Bruce Cain: Marijuana "Write In" Candidate for President in 2012

Stopping Bill Shuettes War on Michigan Cannabis Caregivers and Patients.
by Bruce Cain on Monday, November 14, 2011

With 63% of the Michigan voters disgusted with Shuettes disregard -- and evisceration -- of the 2008 Medical Marijuana Law I would hope that both transcripts and videos of ALL meetings be made available to the citizens of Michigan. The fact of the matter is that the 2008 Medical Marijuana Law was passed by a majority in every country within the state of Michigan. We have every right to know exactly what is being discussed in these meetings. I'm just wondering if transcripts and videos will, in fact, be made available: hopefully through an appropriate publicly accessible website. Please let me know where I can view these materials after the meeting in Livonia has concluded. As a 57 year old Citizen of the State of Michigan I am demanding fulll disclosure of everything discussed in these upcoming forums. We are, after all, the people that pay your wages. I also think I have a right to be heard at this meeting since I collected over 1,000 signatures to get the law passed: about 1 in 400 of the signatures required to get the initiative placed on the ballot.

Recently a national Gallup poll indicated that a majority of Americans now favor total Marijuana Legalization which infers that both Obama and Shuette really have no regard for the will of "WE THE PEOPLE." So not only do nearly 80 percent of the American people support "medical use:" over 50% now support recreational use as well.

I must say that I am disappointed that you seem to be closing this meeting to journalists: especially those, like myself, who are most critical of the actions of Snyder and Shuette on this matter. If this is not the case please send contact information on any independent journalists that will be present for the entire meeting in Livonia.

One thing that has become obvious to me, over the decades, is that this "War on Cannabis Consumers" is really primarily about providing revenue streams to keep "police instigating grass stings" employed. For instance the City of Dearborn Heights received $230,000 from the Federal Government in 2010 . . . after which they attempted to eviscerate the Medical Marijuana Laws by preventing both caregivers and patients from growing their own Cannabis herbs within the confines of their own homes. Then after my parents (Dearborn) witnessed two military raids on their neighbors -- resulting in less that 3 grams of Cannabis -- I found that the City of Dearborn made $830,000 from drug arrests and forfeiture in a single year (2010). I'm willing to bet that the majority of these arrests and forfeitures involved Marijuana.

I don't have time to detail this but I believe that Obama -- and the Corporatocracy that now controls the people of this country -- are in the process of monopolizing the production and distribution of Cannabinoid medicines to Big Pharma and huge agri-industrial corporations such as Monsanto. Yet the same medicinal herbs can be produced in our homes and gardens as easily as producing beer and wine at home: something that has been legal for decades now. And allowing home cultivation would also create a free market which would provide competition to the corporations resulting in a lower price to the consumer.

Since I am not going to be allowed to attend as a journalist I would like to address members of law enforcement to give an alternative view of their continued disregard of the will of the Michigan Voters on this issue: as well as the American People as a whole. If anyone is interested in allowing me to speak to law enforcement, during this meeting in Livonia this coming Thursday, please let me know. From 1989 to 1997 I published a magazine that covered the issue of drug policy and I'm sure I could provide some helpful insights that would surely be worth their consideration. If interested I could easily be able to do a 10 to 30 minute presentation even given this short notice.

But should you not allow this let me just mention a few bullet points:

* Nearly 440,000 Americans die of Tobacco related disease each year. No one has ever directly died from the use of Cannabis in the 10,000 to 30,000 years that civilization has used this herb.

* Washington, Franklin and Jefferson were all both advocates and most probably users of Cannabis. Lincoln, Bush, Clinton, Obama etc. have all been consumers of Marijuana with no obvious ill effect.

* New data rolls in each month as to the Medical benefits of using Cannabis: including the reversal of some forms of cancer. Yet the government has been hiding this data for over 25 years now.

* As an Agri/Industrial plant Marijuana (e.g., Hemp, Cannabis) produces nearly 4 times as much biomass per acre as corn. The economist Stiglitz recently projected that our attempts to control the energy resources of Afghanistan and Iraq will cost the US taxpayer 7 TRILLION dollars. It seems to me that employing American workers to farm hemp as a energy resource would both provide new jobs, revenue and diminish the number of our children killed and maimed in these senseless wars.

* Growing numbers of law enforcement (e.g., Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP)) are now opposed to continuing with this senseless war on the consensual activity of consuming Marijuana.

* Marijuana prohibition is predicated on it's Class 1 status in the Federal Controlled Substances Act (1970) which means it has no recognized medical use. Yet in 2003 the Federal Government secured a patent on Marijuana for multiple medical uses. We are not living in Alice's "Wonderland." You can not have it both ways.

And here are some quotes from Henry Ford, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.

Henry Ford who, as an industrialist in my home city of Dearborn, said the following:

"Why use up the forests which were centuries in the making and the mines which required ages to lay down, if we can get the equivalent of forest and mineral products in the annual growth of the hemp fields?" - Henry Ford quote on Marijuana

And here is what Washington and Jefferson had to say about Cannabis:

"Hemp is of first necessity to the wealth & protection of the country." - Thomas Jefferson, U.S. President quote on Hemp

"Make the most you can of the Indian Hemp seed and sow it everywhere." - George Washington,

Finally let me give you my learned assessment of how law enforcement should move forward on this issue.

Simply let adult Americans grow Cannabis in their homes just as they can currently produce beer and wine in their homes: without ANY forms of taxation or regulation. Stop the militarized invasions of the homes of American Citizens as it is becoming painfully obvious that this is just as bad as when the British invaded the homes of our colonists under the guise of the "Tax Stamp Act" before the American Revolution. In both cases such tactics were used primarily as methods of producing revenue, maintaining social control of the citizenry and in the case of the "Tax Stamp Act": monopolizing control of production to the East Indies Tea Company. Similarly, today, law enforcement is really acting on the mandate of Multi-National corporations whose intent seems to be to prevent us from one of our most fundamental inalienable rights: the right to grow our own foods and herbs.

I have the utmost respect for legitimate law enforcement but this simply does not pass the "smell test" any longer. The support for TOTAL MARIJUANA LEGALIZATION has grown from 12% in 1969 to over 50% in 2011. And projections indicate that support for TOTAL MARIJUANA LEGALIZATION will increase between 2 to 4 percent every year moving forward.

Record-High 50% of Americans Favor Legalizing Marijuana Use: October 17, 2011
Liberals and those 18 to 29 most in favor; Americans 65 and older most opposed
http://www.gallup.com/poll/150149/record-high-americans-favor-legalizing-marijuana.aspx

As my good friend Jack Herer said in his 1985 underground classic "the emperor wears no clothes." In other words Marijuana Prohibition has no more legitimacy among the American People: the people that pay your wages.

More American Citizens are becoming aware that this War on Cannabis Consumers is really about creating jobs and revenue -- for law enforcement and Multi-National Corporations -- at the expense of the people they are supposed to serve.

In short you are on the wrong side of history and the longer you persist in this folly (e.g., Shuettes attempts to subvert the will of the Michigan voter) the more reviled law enforcement will become in the eyes of the American People. In short the War on Marijuana Consumers is unwarranted and is now completely rejected by a majority of the American People. It is about time law enforcement end this senseless War on Cannabis Consumers and defer to the will of WE THE PEOPLE. It is no mistake that when our "pot loving founding fathers" created the US Constitution that they put the following words at the top in really big letters: We The People.

And if you've forgot what the intent of this document was perhaps it is worth re-reading the first paragraph:

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

I want my domestic tranquility back. And I want it back right now.

The role of law enforcement has never been intended to allow cities to invade the privacy of it's citizenry in order to make money by forfeiting the property of its citizens and imposing penalties for growing one of the safest therapeutically active herbs known to man. And it was also never intended that you become an enforcement arm for Multi-National Corporations such as Monsanto and GW Pharmaceuticals, that seek to monopolize the production and distribution of Cannabinoid based medicines. All humans have and retain the inalienable right to grow their own foods and herbs.

And all I'm saying is that the days of criminalizing Cannabis Consumers and Producers is numbered. The most honorable thing that Shuette could do at this time is to simply cease and desist. Let our adult citizens grow their medicines and begin to refocus your efforts on rapists, burgalers and those that are committing non-consensual crimes. Because that is what WE THE PEOPLE are going to be increasingly demanding of you. Allowing a free market for the production and consumption of Cannabis will also facilitate 3 important mandates:

(1) It will destroy the Mexican Drug Cartels who currently make nearly 70% of their revenue from the distribution of Cannabis.

(2) It will create more competition -- through the cottage industrial production of Cannabinoid products -- which will reduce the cost of Cannabinoid Medicines for those that have real medical need.

(3) It will stop the invasion of our homes by militarized goon squads which has resulted in an unprecedented evisceration of our privacy rights as well as the totally senseless murder of our citizens in the course of conducting these "corporately sanctioned raids" on our homes.

Finally let me put this in a larger historical context for you. By continuing with this folly you are willing participants in a Pharmacratic Inquisition that has been going on for nearly 2,500 years now. A good beginning milestone for this inquisition occured when Socrates was given the death penalty for ingesting an LSD-like entheogen outside the confines of the Elysian Mystery ceremonies. Prior to around 500 BC the use of Cannabis and other Entheogenic drugs was not a state sanctioned crime. In fact the very beginnings of religion centered around the ingestion of mind altering entheogens such as Anamita Mescaria, Psilicybin, Cannabis and other entheogenic sacraments. Some of the most respected historic figures -- Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Franklin, Jefferson, Washington, Clinton, Obama -- have all used Cannabis and other psychotropic substances will no lasting ill effect. Steve Jobs said that one of the three most important things he did in his life was experience the effects of LSD. And it was either Crick or Watson -- the scientists that unraveled the mysteries of the DNA double helix -- that later admitted that is was the use of LSD that allowed them to jump this synaptic gap and unravel the mysteries of the DNA double helix.

Historians increasingly agree that organized religions - Judaism, Christianity and Islam - replaced the entheogenic sacraments with crackers, or otherwise prohibited their use - because they frowned upon the ability of individuals to have a direct relationship with god, the singularity etc. In short the Pharmacratic Inquisition was primarily a means to force the state into a position of being the intermediary between the individual and god. It has also served as a means to arrest and enslave its citizens as a source of cheap labor and to institute social control over it's citizenry. And unfortunately this stupidity persists.

As one of my favorite philosophers once said "it is not what we put in our mouth that defiles us, but what comes out of our mouths(hearts)that does." This quote is attributed to this guy they called Jesus. And frankly the only thing that has been coming out of Shuettes mouth lately has been a lot of corporately financed bullshit. And I'm just letting you know that we are not a bunch of stoners. We are not going to put up with these "Jim Crow" laws nor relegated to the status of non-Muslim kafirs, nor "4th class minorities." We are politically aware Citizens of the United States and we are done with the bullshit. Marijuana is one of the safest herbs known to man. I suggest that Shuette bend to the will of the Michigan voters and start doing something useful. Because if this continues one more day you just might find us standing vigil outside of your homes just so you know what it is like to have your privacy violated. If the unions and OWS folk can do this . . . so can we.

Again, I have the utmost respect for legitimate law enforcement. But interfering with adults that use an herb, no more dangerous than coffee, does not constitute legitimate law enforcement. It is obvious that you are doing this to generate revenue in order to support law enforcement jobs. Presidents from Nixon to Obama are equally complicit in this folly. And as much as I empathize with the fact that your cities have drained your pension funds etc. it still does not give you the right to violate the rights of the people that employ you. It is time to do the right thing and simply give up on this disingenuous War on Cannabis Consumers. Neither history, nor the will of the American People will tolerate this any longer.

Yours in Peace and Freedom,

Bruce W. Cain