Los Angeles, CA (PRWEB) July 9, 2009 — The Dispensary Defense Group (http://DispensaryDefenseGroup.com) is pleased to announce that Richard Cowan, a longtime marijuana reform advocate, has agreed to lead the new organization dedicated to supporting the medical marijuana dispensary system.

Cowan, who is also a former National Director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML.org) said, “The medical marijuana dispensary system is the best way of getting the sick and dying off the battlefield of our disastrous Drug War. The patients’ medical needs must come before the ideological interests of the prohibitionists.”

Cowan, the new DDG president is also the publisher of MarijuanaNews.com, the original marijuana blog, founded in 1997. He has been on record as a supporter of marijuana legalization since 1972, when the late William F. Buckley’s National Review published Cowan’s cover article calling for an end to marijuana prohibition.

Cowan explained, “In 1972, we had no idea about how great the medical value of marijuana would ultimately turn out to be. Now we know, and even after legalization there will be a need for medical grade cannabis for patients. It is appropriate that we are launching the DDG right after the 4th of July celebration, because in 1776 that was just the beginning of our never-ending fight for freedom.”

The motto of the DDG is “Prohibition Kills. Medical Marijuana Liberates.”

The Examiner family of online newspapers is now featuring the retired locksmith (and thus, drug policy expert) John English as a regular columnist.  It seems his entire series of columns is dedicated to pushing reefer madness.

In “Marijuana Crosses the Placenta“, John tortures the language he’s named after with fine writing like this:

Effects on the fetus, though scientifically difficult to evaluate, for a variety of reasons, the detection of metabolites in meconium establishes fetal drug exposure. The effects on the babies after birth is obvious.

Judging from his various cut’n'pastes from scientific articles I doubt he understands, I think his argument is that women who smoke a lot of pot while pregnant risk harming their babies, so we should lock them up.  Wait’ll he sees the statistics on fetal alcohol syndrome!

In “Who Populates the Prison System“, John claims to debunk the idea pushed by “pro-drug advocates and their financial backers (Soros, Sperling, et al.)” that the prisons are filled with non-violent marijuana possessors:

# The massive numbers of people in prison for marijuana, are / were smugglers and distributors.

# These skewed facts ignore that when a person actually is incarcerated for simple possession, invariably it’s because they’ve cooperated and been allowed to plead to a lesser charge!

John doesn’t understand, though, that a “smuggler/distributor” of marijuana can be a pot possessor who made the mistake of keeping his two separate strains in two separate baggies, or keeps Ziploc sandwich baggies in his home, or owns a postal scale, or grew more than one plant, or keeps a legal firearm.  He also doesn’t realize that folks on parole or probation who get busted for possession technically go back to prison for their original crime, not the pot possession, so they don’t show up in statistics as pot prisoners.  But it is refreshing to see him admit that there are “massive numbers of people in prison for marijuana” as he beats up his strawman.

In “Losing Our Youth to Depression“, John explains that marijuana doesn’t treat depression, it causes depression:

The marijuana user is in a constant state of depression interspersed with “short bursts of feeling almost normal again.” The user, when he’s reached out and achieved that “high,” he has a temporary reprieve from that constant, marijuana-induced state of depression, but it returns as the “high” fades.

That’s the cause, the scenario . . . ; users seek, the non-depressed state, they perceive as a “high”. They’re wrong; it’s the state they were in before – it’s the absence of depression. Over and over, they’re drawn into the ‘fog of marijuana addiction’ which has caused them to perceive it wrongly. The user has unknowingly, only taken a step down a rung, on the ladder of normalcy!

So I’ll bet when John learns that the suicidal/homicidal Columbine shooters, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, and just about every high-profile school shooting you can name in the past twenty years involved depressed teens who were prescribed SSRI anti-depressants, he’ll be eager to pump out a few columns about how we should be locking up people in possession of Paxil, Effexor, Celexa, Prozac, Zoloft, Luvox, Anafranil, Lexapro, Wellbutrin, etc.

In “Addiction to cannabis and mental disorders“, John reveals the insidious evil of marijuana – the “potheads” are seducing our youth into their debauched lifestyle (I guess we’ve been borrowing strategy from the “gay agenda”):

The most convincing reason why potheads must remain criminals, why marijuana must remain illegal, is their targeting of children. That behavior in and of itself reveals that they suffer from a deep psychological insufficiency, a need to draw children into becoming like them – whether it’s a need to justify their own beliefs or some other motivation, it doesn’t matter! They’re damaging future generations and doing so intentionally.

You know who’s targeting children, John?  Pot dealers who aren’t required to check IDs, a million of whom are teenagers themselves.  You know who else targeted children?  Alcohol and tobacco companies with their “Budweiser Frogs” and “Joe Camel”, but since those drugs are legal, we were able to set strong advertising restrictions on those products, create effective anti-youth drinking and smoking educational campaigns, and reduced teen drinking and smoking to the lowest levels ever recorded.

In “What is wrong with smoking marijuana for medicinal purposes“, John cites a video of “Nathan Edelman” (he means Drug Policy Alliance’s Ethan Nadelmann), which is actually video of former NORML Director Richard Cowan taken way out of context to illustrate our alleged secret agenda of telling pot smokers to lie about how marijuana helps them medically so we can legalize all drugs (and, naturally, recruit the children into our debauched lifestyle).

When considering at this question, one must take into account two related issues: 1) that the whole plan to make marijuana legal was published in “High Times.” They issued a call, compelling users to come forward saying that pot helped their suffering.

And there’s another part: 2) that a survey showed that medical marijuana cardholders had been smoking pot for an average of 17 years! That in itself, brings the whole system under more suspicion – - – for what if, marijuana does cause one to think their “medicine” helps their condition when it is instead, actually causing or contributing to it?

Then, there’s two further question that needs to be asked:

1) What weed is smoked without the particulate matter, tars, and (over 400 chemical compounds in the smoke) not causing harm? The doctor’s oath is “First, do no harm.”

2) If people who were already breaking the law using an illicit drug for 17 years before the system allowed this pseudo-legal use, do they have the credibility to allow us to believe this actually helps?

If you were nauseous, in chronic pain, spastic, prone to seizures, or were losing your eyesight to glaucoma, and you smoked a joint 17 years ago and found it helped you medically, would you choose to live in misery for another 17 years until it became legal to use, just so you could have some credibility in John English’s view?

You can read more of my responses to John English in the comments sections of his articles in the hyperlinks above.  Feel free to leave some of your own comments, too.

Download link: NORML Daily Audio Stash for 2009-04-21

Download audio file (NORML_Daily_AudioStash_2009-04-21.mp3)

Hemp Headlines

1. Everything’s Better With a Bag of Weed – Family Guy “420″ Episode marks cultural turning point
2. Rick Steves Nominated for EMMY for pot program
3. New push in Ariz. for medical marijuana
4. MarijuanaNews.com: Mexican Congress Begins “The Debate On The Regulation of the Cannabis Plant in Mexico.” Richard Cowan A Guest Speaker

Government at Work

• Jonathan Leavitt from Maine Marijuana Policy Initiative on upcoming 2009 vote to fix Maine’s medical marijuana law.

Daily Toker Tunes by Marijuana Music Awards

• Message Monday – ‘420 International’ by THE INDIVIDUALS

Cannabis Conversations

• James Kowalsky from Northwestern University NORML/SSDP on their 420 Week of marijuana activism.

The Obama Administration is still doing the wrong thing, but it is doing it with the enthusiastic support of Mexican President Filipe Calderon, who is even more prohibitionist than former President Bush (and he speaks better English, too.)

Unfortunately, when he assumed office in 2006, Calderon really had no choice but to fight back against the narcotraficantes who had escalated their violence to a point that it was challenging the authority of the Mexican government.

Mexico is far from being a “failed state” – and it was understandably offended by being labeled as such – but it was losing control of many areas, most critically the border cities.

Calderon’s counterattack using the Mexican Army has generally been very popular, but now there are serious questions being raised about its long-term viability. The US will be providing Mexico with more weapons, but that does not mean that any military is suited for law enforcement, and there have already been serious allegations of civil rights violations in areas where the Army has taken over.

Moreover, in so far as the Mexican Army succeeds in reducing the flow of contraband, it is much more likely to reduce the quantity of marijuana than of hard drugs. That is what I have called the “Iron Law of Prohibition”, the harder the enforcement, the harder the drugs.

via MarijuanaNews.com : Mexican Congress Begins “The Debate On The Regulation of the Cannabis Plant in Mexico.” Richard Cowan A Guest Speaker.

Richard Cowan is a former executive director of NORML who represented our position in three days worth of discussions with the Mexican Congress.  Read his entire report at MarijuanaNews.com, his excellent news site on, well, figure it out.  Richard tells me the activists in Mexico are eager to organize.  I’ve been in contact with a few Mexicans who are also ready to get started with a Mexico chapter of NORML.

Berkeley National Conference 2008 | NORML’s Daily Audio Stash

Click the link above to get the latest dozen videos from the NORML CON 2008.  It’s the “How the Media Lie About Cannabis” Panel from Friday afternoon, featuring Richard Cowan, Paul Armentano, me, Ann Harrison, and Bruce Mirken.

Speaking of me, here I am!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Then we headed off to the breakout sessions.  I moderated a session on Tools for Activists: How to avoid Burnout.  Madeline Martinez, Executive Director of Oregon NORML discussed how to share the “attitude of gratitude” in cultivating a volunteer force.  Vivian McPeak, Executive Director of Seattle Hempfest, explained how he turned a political rally into the largest reform event in the world.  Dr. Mitch Earleywine employed some practical strategies for meditation and how to communicate the marijuana issue.  And Keith Saunders of MASS/CANN NORML talked about finding your identity as an activist.

Tonight is the Awards Banquet, which I’m also covering.  We’re generating a whole lot of audio and video and we’ll get as much of it on the tubes as we can as quick as we can.

Download audio file (NORML_Daily_AudioStash_2008-09-30.mp3)

Still working fourteen-hour days trying to get everything done for deadlines in three out of my five jobs.  (Reminds me of that In Living Color skit about the Jamaicans with sixteen jobs…)  NORML CON fast approaches and I have tasks for both NORML and Oregon NORML, as well as database work in my alter-ego life that’s gotta be done, on top of keeping up with the financial meltdown news and eagerly awaiting the Biden/Palin debate.

It’s a good time to be alive, and this kind of stress and mind-numbingly dull editing work would be impossible without the herb.  How much more productive would the American work force be if instead of alcohol and pharmaceutical mood drugs we were all using cannabis?

Today we take a look back with a couple of prior interviews, so we can look forward to NORML CON.  Both the interviewees are presenting at NORML CON.  Richard Cowan, former NORML Exec. Director and editor of Marijuana News talks about the death of his friend, conservative pundit William F. Buckley, and Bruce Mirken of the Marijuana Policy Project talks about the studies claiming marijuana smoking affects heart health.

Today we mourn the passing of a great pioneer in marijuana law reform, the conservative author William F. Buckley Jr, who passed away yesterday at the age of 82. Longtime friend Richard Cowan, the editor of Marijuana News.com and former executive director of NORML, joins us to remember his friend right after out Hemp Headlines.  [UPDATE: I believe I referred to Mr. Buckley as a "former advisory board member for NORML".  That is incorrect.  While Buckley was a stalwart opponent of marijuana prohibition back in the 1970s as NORML was born, Buckley was never officially on the Advisory Board of NORML.  I apologize for the error.]

Cannabis Karri brings us got some great music from a South African band with the perfect name for the Stash. It’s Chronic Clan, with a reggae/R&B tune called “Gimme da Weed”.

And don’t forget, Thursday is cannabis and the law day here on the Stash, so we finish out the podcast with civil rights attorney Bill Rittenberg from New Orleans and our discussion of the concept of States Rights and why that’s a problematic argument for medical marijuana… especially when argued in the South.

We’ve got a lot to cover, so sit back and relax with your favorite strain and enjoy your Daily Audio Stash…