedom will prevail, the proper “safe substance use” education will be developed sooner or later, the Portuguese example showing that decriminalization of personal possession of substances leads only to decrease in criminality and overall substance use will be assimilated, and the fear tactics of enemies of progress and human rights will be decisively rejected! And if this and similar blogs help to sow the Reality “seeds” in our consciousness, to show the inexorable advent of Progress, to facilitate our collective evolution in the consciousness of Freedom, so much the better!

No beauty is comparable to the beauty of truth – Rene’ Descartes

The Real is the Rational, and the Rational is the Real – Georg Hegel

Sometime during the mid-seventies a group of Soviet dissidents gathered at a secret Moscow apartment and raised a toast “for the success of our hopeless affair”. No one at that time anticipated the collapse of the Soviet system, neither in the Soviet Union, nor in the West. The Soviet system, based on fear, military might and repression appeared as strong and “monolithic” in the 70-s, as it had 20 years earlier, and yet it collapsed not even 20 years after the dissident gathering just mentioned. For even though the Soviet system was based on fear and repression, there is one more thing that it was based on – “unreality”, and that, as far as I am concerned, was the main reason for its undoing. In fact, there are many theories as to why the Soviet Empire finally collapsed as it did, and most of them probably have some overall merit, but from my point of view, no less important than all the economic, military, ethnic and other problems that plagued the Soviet Empire, the final philosophical defeat of Marxism, and its ideological and economic system, was just as much to blame (or, rather, to credit) for that monumental event of the end of the 20-s Century as all the other theories the “pundits” had to offer.

Whenever any “dogma” is defended by any repressive regime or entity, such a “defense” requires the “alternate reality” to be constructed around the “dogma”, so as to give it a “plausibility” that it cannot get from the world of more commonly accepted Reality. The main “guardian” of the Soviet system, the KGB, created many “alternate realities” to justify the otherwise unjustifiable abomination that was the Soviet Empire. For example, right after the war, under the direction of highly paranoid Joseph Stalin, the KGB created an “alternate reality” that supposedly “showed” that Adolf Hitler did not “really” die in the Berlin bunker on April 30, 1945, but was instead “rescued” by the British and the Americans, and was now living in comfort in a “castle” in West Germany, protected by the Western Allies who nevertheless could not hide that “crime” from the brave Soviet intelligence (the KGB, who else)! There were even the “pictures” of the “castle” obtained by the “fearless” Russian agents, aimed to convince any potential “doubter” that Adolf Hitler was still alive and was hiding behind the backs of the “Anglo-Americans”. What better excuse did one need to start the “Cold War” which would dominate international relations for many years to come, and which had almost succeeded in bringing about what was known as the “mutually assured destruction”.

There were other “alternate realities” constructed by the KGB and its machinery of disinformation, such as its Fifth Chief Directorate. In 1961, the KGB “disseminated” the “alarming news” that West German “spies” were crossing over to the Soviet Occupation Zone called the German Democratic Republic (DDR), and so the Berlin Wall was built practically overnight, serving for the next 27 years as a terrifying symbol of Communist repression. Of course, as we all know now, the Berlin Wall was not built to stem the “infiltration of spies” from the West to the East, but instead to stop the exodus of about 100,000 people a day from the Eastern Occupation Zone to West Berlin in search and pursuit of freedom. It was, of course, not even remotely possible to challenge those alternate realities on the basis that they were simply not true. I could continue with examples of the “alternate realities” used by the KGB to uphold Communist “dogmas”, but I think it is clear that such “alternate realities”, however ridiculous they appear to our consciousness later on in history, may nevertheless hold a “vividness” and “persuasiveness” that those who construct them can effectively use at that moment in history. Any appeal to the “truth” would have been a suicide for anyone attempting such “revelations”.

We can also show that some “alternate realities” have been (and still are) operational in the West, including in the United States. If someone had suggested a 100 years ago that a Black man would become a President of the United States, and that Gay people would, by the agreement of the President and the Congress, be able to serve openly in the US Military, such a person would have been “laughed out of the room” and declared to be in need of a “serious” psychiatric help. Even such great thinkers of the 20-s Century as the writer Erich Remarque and philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre were known for their ridiculing and condemning of homosexuality. In one of his “famous” statements, Erich Maria Remarque even said that “friendship between the US and Russia is just as “possible” as when two homosexuals try to make a baby”. Jean-Paul Sartre considered homosexuality as an “example” of “inauthentic behavior” where “a homosexual” would “deny” his own human nature and the personal “existential” choices that he would otherwise make to “change” his homosexuality. As we all know, even in the United States the Gay rights Movement had to travel a long and tortuous road to the status of near-equality that it has now achieved in this country, where only very recently the homophobic preacher Jerry Falwell of the now-defunct “Moral Majority” asserted in all seriousness that AIDS was a “punishment from God” for homosexuality, and that in that assertion he was supported by none other than President Ronald Reagan himself!

If anyone should be able to truly appreciate the fallacy of “alternate realities” constructed for political purposes, it is our President Barack Obama. Look at all the “alternate realities” being built by the right-wing extremists about the President being a Muslim, about him having been “planted” by the terrorists in order to establish the “Sharia Law” in this country and “make sure” that Iran gets nuclear weapons. It is becoming clear to absolute majority of people by now how preposterous these fantasies are, but again, before they are exposed, the alternate realities can do a whole lot of damage. It is also quite obvious to me that the opponents of the Cannabis/Medicinal Cannabis freedom in the United States are actively engaged in the creation of yet another “alternate reality”, this one “dedicated” to convincing the world that marijuana, which has been used by humanity for thousands of years as “medicine” and a “recreational” substance, is somehow a “dangerous drug” without “accepted medical use”.

In fact, the “alternate reality” about Cannabis was started by one Harry Anslinger and continued by Richard Nixon, although even at that time the “unreality” of their position could be demonstrated based on thousands of years of human history. We all know now about the strong racist overtones underlying Harry Anslinger’s views on the subject, and the paranoid ideation of Richard Nixon in following this ideological and public policy blunder. So, how do we know in this often chaotic world which “reality” is “real” and which one is “alternate”? Because the distinction is not nearly as easily apparent as people may imagine, especially right at the time when one of those “alternate realities” is “constructed”. Why would great philosopher Hegel make his statement that the “Real is the Rational and the Rational is the Real”, and how can we possibly sort all this out? Well, there are a couple of ways to distinguish the “real” and the “rational” from the “unreal” and the “irrational”. This we can attempt to do on both the “material” and the “spiritual” planes.

Let’s deal with the “material” plane first. When we look back on the past flow of consciousness, be it our own, or a wider “duration” as philosopher Henri Bergson defined it in the beginning of the 20-th Century, we can ask ourselves a simple question as to whether certain events “correspond” with the facts of material reality which is often much easier to do after a time period has elapsed and certain results achieved or not achieved based on the inferences of what was once presented as “true and unalterable” reality are evaluated. We can further show that when the actions are based on verifiable facts of material reality, they lead to much more successful outcomes than the actions not based on such facts. We can see that the KGB fantasy used to construct the Berlin Wall fell apart after only three decades, as when we look back, we see not a single fact “cited” by the KGB as “justification” for its coming into existence. So then, when the “Wall” came down, there was suddenly no surprise because its very existence was never “rational” or rationally justifiable, and we can all see it now. So when Ronald Reagan said in 1988, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this Wall”, he was speaking on the basis of a true reality, the reality of the Wall being a tool of repression, and not at all what the KGB and its alternate reality claimed it to be. The same test will apply to the disaster of the War in Iraq. We know now that that there had never been any “weapons of mass destruction”, that the whole “affair” was based on an “alternate reality”, and we certainly can now “appreciate” the results that have materialized out of that senseless endeavor.

And what about the gay equality, another example that I mentioned earlier? Well, as we look back, we again fail to detect any “facts” that were actually present to justify gay oppression at any point of our history. All the “dogmas” that were used to persecute gays are now seen to be without any factual foundation and, therefore, unreal. And again, when we look at the persecution of the Cannabis/Medicinal Cannabis users, we fail to see any substantiating facts that could justify this repression. The DEA-created alternate reality in support of a “dogma” that marijuana is a dangerous drug without an accepted medical use” is disintegrating right before our eyes. There are no “facts” to meaningfully support this “dogma”. Cannabis is non-toxic, non-physically addictive, very effective in a wide variety of medical conditions and capable of suppressing violent behavior, a property very important for our contemporary society, a fact that is blatantly neglected by the DEA and its Cannabis prohibitionist allies. In justifying Cannabis’ (Medicinal Cannabis’) “illegality” the DEA and its allies use a perfectly “circular” argument, so that, according to them”, Cannabis is illegal because… it is illegal “under Federal Law”.

When the DEA claims that drug Marinol is the same as the Medicinal Cannabis, it only shows its own scientific and philosophical illiteracy, as Marinol is a synthetic product lacking the “whole” that is the nature-made Medicinal Cannabis. And, just as I showed this to be the case when it comes to Berlin Wall, anti-Gay hysteria, Iraqi “weapons of mass destruction”, or our President being an “agent of radical Islam”, the consciousness of the future will look with total incredulity at our present day situation surrounding Cannabis/Medicinal Cannabis Freedom in our society. There are absolutely NO facts supporting the persecution, and this will be seen all too well by the individual and collective consciousness of the future.

The “need” for anti-Cannabis repression will be seen not to have “corresponded” to the actual material realities surrounding this issue. But what about the “spiritual plane”, what about people that will still say that they are “morally justified” to suppress the Cannabis Freedom (and, especially, the Medicinal Cannabis Freedom)? As philosopher Immanuel Kant taught, we may not be able to see the “Reality” of things, or how the “things are in themselves”, other than through “moral experience”. It is through “moral experience”, according to Kant, that we may be able to “penetrate” the “shifting flux of appearances” in “the world of becoming” and get to the Reality we are trying to “apprehend”. Very well, let’s see if we can use the Kantian “moral experience” to what has become the struggle for Legalization of the Medicinal Cannabis. National Geographic recently described a person living with HIV who used Medicinal Cannabis in order not to die from the AIDS “wasting syndrome” when the new anti-HIV medications had not yet become available. Let’s now assume that for a moment we become “omnipotent beings” with the ability to change certain events of the past, and let us further ask ourselves, individually and collectively if we would consider it “moral” individually and collectively, to deprive that person of the Medicinal Cannabis that obviously saved his life without actually damaging anyone else? Because of the prevailing “goodness” of the people of this country, my hope is that very few people would have actually sided with the prohibitionists and taken Medicinal Cannabis from the person in question. We can go on and apply the Kantian Principle to other examples I made earlier, so we can see that it applies to them as well, be it Berlin Wall, anti-Gay repression, or the War in Iraq.

What is it, some may ask, that makes all despots act almost alike, whether these despots are of the KGB, DEA, “Sacred” Inquisition, National Socialism, Bush’s regime, or anti-gay bigotry? What is it that underlies the defense of their “dogmas”, including the creation of “alternate realities”? After all, we are talking about the regimes and entities so diverse that many people may question if there is anything that could “unite” them all without attempting to create yet another “alternate reality”. What underlies all these historical errors is the philosophy of “radical pragmatism”. What this philosophy advocates is that “the truth is what we make it to be” without any regard to correspondence with the facts of material reality or the “moral guidance” proposed by Kant. Radical pragmatists are “big” on such concepts as “might makes right”, “end justifies the means”, “the greater good” and so forth. A radical pragmatist would have no qualms about suppressing the rights of the few in order to advance what he sees as “benefit (including future benefit) for the many”. There is absolutely no problem for a radical pragmatist to disregard and brush off the known facts of reality in order to “uphold” her “dogmas”. When it comes to Cannabis Freedom, the radical pragmatists from the DEA simply brush off such accepted facts as that Cannabis suppresses violent behavior, or that the overall drug use and criminality in Portugal were greatly reduced after “personal possessions” of “substances” had been decriminalized in that country. Having dismissed these indisputable facts, the DEA continues instead to wage a brutal “drug war” on the American People in defense of its anti-Cannabis obsession. In other words, there is no truth for a radical pragmatist that does not support the original premise, or “dogma” in need of “upholding”.

As we can see upon our reflections on history (including even the most recent history), the philosophy of “radical pragmatism” inevitably breaks down in the end. There have to be “correspondences” with the material facts in the “existing” Reality, as well as in the sphere of moral judgments, for the Truth to be established and defended in the long run. There is no chance that any “truth claim” will survive otherwise, no matter the severity of repression. Just as we have seen with the Berlin Wall, anti-gay persecutions, or War in Iraq, the “truth claims” that have no counterpart in either material or a spiritual Reality are bound to collapse in the end. It is with this realization that we can confidently say that Cannabis, and especially the Medicinal Cannabis” freedom is only a matter of time, only a matter for our individual and collective consciousness to progress sufficiently and to see this current DEA – engendered error the same way we are now able to see many others.

On December the 23, 2010, a well known Christian Conservative, Dr. Pat Robertson, spoke to his audience about the need to decriminalize small personal possessions of marijuana, “a couple ounces, or so”. Dr. Robertson correctly observed that sentences for “marijuana offenses” are way too harsh, and that the whole “enforcement” business is costing this country an absolutely inordinate amounts of money. Former US Surgeon-General, Dr. Joycelyn Elders, remarked on CNN prior to November elections that, because of the anti-Cannabis repression in this country we are criminalizing more of our population than any other country of the Civilized World. As Dr. Elders pointed out, and as many people already know, the prison population in this country practically exploded since 1970, or when the DEA “took over” along with the so-called “Controlled Substances Act” of 1970.

At the historic L.A. Conference organized by the Drug Policy Alliance in cooperation with the California Society of Addiction Medicine held on July 8, 2010, there was an almost total consensus about decriminalization of marijuana for personal use, while the California State Medical Association had already made a policy statement in which it expressed that “criminalization of marijuana is a failed public policy”. All this is after the Shafer’s Commission recommended decriminalizing marijuana back in 1972, and Judge Francis Young said in 1988 that “marijuana is the safest therapeutically-active substance known to men”. Why, then is marijuana still illegal in this country, why our everyday, decent, hard-working people are still being thrown in jail over the use of a natural substance with a multitude of medicinal properties? How is it that both the serious science and the common sense say “legalize (or, at least, decriminalize) Cannabis” to this government, but to no avail? How is the DEA able to fight “tooth and nail” the Medicinal Cannabis that has served humanity as medicine for thousands of years? In order to answer these, and some other questions, we need to look at what the L.A. Conference called the “Prison-Industrial Complex” in this country, an entity with tremendous amount of “lobbying power”, which is being headed and directed by none other than the DEA itself! It is very hard to really understand the despotic powers that these people have, and it is even harder to make others understand them, but what helps in my case is that I am a former political refugee from a world at one time ruled by the KGB, so the mechanics of this repression are made somewhat more “intelligible” for me.

When Pat Robertson made his remarks about the need to decriminalize Cannabis to the “700 Club”, he correctly observed that criminalization of marijuana costs this country a whole lot of money, in addition to the harsh, life destroying criminal sanctions directed at the people of this country for exercising their rights as free citizens. In order to even begin to understand the DEA’s iron grip on power in the United States, let’s look first at the current debate about cutting our Federal spending as a way to deal with the ballooning deficit. Many proposed spending “cuts” are being discussed, but have we noticed that there is practically no discussion about reducing the DEA budget, or that of the Prison-Industrial Complex as a whole? In fact, it appears to me that our so-called “representatives” in Congress would much rather talk about taxing  mother’s milk than about cutting the DEA budget together with its “marijuana enforcement”. Any one who would even dare to suggest that maybe the DEA should somehow contribute to the much-needed saving of resources, would be labeled as “soft on drugs” with the potential very unpleasant political consequences.

A monstrous entity known as the Prison-Industrial Complex could not care less about the lives it destroys, or the financial resources it wastes. We all know how hard it is to get a job in this sluggish economy, so we can imagine just how much harder this task becomes after a “marijuana conviction”. Consequently, a person’s life may be severely damaged over practically nothing, even if such a person is lucky enough to avoid Dr. Robertson’s assertion that “before we know it, such a person ends up with a 10-year sentence due to the marijuana “sentencing guidelines”. But this is exactly what the Prison-Industrial Complex’s human monsters want in the end! Many of the people, after having become victims of its repression, are marginalized, unemployed, underemployed, alienated, devalued... It is a little surprise that some of these victims become firmly attached to the criminal justice “system” for years, if not for life, feeding the Prison-Industrial Complex machinery with all its police, drug agents, prison guards, probation officers and the like. As Officer McPherson from Law Enforcement Against Prohibition explained at the L.A. Conference, much of the fierce anti-Cannabis rhetoric by the “law enforcement” is explained by none other than the “departmental funding”. People’s lives are destroyed and huge financial resources wasted – all of this for their “departmental funding”.

Let’s look at some other aspects of the tremendous power wielded by the DEA and its henchmen. One would expect that, especially now, after a very recent tragedy in Arizona where several people were killed and wounded by a mentally unstable individual, we start finally talking about violence reducing properties of marijuana, something that is clearly articulated in the prestigious “Substance Abuse: A Comprehensive Textbook”, so that more liberal marijuana use policies in our society can actually contribute to an overall decrease in violence and anger, sometimes spilling into tragedies that we just witnessed. Given that the prestigious Textbook, published by none other than the American Association of Addiction Psychiatry, states that “marijuana use decreases violent behavior” and that “only the unsophisticated think otherwise”, isn’t it highly surprising that more Doctors do not get up and at least quote this scientific knowledge? Not so fast! The doctors and medical establishments are completely and totally under the DEA control, with every doctor needing a special DEA “number” to even practice medicine, while any dispute with the DEA puts a quick and “efficient” end to such a person’s career. It is only now that some voices are beginning to be heard that the mindless anti-marijuana policies actually make this country’s alcohol, hard drug, and prescription drug abuse much worse, because most people know that “marijuana stays in your system”, and can be detected by a “drug screen” for a long time, while alcohol, cocaine, opiates and methamphetamines “clear” from the system rapidly and are much less likely to be detected, especially after a “weekend” use. Never mind that those substances are incomparably more harmful than Cannabis and can lead to serious addictions. It is the anti-Cannabis “dogma” that is important to the DEA, not the people’s well-being!

Perhaps nowhere is the DEA more vicious and totally untruthful as in the issue of Medicinal Cannabis. Nowhere are the scientific facts are concealed so blatantly, and the scientific research itself is suppressed unashamedly, as if we were living in the Inquisition-controlled Europe of the Dark Ages, and not in a 21-st Century America! DEA and its allies resort to straight-up lies when they tell the State Legislatures to reject the Medicinal Cannabis Legislation in their States because of the “problems” experienced in the States that Legalized the Medicinal Cannabis under their State laws. “Problems”? What problems? In California, a strong supporter of Medicinal Cannabis has just been elected that State’s new Attorney General, in Colorado the media reports increased tax revenues from Medicinal Cannabis sales, and even in New Mexico the new Republican Governor just stated that the repeal of the State Medicinal Cannabis law is “not a priority”. The DEA and its fear-mongering allies cannot really point to any serious problems in the States where this ancient medicine is legal, with not one death or overdose, or a serious adverse reaction requiring medical intervention.

But this is not something that will deter the DEA and its allies in any way; as their “trump card” these people throw in the faces of the State Legislators the “fact” that Cannabis is “illegal under the Federal Law”. But who is keeping it illegal? The same DEA, of course! So, the cancer patients are not “free” to use the herbal medicine that helps their symptoms because the DEA says that the plant is “illegal”, but the people who keep it illegal are those same despots working for the DEA! How do American People still tolerate this horrible game played on them by the DEA is totally beyond me as well. I know that in the future, when we sufficiently progress in what philosopher Georg Hegel called the “consciousness of freedom”, we will be amazed at the level of this craziness, at the repression perpetrated by the DEA against the supposedly “free people” of this country.

When our Founding Fathers established this country, they did so based on certain sacred principles, first and foremost of those being that the United States will have its Government “by the People, of the People and for the People”. The Founding Fathers also sought a free development of science, so that the scientists never have to be burned at the stake for stating the scientific truths, as was common under the “Sacred” Inquisition in Europe. What do you think our Founding Fathers would have said about the “Agency” which suppresses scientific research, breaks people’s doors down and fills jails and prisons with honest Citizens for growing hemp? For one thing, the founding Fathers would be in a state of shock and total disbelief! What would our Founding Fathers think of the nine former DEA “Directors” who urged the Federal Government to sue the voters of California if they dared to legalize Cannabis?? Would the Founding Fathers approve of the DEA spending the taxpayer money tapping the phones of foreign opposition leaders? What would our Founding Fathers say to a “proposition” that about 80% of the voters of this country are in favor of the Legalization of Medicinal Cannabis, but the DEA uses the blatantly anti-democratic means to thwart the Will of the People, even though this government was supposed to be “for the People, by the People, and of the People”.

If this is what the government is designed to be, how can it withhold the Medicinal Cannabis when 80 % of the electorate wants it legalized?? How can the Illinois Legislators even consider voting against the Bill to Legalize Medicinal Cannabis in their State knowing full-well that about 70% of the Illinois voters support it?! Now, this is not the democracy the Founding Fathers envisioned in their sacred promise of a new beginning given to the freedom-loving pioneers of this new country. Even now, in a staggering show of hypocrisy, the US Senate just confirmed Michele Leonhart, a rabid Cannabis prohibitionist and an anti-scientific despot, to the be the head of the DEA.

The Senators made no attempt to ask Leonhart some “tough questions” about Medicinal Cannabis, as some on the side of Reason had hoped, thus completely turning their backs on their own constituents, on the sick people of their States, on the will of their own voters who decided that the Medicinal Cannabis should be “legal” in those 15 States, and who have a reasonable expectation that their Senators will actually “represent” them on a Federal Level, instead of exhibiting “we-are-ashamed-for our-own-States” attitude. This is the kind of power that the DEA and its allies feed on, this is how they destroy the sacred Spiritual promise made by our Founding Fathers, turning this country into yet another repressive Empire instead of a new beginning for the long-suffering humanity.

In a recent program on National Geographic called “MarijuanaNation”, a patient with AIDS was featured among others, who would have died of a “wasting syndrome” in the 90-s when the new and effective treatment for HIV was not yet available, but whose Medicinal Cannabis use helped to “tie him over” until the drugs did became available, and as a result, the person is alive today. The medication that had been long used to treat nausea of chemotherapy, Reglan, was recently taken off the market because of its potential and horrible side-effects of “Tardive Dyskinesia” syndrome characterized by “tongue protrusion, lip smacking, face grimacing and eye twitching”. Many other medications (most recent – a painkiller Darvocet) had to be taken off the market because of the intolerable side-effects, and yet because of the DEA tyranny the sick people of most States are still not free to use the Cannabis natural Medicine that has none of these side-effects. Surely, the Medicinal Cannabis Legalization is a “non-partisan” issue, because Liberals and Conservatives alike (or their loved ones) may one day become sick and need the remarkable properties of the Cannabis Medicinal Plant, rather than “tongue protrusion” and “lip smacking” that they would get from Reglan or similar chemicals. And what about some patients with intractable pain or seizure disorder, who have found the relief from Medicinal Cannabis, a safe and effective relief, that they could not obtain from anything else?! Of course we are not surprised to know that the “Big Pharma” is allied with Big Alcohol and the Prison-Industrial Complex in opposing the Medicinal Cannabis Legalization!

One of the greatest philosophical errors any society can commit is when the “truth” becomes “relative”. It is no longer the “truth” because it is what it is, but the “truth” imposed instead by the “powers that be”, such as the DEA based upon the “alternate reality” that it created, when it is trying to pressure the lawmakers to abandon the sick people based on “entities” that no longer even exist, such as the fully discredited “gateway drug” theory. When the truth is “relative” (to our political beliefs or prevailing ideologies), it is no longer the “truth”, and no society will survive for a long time if it attempts to build its public policy based on “moral and ethical relativism” where the “truth” becomes “what we say it is”, instead of being what it is! I certainly hope that the American people will promptly and filly recognize the game that the DEA and its prohibitionist allies are playing on them, and choose the survival of the United States as a free country where the scientific inquiry reigns supreme, and where the TRUTH is what it is, instead of being what the DEA “ideologues” want it to be!