700,000 marijuana smoking Americans arrested every year based on Christian superstition

700,000 marijuana smoking Americans arrested every year based on Christian superstitions.

There was a time in history when to speak out against Christian led Government beliefs, or to acknowledge your own practices could lead to your head being cut-off, being burned at the stake or being accused of being a witch. To publicly say the world was round was dangerous as the great explore Galileo found out. Galileo was forced either to say the world was flat or be beheaded. He said the world was flat and saved his head, many others were decapitated. The Inquisitions of the 1500 -1600’s were based on Christian superstitions. To speak tongues or to use herbs could led you to be accused of being a witch. Example: numerous members of the American city of Salem Mass. were burned at the stake. Cannabis was one of the "witch herbs" listed in the Malleus Maleficarum,  a guide for inquisitors to identify, torture, and burn witches.

Fundamentalist like President Bush call fundamentalist Muslims evil doers, I call fundamentalist Christians do-gooders. I’m far more in fear of these do-gooders than the so called evil doers. I thank God that the Christians (do-gooders) of today don’t cut of your head or burn you at the stake anymore for I know I long ago would have been a crispy headless critter. Like Galileo I publicly tell the truth, I tell the truth about sacrament marijuana as well as use it despite the do-gooders claims of its dangers or sinfulness. Unfortunately for me today’s Christians put you in a cage and take away your children when they find out you don’t believe in their superstitions. Whole branches of Government and Para-military drug tasks forces seek out potheads.

We are supposed to have “freedom of Religion” in this country, but the Christians decide what is and is not religious. They make Laws that are clearly Christian inspired but call them laws of General applicability. Example our polygamy laws make religions and peoples who don’t follow the one man one women concept of marriage (ask Warren Jeff) accepted by Christianity illegal. Those who follow religions like Voo Doo or Santeria that utilize animal sacrifices find themselves caged under the guise of animal cruelty laws. Just as our Christian lawmakers refuse to allow religions like Rastafari the religious use of “marijuana” as a sacrament. Our nations fundamentalist Christians lead the charge to keep the sacraments of other faiths like peyote, hoasca, and khat illegal. Millions of Americans have been ruined or destroyed by our nation’s do-gooder marijuana laws. In 1970 the Controlled Substance Act was passed with no exemptions for the religious use of substances not condoned by Christians. 15 millions Americans have been arrested since the Shaffer Commission recommended in 1973 to decriminalize marijuana. Over 700,000 Americans are arrested each year for violating our nation’s marijuana laws; in 1997 I was one of them.

My arrest on Nov 24^th, 1997 has motivated me to openly speak out against these do-gooder laws ever since. Like Galileo I was ordered by Christian Government officials not to talk about marijuana or to the press. When I ignored this order by making political ads and speaking to the press about marijuana I was jailed (for 5 months August 19^th, 2002 – January 24^th, 2003), only being freed by Federal Judge Irenas. I considered myself a political prisoner of our pot wars. Judge Irenas ruled my imprisonment a violation of the 1^st amendment right to free speech but ignored my claims of religious intolerance. Again some would say at least I didn’t have my head cut off. While making this ruling Irenas noted that when President H.W. Bush appointed him to the federal bench in 1992 there were 32,000 Americans in federal prisons. "Today, there are 200,000 in federal prisons and 60% of this increase is for drug convictions. African-Americans comprise a majority of the drug offenders in federal prisons," Irenas stated. "America has more persons in prison today than South Africa at the height of apartheid and Russia during the height of communism under Stalin," Irenas said, also listing a number of political leaders who advocate changes in drug laws.

Factually marijuana is a substance which can objectively be considered harmless. According to Lester Greenspoon, M.D., former associate professor of psychiatry at the Harvard Medical School, the hypothetical lethal dose of marijuana is 40,000 times the psychoactive dose. The lethal dose of alcohol, a legal drug, is 4 to 10 times the psychoactive dose. The figure for marijuana is hypothetical in that is has only been shown to be true in rats; there are no records of lethal marijuana overdose in humans anywhere. (Marihuana Reconsidered, p. 227) Aside from being non-toxic, marijuana is essentially harmless. There is no scientific evidence for any lasting physiological or psychological detriment resulting from even the heaviest marijuana use. As Andrew Weil, M.D., and Winifred Rosen state, marijuana's "medical safety ... is great. Aside from respiratory irritation, heavy marijuana use does not seem to cause… medical problems." (From Chocolate to Morphine, p. 118). Do-gooders claim otherwise and falsely state that marijuana is a gateway drug for use of harder substances despite the overwhelming facts that it is not. They use these false claims to enlist the support of the public, similar to how George W. Bush falsely claimed WMD’s in Iraq to gain the public’s support for his illegal (Crusade) war. In 1988 a Federal Judge Judge Francis Young ruled in The manner of: Marihuana Rescheduling ….. “that the substance marijuana is one of the greatest therapeutic substances on the planet” yet our do-gooder led federal government refuses to acknowledge marijuana’s medicinal powers.

The origins of American anti-marijuana laws. Anti-marijuana laws, along with anti-opiate laws, came into being not out of a desire to protect the health of citizens, but from a desire to Christianize certain minorities. (Ernest L. Abel, Marihuana: The First Twelve Thousand Years, pp. 200-213) Alcohol is the drug of choice for Americans of European descent in the 1910's and 20's. Marijuana is the drug of choice for Mexican and Black communities. Claims were made to the effects that marijuana caused Mexicans to become violent and caused Black men to rape White women. Opium, the drug of choice among Chinese immigrants, was vilified in a similar fashion. (Abel, Marihuana, pp. 191-199) Of course, there was no evidence to support these claims, they were outright lies but the White men who ran the country wanted laws with which they could harass and incarcerate various minorities, and they got what they wanted. Our Drug laws are the longest lasting and greatest Jim Crow laws ever. There are more African-Americans in prisoner or enslaved thru the drug laws than were released at the end of slavery.

In short, American anti-marijuana law is wholly devoid of merit. Marijuana harms no-one; the marijuana laws are far more harmful than marijuana itself ever could. Our nation’s do-gooders and politicians continue to persecute Americans who use marijuana. This causes nothing but great stress on Americans, wastes time and money that could certainly be better spent. Just as now in the 21^st century we look back at the superstitions of the middle ages Christian church with distain, people in the future will surely regard today’s Christian led “war on marijuana” in a similar light of that of the Inquisitions and Witch Hunts.