DISCLAIMER: Information contained herein is for informational purposes only and should not be considered legal advise. Nor should it be taken that the USMjParty promotes any activity unless expressly implied by advertisement. All information is for informative reasons only!
Articles and links are provided for informational purposes only and believed to be reliable; however, in no way shall their presentation here be construed as a guarantee of their accuracy by USMjParty. If you detect any omissions, misstatements or errors, please contact us immediately.
The following issues are being posted for Students who have an interest in the U.S. Marijuana Party.
It is intended to answer the questions most often asked inquired about via emails and comments.
If you have further questions after reviewing this document, you may email me at ShereeKrider@usmjparty.com.
I hope that this will help to explain the issues that the USMjParty concerns itself with to Students and other interested individuals!
In order to gain some understanding of how the United States has come to be in the present day you must first review the history to understand how it progressed in the early days of its existence. Study history first!
WHILE READING THIS KEEP IN MIND THAT THE U.S. HAS HAD A PATENT ON MARIJUANA SINCE 2003: #6,630,507 October 7, 2003 Cannabinoids as antioxidants and neuroprotectants.
Why is MARIJUANA the slang term for Cannabis Sativa?
So why does the term “marijuana” dominate the discourse in the United Sates, while most people in Europe and large swaths of Latin America refer to the drug as cannabis, the botanical name for the plant?
The answer, in part, is found in the Mexican Revolution, which began in 1910. After the upheaval of the war, scores of Mexican peasants migrated to U.S. Border States, taking with them their popular form of intoxication, what they termed “mariguana.”
They encountered anti-immigrant fears throughout the Southwest — prejudices that intensified after the Great Depression. Analysts say this bigotry played a key role in instituting the first marijuana laws — aimed at placing social controls on the immigrant population.
But nobody played a larger role in cementing the word in the national consciousness than Harry Anslinger, director of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics from 1930 to 1962. An outspoken critic of the drug, he set out in the 1930s to place a federal ban on cannabis, embarking on a series of public appearances across the country. READ MORE HERE…
1. Why the Cannabis Sativa plant is considered a “drug”? (Why it is NOT a drug)!
Cannabis Sativa in its natural form is a plant much like Oregano or Catnip or any herbal plant. It would only be a drug if synthesized by the pharmaceutical companies to be so, which in fact was done previous to 1937 and also after 1996 by several countries who realized it’s potential.
Prior to 1937 Cannabis was available in many prescription forms and used worldwide for any number of medical conditions. http://www.antiquecannabisbook.com/
2. Why is Cannabis/Marijuana Illegal?
In 1937 the Marijuana Tax Act was put into place after Harry Anslinger promoted it as a “devil weed” and not fit for human consumption. Some of his critics allege that Anslinger and the campaign against marijuana had a hidden agenda: The E. I. DuPont De Nemours and Company industrial firm, petrochemical interests, and William Randolph Hearst together created the highly sensational anti-marijuana campaign to eliminate hemp as an industrial competitor. The DuPont Company and many industrial historians subsequently disputed any link between development of nylon and changes in the laws for hemp and marijuana.
The fact that for years we have blamed the eradication of marijuana on Harry Anslinger even though the LaGuardia commission refuted his findings and Harry Anslinger himself later admitted his testimony wasn’t true and in fact marijuana was relatively harmless, only proves that the rhetoric remained in place for ulterior motives.
Shortly after the 1937 Marihuana Tax Act went into effect on October 1, 1937, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and Denver City police arrested Moses Baca for possession and Samuel Caldwell for dealing. Baca and Caldwell’s arrest made them the first marijuana convictions under U.S. federal law for not paying the marijuana tax. Judge Foster Symes sentenced Baca to 18 months and Caldwell to four years in Leavenworth Penitentiary for violating the 1937 Marihuana Tax Act.
In 1969 Timothy Leary v. United States repealed the 1937 Marijuana Tax act as it violated the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution since a person seeking the tax stamp would have to incriminate himself by being in possession of the plant prior to purchasing the Tax Stamp. In response the Congress passed the Controlled Substances Act as Title II of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970. The 1937 Act was repealed by the 1970 Act. The Controlled Substance Act was required by the U.N. which established a “United Nations Fund for Drug Abuse Control.”
So by 1970 many natural growing plants were included in the CSA, and were put into Schedule 1 which included marijuana, mescaline (peyote), psilocybin, and Khat. Other drugs are also included in this list. These “drugs” had been put under the control of the United Nations via Treaties which the U.S. had signed on to.
“The Parties, recognizing the competence of the United Nations with respect to the international control of drugs, agree to entrust to the Commission on Narcotic Drugs of the Economic and Social Council, and to the International Narcotics Control Board, the functions respectively assigned to them under this Convention.”
3. Which Constitutional Right are we given which defends our ability to grow, smoke and consume Cannabis? (Marijuana Prohibition is a violation of the “Bill of Rights” because of which Amendment?)
The Bill of Rights is the collective name for the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution.
Marijuana Prohibition is unconstitutional because it violates the Bill of Rights.
15 Ways Pot Prohibition Wrecks Your Bill of Rights
First Amendment: Freedom of speech, unless you want to advertise your marijuana shop. Freedom of religion, unless you’re a Rastafarian. Freedom of press, except when they want to put HIGH TIMES behind the counter. Freedom of assembly, unless you’re on probation for pot and can’t associate with marijuana users. Petition the government, like NORML and ASA have done for decades and been denied all the way, even when the government’s own judges agree with them.
Second Amendment: Right to bear arms, except that owning even a legal firearm while committing pot “crimes” like possession with intent to deliver makes you eligible for enhanced sentences, including life in prison in some states.
Third Amendment: Government can’t force you to house its soldiers during peacetime. But worse than a soldier in your house is the electronic tracking devices cops can put on your car in your own driveway without a warrant or your knowledge if they suspect you’re a grower.
Fourth Amendment: Protection against unreasonable search and seizure, unless a human or canine cop can smell (or pretend to smell) marijuana near you. Requirement for search warrants based on probable cause, which can be a rat fingering you for a grow you don’t have, leading to a no-knock SWAT raid that kills your dog and terrifies your children.
Fifth Amendment: Your right to due process, so long as you don’t mention your legal state medical marijuana use in a federal court proceeding. Your right against self-incrimination, other than the contents of your urine on a drug test incriminating you for pot “crimes”.
Sixth Amendment: Your right to fair and speedy public trial, which can mean waiting over three years for a trial without bail if you’re THC Ministry’s Roger Christie. Your right to confront your accusers, which is difficult when your accuser is a K-9 who claimed your trunk was full of pot — how do you cross-examine a dog?
Seventh Amendment: Right to trial by jury in civil cases where the controversy is over twenty bucks or more, unless you were thinking about suing your dealer for contaminated weed or short weights.
Eighth Amendment: No excessive fines or bail, unless you’re a medical marijuana grower facing millions of dollars of both. No cruel and unusual punishment, so long as you don’t consider jailing patients without their medicine and allowing them to die in their prison cell as “cruel and unusual.”
Ninth Amendment: The protection of rights not enumerated in the Constitution, which was the Founders’ way of saying “We couldn’t write down ALL of the rights the people have!” Those rights must include a personal right to farm hemp, because why wouldn’t a bunch of hemp farmers in an agrarian economy that required planting of hemp and payment of taxes in hemp consider that a right? They could never even possibly conceive that some future government would want to ban it!
Tenth Amendment: The “States Rights” amendment — unless your state has voted to allow medical use of marijuana and the operation of marijuana dispensaries.
Thirteenth Amendment: Abolishes slavery and involuntary servitude, but has a loophole that allows those practices if you’re convicted of a marijuana “crime”, so you can work for 11-cents-an-hour for a private prison corporation.
Fourteenth Amendment: The “Equal Protection” amendment that protects your civil rights as you travel from state to state, unless you’re a medical marijuana patient who’d like to use her medicine on a trip outside her state or the five that recognize other states’ cards.
Fifteenth Amendment: Protects the right to vote from discrimination based on race or color, except for all those mostly black and Latino people busted for drug felonies who lose their right to vote, some for life.
Nineteenth Amendment: Established the right to vote for women, except those wives and girlfriends of drug dealers who knew little to nothing about the “crimes,” had nobody to snitch on, and ended up doing longer felony sentences than the husbands or boyfriends, losing the right to vote in the process.
Twenty-Sixth Amendment: Established the right to vote for 18-20-year-olds, except that the drug war disproportionately targets young people, saddles them with an arrest record, and those with felonies lose their right to vote.
That’s 15 of the 27 Amendments to the Constitution that have been wrecked by the War on Marijuana. Don’t let anyone tell you repealing prohibition isn’t a civil rights issue.
Furthermore,
Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food… Genesis 1:29
ALL plants are considered FOOD!
Things which are not in commerce, as public roads, are in their nature unalienable.
The Declaration of Independence reads: “That all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights…”
You cannot surrender, sell or transfer unalienable rights, they are a gift from the creator to the individual and cannot under any circumstances be surrendered or taken.
All individuals have unalienable rights.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.-–That to secure these Governments are instituted among rights, Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to affect their Safety and Happiness.
The first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution—the ones that protect everything from free speech to due process—originated as a series of bills in Congress. They were drafted by future president James Madison, at the time a congressman from Virginia. Madison also wrote the text of the Constitution, which had established a system of limited government but hadn’t explicitly protected individual rights. With the Bill of Rights, it now did both. READ MORE
4. How will we end the war on drugs and which drugs will we defend? And Legalize ALL drugs or just Cannabis?
Probably the best thing we can do right is to demand cannabis sativa and any naturally growing plant removed from United Nations control and the Controlled Substance Act in the U.S.
Additionally, Agenda 21 needs to be eliminated as it stands now. No entity should be allowed total control over plants and food, especially those grown in our own garden.
However, it is a fact that any type of food or medicine created and/or sold by a corporate entity has to be governed. Their entire purpose is to make money and they will do anything to accomplish that including selling us pink slime for meat. That is what should be governed.
It seems to me that the FDA is not doing its job correctly. Protect the people’s rights, not the corporations.
5. Explain Prohibition of all drugs as controlled substances?
The U.N. 1961 convention on narcotic drugs essentially set into motion the drug war as we know it today. All “Drugs” in general are now under the control of the U.N. Although Pharmaceutical drugs should definitely be controlled, naturally growing plants should NOT be, at least in their natural form. But when you take a plant and synthesize it into a pharmaceutical drug it has to be regulated and controlled because it is made by corporate entities and sold to patients (i.e., customers via commerce).
6. Will legalizing Marijuana cause the streets to be more hazardous with intoxicated drivers?
To date there has been no scientific way to measure intoxication by marijuana. Although it is possible to detect THC in blood or urine testing it is NOT yet possible to determine a level of intoxication. Until there is a scientific way to measure intoxication of marijuana it will be left to the people using this plant to decide on their own if they are intoxicated or not before they get behind the steering wheel of a vehicle.
The best way to determine that is to not drive a vehicle if you have been actively using marijuana within the last few hours before you drive. Know your own limitations! Take responsibility upon yourself to know when not to drive and do not depend upon testing to confirm that for you!
There have been a number of studies done on marijuana intoxication. Some of them claim that there IS intoxication when smoking cannabis and some of them do not recognize intoxication by cannabis.
My own rule has always been that I will NOT consume marijuana and drive ANYWHERE!
Although my blood test would certainly show THC from smoking cannabis I assure you that I will NOT be intoxicated while I am driving and I tell EVERYONE not to drive intoxicated on anything.
Below is an article which claims that Marijuana is much safer than Alcohol when it comes to impairment and I would have to agree with that. However, it is not in anyone’s best interest to drive after having recently smoked cannabis!
A new study from Denmark confirms what cannabis advocates have said for years — marijuana is much safer than other substances when it comes to driving impairment. When it comes to driving under the influence, alcohol is still the most deadly drug.
The results were published online in the scientific journal Accident Analysis & Prevention. They show that with a blood alcohol level of 1.2 g/L (0.12 percent BAC) or higher are 30 times more likely to get in a serious accident than drivers with any amount of cannabis in their system.
– See more at: http://hemp.org/news/content/study-cannabis-least-risky-drug-driving#sthash.2nu3IZTf.UgysWC5K.dpuf
7. Should Alcohol and Tobacco remain legal being that they cause so many deaths each year?
YES is the short answer to that question. The reason is that I do not believe in making ‘substances’ illegal is that morality should not be governed except to the extent that it could hurt someone else. Just because something is immoral does not make it illegal, and just because something is legal does not make it moral.
For example: Abortion is currently legal in the U.S. That does not mean that it is moral to me.
Gambling is currently legal in a number of States and in the U.S. That does not mean that it is moral to me.
Cannabis is ILLEGAL federally and in over half of the States in ANY form. That DOES NOT mean that it is IMMORAL to me!
People have to have the right to live as they so choose as long as they are not hurting anyone else in the process. The reason why we make laws is to protect other people from our immoral and dangerous activities. If we so choose to drink alcohol, have an abortion, or climb Mt. Everest, that is what we are doing to our own body, not someone else. That has to remain our own decision.
8. The 5 key issues I need your stance on are the economy, military and war, healthcare, crime, and taxes. Could you give me a very brief stance on each of those issues?
The U.S. Marijuana Party has a limited Platform, meaning that we do not as yet cover all issues in respect to government. We are still in our ‘infancy’ as far as a platform goes. What we DO care about is our citizen’s Constitutional rights, Human rights, and we most certainly believe in the Repeal of all laws governing the private growing and use of Cannabis/Marijuana and Hemp!
That being said there are a few issues which we have given thought to which are:
Second Amendment rights, Freedom to possess firearms, and freedom to carry said firearms, as well as freedom to protect one’s own life and property. The Second Amendment provides for the Citizens of the United States to be able to possess firearms. This is fact and shall remain fact. EVERYONE has the right to protect his life, family and liberty.
Coal Mining, Coal Ash, Mountain Top Removal Mining, Oil Drilling, Natural Gas Drilling to be regulated and enforced via an independent panel of Citizens who do not hold a claim to any corporate entity involved in any type of Coal or Fossil Fuels.
Abortion Issue – Although the USMjParty does not endorse the use of so called “abortion clinics” nor the acts thereof, it places neither blame nor legal claim against anyone for said “need” nor the “act of obtaining” an abortion.
This is to remain confidential information between the patient and Physician, and the regulation should be limited to and comprised of the normal requirements for any Physician or Medical Clinic to operate.
Gambling Casino’s – Although the USMjParty does not endorse “gambling” it will hold no legal claim against the operation of any Casino(s) and this will be regulated at the State level by a reputable entity and taxed by a reputable Government entity to be overseen via an Independent Panel of Citizens who hold no claim against any Casino.
Drug Use and Abuse Issue’s (excluding Marijuana/Cannabis/Hemp) Please refer to link below.
Health Care Coverage PROPOSAL: THIS PLAN IS SUBMITTED TO THE PEOPLE AND OPEN FOR DISCUSSION: PLEASE LEAVE YOUR COMMENTS OR SUGGESTIONS! Please refer to link below.
Pollution Standards – Whereas the United States has had insufficient monitoring of its pollution of all kinds and as a result thereof caused undue illness and imposed upon its citizens unfair damage to their right to enjoyment of life because of said pollution,
The Organization proposes that those persons living in high risk areas be offered/given the resources necessary to move out of those areas which are a threat to their health and welfare due to pollution of the air and/or ground coming from area industries and utilities.
Death Penalty Issue – Be it known that there will be an immediate request to the Supreme Court for a moratorium on the “Death Penalty” in the United States.
Interesting Links:
“Rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to purposes and principles of the United Nations.” HOW THE UNITED NATIONS IS STEALING OUR “UNALIENABLE RIGHTS” TO GROW FOOD AND MEDICINE THROUGH THE U.N. CONVENTION ON NARCOTIC DRUGS AND AGENDA 21. READ HERE
Founding Fathers from James Madison to Thomas Jefferson and
John Adams assembled in taverns alongside other colonists.
Jefferson may have authored the Declaration of Independence at a
Philadelphia tavern. READ MORE
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee v. ROGER CUSICK CHRISTIE Defendant-Appellant Notwithstanding the district court’s findings that Defendants presented evidence sufficient to establish their prima facie RFRA (Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993) case…
An Argument for Drug Legalization — American Civil Liberties Union
From Moral Issues that Divide Us and Applied Ethics: A Sourcebook
U.S. Marijuana Party 