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----Forwarded email begins.----
Dana Beal <dana@...> wrote:
Dana Beal <dana@...> wrote:
Date: Thu, 6 Jan 2005 14:01:36 -0500
From: Dana Beal
Subject: GMM 2005 #2: Crystal Meth, Ibogaine, UROD; Lyon, Orlando,
Portland, Oregon, San Antonio, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, Toledo Makes
107 Cities on the Global Marijuana March May 7, 2005
Important: get your city on the list for the Global Marijuana March, May 7, 2005!So far we have confirmed 107 cities:AlbanyAlbuquerqueAshevilleAthensAtlantaAucklandBskersfieldBergenBerlinBooneBoulderBudapestBuenos AiresBurlingtonCapetownChicagoChicoChristchurchCincinnatiColorado SpringsColumbiaDarwinDes MoinesDetroitDoverDublinDunedinEast LansingEau ClaireEugeneFayettevilleFrankfurtFt. SmithGrass ValleyHachitaHalifaxHartfordHoustonJerusalemKansas CityKristiansandLethbridgeLexingtonLondonLos AngelesLyonMexico CityMissoulaMontrealMoscowNashvilleNewarkNew PaltzNew YorkNimbinOgdenOrlandoOuluOsloParisPeoriaPhiladelphiaPhoenixPortlandPortlandPotsdamPragueRaleighRapid CityRenoRichmondRoanokeRomeRosarioRostockSan AntonioSan FranciscoSanta BarbaraSanta CruzSarasotaSavannahSpokaneStavangerStevens PointSt. LouisStockholmTallahasseeTampaTel AvivThunder BayToledoTorontoTraverse CityTromsoeTrondheimTucsonTupeloTurkuTwin OaksUpper LakeVancouverViennaVisaliaWarsawWashington, D.C.Wilkes-BarreWilmingtonThere is also some international MMM networking going on at
this CannabisCulture.com message forum:-------------------------
Million Marijuana March. Banners, posters, handbills,
flyers. From 2004 MMM. Use for 2005 MMM ideas! Adapt foryour needs! Due to software upgrade problemsonly the full-size images and full-size image downloadscurrently are working-- go here:http://www.vienna2004.org/mmm/viewer.php?albid=510&stage=2
or if problems go to the home page URL:
http://www.vienna2004.org/mmm
and then click on "mmm2004"and then "Banners Posters Handbills"
Many of the MMM 2004 banners, posters, flyers, and
handbills were converted from PDF files to the gif and jpg
images found here. The freeware Adobe Acrobat Reader and the
freeware IrfanView were used.
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html
http://www.irfanview.com - IrfanView is a free image editor
that is useful for adapting these flyers and banners for
your needs. Download the full-size gif images since they usefar fewer kilobytes compared to the 640x480 and 800x600 jpg
versions of the same image. JPG image files are mainly for
photos and images with lots of color gradation. GIF image
files are much better for flyers and banners. IrfanView can
easily edit, reduce, or enlarge gif and jpg images.
These flyer and banner images were found elsewhere in the
photo gallery, and by following links on the MMM 2004 city
list pages, report pages, image pages, etc.. Flyers and
banners for other MMM years can be found through the first
link below: MMM images:
http://www.corporatism.netfirms.com/mmmimages.htm
2004 city list:
http://www.corporatism.netfirms.com/mmm2004.htm
2004 reports:
http://www.corporatism.netfirms.com/mmm2004rep.htm*****!!!Global Marijuana March--May 7, 2005: Updates, Reports!!!*****From: jj.chemin@...Hello,
This year, in Lyon (FRANCE), we are trying to organize the MMM.
How can we notice on the poster for 2005 (if is not to late.) ?thanksJac Chemin-----------From: policy-office@...The House bought 3 vaporisers?
Contact Roger Bunn 208 742 2803
Ann Keen CC - Home Office - Minister Caroline Flint
Dear Ann,
The PET scanner at Du Cane Road, the only one in west London available - I was told - has broken down - T'is old They said at 9.15am this morning, dragging me out of my pre-x-ray bath - Meaning no appointments until "maybe Wednesday or Thursday next week." -
I can only say that this has got to be yet another good reason why Minister for drugs Caroline Flint MP should meet with a delegation as to how and why HMG should rapidly invest in 100% Class C edu and in the production of cheaper clean THC tech - Though it seems if someone connected to HMG has recently ordered 3 "cheaper" Brit vaporisers - driven by the heat from light bulb (replaceable at a cost of £1.00) - that retail at £99.00 This tech has yet to be tested here..
In some curiousity, I am now awaiting a name for whoever is sitting behind their desk and getting stoned in the Lords - Probably while trying to work out how to get maxi kudos from this particular fragment of a campaign to shorten west London NHS and European respiratory lines. ;-)
Please note - I take this HMG and European problem with me to Brussels on the 17th - And as easily confirmed - One does not get grants from HMG or anyone for fighting Class A unless one condemns THC along with the "weed" -
Thus it would be good for this organisations empty coffers, and my sore feet, if some funding can be obtained through production and sales of tech, so that we could be more effective in terms of confrontation of such as the junta, crop replacement lobbying on behalf of Afghanistan. And as a useful voice in general on UN and beyond, policies on drugs.
And also as to bringing better co-ordination of the many groups currently factionalised on the subjects of legalisation across Europe, the safer use of Class C drugs and crop replacement.
Again, many thanks for your interest
----------------
Following on from the meeting of NGO we organised last month
Crop replacement - DID (Afghanistan - where I used to live)
CC Michael Ryder (drugs) FCO - etc etc
Sadly, it was I who just after 9/11, and before the US military hit Mazir, and the largest mountain of opium known to man, 12Ks south. Predicted to the UK and US Tsar, Washington DC, the DEA, the UN (drugs) and HMG FCO (drugs) the "deep trouble" waiting for those who went into the poppy fields without offering a high profit replacement crop. The DEA sent 5 Iranian innocents out who all instantly got murdered - This is also a request for a delegate meeting regarding crop replacement in Afghanistan with your office -
The following went out to the "usual suspects" this Tuesday morning. The Home Office, Advisory Council on drugs, HA Select Committee, but not the "usual suspects" who Band Aid spin-off. ;-) duh.
-----------------
M Cashman MEP
Dear Joanna, Michael,
Hemp is a high profit crop - The introduction of which would need the UN and various grant schemes, to halt the conspiracy against the growing of hemp - (low THC grass) -
I am given to understand that the hemp approach to bringing a high profit crop replacement to Afghanistan has already been made to DID, but I as yet have no details as to what ID are doing about it, if anything.
Thus, If Michael would like to read a brief as to why such a politically sensitive motion must be forwarded to the EU - and aside from what Mihra is saying as to the cleaning up and legalisation of THC around Europe. I hope that Marc Deeley at Spirit Aid would be pleased to brief your office hemp as a subject needing a firm push with the EU
Again, many thanks for your interest.
Roger Bunn
Hon chief ANC. Director - Music Industry Human Rights Association.
http://www.mihra.org
policy-office@...
A single standard on sport, drugs and apartheid
Sydney 2000 - Athens 2004 - Beijing 2008 - Burma Out!
Real Player http://busca.baja.com/stream/up4grabs2.rm---------------------------------------------------Exhale, Stage Left
At 61, Longtime Marijuana Lobby Leader Keith Stroup Is Finally Leaving the Joint
By Peter Carlson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 4, 2005; Page C01
Keith Stroup's mouth is dry. His brain is foggy. America's most famous marijuana lobbyist admits that a powerful drug has messed up his mind.
The drug isn't marijuana, although he smokes that nearly every night. It's Tylenol cold medicine. He took some this morning, he says, and it made him feel goofy, spacey, stoned.
"I hate taking it," he says. "But my nose was running and I kept sneezing and I thought, 'I gotta take something.' "
Wearing a bright white shirt and dark blue suit, Stroup is sitting at his impeccably neat desk in the tidy K Street offices of NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. He founded NORML back in 1970 and now, 34 years later, he's retiring at 61 as the pot lobby's executive director.
"When I turned 60, I looked in the mirror and I saw this gray-haired old man and I said, 'I think we need younger leadership,' " he explains. "It has to do with more energy, fresh perspectives, new ideas. It's not like I'm ready for the old folks' home. I just think we need somebody younger running the organization."
That somebody is Allen St. Pierre, 39, who has served as NORML's second-in-command for the past decade. St. Pierre took over yesterday, while Stroup, who recently got married for the third time, headed off to his Falls Church home to become a consultant and lecturer.
But now, Stroup, stoned on cold medicine and nostalgia, starts showing off the strange souvenirs of his strange lobbying career.
He pulls a black-and-white photo off the wall. It shows him in jeans and a jacket addressing a crowd of hippies in front of the White House in the '70s.
"We used to have a July 4 smoke-in every year in Lafayette Park," he says. "I like this just as a period piece. Look at those ragtag folks! Look at the guys without their shirts on!"
He points to a poster on the wall and reads its message aloud: "It's only a weed that turns to a flower in your mind." He laughs. "That's a period piece, too."
Decorating his filing cabinet are stickers -- "Just Say Yes to Legalization" -- and a backstage pass from a Willie Nelson concert. Nelson, famously fond of the weed, is a longtime NORML supporter.
"Over the years, we've built up a nice friendship," Stroup says. "He's going to sponsor a celebrity NORML golf tournament in 2005."
Stoned golf?
Stroup laughs. "It's a lot less competitive," he says.
He picks up a picture frame that contains a typed letter. It's the note that accompanied $10,000 in cash left on the doorstep of NORML's office in the summer of 1976.
"Officially, it was an anonymous gift," Stroup says, smiling mischievously, "but I knew who it was."
The money came from Tom Forcade, the legendary pot smuggler who founded High Times, the marijuana magazine, in 1974 and helped bankroll NORML before he committed suicide in 1978. Forcade's letter claimed the $10,000 was a donation from "The Confederation," a fictitious group of dope growers and smugglers. It concluded: "Karma prevails. Venceremos."
Stroup turned that gift into a media event, calling a news conference and spreading the well-worn $10 and $20 bills across a table for photographers.
Today Stroup is a bit embarrassed by that publicity stunt. "It was a little close to the line," he says. "I was nervous about the whole thing going down, but I played along with it. If I did that today, the FBI and the DEA would have me before a grand jury in no time."
Back in the '70s, though, it seemed perfectly normal for NORML to call a dope smuggler when it ran short of cash. One day, Stroup recalls, he called Forcade for a donation and the smuggler told him to come to an address on New York's Lower East Side.
"I got up there and it's an apartment with no electricity," he says, "and I walk in the door and the whole room is filled with bales of marijuana! It was a stash house! And I'm saying, 'Forcade, what are you doing? I don't know if I'm being followed.' But we needed the money and I took the money."
On a Roll
There was a time, back in the '70s, when Keith Stroup was about as close to a rock star as Washington lobbyists ever get.
He hung out with the Allman Brothers and Jimmy Buffett. He partied with Willie Nelson and presidential son Chip Carter. He had sex in the fabled grotto at the Playboy mansion, where Hugh Hefner hosted a NORML fundraiser.
The man they called "Mr. Marijuana" grew up on a farm in southern Illinois. His mother was a devout Baptist. His father was a building contractor and Republican Party activist who stashed a bottle of whiskey under the front seat of his Lincoln Continental so he could take a snort when his wife wasn't looking.
Stroup graduated from the University of Illinois in 1965 -- after a one-year expulsion for drunken frat boy high jinks -- and headed for Washington. He enrolled in Georgetown Law School and, using his dad's GOP connections, landed a $50-a-week job in the office of Sen. Everett Dirksen of Illinois. The work was dull, but it gave Stroup a taste for Capitol Hill wheeling and dealing.
Meanwhile he'd begun smoking pot and marching in antiwar demonstrations, sometimes simultaneously.
He finished law school in 1968, got married and took a job on the newly formed federal Commission on Product Safety. That job put Stroup in contact with Ralph Nader, then a hot young consumer advocate.
Inspired by Nader's work, Stroup got an idea: He'd create a consumer group for pot smokers, an organization to lobby for legalization. It was the kind of pipe dream that floated through the heads of countless pot smokers during long nights of deep inhaling, but Stroup actually did it -- hustling $5,000 in seed money from the Playboy Foundation and opening an office in his basement near Dupont Circle.
"Keith was a rebel, and he resented the idea that his government treated him as a criminal because of a drug that he and millions of other people used," says Patrick Anderson, author of "High in America," a 1981 book on Stroup and NORML.
Stroup didn't dress like a rebel, though. He wore a suit and tie, like every other Washington lawyer-lobbyist.
"He was consciously trying to be an alternative to the freak approach, which he knew wasn't going to work," Anderson says.
Courting respectability, Stroup assembled a board of directors that included Harvard professors, former attorney general Ramsey Clark and, later, Sens. Phil Hart and Jacob Javits. Pumped with zeal, Stroup went anywhere to make his pitch, appearing on TV, lecturing at colleges, testifying before Congress and state legislatures.
In 1972, Stroup got unexpected help from an unlikely source: The National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse, appointed by President Nixon, issued its final report, concluding that marijuana is relatively harmless and that possession of less than an ounce should be legal. Nixon rejected the report, but Stroup used it as a lobbying tool in his increasingly successful campaign to reduce penalties for pot.
In 1975, five states -- Alaska, California, Colorado, Maine and Ohio -- removed criminal penalties for possession of small amounts of the weed. In 1976, Jimmy Carter, who during his campaign had advocated decriminalizing pot, was elected president. In 1977, Stroup visited the White House to meet with Carter's drug policy adviser, Peter Bourne. Soon NORML would be playing the White House in softball.
It seemed like high times for NORML. Publicly, Stroup predicted that pot would be legal in a couple of years. Privately, he and his NORML pals joked about forming an advocacy group for another drug they'd begun to enjoy -- cocaine.
Then Stroup hit a couple of snags. In October 1977, Canadian customs agents found a joint in Stroup's pocket and busted him. That wasn't too bad: Canada had liberal pot laws and when Stroup returned for trial in 1978, the judge let him off with a $100 fine.
But at the airport on his way home, Canadian customs agents searched his bags and found a joint and a vial containing traces of cocaine. Busted again, he spent the night in jail, was fined $300 and got kicked out of Canada. The whole absurd episode was like a bad joke:
How can you tell if you might be a little too stoned?
You get busted going through customs with dope after your trial for going though customs with dope.
That was a dumb blunder. But Stroup was about to make a blunder that was infinitely dumber.
Back in Washington, he was lobbying for a bill to ban federal funding of a controversial program that sprayed Mexican marijuana fields with the herbicide paraquat, shown to cause lung damage in people who smoked the tainted weed. Stroup asked Bourne, Carter's drug adviser, to support the bill. Bourne refused. Stroup was outraged. To him, it was a moral issue: The feds were deliberately poisoning pot smokers! Seeking revenge, Stroup leaked a secret to newspaper columnist Jack Anderson in July 1978: Bourne had snorted cocaine at NORML's 1977 Christmas party. And Stroup revealed the names of a couple of witnesses.
When Anderson broke the story, Bourne told reporters he'd only handled cocaine at the NORML party, he hadn't actually snorted any. It didn't matter. Bourne lost his job.
A few months later, so did Stroup. The folks at NORML didn't like snitches and eased him out the door.
"When I look back on it," Stroup says now, "it was probably the stupidest thing I ever did."
Nobody "in their rational mind," he adds, would jeopardize a relationship with a high White House official over a minor policy dispute.
Is it possible that he wasn't in his "rational mind" because he was too stoned too often?
"Yes," he says. "I think it is possible that my own personal use of cocaine played into that."
In those days he, like many people, thought coke was harmless. Now he knows better. "Cocaine is deadly," he says. "There are probably people who can use cocaine moderately. But I gotta tell you: Based on me and my friends, I didn't see very many of them."
The Dude No More
After leaving NORML in 1979, Stroup spent four years as a defense attorney. "Every client I had was a drug offender," he says. "The only people who'd heard of me had been arrested on drug charges."
Unfortunately they weren't the kind of drug offenders he liked -- folks who'd been caught with a little weed. They were mostly cocaine smugglers and, he soon realized, a lot of them were thugs.
"So I stepped aside," he says, "and went back into public-interest work."
Stroup, who had divorced in the early '70s, married a television producer and moved to Boston, where he became a lobbyist for the Massachusetts Council on the Arts and Humanities.
In 1986 he moved back to Washington to lobby for a family farm organization. In 1989 he became executive director of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. In 1994 he became a lobbyist for the National Center on Institutions and Alternatives, an Alexandria-based prison reform group.
Then in 1995, NORML -- split by infighting -- asked Stroup to come back and run the place.
He returned to find that everything had changed. The movement to legalize marijuana had run aground. In the 1970s, 11 states had decriminalized pot; in the '80s, none did. Nancy Reagan's "Just say no" crusade and the deadly spread of crack cocaine had led to a backlash against drugs. And NORML was nearly broke, politically impotent and beset by feuding factions.
Stroup saved NORML from self-destruction, St. Pierre says, but he failed to bring back the glory days: "Keith could not replicate what he did in the '70s."
Part of Stroup's problem was competition. In the '90s, two new groups arose to advocate drug-law reform, each bankrolled by an eccentric billionaire. The Drug Policy Alliance is funded by financier George Soros. The Marijuana Policy Project, founded by former NORML staffer Rob Kampia, is funded by insurance mogul Peter Lewis. Both groups have spent millions on state referendums to legalize medical marijuana -- many successful, some not.
But Stroup has failed to find an eccentric billionaire sugar daddy for NORML.
"I wish we had that kind of funding," he says. "If I had the kind of funding that Kampia has, I think I could have done a lot more with it than he has."
Now NORML limps by on about $750,000 a year, most of it raised from dues paid by about 12,000 members. It's not enough money to do much politicking, so NORML is now largely a service organization for pot smokers, providing tips on beating drug tests and legal advice for arrested smokers.
Over the past year money was so tight that Stroup laid off two staffers and stopped collecting his $75,000-a-year salary for two months.
"I view NORML as a small and shrinking dinosaur," Kampia says. "NORML's time has come and gone."
Tom Riley, official spokesman for federal drug czar John Walters, agrees. "Keith and people like that have banged their heads against the wall for years saying 'Legalize pot.' But they're farther behind now than they were 20 years ago."
Riley says Stroup's career reminds him of a line from the movie "The Big Lebowski": "The '60s are over, Lebowski. The bums lost. My condolences."
Keep on Tokin'
"I have no doubt I'll be smoking marijuana the day I die," Stroup says.
He loves the weed. He smokes it nearly every night. He comes home from work, pours a glass of chardonnay, lights up a joint and turns on the TV news.
He does not smoke pot when he has to work or drive, he says, because, as the movies of stoner comedians Cheech and Chong prove, pot can make you stupid.
"I learned a long time ago that some of those Cheech and Chong jokes are very real," he says. "If you're in a social setting and you're smoking marijuana, there are going to be a lot of those Cheech and Chong situations, where you feel real strongly about something and you start a conversation and about halfway through you forget what the point was." He laughs. "But that's only when you're stoned. Four hours later, you don't have that."
His new wife doesn't share his passion for pot. Neither does his 35-year-old daughter, who recently had a baby boy, making Stroup a grandfather. He doesn't care that they don't smoke pot and he doesn't think anybody should care that he does smoke it. Forty years of serious inhaling, he claims, hasn't harmed his body or his mind.
"There's absolutely nothing wrong with it," he says, "and it should be of no interest or concern to the government."
Despite his candor on the topic, Stroup hasn't been busted since his Canadian misadventures. But he knows the government and its drug war are always out there, and that can make a guy paranoid. About a year ago, the feds nearly discovered Stroup's stash in a suitcase he'd checked on a plane.
"I had a few joints in an airtight thing inside a sock so you couldn't see it," he says. "I got back home and opened it up and there was this slip saying, 'We opened your bag, blah, blah blah.' And my weed is a few inches away! I said, 'Man, that was too close!' So I no longer carry anything when I'm flying. If I'm going to be someplace for a few days, I ship myself a 'care package.' "
The next day Stroup calls, leaves a message on the voice mail. "Man, I was totally goofy yesterday on that cold medicine," he says. "I hope I wasn't totally goofy in my responses. . . . I should have better sense than to do an interview when I'm stoned out of my mind on cold medicine."---------------From: MCRedManCM@...Hey Dana,
You can add me as the contact for Orlando. All the information you have for me is correct my phone # is (954)254-0982 and my address is 11621 shilpa ct. Orlando Fl 32817. I don't know the other contacts you have listed for Orlando but I will try and contact them myself and see if they would like to be involved. Everything is going well down here in Orlando and I will get will my Norml Chapter soon and start coming up with some ideas for May 7th. I like to get some posters if possible when they are done.
Thank You,Matt Coyle------------------------------From: finkledink420@...Hey Dana, this is Chris Burnside from Toledo NoRML..Count us in for the global march!!!!! Sounds like a great thing you got going here!!!Chris Burnsidefinkledink420@... (440) 213-1761University of Toledo NORML
2138 AlvinToledo, OH 43607---------------------From: anhicks@...Hello,
Thank you for taking the time to contact me. Please add San Antonio to the list of cities particpicating in the Global Marijuana March--I will make arrangements to encourage fellow San Antonians to come out and join us in a march/rally against prohibition. If there is any way that I may be of additional service, please do not hesitate to contact me at any time.
Peace,Airie Hicks anhicks@...(210) 326-3346
San Antonio NORML
PO Box 690765San Antonio, TX 78269-0765-------From: lvazquez821@...add Santa Barbara, CA to your listLauren Vazquez lvazquez821@...(805) 217-6116UCSB NORML345 Mathilda Dr. #12Goleta, CA 93117Web Site: http://www.normlucsb.org
---------------------From: ritikaisnot@...Dana-- thank you for contacting me. UCSC NORML would
love to participate in the event. I did not know that
the previous organizer was not putting on the event
this year, as I did not get an e-mail update. Pleaseput us on the list, we would love to march again this
year. Thanks.
-Ritika AggarwalUC Santa Cruz NORMLPhone: (510) 552-30241156 High StreetSanta Cruz, CA 95060E-mail: raggarwa@...---------------New Listing by Phone--Portland: 503.239.6110 http://www.ornorml.org 2005 GMM Organizing Committee, c/o Oregon NORML, PO Box 16057, Portland, Or 97292-0057 Alicia Williamson projects@... 503-985-7704 [PO Box 31,Gaston, OR 97119] or Madeline Martinez: yerbanena@... or exec.director@... [503-257-8333] or Anna Couper secretary@...From: GemellaPickle@...Hi Dana - I am coordinating Oregon NORML activities for the MMM in '05.
I understand that Anna and Madeline have asked for posters that you are sending to Madeline's. Could you let me know how many you will be sending?
Also, I include my contact info, as I will be acting as liaison in an effort to lighten the load on our stalwarts, Anna and Madeline. Could you include me on any updates?
Thank you!-Alicia Williamson-
503-985-7704
PO Box 31
Gaston, OR 97119projects@...
--------------------------------
Please forward widely! Million Marijuana March. MMM.
The MMM 2005 city links are always clickable at these mirrors below.
MMM world map with many more links. Frequently updated:
http://corporatism.tripod.com/mmm2005map.htm and
http://www.corporatism.netfirms.com/mmm2005map.htm and
http://www.angelfire.com/rnb/y/mmm2005map.htm and
http://members.fortunecity.com/multi19/mmm2005map.htm
Click the region names in the left chart column to go to their city lists.
Click the "countries" link to go to the list of countries.Worldwide.
With less than 5% of the world's population
the USA has over 2.2 million of the world's9 million prisoners!:
http://corporatism.netfirms.com/rates.htm and
http://corporatism.netfirms.com/world.htm
MMM (Million Marijuana March).
City list and world map:
http://corporatism.netfirms.com/mmm2005map.htmYahoo Group:*************************BUSHWHACKED!!****************************U.S. Wounded in Iraq Reaches 10,000http://www.truthout.org/docs_05/010605Z.shtmlResistance in Iraq Outnumbers U.S. Forces
http://www.truthout.org/docs_05/010405W.shtmlBoxer to Stand With Conyershttp://www.truthout.org/docs_05/010705Z.shtmlThe Boxer Rebellionhttp://truthout.org/fyi/Star Tribune | Alberto Gonzales Has Blood on His Hands
http://www.truthout.org/docs_05/010705Y.shtml****!!!IBOGAINE TREATMENT NOW $1500 IN HOLLAND--CALL SARA, 0113134-624-1770 !!!****
ASSEMBLY STANDING COMMITTEES ON
ALCOHOLISM AND DRUG ABUSE AND HEALTH
NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING
http://www.assembly.state.ny.us/comm/Alcohol/20041215/
SUBJECT:
New York State's response to hepatitis A, B and C and methamphetamine
PURPOSE:
To gauge the level of threat that hepatitis A, B, and C and methamphetamine use pose to New Yorkers, to assess the State's response and to determine if additional action should be taken to protect public health
Friday, January 7, 2005
10:00 AM
NYS Assembly Hearing Room
Room 1923, 19th Floor
250 Broadway, New York, New YorkBe there for testimony by Dana Beal, Dr Ken Alper and others regarding treatment of methamphetamine addiction with IbogaineTESTIMONY OF DANA BEAL BEFORE THE NEW YORK STATE ASSEMBLY STANDING COMMITTEES
ON ALCOHOLISM AND DRUG ABUSE AND HEALTH
JANUARY 7, 2005
My name is Dana Beal, and I represent the harm reduction group Cures Not Wars. First I would like to thank Chairmen Dinowitz and Gottfried for the opportunity to testify fully and frankly on this public health crisis. Let me by blunt:
When all other illicit substances are eliminated by interdiction, methamphetamine is what's left. Crystal meth is easily manufactured in thousands of small guerrilla labs using products available over the counter. Therefore to ask what more law enforcement can do to dry up the supply or disrupt the traffic is an exercise in political misdirection. Law enforcement turns polydrug users into crystal addicts. Law enforcement caused the problem.Likewise there are severe limits on what can be done with education. Crystal already has a TERRIBLE reputation among drug users-but the ones who do abuse it do so in defiance of all social norms-all sanity. The only answer is to cut demand, and to do that you need effective treatment that will stop people from doing crystal meth--as effectively as naltrexan or methadone block heroin use.
You need a treatment breakthrough, since conventional wisdom, as represented by the recent GMHC report on crystal meth and AIDS in the gay community, is that "there is no known treatment for crystal meth." You need to bite the bullet and turn to nostrums in the medication development pipeline that have been rejected until now as too innovative, too big of a paradigm shift.
It's time to take a look at the first true addiction interrupters, the iboga alkaloids, effective across the broad spectrum of abused substances-cocaine, methamphetamine, nicotine, opiates and alcohol-which work by upping the level of dopamine in the part of the brain that initiates drug seeking behavior. It is noteworthy that mice or rats, once started, will inject cocaine or amphetamines, ignoring food and water, until they die. But mice bio-engineered not to have something called the Messenger Glutamate Receptor 5 soon stopped pushing the lever that injected them with stimulants. Catheters showed that their dopamine was spiking, serotonin was spikingŠbut nonetheless they lost interest in the lever after a few injections and went back to their food and water.
We believe this is the mechanism for ibogaine and the iboga alkaloids, which are a kind of glutamate antagonist.
These compounds have been too controversial for the National Institute of Drug Abuse, which abandoned ibogaine development in 1995 in favor of buprenorphin, which has no utility whatsoever in combatting stimulant abuse. Worldwide, 85% of all drug development money for addiction treatments comes from NIDA. Big pharma is not interested in either the stigma or the excessive regulatory requirements involved in new treatments for addictions. And private philanthropic resources (together with whatever government monies they can leverage) are almost exclusively channeled into feel-good public relations efforts like the current "Crystal Free and Sexy" campaign in the gay community designed by AmFAR and partially funded by the City of New York under a special no-bid arrangement.
Assemblyman Lentol once asked if he should worry that Ibogaine, if legalized, would make it to the street and become a new drug of abuse. Let me say, for the record, that not only is ibogaine physically hard to take, requiring constant one-to-one observation, especially during the early hours when the subject is in a form of sleep paralysis; but also that the only FDA case officer who ever really looked it, Dr. Curtis Wright, characterized its abuse potential as "very low to nonexistent." It is also the only semi-licit drug where providers require three medical tests-EKG, EEG and liver assay-before they'll give it. I say 'semi-licit' because ibogaine is already legally available in Canada and Mexico, making it impossible to prohibit the therapeutic after-effect (which lasts up to four months), and denying effective treatment only to those impoverished by addiction who need it most.
Rich addicts can already fly to St. Kitts, and pay $12,000. The middle class pays $3,000 in Mexico.
Chairman Lentol's question is emblematic of the special problem with medications development for treatment of drug dependency. Unlike the victims of every other disease, society does not trust patients who have exhibited a pattern of drug abuse to tell them what treatments work for them.
Even though Ibogaine is currently the only compound available for the interruption of compulsive stimulant abuse, the kneejerk reaction seems to be to keep it illegal because it was discovered by a heroin addict, and is principally used to detoxify addicts from methadone, the gold standard of opiate maintenance. Many's the time Ibogaine exponents have encountered methadone practitioners incensed at the very notion that an ibogaine-like substance might be a better answer for addicts with compromised immune systems or impaired liver function.
Yet the fact is both methamphetamine and methadone up-regulate the replication of HIV. And methadone competes with protease inhibitors, for instance, in the liver, so that even higher doses are required to achieve opiate satiation.
One of the concerns in assessing potential treatments for crystal meth addiction is not just how conventional treatment for hepatitis and HIV can be better targeted for hidden addict populations, but how to treat these people's addictions with pharmacotherapies that help-instead of messing up-the patient's liver function and immune status. We have enough anecdotal data in this respect to be confident in the anti-viral effects of iboga alkaloids. Significant improvement in T-cell count, impressive drying-up of herpes, dramatic improvement in hepatitis C status are not unusual in folks who take ibogaine to interrupt their addictions.
Recently the New York State Office of Alcohol and Substance Abuse Services updated their ibogaine webpage to address the issue of efficacy of ibogaine in treating addiction to crystal. Unfortunately they only inserted the word methamphetamine in the list of things the Glick drug, 18 MC, is good for. I need to dispel any impression that ibogaine is not also every bit as useful, since careful reading of results of animal studies at Glick's lab at Albany Medical College reveals that ibogaine is actually more effective for amphetamine than 18 MC. (Conversely, 18 MC is twice as effective for cigarettes). Presently, the only treatments in humans of crystal meth addiction have been with the natural compound, Ibogaine HCl or the "Indra" full-alkaloid extract.
The OASAS Website is: http://www.oasas.state.ny.us/AdMed/meds/fyiibogaine.htm
Dr Stanley Glick at the Albany Medical College was not looking for a more effective treatment for cigarettes when he designed 18 MC. He was trying to come up with an iboga alkaloid without the potential for bradycardia (dangerous slowing of heartbeat and breathing), or the NMDA and Sigma-2 toxicity. Yet the implication is plain: somewhere among the iboga alkaloids is one that is particularly effective for crystal meth.
If the voters of California can earmark $3 Billion for stem-cell research, the least it seems the New York State Assembly can do is provide a much more modest amount for Dr. Glick to finish his research and bring some medications to market, as well loosening restrictions on research by re-scheduling Ibogaine to reflect the fact that it has NO potential for abuse, and abundant medical uses besides treatment of addictions, including anti-stroke, anti-viral, anti-tumor, anti-obsessive/compulsive disorder indications, as well as potential in the treatment of drug resistant tuberculosis.
[I should note that ibogaine may also address, as an obsessive/compulsive disorder, the binge sex that often occurs with crystal meth use.]
If the Assembly is not willing to recognize the work of New York State researchers and the State's own substance abuse office, OASAS, and take official notice that a whole new family of compounds exists to treat stimulant abuse, we will never avail ourselves of the most obvious place to look for new answers-the new treatments that are already in the medications development pipeline.From: Jeffgd1@... Subject: hearhear Date: January 4, 2005 8:56:36 PM EST To: dana@...
Hi Dana
Jeff here i was at your place with D if you need a bellringer fro my name and face,
Anyway just wanted to say how impressive your testimony reads and wish you luck in your trip to albany.
You do amazing work and help coutless folks who dont even know it
Freak Freely as ever my friendjeff[It goes without saying that it's in Manhattan, not Albany. Anyone who's experienced markedt improvement in immune status or liver function after taking ibo for substance abuse should testify. --ED]From:ptpeet@... Subject:[Ibogaine] rapid detox- egad!
hi all,
From my friend Alex Burns at Disinfo. I'm reminded once again how little fun this technique sounds.
From Wired Magazine, available online at:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.01/detox.html?tw=wn_tophead_4
Instant Detox Kick heroin in 24 hours - no willpower, withdrawal, or
preaching required. Call it a cure. Call it junk science. Call it theone-step program.By Joshua DavisPage 1 of 4 next
Bryan Peterson sat on the toilet in the master bathroom of his Palm
Springs, California, home and tried to find a vein between his
knuckles. It was virgin territory - he had never injected himself in a
spot he couldn't cover up. But now that he'd been fired from his job
in the estimating department of a construction company, he didn't care
about covering up anymore. Plus, he couldn't find a vein in his arms,
which were swollen with pools of pus and heroin. The thin, translucent
blue veins snaking across the back of his hand filled him with joy. He
slid the needle in beside his knucklebone. It hurt. Story Tools
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
Two weeks later, he'd blown out all the tiny veins in his hands and
feet. Unable to absorb all that fluid, they burst, adding more blood
to the already toxic mix festering under his skin. He started plunging
the needle deep into his bicep, shooting heroin directly into the
muscle. The drug seemed to sizzle as he injected it.
Peterson was 36 and had been addicted for three years. Before that, he
was just a normal working guy who liked to play guitar in a local rock
band. Over the past two and a half years, he'd tried to kick his habit
cold turkey three times and attended a few Narcotics Anonymous
meetings. He'd make it through the first step - acknowledging that he
was powerless over his addiction - and that was it. Even with the
group therapy sessions and encouragement from fellow addicts, he
couldn't stay clean for more than 10 days. The withdrawal pains were
so unbearable, he fantasized about cutting off his legs to stop the
aching. And when the pain subsided for a moment, he was racked with
nausea and diarrhea. His body was holding him hostage: Either take the
drug, it said, or you'll feel so much pain you'll want to die.
Then one day Peterson was talking to a friend who mentioned a miracle
treatment gaining popularity in the Los Angeles area. Doctors were
anesthetizing addicts and using an intravenous drug cocktail to induce
an almost instantaneous withdrawal from the heroin. Within 24 hours,
an addict would be pronounced clean and sober. Peterson borrowed the
$15,000 for the procedure from his family, shot up one last time, and
headed for Orange County.
"The 12-step program is an outdated 20th-century concept," says
Clifford Bernstein, an assistant clinical professor of anesthesiology
at UC Irvine and medical director of the Waismann Institute, the
nation's leading rapid detox center. "For 70 years, thanks to
Alcoholics Anonymous, addicts have been told they're suffering from a
spiritual problem. AA assumes that you can talk someone out of their
addiction - which is ridiculous. Addiction is a medical problem. If
somebody has cancer, you don't try to talk them out of their disease."
Bernstein's steeply angled eyebrows make him look surprised and angry.
When he speaks, he's quiet and measured, but his expression suggests
amazement at the foolish things people believe. His eyebrows arch even
higher when he examines Peterson's ravaged arms.
The procedure is scheduled to take place in the Garden Grove Hospital
and Medical Center's intensive care unit, which Peterson now shares
with a burn victim, a barely breathing obese woman, and a screaming
elderly lady with multiple bone fractures. If he weren't about to
undergo rapid detox, Peterson would be considered too healthy to be
here. It's been 30 hours since he last shot up, and though he's well
into the early stages of withdrawal, he's only suffering from a cold
sweat, a dull ache in his leg, and a mounting panic.
The reaction is normal. Opiate molecules have a chemical structure
similar to endorphins - a natural hormone that regulates pain and
pleasure. When a heroin user shoots up, the opiates in the drug plug
into the nerve receptors normally occupied by endorphins. If opiates
are administered repeatedly, endorphin production drops. The body hasessentially been tricked into short-circuiting the natural
pain-pleasure regulation system.
The addiction turns ugly when the opiate is withheld. Without thepresence of either the opiates or the natural endorphins, an addict's
pain receptors cease to regulate brain signals. The unimpeded flow of
stimulation causes acute pain while triggering a cascade of reactions
throughout the body: sweating, uncontrollable diarrhea, vomiting, and
severe depression. It's not fatal - though it may feel like it - and
the addict often relapses just to stop the torment. It usually takes
two to three weeks of suffering before natural endorphin production
resumes and the pleasure-pain equilibrium is restored.
Considering the ordeal, it's not surprising that quitting cold turkey
works only about 5 percent of the time. To improve on that success
rate, drug treatment experts have traditionally relied on three
approaches: methadone, symptomatic treatment, and Narcotics Anonymous.
Methadone, and its modern substitute buprenorphine, are opiates that
don't produce a high. An addict taking these drugs has essentially
moved from a risky, illegal dependency to a safer, legal one. But if
they don't take the methadone, withdrawal begins within hours. For
users who don't want to be addicted to any substance, treating the
symptoms with a combination of anti-nausea, antidiarrheal, and
sedation drugs can help ease the pain of withdrawal. Finally, the
support of an NA group is usually recommended in conjunction with all
other treatments. These methods have a success rate of 30 percent to
40 percent after a year.
Bernstein says he has a better way to kick opiate addiction - one that
painlessly strips the drug from the brain's nerve receptors in 20
minutes. The procedure, which relies on a combination of medicines, is
carried out while the patient is anesthetized - a conscious patient
would be in so much agony there would be risk of a heart attack.
According to Bernstein, the roughly 2,500 patients the institute has
treated wake up after an hour and are no longer addicted. Even if an
addict were to shoot up after the procedure, there would be no effect.
The opiate would be blocked from binding with the receptors already
occupied by naltrexone, a drug which must be taken orally for a year.
Bernstein says 65 percent of Waismann patients are still clean after a
year.
Critics dismiss those numbers and denounce the Waismann method as a
scam that takes advantage of desperate addicts. But the American
Society of Addiction Medicine has come out in support of the
treatment, and the society's former president claims that it's one of
the most innovative developments in the field since the advent of the
12-step program in the 1930s.
With a recent surge in the abuse of opiate-based painkillers such as
OxyContin, the institute's business is booming. He has put up
billboards across the country and has explained the procedure on MTV,
CBS, and NBC. So far, he's drowning out his critics. And, like Lasik
eye surgery in the 1990s, rapid detox is making the transition from
experimental technique to standard procedure offered nationwide.
Competitors have emerged: A rival rapid detox center opened last year
in Los Angeles, and there are centers in Colorado, Florida, Illinois,
Michigan, New Jersey, and New York. Hundreds of addicts are going
through rapid detox each year, and proponents like Bernstein are
positioning the approach as a modern, humane alternative to Narcotics
Anonymous.
Which makes Peterson an early adopter. Now anesthetized, he lies
almost motionless in the intensive care unit. Blue fluid is being
pumped through his veins. Withdrawal has never been so easy. But it's
also never been so deadly.
In 1988, Austrian physician Norbert Loimer was studying opiate
withdrawal when he discovered that injecting addicts with naloxone -
the intravenous form of the opiate blocker naltrexone - achieved what
he referred to as "acute detoxification." It was accompanied by
intense suffering, which he tried to alleviate by sedating the
patients. It worked. His experimental process condensed the typicalweeks-long withdrawal into a matter of days. Though he believed that
the procedure was too dangerous to be offered to the public, he
published his findings in a medical journal, where they were read withinterest by addiction medicine specialists.
One of them was Lance Gooberman, an American MD who concluded that the
danger of Loimer's rapid detox method was outweighed by the fact that
addicts were dying on the streets every day. Gooberman knew the risks
of drug dependence first hand - he was an alcoholic and had been
hooked on methamphetamines before he began treating other addicts. He
understood that many junkies wouldn't even consider kicking -
conventional detox scared them too much. A faster, less painful
withdrawal could mean the difference between going into treatment and
death for many. So in 1994 Gooberman took Loimer's experimental work
and turned it into a business.
Over the next five years, Gooberman performed more than 2,300 rapid
detoxifications in his offices in Philadelphia and southern New
Jersey. According to county coroners, seven of those addicts died of
complications relating to the procedure. That was enough for David
Samson, New Jersey's attorney general, to file civil charges against
Gooberman in October 1999, accusing him of "repeated gross
malpractice, professional negligence, professional incompetence, and
professional misconduct." Samson contended that rapid detox was an
unproven treatment that put too much strain on patients' bodies. It
just wasn't reasonable, the complaint explained, to assume that a
two-week ordeal could be safely condensed into an hour. He argued that
Gooberman was promising more than he could deliver and creating "a
clear and imminent danger to the public's health, safety, and
welfare."
While Gooberman was building his practice on the East Coast, Bernstein
was recruited to head up the Waismann Institute in Beverly Hills,
California. The institute was founded by Clare Waismann, a Brazilian
businesswoman who realized that rapid detox addressed an unmet need.
The market was crowded with 12-step programs and methadone clinics,
but all of them required addicts to stick with a program. Rapid detox
largely removed willpower from the experience - it was a concept
Waismann thought would make her institute the dominant detox facility
on the West Coast and, eventually, in the nation.
Bernstein was an ideal partner. He had attended a respected medical
school (Rutgers), understood opiate addiction, and was a med school
faculty member. He was energetic, believed in the treatment, and was
ready to devote his credentials and time to winning mainstream
acceptance for it.
But the headlines generated by the case against Gooberman weren't
making it easy. Gooberman was on trial, but the defendant in the
three-year case was really the procedure itself. Most of the testimony
concerned the alleged dangers and benefits of rapid detox. And since
the FDA does not regulate medical procedures, the case became a battle
over the legitimacy of the treatment.
Samson laid out his argument clearly, beginning with the obvious:
Opiate withdrawal is a nonlethal condition, but seven of Gooberman's
patients had died. Anesthesia alone carries a small risk of death.
When coupled with an infusion of novel drugs, there's no telling how
dangerous it can be, particularly since there have been no large-scale
scientific studies on the procedure's effectiveness. In essence, he
was saying that the cure was worse than the disease.
David Smith, a leading addiction doctor and former president of the
American Society of Addiction Medicine, disagreed. Smith testified
that rapid detox was the procedure of last resort for addicts who had
tried everything else and failed. Many of them just couldn't withstand
the pain of withdrawal. Gooberman offered them another option. His
patients came from a population whose health was already compromised -
just treating them was a risk. But the fact that he tried to help them
didn't mean he was responsible for their deaths. "How many would have
died if they'd stayed on drugs?" Smith asks. "Treatment is not athreat to public health, and the attorney general did a disservice by
trying to criminalize it."
The judge in the case agreed that Samson was overreaching. In a
353-page opinion handed down at the end of 2002, he concluded therewas no evidence that rapid detox "caused or contributed" to the seven
deaths. He called the treatment "potentially promising" - but rebuked
Gooberman for a variety of medical oversights, fined him $11,500, and
revoked his license for six months. The attorney general appealed, and
Gooberman soon settled the case out of court. He agreed to pay
$375,500 to the state and $30,000 to the families of the deceased. He
also agreed to have his medical license revoked for two years. His
reputation was damaged beyond repair. No hospital would hire him, and
he disappeared from public view.
That left one man in the media spotlight - just in time for a surge in
demand. Bernstein made it through rapid detox's early years without a
fatality, and now OxyContin abuse was skyrocketing. The treatment had
been legally vindicated, and Bernstein's main competitor on the
national stage couldn't practice medicine anymore.
Bernstein smiles as the cameraman holds the shot. It's early in 2001,
and the Gooberman case rages on. 48 Hours, the CBS newsmagazine show,
is documenting the plight of Troy Swett, a 22-year-old OxyContin
addict. Swett has just arrived at the hospital in Orange County to be
detoxed, and Bernstein is ready for his close-up. "Congratulations for
coming," Bernstein says, shaking Swett's hand. "It's the first step."
In a traditional 12-step program, the first step is to admit
powerlessness over the addiction. Now, according to Bernstein, the
first step is arriving at the Waismann Institute. This kind of
national exposure is important for Bernstein. It's an opportunity to
continue redefining how the public thinks about addiction.
During the segment, Bernstein notes that 90 to 95 percent of his
patients are clean after a month. The on-air reporter asks about
long-term effectiveness, to which Bernstein replies, "People walk out
of here, their withdrawal is finished, and they're not craving." And
the segment moves on.
But the numbers deserve more scrutiny. They are compiled by the
Waismann staff without independent confirmation. They are also based
solely on follow-up phone calls, and there's no guarantee that
everyone is called. (At least one Waismann client, OxyContin addict
Tim Lincoln, says he was never contacted after he returned home to
Texas. He relapsed after two months.) Bernstein doesn't defend the
absolute accuracy of the success rate stats. "Maybe it's a little
off," he says, "but it's still much, much higher than methadone or
Narcotics Anonymous programs."
Even substantiated statistics wouldn't necessarily prove that rapid
detox is better than conventional treatments. The type of patients who
come to the Waismann Institute tend to have more family and social
support and can afford the $15,000 fee. They are more likely to get
clean in any kind of treatment program. And there's another twist:
Bernstein says that about 70 percent of his patients are addicted to
prescription painkillers. He admits that the success rate for heroin
addicts is probably lower, but he doesn't know the exact figure.
Still, Waismann advertises a single success rate - 65 percent - and is
therefore luring heroin abusers with a potentially exaggerated
promise.
Bernstein cites independent studies to buttress his claims. A study
from the University of Miami School of Medicine in 2000 reports a 55
percent abstinence rate six months after rapid detoxification. A
German clinical investigation in 2000 found a 68 percent success rate
at 12 months. But neither study compared the procedure with a control
group, so it's impossible to state whether patients would have been
more or less successful with another treatment.
Herbert Kleber, director of the division on substance abuse at
Columbia University, takes issue with Bernstein's claims. "I challenge
him to take 100 addicts off the street and show a 65 percent success
rate," Kleber says. "He won't be able to."
Kleber has just completed the largest scientific study of rapid detox
to date, and his numbers don't come close to matching Bernstein's.
Using a $1 million grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse,Kleber followed 105 abusers through rapid detox and two other
treatments. He found that after three months, rapid detox fared no
better than other methods.
But even if it doesn't work as advertised, it's still a useful
treatment that can seem like a miracle cure. Even Tim Lincoln, the
relapsed OxyContin addict from Texas, grudgingly admits it served a
purpose. Before he went to see Bernstein, he tried to quit twice, only
to suffer a week of diarrhea, nausea, and severe depression each time.
Though he didn't feel good after rapid detox, he didn't have any
diarrhea or nausea. Essentially, Bernstein's treatment allowed him to
skip that first and most painful week of the process.
It was an illusory victory - Lincoln relapsed within two months. He
eventually found the willpower to suffer through the withdrawal on his
own and, with the help of Narcotics Anonymous, is clean now. But for
addicts who cannot make it through that first week of withdrawal any
other way, the $15,000 procedure may be their only hope. And for white
collar addicts - business executives, doctors, celebrities, sports
stars - the quick fix promised by rapid detox is a powerful draw.
Amanda, a busy Northern California medical-supply sales rep who asked
that her real name not be used, was popping 20 Vicodins a day but
didn't want to take a lot of time to deal with her addiction. Before
she found out about Waismann, she was preparing for a 30-day detox in
Malibu. Bernstein, she says, cured her in a weekend: "They put me
under Friday. I was a little groggy Saturday. By Sunday, I was ready
to get back to work. And I had no desire for the pills."
While criticism from within the medical community hasn't influenced
Bernstein, competition may. In November, Chicago-based Midwest Rapid
Opiate Detoxification Specialists opened a center in LA. Jake Epperly,
the clinical director, distinguishes his method from the Waismann
practice by emphasizing "the absolute necessity of a continuing care
recovery program" based on Narcotics Anonymous. Epperly runs his own
halfway house in Chicago and markets his group as the only rapid detox
service in the US with a 28-day inpatient aftercare program.
Of course, closely monitoring a former user's sobriety is a pillar of
NA. Addicts are expected to attend 90 meetings in 90 days and speak
regularly with a sponsor who has been off drugs for an extended
period.
Bernstein has never offered a robust aftercare program. He trusts in
the science, not the therapy. At the Waismann Institute, the $15,000
fee includes 6 to 12 follow-up phone calls from a psychologist.
Bernstein is particularly adamant that the Narcotics Anonymous
approach is counterproductive. "The last thing I want is for my
patients to sit in a room with a bunch of other addicts and spend all
their time talking about drugs," he says. "It's like a cult. Plus,
that's where all the drug dealers hang out."
But Bernstein is adapting. He says that he is in the process of
creating his own Waismann-branded luxury recovery center near a beach
in Orange County, where addicts can stay after detox. According to
Bernstein, it'll be nicer and more effective than Epperly's program.
Rather than attend group meetings, patients will be encouraged to play
golf and take walks on the beach.
Epperly scoffs at the approach. "Golfing won't keep them off drugs,"
he says. "Just because their bodies don't crave it doesn't mean they
psychologically don't want it."
Bryan Peterson is sitting in the backyard of his parents' suburban
home in the hills outside Las Vegas. It has been two weeks since he
underwent rapid detox. The swelling in his extremities has gone down,
and the scabs on his arms have fallen off. There are dark bags under
his eyes, and his skin looks like yellowed parchment. But he manages a
meager smile. For the first time in two years, he's been sober for
more than a few days. "Everything just looks a little greener," hesays, staring out at the mostly gray desert.
Then he taps his fingers on the glass table in front of him. He lights
a cigarette. He's got nothing to do. His next scheduled phoneconversation with the Waismann psychologist isn't for three days.
Peterson admits that he opened the yellow pages a couple of days ago
and found the address of a local methadone clinic. "It's the easiest
place to score," he says. But he didn't go, and he says that he feels
better every day. By mid-November, he was still clean and he moved
with his fiancée to Glasgow, Kentucky. It's a dry town - no alcohol is
sold within city limits - and it's supposed to be very green.
Contributing editor Joshua Davis (jd@...) wrote about
supercoca in issue 12.11.
Copyright (C) 1993-99 The Conde Nast Publications Inc. All rights reserved.
Peace and love,
Preston Peet
"Madness is not enlightenment, but the search for enlightenment is often mistaken for madness"
Richard Davenport-Hines
ptpeet@...
Editor http://www.drugwar.com
Editor "Under the Influence- the Disinformation Guide to Drugs"
Cont. High Times mag/.com
Cont. Editor http://www.disinfo.com
Columnist New York WasteEtc.From:brad.fisher@... Subject:RE: [Ibogaine] rapid detox- egad!
This report does not even begin to give an accurate description of what an
addict of a few years of heavy use will endure...
When I was called (once) as a follow-up, after a few minutes they did not
want to talk to me any more and needless to say they never called back.
AGAIN, the most horrible experiance of my 52 years..bfFrom:stevenanker@... Subject:RE: [Ibogaine] thoughts on a movie and ibogaine
Hey Preston,
Thanks for venting. I relate.
Hang in there dude... Your situation is tough because you seem to have that junkie feed me vibe as well as actual pain to deal with. Very tough scene you must be in. Be good and maybe a few activities to get you out of your head. Golf perhaps or watching a movie... At least you're not an orphan in Sri Lanka. Things will work themselves out.
The same writer who wrote "Eternal" wrote "Adaptation." The beginning has a distinctly hallucinogenic vibe and the orchids give powerful trips.. Check it out, you will relate to it. I thought of iboga/mushrooms/whatever when I saw it.
It makes sense to be confused about ibogaine. I don't think we understand it completely.
Ibogaine is heavy shit, eh? A while ago I contacted Dr. Drew from that radio show 'love-line' about ibo. He works by day at a drug clinic. I thought it would help the cause to have a national known addiction specialist work with it. He did and this is what he wrote me about his experience:
Steve,
I have now had two cases since we have begun exchanging emails who had been treated with Ibogaine. I am sorry to say that both were abject and scary failures. Indeed, both were able to stop doing drugs seemingly spontaneously for three months after the the Ibogaine but both drifted slowly back to their disease at still greater intensity. The scary thing is that both had evidence of hallucinogen induced brain injuries. They were both opiate addicts and had never done any other drugs known to injure the brain in this way.
Scary, eh?
When I was in Gabon it really struck me how few Bwiti (practically no one) ever took the initiation more than once. There is this belief around that ibogaine works better for addiction if done multiple times, each relapse go in and take the magic bullet. With enough times, the brain and mind is fixed. I don't know if this is true, perhaps with some people.
It's been over two years since I first took ibogaine for my opiate addiction and my thoughts about it have changed over the course of time. Some things I've noticed: The most dogmatic are those who just took it or those who have never taken it. Ibo is a useful tool for some, a magic bullet for some, harmful for some, and for some makes no real difference a little poorer, but no worse for wear. For me, it was helpful but I made many other changes in my life in order to stay clean. Getting arrested for dope, for instance. We don't really know what the best way to treat addiction is. Maybe ibo once and then a combo of the nor-ibogaine patch and 18-mc. Perhaps iboga is best left in the jungles of West Africa. One of the Bwiti priest's told me "It's a sad day when the holy root is put in a pill." We don't know. They thought ibogaine was the white man's evil.
The thing I have come to believe completely is that addiction treatment sucks in it's current state. Maybe there just needs to be many more options for people. AA works for some, methadone helps others, ibo for some. A very close friend was helped by UROD, even though the detox was hellish. He was the sort of guy who needed more dope than a raging bull rhino, big guy right? He woke up in the middle of the detox and had no clue where he was, full of needles and tubes and no one came when he called for help. The medication afterwards helped and he had high regards for the Matrix (Non 12 step) after-care program. He's been clean for a couple of years. Many people also just plain stop on their own. UROD seems slightly cool as a poor-man's version of the Keith Richards travel to Switzerland and swap your blood out treatment.
I put Keeping Clean together for a friend who had relapsed and was taking ibogaine for the second time. Keeping Clean was meant to help him afterwards, right? Anyway, he does the ibogaine and a few days later back on the yam yam visiting the dark master. Half a year later, completely strung out, he goes cold turkey grits his teeth and manages to stop.
Do the potential risks outweigh the benefits? Is the statement "has the cure for addiction been suppressed since the sixties" true? My guess is that the people who have had bad experiences don't come on this list. I'm saddened that more people haven't wanted to visit the Bwiti, they need our cash every bit as much as the clinics.
I've been off the list for a time busy with a baby, glad to see it's the same shit. Let the love flow.
Preston, peace out motherfucker... thinking of you brother,
Steve.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: tents444@...http://www.corporatism.netfirms.com/mmmall.htm This page just created! Please forward and distribute widely.348 MMM cities worldwide since 1999!
MMM. All cities 1999 to date. Million Marijuana March. Global Cannabis Liberation in May. Worldwide since 1999. Cannabis events on the first Saturday in May, or that weekend, or thereabouts. Marches, meetings, rallies, raves, concerts, festivals, etc..******************************************************************************To get on the poster for 2005--update your contact details & add your city to this New List:
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Million Marijuana March. MMM. Cannabis Liberation Day!
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forwarded email has been deleted since it has some private
postal info, etc. in [brackets]. Go to cures-not-wars.org
(eventually) for a detailed MMM 2005 city list for
May 7, 2005! http://www.cures-not-wars.org
A basic MMM 2005 city list with email addresses and
webpage links is here:
http://www.corporatism.netfirms.com/mmm2005.htm
Subscribe to get the detailed MMM 2005 city list:
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/mmmnet
To subscribe to that email list send a blank email to:
mmmnet-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
Dana Beal's MMM email compilations are archived here:
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/mmmworld
To subscribe to that email list send a blank email to:
mmmworld-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
With less than 5% of the world's population
the USA has over 2.2 million of the world's
9 million prisoners!:
http://corporatism.netfirms.com/rates.htm and
http://corporatism.netfirms.com/world.htm
MMM (Million Marijuana March).
City list and world map:
http://corporatism.netfirms.com/mmm2005map.htm
Yahoo Group:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cannabisaction
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