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Dana Beal <dana@...> wrote:
To: greenpartydrugsgroup@...
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From: Dana Beal
Date: Sat, 6 Mar 2004 18:36:40 -0500
Subject: [mayday] MMM 2004 #14: Nader Causes Kerry to Lose, Sez Poll; Marysville
Makes 132 Cities on the Spring Offensive!
So far, 132 Cities are Signed up for 2004 .MAYDAY IS JAY-DAY!(This year, the first Saturday of May falls on May 1. We are recommending Sunday, May 2 or Monday May 3 in cities where there is significant conflict with other local events--or as a rain date. Of course, we understand that some schools have to do it on 4/20 because their school year is over by May, and that some northern cities have to do it a little later in May...)albany
albuquerqueamherstamsterdamashlandathensatlantaaucklandaustinbakersfieldbaselbergenberlinberneboonebratislavabremenbuenos airesbuffaloburlingtoncapetownchico
christchurch
cincinnaticlevelandcolognecolumbiadallasdarmstadtdarwindaytondes moines
detroit
doverdublindunedineau claireeugenefairbanksfayettevilleflintfrankfurtft. lauderdalegenevahalifaxhearsthelsinkihilohoustonhullkansas citykingstonkristiansandlansinglas vegaslausannelebanonleipzigleonlevinlexingtonlimalondnnlucernemarlysvillemexico cityminneapolismissoulamontpeliemontrealmoscownapiernashvillenewarknew orleansnewtonnew yorknimbinogdenomahaorlandooslopaducahparisparkersburgperthphiladelphiaphoenixportlandportlandpotsdampragueraleigh-durhamrapid cityrichmondrio de janeroroanokeromerosariosacramentosalt lake citysan diegosan franciscosan juansan marcossao paulospokanespringfieldstavangerst. louissturgeon fallstallahasseetampatel avivthunder baytorontotokyotraverse citytrondheimtucsontupeloturkuupper lakevancouverventuraviennawashington, d.c.wellingtonwichitawilmingtonyuba cityzurichHelp us reach our goal of 300 cities worldwide!To get on the poster for 2004--"Mayday is Jay Day"--check yr contact info and email me back telling me to add yr city to the List at the top of this email. By the way, I lost about three weeks email not long after last year's event, and have had intermittent email service since that time.. Did anything happen on the first Saturday of May in your area? Numbers? Arrests? Media? Anything of interest happen, etc?You can also call me at 212-677-4899--or leave a message on 212-677-7180.
Dana/cnwP.S.: We are also interested in adding to our list of prestigious endorsers, which consists of pot activists well-known in their city or country. We need a name and phone number for each. Any suggestions?P.P.S: We need on average $100 for each affiliate to print and ship this year's poster. If you can't send it, we have to raise it somewhere else.HELP RAISE MONEY FOR THE MILLION MARIJUANA MARCH--BOOK A YIPPIE SPEAKER!
Recently we wrote you that we need on average $100 for each affiliate to print and ship this year's poster--and that if you can't send it, we have to raise it somewhere else.
You can help. Go to http://www.yippiespeakers.com Here's the good news: 20% of all speaker fees go to printing and operating expenses for the MMM 2004. (If you can get me booked personally it's 100%.)Some of these speakers like Grace Slick and Hunter Thompson get $25,000 just for appearing at yr local university! (Some like Dennis Peron are available for a few thousand) Your local group gets 4% finders' fee.
What we need you to do is contact yr local on-campus activists and have them agitate their student affairs folks in charge of outside speakers (or equivalent) to book some of our speakers. It's important to clarify that we are NOT asking them to get this from the budget of their NORML or SSDP chapter, but from the campus office that books outside speakers. (At Kent State they call it the Office of Student Life, and they paid me $4,000 for a three hour appearance, which went straight to the printer.)
It's a good year for it. Things have come full-circle for Yippie! We have all the elements--an illegitimate Republican President everyone hates at home, a quagmire war abroad--for the first time since the '70's. And best of all, even though all our speakers support cannabis and oppose the drug war, they are Yippie, not legalization speakers, so you won't have to deal with demands from the university administration that you find some anti-drug speaker for "Balance" or you don't get the booking. (Since we are moving toward protests against the Republican Convention in NYC next August, to be fair they'd have to demand an opponent of protests, period, which is absurd.)If you have a hot prospect, email me right back; but since about half of everything sent to this address "bounces", be sure to also put in a call to the speakers bureau at 212-677-7180, and leave a message if no one picks up.Dana/cnw*****!!!Cannabis Liberation Day--Mayday Weekend 2004: Updates, Reports!!!*****David Crosby Arrested in New York
NEW YORK - Musician David Crosby (news) was arrested on marijuana and gun possession charges early Saturday at a Times Square hotel, police said. Crosby, 62, a two-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, had checked out of the hotel but left a piece of luggage behind, police said.
A hotel worker found the bag and went through it looking for identification, and called police after finding marijuana, a .45-caliber handgun and two knives, authorities said.
Crosby was met by police when he returned to pick up the bag, investigators said.
Crosby, a founding member of both the Byrds and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, had been performing at the B.B. King Blues Club off Times Square and at Shea Auditorium in Wayne, N.J.
In 1985 he was convicted of drug possession in Dallas and spent a year in prison before his conviction was overturned on appeal.Calls seeking comment from Crosby's management company were not immediately returned Saturday.------From: mmcmahon@...
Announcing
The Third National Clinical Conference on Cannabis Therapeutics:
Use Throughout the Life Span
Jointly Sponsored by the University of Virginia School of Medicine
& Patients Out of Time
May 20-22, 2004
Omni Hotel, Charlottesville, Virginia
For information and registration go to www.medicalcannabis.com or call 434 243-5703
George McMahon
5th American in 62 yrs to have Federal
permission and supply of medical marijuana
-------From: Baren1@...Whats up?
I wanted to update contact for Flint March.Remove Reverend Happy and add FlintNORML and email address FlintNORML@...Also, we are expecting awesome march in Flint this year. Noon-Dusk including 9 musical acts, speakers, and a 4:20 march to City Hall.
Thanks
Brian Morrissey
baren1@...FlintNORML@...----------Marijuana Bill Set Aside Before It Gets a Hearing By Leslie Griffy
Source: Chicago Sun-Times March 03, 2004
Springfield -- A House panel Tuesday shelved legislation allowing some terminally ill
patients access to marijuana amid concerns about street availability of illegal drugs.
The House Health Care Availability and Access Committee sent the politically sensitive
election-year bill to a subcommittee -- equivalent to a legislative wasteland -- before
hearing testimony.Read More... http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread18436.shtml---------From: bcmcp95954@...Hello!
I see you listed Yuba City. THANK YOU! They really need support in that area! To further our efforts to make this effective in Yuba City/Marysville, what do you need from us? Our general plan was to start the walk in Marysville, crossing the Feather River (theYuba & Sutter County Lines) into Yuba City, passing thru downtown to it's new town center. This is a great twin city/bi-county thing!
Yuba County is somewhat working with its patients, Sutter Co. across the river is turning a blind eye, hoping MMJ will go away. Well, it's time to wave a hand at them and let them know it will not go away!
Darren Courtney
Founder/Director
Butte County Medical Cannabis Project
P.O. Box 438
Magalia, CA 95954
530-873-1377
Director
Butte County
American Alliance for Medical Cannabis
Point Person for Butte, Yuba, Sutter & Glenn Counties
Safe Access Now
Butte Contact
Americans for Safe Access
From: yuba_sutter_mmm@...Here is the contact info requested for the Yuba/Sutter March.
We get a heavy load of emails at our primary email, so, here is an alternate, so we can focus directly on the march.
The march will start at Noon, in Marysville (Yuba County side) at the Vietnam Vets Memorial, which will move accross the Feather River on the ped walk way, which passes by the Sutter Co. Courthouse. The march will continue down B Street to the Fountain at the Yuba City Town Center (Sutter County side). At the fountain, we will wrap up with testmonies, music(pending:contacting city on this), networking, sharing and caring.Any further information please contact us!yuba_sutter_mmm@...530-864-2964*************************BUSHWHACKED!!****************************Air Force One Phone Records Subpoenaed
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/030604A.shtml
------From: sguttman@...If We Lose The Power Of Electing Our Representatives, We Are Severely Hampered In Protecting Our Environment and Rights!
--If you received the urgent action from verifiedvoting.org please also look over this post since there are extra urgent easy actions below!] Please Forward (feel free to add your own words and/or edit)--
If we don't pass Verified Voting--HR2239 and S.1980-- soon, election 2004 could have serious errors and/or be hacked on a mass scale and we might not even know it according to computer experts! http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F00914F63A5D0C708EDDA80894DC404482 VerifiedVoting.org says: "There are two other voting bills before the Senate, and neither Clinton's nor Boxer's will give us a paper-trail by November [as S.1980 would!]. Friendly legislators tell us that H.R.2239 is not likely to see much progress until the Representatives know which bill will emerge in the Senate." As a result "It is crucial To Get Co-sponsors Immediately For S.1980, Graham's companion bill in the Senate" So far Schumer (NY) and Nelson (Fl) have co-sponsored.
Please Do As Many of These Easy Urgent Action Items that you can Now and/or Bookmark These Pages and Save This Email for doing the rest ASAP
Actions
(1) Contact your Senators and encourage them to co-sponsor with Graham's bill -
S.1980. Go here for guidelines and toll free number: http://tinyurl.com/2xtpa
(2) Make a donation to VerifiedVoting.org and help with the costs of the
campaign. Click here to donate now: https://www.verifiedvoting.org/Donate/ and let VerifiedVoting.org know if If you have fundraising and/or skills/contacts to develop a TV commercial for them http://www.verifiedvoting.org/contact.asp
(3)Verified Voting is Sending In Their Open Letter to the House
Administration Committee [where HR2239 is now stuck], urging the committee to release H.R.2239 to the
floor and support its passage. If you haven't already done so please sign this letter by March 8th. This is the letter http://verifiedvoting.org/article.asp?id=882
then click here for YOU to endorse http://verifiedvoting.org/endorse_checkmail.asp
and click here for an ORGANIZATION to endorse http://www.verifiedvoting.org/hr2239_s1980_add_endorsement.asp
(4) Boxer and Clinton should be called (even by non-constituents since this is a national issue--but let them know if you are a constituent) to encourage them to co-sponsor ASAP with Graham rather than push their own inadequate bill. Don't forget to be polite and thank them for their interest in verified voting, but tell them that only Graham's bill will give us a paper trail by the election November and so they must co-sponsor with Graham if we are to have any trust in Elections and Democracy !
Boxer, Barbara (202) 224-3553/Fax (415) 956-6701
Clinton, Hillary (202) 224-4451/Fax (202) 228-0282
(5)For the House Bill, you can also call Pelosi--House Leader 1 800-839-5276. and insist that she, as minority leader, co-sponsor H.R.2239 and encourage other Democrats to co-sponsor. The number of co-sponsors for the House Bill is now up to 125 and the bill is endorsed by the Democratic National Comittee, the NY Times and the LA Times.
(6) New Quick Action: Pre-written email (but try to use your own words):Tell News Executives today that the problem of e-voting is a story they can't ignore.
http://www.mediafordemocracy.us/campaign/evote
(7) Send an email to head of League of Women's Voters to urge them to support paper trail --at present she doesn't think this is necessary--this rebuttal will give you talking points http://www.leagueissues.org/lwvqa.html This is her email KMaxwell@... If you are a member of the League, please sign this petition http://www.leagueissues.org/#Part3
(5) Tell these civil rights organizations to support HR2239 and S1980 This includes the ACLU, Common Cause, People for the American Way, and others. These are great groups:If you can, give them a few dollars and then tell them as a member you are outraged that they are not taking on this cause or tell them you would join if they took on this cause!
--Leadership Council on Civil Rights http://www.civilrights.org/about/contact_us/#contact
--Common Cause grassroots@... 202/833-1200 1-800-926-1064 http://www.commoncause.org/forms/contactus.htm GEORGIA ALERT Common Cause Georgia has taken the position that voting irregularities http://www.commoncause.org/states/test/default.cfm?state=GA 404.601.9901
--ACLU has a voting rights division--the link to their comment page is http://www.aclu.org/feedback/feedback.cfm 404-523-2721
--People for the American Way 202-467-4999 or 800-326-7329 * pfaw@... http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=162
(7) Quick Free pre-written Fax (you can add your own words) to Senators about S.1980
http://action.eff.org/action/index.asp?step=2&item=2848
(8) Quick Free pre-written Fax (you can add your own words) to Congressperson about HR2239
http://action.eff.org/action/index.asp?step=2&item=2821
(9)Call House Members with Toll Free Number
http://www.verifiedvoting.org/resources/hr2239_volunteers/hr2239_effort.asp
(10) For instructions on Lobbying
http://www.verifiedvoting.org/volunteers/
For More Info see http://www.verifiedvoting.org/
-------Bush's RecordLaw Enforcement:
I was arrested in Kennebunkport, Maine, in 1976 for driving under the
influence of alcohol. I pled guilty, paid a fine, and had my driver's
license suspended for 30 days. My Texas driving record has been "lost" and is not available.
Military:
I joined the Texas Air National Guard and went AWOL. I refused to take a
drug test or answer any questions about my drug use. By joining the
Texas Air National Guard, I was able to avoid combat duty in Vietnam.
College:
I graduated from Yale University with a low C average. I was a cheerleader.
PAST WORK EXPERIENCE:
I ran for U.S. Congress and lost. I began my career in the oil business
in Midland,Texas, in 1975.
I bought an oil company, but couldn't find any oil in Texas. The company
went bankrupt shortly after I sold all my stock. I bought the Texas
Rangers baseball team in a sweetheart deal that took land using taxpayer money.
With the help of my father and our friends in the oil industry
(including Enron CEO Ken Lay), I was elected governor of Texas.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS AS GOVERNOR OF TEXAS
I changed Texas pollution laws to favor power and oil companies, making
Texas the most polluted state in the Union. During my tenure, Houston
replaced Los Angeles as the most smog-ridden city in America.
I cut taxes and bankrupted the Texas treasury to the tune of billions in borrowed money.
I set the record for the most executions by any governor in American history.
With the help of my brother, the governor of Florida, and my father's
appointments to the Supreme Court, I became President after losing by over 500,000 votes.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS AS PRESIDENT:
I am the first President in U.S. history to enter office with a criminal record.
I invaded and occupied two countries at a continuing cost of over one billion dollars
per week.
I spent the U.S. surplus and effectively bankrupted the U.S. Treasury.
I shattered the record for the largest annual deficit in U.S. history.
I set an economic record for most private bankruptcies filed in any 12-month period.
I set the all-time record for most foreclosures in a 12-month period.
I set the all-time record for the biggest drop in the history of the U.S. stock market.
In my first year in office, over 2 million Americans lost their jobs and that trend continues every month.
I'm proud that the members of my cabinet are the richest of any administration in U.S.
history. My "poorest millionaire," Condoleeza Rice, has a Chevron oil tanker named after her. I set the record for most campaign fund-raising trips by a U.S. President.
I am the all-time U.S. and world record-holder for receiving the most corporate campaign donations. My largest lifetime campaign contributor, and one of my best friends, Kenneth Lay, presided over the largest corporate bankruptcy fraud in U.S. History, Enron.My political party used Enron private jets and corporate attorneys to assure my success with the U.S. Supreme Court during my election decision. I have protected my friends at Enron and Halliburton against investigation or prosecution. More time and money was spent investigating the Monica Lewinsky affair than has been spent investigating one of the biggest corporate rip- offs in history.
I presided over the biggest energy crisis in U.S. history and refused to intervene when corruption involving the oil industry was revealed. I presided over the highest gasoline prices in U.S. history.
I changed the U.S. policy to allow convicted criminals to be awarded government contracts.
I appointed more convicted criminals to administration than any President in U.S. history.
I created the Ministry of Homeland Security, the largest bureaucracy in the history of the United States government.
I've broken more international treaties than any President in U.S. history.
I am the first President in U.S. history to have the United Nations remove the U.S. from the Human Rights Commission.
I withdrew the U.S. from the World Court of Law.
I refused to allow inspector's access to U.S. "prisoners of war" detainees and thereby have refused to abide by the Geneva Convention.
I am the first President in history to refuse United Nations election inspectors (during the 2002 U.S. election).
I set the record for fewest numbers of press conferences of any President since the advent of television.
I set the all-time record for most days on vacation in any one-year period. After taking off the entire month of August, I presided over the worst security failure in U.S. history.
I garnered the most sympathy for the U.S. after the World Trade Center attacks and less than a year later made the U.S. the most hated country in the world, the largest failure of diplomacy in world history.
I have set the all-time record for most people worldwide to simultaneously protest me
in public venues (15 million people), shattering the record for protests against any person in the history of mankind.
I am the first President in U.S. history to order an unprovoked, pre-emptive attack and the military occupation of a sovereign nation. I did so against the will of the United Nations, the majority of U.S. citizens, and the world community.
I have cut health care benefits for war veterans and support a cut in duty benefits for active duty troops and their families -- in wartime. In my State of the Union Address, I lied about our reasons for attacking Iraq and then blamed the lies on our British friends.
I am the first President in history to have a majority of Europeans (71%) view my presidency as the biggest threat to world peace and security.
I am supporting development of a nuclear "Tactical Bunker Buster," a WMD.
I have so far failed to fulfill my pledge to bring Osama Bin Laden to justice.
RECORDS AND REFERENCES:
All records of my tenure as governor of Texas are now in my father's library, sealed and unavailable for public view.
All records of SEC investigations into my insider trading and my bankrupt companies are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.
All records or minutes from meetings that I, or my Vice-President, attended regarding public energy policy are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public review.
PLEASE CONSIDER MY EXPERIENCE WHEN VOTING IN 2004.SEND THIS TO EVERY VOTER YOU KNOW.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------Join the Kerry Drug War Thread: http://forum.johnkerry.com//index.php?showtopic=8035&hl=drug+war+threadReading that same Giordano piece http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread18418.shtml on Kerry's drug war position, which the rest of you apparently only mined for its cannnabis content, I came across the following, which is considerably broader than than medical marijuana, and speaks to a lot of the other concerns that have been raised here:
QUOTE
JK: We have never had a legitimate War on Drugs in the United States, ever, and we won't until we have treatment on demand for addiction and until you have full drug education in our schools. The mandatory-minimum-sentencing structure of our country is funneling people into jail who have no business being there.
Of course the only way you'll ever have on-demand treatment is to fast-track FDA approval of Ibogaine, the way AIDS drugs were fast-tracked. All the other modalities necessitate huge waiting lists, because they're so time-consuming, because they don't really WORK.
QUOTE
The last one just committed suicide because she was heartbroken about the fact that her daughter died two years ago from a coke OD. She was also financially bankrupt from all of the clinics and rehab programs that she put her daughter in over a period of six years.
Any effective medical treatment for the broad spectrum of addictions addressed by Ibogaine would quickly become the new gold standard of treatment (a niche now occupied by methadone), changing the whole way addiction is looked at, which is why I disagree to some extent with you, Sandy:
QUOTE
I said the purpose of treatment is to get people to recognize and accept that they're an addict. Nobody is going to take Ibogaine unless they recognize and accept that they're an addict. You can't force medication on people. Treatment would still be necessary, so it makes no sense to say the treatment industry wants to block Ibogaine.
We've encountered all kinds of resistance and skepticism in the treatment community, much of it based on the understandable reluctance to assimilate a radically new approach. Its not just a matter of
QUOTE
those who rant against the crazy liberals who want treatment instead of prison sentences, even though the majority thinks the way we're approaching the drug problem is stupid.
If you can imagine the resistence of docs whose whole training is to manage opioid addiction with opiates, think of how much more controversial use of a psychedelic to treat addiction is going to be with church-based NA's in Texas, the main purpose of which is to deter pot use.
QUOTE
Since cannabis prohibition causes the greatest increase in forced treatment and arrests each year it is the driving force behind the drug war. They are in many respects indivisible. The war on drugs is in large part a war on cannabis consumers.
Installation of Ibogaine as the new standard of treatment will revolutionize everything. Number one, the main beneficiaries will be alcoholics and nicotine addicts--because that's where the numbers are. Number two, it will finally force the public to differentiate cannabis from the other drugs, because Ibogaine is ineffective against cannabis (due to the fact that both are glutamate antagonists (blockers). In Canada and Holland, cannabis is even used as an adjuvant treatment WITH Ibogaine--for the nausea.
After Ibogaine treatment, people even frequently replace all other drugs with a mono-diet of marijuana, so that you could make the argument Ibogaine will eventually lead to cannabis replacing alcohol and cigarettes.
Strictly pharmacologically speaking, of course.
What people on this tread also have to understand is the tactical relevance of Ibogaine to another concern voiced on this list:
QUOTE
You can also throw your vote away on Nader, who on paper all of a sudden has a Kucinich-like position that was not part of his 2000 platform (which was just "anti-corporate"). A vote for Nadir which re-elects Bush will not end the drug war, no matter how peachy his cribbed platform (which he stole from Kucinich and us) is.
At the shadow convention in Philadelphia in 2000, I was running a Cures not Wars table when who should appear but Ralph, accompanied by Ethan Nadelman. I walked up and said, Hi, I'm the guy who first acquainted you with industrial hemp, gave you Jack Herer's book in 1989, and (handing him the IBOGAINE STORY) said, this is really important, just as important as the book on hemp I gave you eleven years ago.
And he mumbled some stuff about hemp, and without bothering to ask what it was about, handed the book to Nadelman, who I guess stuffed it down the memory hole. What they talked about as they walked away, I can surmise only by what happened 14 months later at the Students for Sensible Drug Policy Conference, when Nader was asked an intelligent question about Ibogaine as a cure for addiction, and replied--
"I don't take club drugs like ecstasy, because I'm personally anti-drug even though I'm for legalization."
Nadelman had obviously bent his ear about Ric Doblin's MAPS-backed clinical trials of MDMA for unipolar depression, diverting the conversation from Ibogaine trails for the treatment of addiction, so that all Nader remembers is that X and Ibogaine were somehow connected.
I couldn't make this up! I'm trying to get the video of this to put it on our website. We plan to campaign against Nader nationwide using this gaffe as ammunition in the fall, using the entire Million Marijuana March network, in all 140 U.S. cities.
Kucinich did the same thing BTW. Handed it to an aide and didn't even bother to ask, "What is this?" Theresa Heinz at least read it and came back and ask for more copies. So don't go just on what people's written positions are. We need politicians who LISTEN.
I'm also going to send you the link to the HDTV version of CSI. It's much better without the commercials.Dana/cnw---QUOTE
With regard to getting Ibogaine approved for patient use as well as the recent comments on Ecstasy, this article seems to indicate that the feds think that "X" is more worthy of approval that "I"
http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread18429.shtml
No, all it shows is that the legalization movement has sidelined Ibogaine, while funding Ric Doblin to get his favorite drug into clinical trials first. They like X personally, you see, whereas the Ibogaine project is much more strategic, intended to transform the whole drugs landscape completely. So the only people who've been interested in it are the genuine proponents of treatment on demand, as opposed to those who say: Just legalize, and let it all hang out.
Legalization advocates have always been put off by the fact that Ibogaine is not a "fun" drug that we were promoting "medically" (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) because we really wanted to do some ourselves. (Just love that nausea, and the sleep paralysis--there's a REAL high!)
I'm not for locking people up for X, but as I first told Ric, it's really just a speed, and will never have one tenth the medical potential of cannabis or iboga. And my favorite drugs are pot and beer.
QUOTE
I Think we are wasting our time with Mr Kerry. He's not for marijuana REFORM. we need to find someone who is. Nader?
You've got to be kidding. See my last post. Nader is personally MORE intolerant, with LESS true understanding of the ins and outs of this problem than Kerry.
QUOTE
While I am sure that Sen Kerry will make an infinitely better president than the one we have now, I would be interested to find out how much he has received in contributions from law enforcement, prison and drug-testing interests, and pharmaceutical companies. It may give some idea of how much change we can expect.
Let me see. Terry Heinz owns a ketchup company. Don't the Bush and Quayle families share a controlling stake in Eli Lilly & Co?
QUOTE
I am also still wondering about his record as a prosecutor with regards to how many people he convicted of simple possession.
Once against, look at the Rolling Stone interview:
RS: And every year, the number of people arrested for marijuana offenses goes up.
JK: I've met plenty of people in my lifetime who've used marijuana and who I would not qualify as serious addicts -- who use about the same amount as some people drink beer or wine or have a cocktail. I don't get too excited by any of that.
RS: Would you favor decriminalization?
JK: No, not quite. What we did in the prosecutor's office was have a sort of unspoken approach to marijuana that was almost effectively decriminalization. We just didn't bother with small-time use. It doesn't rise to the level of nuisance, even. And what we were after was people dealing with heroin and destroying lives, and people who were killing people. That's where you need to focus.
Did any of you watch the CSI episode? Interesting stuff on heroin addiction and gender oppression. Mindy and the other woman in that house are Slaves, dammit.
Heroin addiction is slavery, and CIA drug runners are fascists. It's not for nothing that Bush's grandfather was convicted in 1943 of giving aid and comfort to Hitler, or that W. himself has been reported piloting an executive jet into a military air base in Florida in 1986 to pick 2 kilos of pure coke direct from Southern Air Transport to take back to his buddies in Texas.I guess they had a really big party.
I'm for Kerry because he understands the DIFFERENCE between pot and psychedelics on the one hand, and hard drugs on the other.
Of course if your goal is blanket legalization all of this just muddies the water.
I quote:
"The Sickness is drug addiction and I was an addict for fifteen years. When I say addict I mean addict to junk (generic term for opium and/or derivatives including all synthetics from demerol to palfium). I have used junk in many forms: morphine, heroin, dilaudid, eukodal, pantopon, diocodid, diosane, opium, demerol, dolophine, palfium. I have smoked junk, eaten it, sniffed it, injected it in vein-skin-muscle, inserted it in rectal suppositories. The needle is not important. Whether you sniff it smoke it eat it or shove it up your ass the result is the same: addiction. When I speak of drug addiction I do not refer to keif, marijuana or any preparation of hashish, mescaline, Bannistria caapi, LSD6, Sacred Mushrooms or any other drug of the hallucinogen group... There is no evidence that the use of any hallucinogen results in physical dependence. The action of these drugs is physiologically opposite to the action of junk. A lamentable confusion between the two classes of drugs has arisen owing to the zeal of the U.S. and other narcotic departments.
I have seen the exact manner in which the junk virus operates through fifteen years of addiction. The pyramid of junk, one level eating the level below (it is no accident that junk higher-ups are always fat and the addict in the street is always thin) right up to the top or tops since there are many junk pyramids feeding on peoples of the world and all built on basic principles of monopoly:
1--Never give anything away for nothing.
2--Never give more than you have to give (always catch the buyer hungry and always make him wait.
3--Always take everything back if you possibly can.
The Pusher always gets it all back. The addict needs more and more junk to maintain a human form...buy off the Monkey.
Junk is the mold of monopoly and possession. The addict stands by while his junk legs carry him straight in on the junk beam to relapse. Junk is quantitative and accurately measurable. The more junk you use the less you have and more you have the more you use. All the hallucingen drugs are considered sacred by those who use them--there are Peyote Cults and Bannisteria Cults, Hashish Cults and Mushroom Cults--"the Sacred Mushrooms of Mexico enable a man to see God"--but no one ever suggested that junk is sacred. There are no opium cults. Opium is profane and quantitative like money. I have heard that there was once a beneficent non-habit-forming junk in India. It was called soma and is pictured as a beautiful blue tide. If soma ever existed the Pusher was there to bottle it and monopolize it and sell it and it turned into plain old time JUNK.
Junk is the ideal product...the ultimate merchandize. No sales talk necessary. The client will crawl through a sewer and beg to buy... The junk merchant does not sell his product to the consumer, he sells the consumer to his product. He does not improve and simplify his merchandise. He degrades and simplifies the client. He pays his staff in junk.
Junk yields a basic formula of "evil" virus: The Algebra of Need. The face of "evil" is always the face of total need. A dope fiend is a man in total need of dope. Beyond a certain frequency need knows absolutely no limit or control. In the words of total need: "Wouldn't you?" Yes you would. You would lie, cheat, inform on your friends, steal, do anything to satisfy total need. Because you would be in a state of total sickness, total possession, and not in a position to act in any other way. Dope fiends are sick people who cannot act other than they do. A rabid dog cannot choose but bite. Assuming a self-righteous position is nothing to the the purpose unless your purpose be to keep the junk virus in operation. And junk is a big industry. I recall talking to an American who worked for the Aftosa Commission in Mexico. Six hundred a month plus expense account:
"How long will the epidemic last?" I enquired.
"As long as we can keep it going... And yes...maybe the aftosa will break out in South America," he said dreamily.
If you wish to alter or annihilate a pyramid of numbers in a serial relation, you alter or remove the bottom number. If we wish to annihilate the junk pyramid, we must start with the bottom of the pyramid: the Addict in the Street. And stop tilting quixotically for the "higher ups," so called, all of whom are immediately replaceable. The addict in the street who must have junk to live is the one irreplaceable factor in the junk equation. When there are no more addicts to buy junk there will be no more junk traffic. As long as junk need exists, someone will service it.
Addicts can be cured or quarantined--that is, allowed a morphine ration under minimal supervision like typhoid carriers. When this is done, junk pyramids of the world will collapse. So far as I know, England is the only country to apply this method to the junk problem. They have about five hundred quarantined addicts in the U.K. In another generation when the quaratined addicts often die off and pain killers operating on a non-junk principle are discovered, the junk virus will be like smallpox, a closed chapter--a medical curiosity.
The vaccine that can regelate the junk virus to a land-locked past is in existrence. This vaccine is the Apomorphine Treatment discovered by an English doctor whose name I must withhold pending his permission to use it and to quote from his book covering thirty years of apomorphine treatment of addicts and alcoholics. The compound apomorphine is is formed by boiling morphine with hydrochloric aicd. It was discovered years before it was used to treat addicts. For many years the only use for apomorphine which has no narcotic or pain-killing properties was as an emetic to induce vomiting center in the back brain.
I found this vaccine at the end of the junk line. I lived in One room in the Native Quarter of Tangier. I had not taken a bath in a year nor changed my clothes or removedthem except to stick a needle every hour in the fibrous grey wooden flesh of terminalk addiction . I never cleaned or dusted my room. Empty ampule boxes and garbage piled to the ceiling. Light and water long since turned off for non-payment. I did absolutely nothing. I could look at the end of my shoe for eight hours. I was only roused to action when the hourglass of junk ran out. If a friend came to visit--and rarely did since who or what was left to visit--I sat there not caring that he hads entered my field of vision-- a grey screen always blanker and fainter--and not caring when he walked out of it. If he died on the spot I would have sat there looking at my shoe waiting to go through his pockets. Wouldn't you? Because I never had enough junk--no one ever does. Thirty grains of morphine a day it still was not enough. And long waits in front of the drugstore.Delay is a rule in the junk business. The Man is never on time. This is no accident. There are no accidents in the junk world. The addictis taught again and again exactly what will happen if he does not score for his junk ration. Get up that money or else. And suddenly my habit began to jump and jump. Forty, sixty grains a day. And it still was not enough. And I could not pay.
I stood there with my last check in my hand and realiuzed that it was my last check. I took the next plane for London.
The doctor explained to me that apomorphine acts on the back brain to regulate the metabolism and normalize the blood stream in such a way that the enzyme system of addiction is destroyed over a period of four to five days. Once in the back brain is regulated apomorhine can be discontinued and only used in case of relapse. (No one would take apomorphine for kicks. Not one case of addiction to apomorphine has ever been recorded.) I agreed to unergoe treatment and entered a nursing home. For the first twenty-four hours I was literally insane and paranoid as many addicts are in severe withdrawal. This delirium was dispersed by twenty four hours of intensive apomorphine treatment. The doctor showed me the chart. I had received minute amounts of morphine that could not possibly account for my lack of the more severe withdrawal symptoms such as leg and stomach cramps, fever and my own special symptom, The Cold Burn, like a vast hives covering the body and rubbed with menthol. Every addict has his own special symptom that cracks all control. There was a missing factor in the withdrawal equation--that factor could only be apomorphine.
I saw the apomorphine treatment really work. Eight days later I left the nursing home eating and sleeping normally. I remained completety off junk for two full years--a twelve year record. I did relapse for some months as a result of pain and illness. Another apomorphine cure has kept me off junk through this writing.
The apomorphine cure is qualitatively different from other methods of cure. I have tried them all. Short reduction, slow reduction, cortisone, antihistamines, tanquilizers sleeping cures, tolserol, reserpine. None of these cures lasted beyond the first opportunity to relapse. I can say definitely that I was never metabolically cured until I took the apomorphine cure. The overwhelming relapse statistics from the Lexington Narcotic Hospital have led many doctors to say that addiction is not curable. They used a dolophine reduction cure at Lexington and have never tried apomorphine so far as I know. In fact, this method of treatment has been largerly neglected. No research has been done with variations of the apomorphine formula or with synthetics. No doubt substances fifty times stronger than apomorphine *could be developed and the side effect of vomiting eliminated.
--William S. Burroughs 1955
We have found that substance: Ibogaine.
Dana Beal/co-Founder, Cures not Wars
Initiator, Million Marijuana MarchField Marshal, White Panthers/Youth International Party----QUOTE
I have been an active part of the movement since 1989, and I think I have met and know most of the major players in the "legalization movement" and I can't think of who you are referring to here. I posted links from my own library to ibogaine resources as soon as my library went up (1994), and that was supported by every one that I had occasion to talk to at the time. Every person I have discussed the issue with since then has agreed that ibogaine should be researched and allowed, even if it isn't their primary interest in life.
Look, I think you're a great guy, and very fair, but I'VE been in the movement since 1966, and I know them all even better than you do. I remember Keith Stroup dropping the ball with Jimmy Carter in 1978 because of a tempest in a teapot over paraquat tempted him to plant a little story with a Jack Anderson staffer about the White House drug czar snorting coke.
Who does he blame? Himself? No--Ben, who innocently brought the guy to the NORML party where they were doing the coke. And after almost 20 years in the political wilderness who does Lindesmith/DPF re-habilitate? Us? No--Stroup. And then they huddle around him for ten years while he tells anyone who will listen that Ibogaine is this CRAZY idea of these Yippies who sabotaged drug legalization in the '70's.
It was only this year Nadelman broke down and allowed the first ibogaine workshop in 10 years at the DPA conference (one small, half-filled room while 16 other things were going on). They have NEVER put Ibogaine on a plenary. Harm Reduction Coalition is going to this November, because they are closer to the concerns of actual users--but that bunch of suits over at NORML, DPA, & MPP? Peter B. Lewis and George Soros? Don't hold yr breath.
QUOTE
Perhaps you are just reflecting a fairly common misunderstanding held by a lot of people. Lots of people in the movement seem to think that their particular pet project is being slighted by the "legalization movement" in one respect or another. I don't think that's the case. I think it is simply a matter of the fact that everyone has their own particular special interests that they concentrate on more than other interests. And it is not as if everyone has the time and resources to be pursuing every aspect of the fight against the war on drugs. They have to put their time where their interests lie and where they personally think they can make some progress. But that's a pretty natural thing that you would find anywhere, in any sort of political movement.
The real deal is that the decisionmakers are a bunch of lawyers and others unprepared and unqualified to make the evaluation as to which illicit drug is the best bet for medical development, because they can't do the science themselves, and so resort to taking recommendations from people already in their crowd, like Ric Doblin.
In addition, Ibogaine had a specific problem with what was until recently the largest and best financed group, the one around Arnold Trebach, whose main project is comparative trials of methadone vs. heroin maintenance, which they're promoting around the world. For them Ibogaine really muddies the waters, since some youngster is liable to get up and say, Why not have a third, Ibogaine, leg of your trial, for a real comparison?
We had to drag them kicking and screaming into the fight for medical marijuana, and before that hemp. They never seem to get the myriad uses of either until it was pointed out to them. And it pisses me off that one whole wing of the med mar movement was iced out of the recent New York City Hall hearing on medical marijuana because we're also working on Ibogaine and because Vince Marone and Rob Campia want to keep a lock on the Peter B. Lewis money and have apparently really bad-rapped Ibogaine to him.
For the rest of you, I have this letter from Nora Volkow that may clarify things a bit where Ibogaine stands right now with NIDA. Keep in mind that Deborah Mash is supposed to meet with them next month to present data from 280 treatments in St. Kitts that shows Ibogaine was "well tolerated" by patients she treated.Her husband, the Chairman of the Dade County Democratic Party, was until recently a Dean supporter.
QUOTE
February 24, 2004
Mr. Jason Bursey
5827 Timbercrest Drive
Arlington, Texas 76017
Dear Mr. Bursey:
Your emails to Dr. Elias A. Zerhouni, Director of the National Institutes of Health, and Mr. Claude A. Allen, Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services, regarding ibogaine have
been sent to me for response.
In your emails, you ask a number of questions concerning the role of the Federal Government in ibogaine research and scheduling. While anecdotal evidence of treatment successes (such as in your case) and treatment failures with ibogaine have existed for years, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requires that a substantial amount of data be submitted concerning the safety and efficacy of a product prior to approving it for use as a therapeutic agent. Anecdotal evidence (positive, negative, or both) does not meet the regulatory requirements of the FDA under which new treatment agents can be approved.
In 1991, based largely on the information provided by Mr. Howard Lotsof, Dr. Deborah Mash
and others, the Medications Development Division (now the Division of Treatment Research and Development) of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), created a medications
development project directed towards exploring the potential development of ibogaine. This
occurred at a time when Mr. Lotsof, who owned patents concerning the use of ibogaine as a drug addiction treatment agent, and the law firm he hired could not find any commercial entity in the United States (U.S.) willing to license and/or develop ibogaine. As part of this initiative, the project team carried out research studies addressing various issues including the pharmacology and toxicology of ibogaine as required by the FDA. Preclinical studies showed that ibogaine possessed dose related neurotoxic effects in the rat, dog, and monkey including the ability to cause seizures, neuron losses, and cardiovascular-QT prolongation which has been associated with an increased risk of ventricular arrhythmia, which may result in fatal arrhythmias. It isimportant to note that dose related toxicity alone does not necessarily rule out further development of a medication. However, a safe dose level must be determined for human use. This information is critical, as literature exists potentially linking ibogaine to deaths (including during ceremonial use in Africa).
In 1995, prior to commencing a Phase I clinical trial of ibogaine in opiate dependent human
subjects, a review was held with a panel of outside expert consultants who were charged with reviewing the available data to help determine whether NIDA should pursue a clinical study with ibogaine. A number of persons and organizations interested in ibogaine participated in this review meeting. Mr. Lotsof presented data on the number of subjects he had treated with ibogaine and their outcomes. In addition to the toxicological findings, the data presented by Mr. Lotsof (number of treatment successes versus treatment failures, time to relapse) did not appear to offer increased efficacy over existing methods of opiate detoxification. The majority opinion of the consultants was that NIDA should not pursue a clinical trial of ibogaine.
Subsequent to NIDA's decision not to directly perform clinical trials with ibogaine, Dr. Mash
and Mr. Lotsof entered a business agreement concerning the development of ibogaine and
received FDA approval to perform a Phase I study in the U.S. This study was never completed. Dr. Mash has been administering treatment with ibogaine at the Healing Visions Institute for Addiction Recovery on the island of St. Kitts.
Thus, although ibogaine is no longer part of NIDA's directed medications development efforts, we will continue to fund research projects on ibogaine through grants that receive meritorious scores in peer review. NIDA continues to make all of the preclinical data it developed (currently residing as a Drug Master File with the FDA) available to researchers interested in conducting clinical studies with ibogaine.
Some of the lack of interest in ibogaine may stem from the fact that the drug lacks a composition of matter patent. Compounds lacking such protection are usually given short shrift by the pharmaceutical industry as their commercial value is very limited.
Regarding current U.S. scheduling of ibogaine, under U.S. law, psychoactive substances that
meet defined criteria and have no FDA approved medical uses must be placed in Schedule I.
Ibogaine is considered hallucinogenic and thus far has no FDA approved medical use. This does not mean that medical research cannot be performed with ibogaine or other Schedule I
substances, but researchers are required to meet certain storage and record keeping requirement standards that pertain to Schedule I substances. For more information on scheduling, please contact the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
I hope that you find this information helpful.
Sincerely,
Nora D. Volkow, M.D.Director, National Institute on Drug Abuse(You know, we really should respond as a group to the Volkow letter. The list, I mean. I can think of half a dozen objections right off the bat. Starting with 18-MC. --Dana)---Speaking of internet, did you know John Gilmore, John Perry Barlow & others started the EFF to run the legal defense of a bunch of kids who hung out with Aron Kay at YIPL (later TAP) meetings and were later busted as the Legion of Doom? Patrick Kroupa today works with Dr. Deborah Mash at the U. of Miami Brain Bank. He's moved up in the world from internet start-ups and being strung-out to cutting the rains out of dead people, mostly addicts.Synchronically, he just wrote something that relates back to questions Sandy and others brought up earlier, so I said, What the Hell, this is my day to spam the Kerry Drug War thread with ibo info, 'cause I feel like celebrating the imminent fall of G.W. Bush!I recommend that all of you subscribe to the Ibogaine List, BTW. To join the Mindvox ibogaine list just send an email to ibogaine-subscribe@... if you please.Nothing more to it. You don't have to write anything in the subject or text area.From: digital@...On [Tue, Mar 02, 2004 at 06:08:58PM -0800], [rickc@...] wrote:
| Are you in recovery?
Yes. I've been recovering from being born for 35 years now.
| Do you have cravings?
Cravings ... Do I enter a headspace where "I'm gonna bang dope!@#!@#!@#"
spins 'round and 'round in little circles and refuses to go away? No. Do
I remember how much heroin utterly fucking rocks...? You bet!
Some people create a paradigm where they fill up their mind with all the
negative consequences of bangin' dope; and then play pretend, or hide and
seek ... "I never really liked heroin, it was awful, degrading and
terrible!"
I don't do that. I love heroin. Period. Not past-tense.
| Do you have to do anything to stay clean off heroin?
Yes.
| What do you do?
I don't cop it, dump it into a cooker, and bang it up. Not sticking a
syringe in my arm has a 100% success rate.
| I read many answers here but I don't know the background of the people
| giving them. How do you go from being a 'spectacular failure at every
| treatment modality' to being who you are now?
A lot of work, luck, karma ... shit happens. Were I to say, "It was allme, and I did everything." It would technically be correct, but ... not
really. As much as possible I get the fuck out of the way, and let
whatever process is unfolding, take place.
| If ibogaine works some miracle turning a addict into something
| different, then I see some of it here, but I get the idea there is a lot
| of work and struggle behind all of it.
There is.
| You don't give that impression.
You don't know me. I don't dump my shit all over the list. I am fucked
up n' shit, I have IssueS; my iSSUEs have iSsUeS. <Shrug> Were I perfect
it's unlikely I would have felt the need to incarnate and work all this
out.
No, my problems no longer revolve around doing -- or not doing -- drugZ.
| people on this list who are coming from mindvox or your friends, what
| all of them have in common, besides a general lack of any couth is
| you're all very smart and weird. Very smart isn't supposed to help in
| addiction,
Like anything else, being smart, is always a double-edged blade. It means
you can engage intellect, apply force of will, and make choices. It also
means, more than enough rope.
But ... just being realistic. People ARE NOT the summation of their
symptomology. I have two friends, whom I've hung out with since we were
all in our teens. One of them turned into a junkie like I did, the other
became an alcoholic pillhead.
We were all ... complete fucking disasters.
Ten years after ... all of us are clean. Statistically speaking ... this
doesn't happen. But, it did.
Neither one of my friends has done ibogaine. Not for a lack of cash or
access, but simply because they don't want to. Neither one likes
entheogens. Neither one actually believes in the concept of God --
however you choose to define God, or what it means to you.
Both of them cleaned up through the 12-steps. And the dude who was a
junkie actually detoxed using UROD; followed by naltrexone implants, inYet Another Super-Exciting STUDY.
Out of a group of 82 people in that study, there was exactly ONE who
managed to stay clean. Him.
One of the 81 people who fucked it up, in that same study, was me.
What does it all mean?
It means: people make CHOICES. People are human beings, NOT the summation
of their symptomology <-- repeat as often as necessary.
| yet your final quotes in your addiction miniseries are--
| "Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre
| | minds."
| --Albert Einstein
| "I have not failed; I have just found ten thousand ways that won't work"
| -Thomas Edison
Yeah ... both quotes have tremendous resonance with my life's experience
and belief systems.
| What did you find the 10,001st time?
Myself.
| Could you do heroin right now and not become addicted again?
Yeah. The fear of physical dependence is pretty much gone at this point;
'cuz if I ever did snap the clicks back on ... well, I have a new magic
trick that I never had before: I can unspring myself any time I need to.
A better question might be, could I do narcotic analgesics right now and
not become habituated ... because, that's a question I ask myself
sometimes. And the honest answer is: I don't know.
As much as I can do pretty much anything and everything that people say is
impossible in "recovery," I drew a very black and white boundary around
narcotic analgesics. Drugs are just molecules. Dope ... that's magic.
But anyway, could I go cop a bag of dope, bang up, enjoy it, and then get
back to my life ... Sadly, the answer is: probably not.
I have a tremendous amount of strength right now. It grows. Much of it
is laid upon the foundation of beating something that has kicked my ass
in, for every single day of my life ... I never caught an imaginary
disease; I'm not sober one day at a time; I am not stuck in some endless
battle.
I went to war, and I won. What're the fucking odds ... Pretty low, 'cuz
it surprised the shit out of me!
I do a bag ... the world is not rearranged. I do 45 bags, turn it into a
problem, and what'll happen. Pretty much ... nothing EXTERNAL. Nobody
around me who actually cares about me, is gonna paint a bullseye on me,and run an announcement, "Patrick fucked it all up!!!"
It'll be more like, "Okay, you walked on water for 4 years, fell down,
well, lemme give you a hand, just get back up. You know what to do."
Except ... the problem is ... none of this is about what anyone else sees
or knows.
I do one bag, and I just traded all my strength for the shit in the bag.
Because *I* will know.
I just lost. And no matter what anybody else sees; my ego structure is
going to disintegrate and go down the toilet. Which will make the 1 bag,
or 45 bags, turn into 450 bags ... alla which leads to one LONG fucking
detour of doing something to reset my head Yet Again ... and it's a very
time consuming process.
Could I do a bag of dope and not become addicted again? Sure.
Do I have any fear of physical dependence? Fuck no. Oddly enough, I now
have the power to make all of that fade out like a mirage.
If I ever *needed* to, could I do narcotic analgesics and use them as
directed? <Giggle> ... I don't know. Since everything IS just belief,
saying, "I don't know," is nearly the same as saying, "No..." But not
quite. I simply do not know. And don't have the time to CONDUCT RESEARCH
in this area.
Could I do a bag of dope and just get back to being myself the next day?
The answer is: no.
And ... I just can't work up the self-hate anymore. Been there, done
that, for most of my life.
Onwards to BRanD NeW M1stak3s!@#!@#!@#!@#
| What do you do?
I communicate with the God of my understanding.
As often as I can manage to do so; I go home for a while.
It's the difference between intellectually understanding that everything
is just an endlessly-interlocking series of illusions, and games within
games ... and KNOWING it.
Everything IS no more, nor less, than a play of consciousness. The
universe is not holding its breath anxiously waiting to be saved.
Everything is all-good. Everything just IS.
And ... when I go home, I become nothing -- shades of heroin -- and in the
process, become everything.
Addiction is just energy. Ride the lightning.
Godhead rocks the fuck out. It's one killer rush.
| Is there any way to repeat it with someone else?
Sure ... different versions of the same answers appear on this very list,
with alarming regularity.
The only catch is: YOU have to do SOMETHING. "No, but wait, you obviously
just don't understand! I want to be clean ... I just, don't wanna have to
do anything... Ever. At all..."
Bummer, but it doesn't work like that.
There are many different roads to follow. Some are brightly-lit
superhighways, others are offbeat paths in the woods, and once inna while
when you've left the superhighway, wandered around through the woods,
gotten lost somewhere, and find yourself walking around in circles in the
middle of a swamp ... a piece from a passing UFO falls out of the sky, and
slams into your head <ClunK!> AhA!!@#!@#!@#!@#!@# THAT'S IT!!!!!!
Pret+y col0rZ, l1ghtS, eyes, CyCloneS!@#!@# Woooo HoooooO!!!
YeahYeahYeahYEAHYEAHYEAH!
Different things have resonance for different people, in different ways;
but oddly enough, all of them lead to the same place.
On [Tue, Mar 02, 2004 at 12:12:23PM -0500], [HSLotsof@...] wrote:
| http://www.ibogaine.net
| http://www.ibogaine-therapy.net/
| http://www.ibogatherapyhouse.org
| http://www.ibeginagain.org
| http://www.ibogainetreatment.com/
| http://www.canna-lympics.org/projects/pages/addiction.htm
| http://www.iboga.tk/
Laters,
Patrick
p.s., Please don't single me out and dump it into the list. I know my
response-time to email sucks, but I do not have 5 secretaries, and I
cannot answer all of it. There are many of you, and only one of me. If
you have a question in general, just ask it. Someone with somethingworthwhile to say, always arrives.QUOTE
This entire Ibogaine post has to go. You can discuss Ibogaine, but you cannot advocate its use or link to sites advocating its use. It is an illegal drug. Come on people, this is the web site for the nominee for the President of the United States.
Would the University of Miami do something illegal?
I don't think so. Yet they are doing intake and followup in Miami for treatments that are being given legally in St. Kitts. Unfortunately Mash gets all the airplay, including being the source of info for the CSI episode, so that many people cannot find out about much cheaper treatments available in Mexico, Canada, and elsewhere -- where it is also legal. It's pretty much legal everywhere but here, and I think the problem is you're really uptight about the whole concept of Ibogaine, which is why I was posting the Patrick's letter for YOU, Sandy, so you would understand better that people really do have to make the autonomous decision to change for the Ibogaine to work.
Why not just delete the offending links, and leave the content?
Our whole point in protesting outside CBS is that we're COMPLYING with the law, not bringing Ibogaine into the U.S., and sending people over the border where it's LEGAL, where they have clinics set up to deal with addicted people -- instead of driving around back alleys in Vegas trying catch up with particular people and dose them.
Think about it -- High Times advertizes on radio in the Boston area for the Cannabis Cup. It's not legal here, but it is there, so legally they can advertize it under FCC rules. I wouldn't have included the letter from the head of NIDA if we weren't making a good-faith effort to get Ibogaine or 18-MC (which is not even scheduled, last I checked) approved through the FDA process. Which is all that needs to happen. And one of our main arguments in the New York State Legislature is that if people are going just over the border to Windsor, Montreal or Vancouver, why can't we have this wonderful cure for addiction here. And Jeffrion Aubry, head of Assembly Committee on repealing the Rockefeller Drug Law, is chief sponsor of the legislation.
You should think long and hard about allowing stuff on medical marijuana but suppressing info on an African sacred plant and treatment for drug addiction that is a pet project of a number of Black democrats who heretofore have supported Al Sharpton.
The DEA doesn't even care. In the entire history of the law, exactly 2 grams of Ibogaine have been seized. So what's the problem?Dana/cnwDo any of these offer illegal treatments?
| http://www.ibogaine.net
| http://www.ibogaine-therapy.net/
| http://www.ibogatherapyhouse.org
| http://www.ibeginagain.org
| http://www.ibogainetreatment.com/
| http://www.canna-lympics.org/projects/pages/addiction.htm| http://www.iboga.tk/
From: climbingthegreatbluecliffsIbogaine has a tendency to produce visions which can be interpreted metaphorically as elements in ones life, or as connections in disjointed elements of one's reality. Really ibogaine's effects are hard to describe from an emotional or intellectual sense, but it, like many other entheogens or psychoactives have a tendency to make one step back and look at a situation honestly. If a cocaine addict does this and sees the wrong it has done ibogaine has the power to imprint such a powerful impression of the expirence on the person (ibogaine, unlike other psychedellics has a tendency to be as terrifying as it is powerful, which i think is why it has an edge in narcotics treatment programs, scared straight(the problem seems too real, to omnipresent to avoid)). Really its not about why ibogaine should be legal, this is the way it is because we have our perspective from drugs being illegal, this is a man made structure and it does not allow for its own existance. We should ask why ibogaine is, and should be illegal in two seperate questions, and apply these questions seperately to is and should before looking at them together.From: bcalabrese
QUOTE (sandy @ Feb 29 2004, 10:42 PM)
Treatment would still be necessary, so it makes no sense to say the treatment industry wants to block Ibogaine.
Sandy,
I am watching it happen, it is a known fact and the treatment industry already admits it. Ibogaine is NOT profitable for them for a number of reasons. Ibogaine was not invented by them, they don't get money for it, it only takes a couple treatments, it would REDUCE treatment necessary by orders of magnitude! THe revolving door would stop revolving after a few turns for most. DO not think for a second that GREED is not involved, if someone discovered a cure for something, a cheaper, better way (like ibogaine) to replace an existing product that someone won't do their best to shelve or suppress it, it happens all the time. Ibogaine will also make them LOOK BAD, breaks the rules "a drug is a drug is a drug". . It does what THEY (the treatment professionals) can't. This is to say if you ever saw ibogaine work you would say "NO WAY", or "NO S...T!", that is impossible. Like 10 or 20 years in treatment/therapy all at once (sort of), or maybe just the missing pieces. Ibogaine is a threat, it is competition, it does the undoable. A single dose and I had a GREAT mood for 6 months, no other support medication were necessary, no meds means no script, no script means no doctor and no money for the pharmacy and drug companies... Few relapses means treatment does not go on for years or even decades. Parole violaters will not violate, that means less crime, no new prisons to build, no promotions to to come... The drug war and the medical industry that accepts it (some have doubts) thrive on the suffering of people. It is self-protecting. If it were really after figting drugs tell me why we have had zero success but bigger and bigger budgets? Kind of strange don't you think (keep doing the same thing expecting a different result). Ibogaine can take multiple percentage points off the growth of several industries, BILLIONS of dollars are involved.
Ibogaine is like taking real *MAGIC* to the show. All you are getting with those other folks is the illusion of success. Recovery rates for treated people are not better than those who just grow of it/recover on their own. With ibogiine you grow up a whole lot sooner. You are talking removing something like 2/3rds of the people from the list of clients, sure ibogaine is a threat to the treatment industry.From: sandyDana,
Approval has to be gotten to do a study using an illegal substance. Studies are being done on Ibogaine and 18-MC. Dr. Mash has gotten her approvals as have others.
On Ibogaine. It is NOT a cure. I'll just post what Dr. Mash says herself:
"Addiction is multi-factorial and I've been trained to look for the left and the right sides of an argument and of your data. Addiction is something that involves the brain, we're learning more about that, but it's also a disease of the spirit, it's also a disease of personality. A disease of the way a person looks at him or herself, his world, his society and his family and school. It's clear to me that if you want to get at the addiction process you've got to hit it on multiple levels, you can't just hit it on a neurochemical level."
Finally, discussing Ibogaine is not the same as advocating an underground connection to Ibogaine use. It is not the same thing as advocating, from this web site, that people can go to other countries and use a substance that has killed people. If somebody followed YOUR advice and died, I can fully see myself, the web site administrator, and Senator Kerry being held legally responsible. As soon as I'm done with this post, I'll have to go back and edit your posts again.
From: bcalabreseQUOTE (sandy @ Mar 3 2004, 08:28 PM)
No, you may not advocate or link to sites that advocate the actual use of an illegal substance like Ibogaine. You also can't link to sites that sell or advocate pot pipes. Or that sell or advocate illegal gun parts. Come on, think.
Sandy,
The fact that ibogaine is illegal should be illegal. The fact that black folks had to sit in the back of the bus should be illegal. The fact that the Japanese were tossed in internment camps was legal. That does not make it right, that does not mean people should not raise their voices against such actions. Wrong laws should be overturned, that is why we have minds. Ibogaine IS in fact approved for FDA safty trials in the USA (that means legally)., ibogaine IS an approved mediction in Panama, there are medical professionals using VERY MANY substances that are not legal/unapproved meds in the USA in other countries. Are we not talking about the DRUG WAR and what is wrong with it? Well IBOGAINE (by orders of magnitude) very best broad spectrum anti-addictive substance there is, there just isn't anything else like it. And to suppress info, where else is someone going to get ibogaine information than ibogaine sites. This isn't like you are posting links to pot-seed sites or some get high drug sites, no-one "GETS HIGH" on ibogaine, it is a medicine only - unlike marijuana, xtc, LSD, various opiates... And no-one is telling anyone to go out and buy ibogaine or to self treat, that is best left to people experienced with the use and administration of ibogaine, professional or otherwise.
All it is is information, for people to read and make their own minds up over, not your minds over theirs.
Did you ever ask yourself why this EXTREMELY EXPENSIVE and HIGHLY OBSCURE/unabusable substance would up on the list in the first place? If you came up with it is for our protection/own good then I have confused you with someone else. (Hint, the US government treated drug addicts with the stuff (ibogaine) in the '50's, could that have something to do with it, if so, what?From: DanaQUOTE
Finally, discussing Ibogaine is not the same as advocating an underground connection to Ibogaine use. It is not the same thing as advocating, from this web site, that people can go to other countries and use a substance that has killed people.
There is nothing underground about those clinics in those other countries. Mash's is just one, and in her case the data goes straight to the FDA. It's just expensive. Marc Emory's is free, and he's working in coordination with elected officials in Vancouver.
As for the so-called "Ibogaine-related" deaths, I was the one responsible enough to reprint the letter of Nora Volkow, who repeats that claim to justify NIDA inaction; but Dr. Kenneth Alper, the editor of the only other book out there on the subject, says NONE of them were Ibogaine deaths, per se. With addicts we're dealing with a group of people with a high mortality rate to begin with--they all died from something else, not Ibogaine toxicity.
That's why we screen out people with heart, liver and seizure disorders. That's why we hydrate them sufficiently (so simple!) to cut out the arrythmias.
You have to remember Mash owns the patent on nor-ibogaine, so she has a financial incentive to exaggerate the dangers of good old HCL. And 18-MC is years away from going into humans, even though I actually advocate that 18-MC is what a Kerry administration should follow up on. All indications are that it will be MUCH safer, so the point is moot. If you are sincere, you will point Kerry's drug policy wonk(s) in the direction of Dr. Stanley Glick at Albany Medical College at 518-262-5303. He's a real straight arrow who as far as I know doesn't even drink or smoke cigarettes. He won't be able to get it into human trials without start-up capital, and start-up capital is only going to come from public sector, in all probability.
Meanwhile we have Ibogaine HCl and various plant extracts to work with, and thousands of people all over the world are being helped without recourse to what ANY government is doing. No more deaths have occured in any of the proper clinical environments, which is why I oppose do-it-yourself home treatments. And some lives are being SAVED, because without treatment, they would almost certainly have died, through overdose, or by picking up a fatal blood-born disease, which they would have passed on to others before dying. Intravenous drug use is THE main vector for HIV transmission in the U.S. today, so if you want to limit people's treatment options, you'll just have to deal with yr karma, I guess.
Those links got into my post because they were at the end of Patrick's post.
I'M SORRY. It was an oversight.
That being said, Ibogaine is not going to go away, no matter how you edit it. And like I said, I think the thing to do here is to make direct contact with the decision-makers in the Kerry campaign, because it is unclear to me that your function is to do anything but keep a lid on this site.
It's like the mule. Gotta get its attention.
Dana/cnwP.S.: some one just sent me a virus, & tried to make it look like it came from Ben. Won't work. I have a MAC.
AP Poll: Bush, Kerry Are Tied in Race
March 5, 2004
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 9:16 a.m. ET
WASHINGTON (AP) -- John Kerry and President Bush are
starting the general election campaign tied, according to
an Associated Press poll, while independent Ralph Nader is
drawing enough support to make Democrats squirm.
The Republican incumbent had 46 percent support, Democrat
Kerry had 45 percent and Nader, the 2000 Green Party
candidate who entered the race last month, was at 6 percent
in the survey conducted for the AP by Ipsos-Public Affairs.
Bush and the four-term Massachusetts senator, who emerged
as the nominee Tuesday after a string of primary race wins
over several rivals, have run close or Kerry has been ahead
in most recent polls that did not include Nader.
Since Nader entered the race Feb. 22, campaign strategists
and political analysts have been trying to assess the
impact of another presidential bid by the consumer activist
who is blamed by some Democrats for Al Gore's loss in 2000.
In the last presidential election, Nader was on the ballot
in 43 states and Washington, D.C., garnering only 2.7
percent of the vote. But in Florida and New Hampshire, Bush
won such narrow victories that had Gore received the bulk
of Nader's votes in those states, he would have won the
general election.
Exit polls from 2000 show that about half of Nader's voters
would have backed Gore in a two-way race, far more than
would have supported Bush. Nader dismisses the spoilerlabel.
While Nader's support in the AP-Ipsos poll was 6 percent,
his backing in polls in 2000 fluctuated in the single
digits -- often at about 4 percent, but sometimes higher.
This year, Nader is unlikely to get the Green Party's
nomination and he faces a stiff challenge in getting his
name on the ballot in the 50 states.
Kenneth Freeman, an 86-year-old retiree from New Smyrna
Beach, Fla., who leans Democratic, was unhappy with Nader's
presidential bid.
``Ralph Nader is fouling it all up,'' Freeman said. ``He's
taking votes away from the Democrats. I think he's on an
ego trip.''
Bush's job approval in the AP-Ipsos poll was 48 percent,
with 49 percent disapproving -- essentially the same as
last month when 47 percent approved of his job performance.
His approval rating, which soared close to 90 percent after
the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and remained high for
months, has dipped to the lowest levels of his presidency
in recent weeks.
Six in 10 said the country is on the wrong track, up from
last month, while slightly more than one-third of those
surveyed -- 35 percent -- said the country is headed in the
right direction.
``We're 240-something days from Election Day. We've got a
long way to go and expect it to be a close race throughout,
no matter what the factors are,'' said Terry Holt, a
spokesman for the Bush campaign.
The poll was conducted Monday through Wednesday as Kerry
captured nine of 10 Super Tuesday elections and claimed the
nomination. Nightly results suggested that Kerry did not
get a bounce from winning the nomination.
``For all those who want to bring change to America, we
need to remain united behind the Democratic nominee,'' said
Kerry campaign spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter.
Kerry, who had solid backing from 28 percent of the voters,
was strong among minorities, low-income people, singles,
older voters and Catholics.
Bush, who had solid backing from 37 percent, did well among
whites, men, Protestants, homeowners and suburban dwellers.
``I'm worried about the Democrats taking control,'' said
Stephanie Rahaniotis, a Republican from Lynbrook, N.Y. She
said after the Sept. 11 attacks she feels safer with Bush
in charge and thinks Democrats will ``divert our attention
from the military.''
In the poll, Nader was most likely to get the backing of
young adults, and independents.
The AP-Ipsos poll of 771 registered voters was taken March1-3 and had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.5
percentage points.
^------
On the Net:
Ipsos-Public Affairs: http://www.ipsos.com/ap
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/A...fda623f672b8d8d
It is vital that we move the core of Nader support, opponents of the Drug War, over into the Kerry column. In order to do that it will be necessary for a more explicit anti-Drug War position to be articulated, point by point, by Senator Kerry and the campaign. I stand ready to consult with the responsible staffers to fine-tune positions that will bring greens and independents home to the Democratic candidate in November without providing any ammo for the Bush smear machine.
We have to start the list with bio-medical research to acheive the goal of treatment on demand for drug dependency. Medical marijuana and sentencing reform can be on that list, but we have to demonstrate concern for the swing voters who are a bit more conservative on the addictions issue.
Dana/cnw
PS: While both are glutamate antagonists, Ibogaine is much more active against cysts and tumours than cannabinoids, the action of which was characterized to me as "tonic rather acute" by Grinspoon. Many tumours and cysts vanish after one dose of Ibogaine, which has the advantage of being 1 fortieth as toxic as Vincristine and Vinblastine, which are dimeric Ibogaine congeners. In practical terms, that means we are killing some cancer chemotherapy patients jsut from their chemo--patients who would not have died if it had been possible to give them ibogaine instead.
Ibogaine has also been patented for the acute treatment of stroke and ischemia (better than diszocilpine). It works to alleviate approximately 65% of obsessive-compulsive disorders (addiction is a subset of OCD with both a chemical and a market component). And one paper I read seemed to indicate that very small daily doses revived the efficacy of tuberculosis drugs in cases of drug-resistent TB.
So I hope that advocacy of medical use is not limited here just to drugs that are also popular recreationally--MDMA and cannabis.
----From: ClimbingtheGreatBlueCliffsQUOTE (dana @ Mar 5 2004, 01:04 PM)
It is vital that we move the core of Nader support, opponents of the Drug War, over into the Kerry column. In order to do that it will be necessary for a more explicit anti-Drug War position to be articulated, point by point, by Senator Kerry and the campaign. I stand ready to consult with the responsible staffers to fine-tune positions that will bring greens and independents home to the Democratic candidate in November without providing any ammo for the Bush smear machine.
We have to start the list with bio-medical research to acheive the goal of treatment on demand for drug dependency. Medical marijuana and sentencing reform can be on that list, but we have to demonstrate concern for the swing voters who are a bit more conservative on the addictions issue.
Dana/cnw
PS: While both are glutamate antagonists, Ibogaine is much more active against cysts and tumours than cannabinoids, the action of which was characterized to me as "tonic rather acute" by Grinspoon. Many tumours and cysts vanish after one dose of Ibogaine, which has the advantage of being 1 fortieth as toxic as Vincristine and Vinblastine, which are dimeric Ibogaine congeners. In practical terms, that means we are killing some cancer chemotherapy patients jsut from their chemo--patients who would not have died if it had been possible to give them ibogaine instead.
Ibogaine has also been patented for the acute treatment of stroke and ischemia (better than diszocilpine). It works to alleviate approximately 65% of obsessive-compulsive disorders (addiction is a subset of OCD with both a chemical and a market component). And one paper I read seemed to indicate that very small daily doses revived the efficacy of tuberculosis drugs in cases of drug-resistent TB.
So I hope that advocacy of medical use is not limited here just to drugs that are also popular recreationally--MDMA and cannabis.
Truely amazing, i am angered i cant grow tabernanthe iboga when it obviously had some amazing properties, potentially unrelated to its possibility of 'intoxication'(which i may add is not any more dangerous when used responsibly than booze and in my educated(on this specific topic) opinion promotes responsible use far more than alcohol in regards to the effects while intoxicated).
With regards to nader voters i would observe that most democrats seem to be avoiding liberal extremeists as a way of dodging the 'liberal' bullet usually with a good measure of 'god hating' along with it among right wing religious extremists (of which ashcroft is a part of) who play a major role in republican politics. Clinton won because people were seeing the effects of long term debts accumuliated during the regan and bush adminstrations. He was able to get the suburbian american. I think JK has an advantage among lower class americans who are both loosing jobs and having to listen to cooperate and stock scandals playing with the future of our country. Many have lost jobs in swing states, but some swing states could be won better by a bit of appeal to left wingers, esp nader voters. Wither this is done through a policy of elimination of bureaucratic waste like clinton ran on or through a proper review of drug policy and prompt execution of a new propostion remains to be seen, but i think JK will start pulling on these groups towards the election to shorten/reduce the amount of spin time/positions the bush campaign has.
QUOTEWith regards to nader voters i would observe that most democrats seem to be avoiding liberal extremists as a way of dodging the 'liberal' bullet...From: DanaQUOTETruly amazing, i am angered i cant grow tabernanthe iboga when it obviously had some amazing properties...
You couldn't grow it here even if were legal, since it really needs a triple canopy rain forest, shaded but tropical. It absolutely can't take frosts, so it will always have to be imported from Africa--an real complication, since the U.S. is committed to stopping international trade in Iboga products.
Guess their just gonna hafta relent, and let those rainforest people have a few sustainable products...
BTW, on CSI they say some ethnobotanists believe that Iboga is the Tree of Knowledge referred to in the Bible. What makes this interesting is that in the life cycle of the plant, it sprouts and then appears to die, then sprouts again. What's happening is that the seed has a husk, like a walnut, and the husk has to start rotting because it must pick up bacteria present in the very poor rain forest soil in order for the plant to process the nutrients it needs to grow.
Ancient Egyptian mythology is rife with symbols of death and rebirth-- the Phoenix, Isis and Osiris, and the biggest example of all (Palestine being an cultural extension of Egypt at the time), the Crucifixion and Resurrection. Mel Gibson would probably flip out if we told him this, but Iboga is the one plant medicine potentially available to the Passover Plotters that could have been administered to Jesus to block ischemia for the three hours he was up there on the cross. Which would make Ibogaine the true sacrament represented by the wine and the wafer, and Constitutionally protected under the First Amendment.
QUOTE
With regards to nader voters i would observe that most democrats seem to be avoiding liberal extremists as a way of dodging the 'liberal' bullet...
Read my earlier post of the Robert Reich op-ed where he decries the democratic party practice of marginalizing and alienating the left movement in this country, contrasting it to the way the GOP assiduously cultivates it's right-wing crazies. We have to get over this legacy of Cold War red-baiting if we want Nader's voters.
What bugs me is the reflexive response on this site to Ibogaine as an illegal drug (illegal, therefore really dangerous) when Vinblastine is 40 times more toxic, makes you trip--but is legal because it's the only thing they have for Kaposi's Sarcoma. Mind you, a certain percentage die just from the chemo, but it's so toxic the DEA never considered controlling it as drug of abuse, even though 1/2 of the molecule IS an Ibogaine molecule. Ibogaine is embedded in it.
I think we should be more concerned about drawing votes away from Nader rather than keeping a lid on Ibogaine so that the Kerry campaign never has to take a position on it.
It's out there in the popular culture now. Will there be a crackdown on internet sites and treatment providers, or will a Kerry Presidency move in the direction of (at least) developing 18-MC as a safer alternative?Dana/cnw****!!!IBOGAINE TREATMENT NOW $1500 IN HOLLAND--CALL SARA, 0113134-624-1770 !!!****
From: rick@...MAPS members and friends,
On Tuesday, March 2, 2003, the Washington Post published an excellent article
by Rick Weiss (in the A section on page 2!) about the approval of MAPS'
MDMA/PTSD protocol. The article is below.
One correction is that MAPS didn't fund all three of the previous human
safety studies. Two were funded by NIDA and the other, conducted by Dr. Charles
Grob, was funded by Harbor-UCLA and MAPS. However, all three studies used MDMA
from MAPS' supply
Copyright 2004 The Washington Post
The Washington Post
March 2, 2004 Tuesday
Final Edition
SECTION: A Section; A02
LENGTH: 1098 words
HEADLINE: DEA Approves Trial Use Of Ecstasy in Trauma Cases
BYLINE: Rick Weiss, Washington Post Staff Writer
BODY:
Capping a 17-year effort by a small but committed group of activists, the federal Drug Enforcement
Administration has agreed to let a South Carolina physician treat 12 trauma victims with the
illegal street drug ecstasy in what will be the first U.S.-approved study of the recreational
drug's therapeutic potential.
The DEA's move marks a historic turn for a drug that has long been both venerated and vilified.
Ecstasy, also known as MDMA, is popular among casual drug users for its reputed capacity to
engender feelings of love, trust and compassion. The government classifies it with LSD and
heroin as a drug with no known medical use and high potential for abuse.
Although the study's approval is by no means a federal endorsement of uncontrolled use, it will give
ecstasy's proponents their first legitimate opportunity to prove the drug can offer medical benefits.
"MDMA opens the doorway for people to feel deep feelings of love and empathy, which is the
core of being human," said Rick Doblin, president of the Multidisciplinary Association for
Psychedelic Studies in Sarasota, Fla., the nonprofit research and educational organization
funding the trauma study.
"We should be looking at that and learning from that."
As a result of the DEA action, sometime in the next few weeks the study's first
participant -- still to be selected -- will check in for an overnight stay at an outpatient
counseling center in the Charleston area. (Investigators have asked that the location not
be precisely identified). He or she will take 125 milligrams of 99.87 percent pure
3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine -- probably the highest quality MDMA on Earth -- synthesized
by a Purdue University chemist.
Michael Mithoefer, the Charleston psychiatrist who will lead the research, emphasized that ecstasy is
by no means a benign drug. Indeed, he said, on occasion it has proved deadly at all-night dance
parties, or raves, where it is often consumed.
"The fact that we have good evidence that we can use MDMA safely in a controlled setting does
not mean it is safe to take ecstasy at a rave," Mithoefer said.
The goal is to help people with debilitating post-traumatic stress disorder face the pain at the core
of their illness, he said, and learn to work with it.
"Because of MDMA's reported ability to decrease levels of fear and defensiveness and increase the sense
of trust, we hope that will be a catalyst for the therapeutic process," Mithoefer said.
Advocates have been aiming for such a study since 1986. The Food and Drug Administration gave its
blessing in November 2001 after long consideration and analysis of three human safety studies
funded by Doblin's group. It was two more years before the study got the required approval of
an independent science and ethics board.
The DEA's issuance last week of a Schedule 1 registration, which allows Mithoefer to administer the drug
under the specific conditions of the study, was the last hurdle.
From all indications, it was not a decision made lovingly by an agency that has called ecstasy "one of the
most significant emerging drug threats facing America's youth." But with all the other federal
requirements met, the role of the DEA -- whose responsibility is to prevent "diversions" of the
drug -- was limited to documenting that Mithoefer had a big enough safe bolted securely enough
to the floor, a qualifying alarm system and a set of records that would ensure careful tracking
of every speck of the stuff.
"Whether we agree with the study is not relevant," said Bill Grant, the spokesman for the DEA.
"All the qualifications were met."
Even some of ecstasy's leading critics said they could abide by the study if regulators were satisfied.
"The key issue is that all potential subjects be fully informed of the risks" George Ricaurte,
a professor of neurology at Johns Hopkins University who has studied the drug, wrote in an e-mail.
Ecstasy was popular more than 20 years ago as an aid to psychotherapy. Recreational abuse drew
it to the attention of the DEA, which in the mid-1980s began regulating it.
A black market emerged, and millions of young ravers and others have since tried the substance,
which can induce what enthusiasts describe as up to eight hours of empathic conversation,
contemplation and energetic sociality.
Most users report no long-term negative effects, though some speak of fatigue or depression for a
few days afterward. There is a heated scientific debate as to whether ecstasy causes significant,
long-term damage to parts of the brain.
All experts agree that ecstasy on rare occasions causes a sudden, inexplicable and fatal form of heat
exhaustion. That is one reason there will be an emergency room doctor and nurse outside the
Charleston-area therapy room -- where each patient will sit and talk for hours with Mithoefer and his wife,psychiatric nurse Annie Mithoefer.
To be chosen for the study, the patients -- all victims of assaults unrelated to combat -- must have
moderate to severe post-traumatic stress disorder unresponsive to other drugs and therapies, and
will first engage in preliminary therapy sessions with the Mithoefers. Twelve participants will
get the drug, and eight will get a placebo. Each will spend that first session talking, listening
to music and lying on a couch as needed -- though study rules require that at a certain point each
patient must engage in a discussion about the trauma that has left him or her debilitated.
Periodic physical, emotional and neurological checkups will continue for several weeks, followed
by a second ecstasy session.
Marcela Ot'alora, who in 1984 -- before ecstasy's use was criminalized -- took it under a
therapist's supervision to help her deal with the aftereffects of being raped, lauded the
Charleston study's approval.
For years, she had been unable to wait in lines or stand with her back to crowds because of a fear of
being attacked, said Ot'alora, who today is a therapist in a western state that she asked not be revealed.
Ecstasy had a profound effect, she said: "I think for the first time in my life I was able to have
compassion for myself, and also felt I was strong enough to face something that w
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