David
Crockett Williams:
The
MMM Liberation Day 2002 events in Los Angeles took place
over two days May 3-4th featuring a walk by about 30
sign-carrying mostly South Central LA residents in
downtown LA on Friday May 3rd from the Federal Building
to City
Hall and environs with Sister Somayah Kambui on the
bullhorn exhorting the rush hour traffic crowd to support
a Los Angeles ordinance for relief of medical marijuana
patients still being prosecuted by Los Angeles officials
in spite of CA State law resultant from Proposition 215
passed into law as part of CA Health and Safety Code in
1996 (eg, Sister Somayah's own two cases, one in 1998
resulting in acquittal and court ordered return of her 35
medical cannabis plants, and her recent trial ending last
month which also resulted in acquittal of all charges
stemming from confiscation of her last
year's 32 plants - she has pending claims for money
damages with the city for 1998 bust and is considering
civil lawsuit for damages over recent case).
At
City Hall there was a significant extra police contingent
monitoring the crowd and getting an earful of the
walkers' challenge to LA medical marijuana enforcement
policies.
I suggest others in CA fighting this Prop215 enforcement
problem, return of plants by cops after acquittal, etc.,
contact her for info that might be useful from her 1998
"return of plants" precedent for legalese
details that might help other such cases in SF etc.
On Saturday, May 4th, with permits finally granted a week
before the event, the Liberation Day Rally was held in
South Central Los Angeles' Leimert Village Plaza Park at
Vernon and Crenshaw, near where the riots took place 10
years ago after acquittal of police officers involved in
the Rodney King beating. This park is a wedge
shaped small nice city park with lots of passing foot and
vehicle traffic which drew perhaps a couple hundred folks
during the day to stop by and see what was going on and
the crowd at any one time numbered perhaps over a hundred
or so folks including Jack Herer who spent the afternoon
signing books, vending hemp merchandise, and responding
to Sister Somayah's encouragement and invitation, Jack
took the stage explaining that he has recovered
sufficiently from his stroke a couple of years ago to be
able to start speaking publicly again which he did with
typical fervor explaining that his conclusion after all
his years researching the hemp plant that
hemp/cannabis/marijuana is more useful for humanity and
healing the Earth's atmosphere "than all other
plants on Earth combined".
He
concluded his remarks by saying that cannabis is a very
important and good medicine which in all its long history
before and since being outlawed in 1937 (especially
poignant in light of recent studies indicating death by
prescription drugs to be the fourth leading cause of
death in the United States), "nobody in history has
ever died from using marijuana, unless they were shot by
a cop!"
Jack
and others were interviewed by videographers present
doing a TV program for Sister Somayah, and by mainstream
media reporters at least one of which (Channel 2) had a
piece on the TV news that night about the event.
The program of music and speakers was excellent with just
about every aspect of related issues covered by the
various speakers.
At
one point two contingents of police on bicycles entered
and stood watch in the park until leaving after
confronted by Sister Somayah's antics after which she sat
on the lawn and smoked her medicinal cannabis herb and
they left.
Sister
Somayah's network of activists from the LA
African-American community took their role very seriously
in organizing and conducting this event, inviting
representative speakers from many cultures to offer their
messages, representing justice and truth, and as well,
offering a new symbol for the medical marijuana
legalization movement using a red hemp leaf as a logo for
the "Red Leaf Society".
Kind
of reminded me of the story Jack Herer tells about how he
happened to have the time to write the first edition of
his
landmark book, later edited by Chris Conrad et al and
reprinted in many editions, "The Emperor Wears No
Clothes".
Jack explains that during Ronald Reagan's campaign for
United States president he happened to visit the West Los
Angeles Federal Building while Jack and crew were
conducting a voter registration and
hemp-cannabis-marijuana re-legalization CA ballot
inititiative signature campaign outside the building, and
Reagan noticed but did not recognize the
green hemp leaf logos on the signs on display there at
that permitted gathering/demonstration, so presidential
candidate Reagan asked the officials inside the Federal
Building "what are the Canadians protesting about
outside?" (mistaking the hemp leaf logo for the
Canadian red maple leaf flag). When they explained
to Reagan that those were marijuana legalization
activists, he said "well, after I get elected
President we will see what we can do about that in the
future".
Sometime
after Reagan was elected, Jack and crew returned to that
Federal building for the same purpose and he was on that
occasion arrested and imprisoned on bogus charges
stemming from his legitimate activities there registering
voters and collecting ballot access signatures.
During this incarceration he had the time to compose the
first draft of "The Emperor..." based on so
much information people had given him since 1973 when he
published his first book on the subject which he wrote
with Al Emmanuel, "GRASS, Great Evolutionary
American Standard System, The Official Guide for
Assessing the Quality of Marijuana on the 1 to 10 Scale (
for determining what you have and where you are at
)", which ironically was taken up by the Feds as
also their standard reference on how to rate
"strength" of marijuana.
http://www.jackherer.com
Although not yet one of the larger annual MMM events,
this ongoing effort in Los Angeles is very important and
significant especially in light of the specifically
racial prejudice inflamation tactics originally used by
Hearst, et. al., against African Americans falsely
fomenting "black man smokes joint and rapes white
woman" kind of hysteria that Hearst newspapers
promoted for many years creating the public hysteria by
which hemp-cannabis was outlawed in 1937 by calling it
marijuana and not telling the public or Congress that
"marijuana" was the Spanish slang word for the
same plant as the latin
"cannabis" used in the majority of US
pharmacopia at the time, the same plant known in English
as "hemp" which had been, until slavery and the
cotton gin made cotton more profitable than hemp,
humanity's most useful and most widely used plant from
time immemorial for the overall majority of Earth's
paper, fiber, food, fuel, construction materials,
medicines, etc.
With racial profiling still apparently a way of life with
the LAPD, Sister Somayah repeatedly explained how the
level of fear of police harassment, especially for
marijuana, among the African American Community is so
high that they are not just scared but scarred.
This
situation warrants all MMM activists monitoring on an
ongoing basis especially in light of previous MMM NYC
speaker Mike Ruppert's research (as editor of From The
Wilderness Publications and a former Los Angeles Police
Department narcotics investigator and now leading
independent investigative journalist on intel agency
corruption of the Drug War) showing intentional
complicity and enormous profits circulating in the US
economy from CIA agents in the illegal drug trade as a
primary reason for hemp's continuing prohibition http://www.copvcia.com, and in light of
former GHW Bush's Assistant
Secretary for Housing and Urban Development Catherine
Austin Fitt's computer data tracking program showing how
HUD housing in African American communities such as South
Central LA were/are being intentionally targeted for
confiscation and "gentrification" of inner
cities using DrugWar arrests as pretext for HUD property
confiscations (this info and government reaction to this
exposure cost Fitts the loss of $100 million after this
computer program saved HUD billions of dollars by
restructuring loan processes) http://www.solari.com
For these reasons the LA MMM events in future can be very
important for correcting these injustices by bringing out
this information year to year, month to month, day to
day, etc.
I
suggest next year's MMM event might well and easily set
up on same format as this year, locations, etc., to build
momentum better with more advanced arrangements, until
such time as Leimert Village Plaza Park overflows and the
following year a larger location is available. I think it
is very important to use this venue and team of
organizers to bring out these and related important
messages in LA and around the world via the MMM network.
For my part, the three hour drive from where I live in
Tehachapi during that time of day traffic made me too
late to walk on May 3rd, so all I could do was follow the
march by car and appreciate deeply the dedication of
those walking.
On
Saturday, I was delayed by need to help Jack Herer and
crew get to the event by early afternoon so I missed my
chance to present the 10-minute talk Sister Somayah asked
me to do, but was able under open microphone time to
emphasize that the Federal marijuana prohibition effected
in 1937 was/is literally a fraud on the US Congress and
people still not widely understood today where the
"Drug Czar" at that time, Anslinger, lied to
Congress during closed door hearings preceding
Congressional vote passing prohibition when he told
Congress that the American Medical Association was in
favor of outlawing marijuana when in fact the AMA
representative told him days earlier that he had just
found out that marijuana was the source of the cannabis
used in most all US medicines at the time and the AMA was
NOT in favor of outlawing this main medicinal plant at
that time fully utilized by the medical community in
recommended medicines.
I
urged folks to understand these details, as explained and
referenced for example in "The Emperor Wears No
Clothes," so that this theme of "Cannabis hemp
has been outlawed since 1937 in a still-ongoing Fraud on
the US Congress and People" can better grab the
attention and interest to get to the truth of the matter
by the public and Congress.
I gave out copies of the California State University at
Northridge student newspaper April 2nd front-page photo
and "Political group puts the grass in
grassroots" article about the March 20th Earth Day
Ceremony on campus http://sundial.csun.edu/sun/02s/040202ne2.htm which included Jack
Herer, Brian O'Leary, and Sister Somayah's participation
a few days after her recent acquittal at trial mentioned
above, and the subsequent CSUN Sundial article of April
4th interviewing Jack Herer as follows:
CSUN Daily Sundial article of April 4th:
Medicinal weed use blurs illegality
by Alfie Rancopollo, Sundial Staff
Under federal law, marijuaan or hemp is illegal to sell,
grow, buy, or possess, though many still beilieve its use
should be completely permitted.
In 1988, under the ruling of Judge Francis Young, an
administrative law judge for the Drug Enforcement
Administration, marijuana was reclassified as [having]
"currently accepted medical use."
"Hemp is the only medicine on the planet that never
killed anyone," said Jack Herer, author of "The
Emperor Wears No Clothes", a book of the history of
hemp and its uses.
Marijuana has many possible medical uses, including the
treatment of such diseases as cancer, AIDS and glaucoma.
Marijuana increases a person's appetite as well as
relieving nausea, allowing a patient to gain weight.
Gino, who did not want to give his full name, smokes
marijuana after every meal to settle his stomach. "I
smoke pot to keep the food in," Gino said.
Hemp
is used in 40 different forms of medicine, according to
Herer. "(Hemp is used for) paralysis;
everything you can think of," he said.
The Food and Drug Administration recognized the use of
marijuana for medicinal purposes and granted permits to
patients in the United States.
Each state has its own provisions for the medical use of
marijuana. In California, patients are allowed to
obtain 25 to 50 plants a year for medical purposes.
"I had 25 plants this year and 25 plants last
year," Herer said.
In California, 300,000 patients have doctor's permission
to grow marijuana in their back yards or basements, Herer
said.
Marijuana use has many effects; one that is a favorite
among users is euphoria.
Herer has already collected 700,000 signatures to
petition the legalization of marijuana for medicinal
purposes.
end Daily Sundial article
I
explained briefly about The American Agenda campaign for
a Hemp Reform Act introduction to Congress this year, for
its full re-legalization for all purposes, as part of the
"Five Fingers of The Hand of Peace" including
other urgent issues/legislation warranting active
promotion and passage into law this year (Space
Preservation Act HR3616, Nuclear Disarmament and Economic
Conversion Act HR2503, a Climate Stabilization Act and
Treaty, Energy Reform Act, and Hemp Reform Act) http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the-american-agenda - http://groups.yahoo.com/'group/hemp-reform-act
In addition, I announced and circulated for signatures
the Global Peace Zone Development Proclamations for
Capital Hills, California, and an additional one
proclaiming Leimert Park as Los Angeles' first Global
Peace Zone Ceremonial Area as part of the campaign for a
Global Peace Zone designation for the City of Los Angeles
by mayoral proclamation which request is pending with the
mayor's office since submission about 3 weeks ago in
conjunction with the Global Peace Walk project's Global
Peace Zone campaign via which so far 12 US cities and
counties have been proclaimed Global Peace Zones by
their Mayors or County Boards of Supervisors in support
of the prayer for "Global Peace Now!" as a
Universal Human Resolve.
http://www.globalpeacenow.org - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/global-peace-zones
At the event I met Marvin Chavez, Sr., Patient and
Executive Director of the Orange County Patient Doctor
Nurse Support Group, who has a next court date of June
14th for his pending trial on cultivation and possession
for sale charges associated wtih his medical marijuana
use and growing of 46 confiscated plants. This seems the
next case warranting close attention and activism in
California especially since this court date coincides
with Flag Day in the US and therefore an interesting
symbolic date to bring out the original role and history
of hemp-cannabis-marijuana in the US since even
pre-colonial times. marvinchavezsr@yahoo.com
The event was videotaped by BopTail Studios whose
president Mr. Rudy was in attendance jahlambs@pacbell.net
Many thanks to all MMM organizers and coordinators for
all their hard work and dedication, and especially thanks
to Dana Beal for his longtime tireless efforts and savy
organizing of this annual Million Marijuana March event
and promotion of information about the Ibogaine addition
ameliorative. - http://www.cures-not-wars.org
David Crockett Williams, C.L.U., B.S.
661-822-3309
General Agent, Chartered Life Underwriter, Activist
http://www.GeneralAgencyServices.com
Tehachapi, California
CLU degree 1971 American College
BS degree with honors, Chemistry 1969 CSUN
For the direct cause of true peace with harmony among all
life and free natural abundance as paradise on Earth via
a future global computer network psibernetics program
called Torahk. - http://www.angelfire.com/on/GEAR2000/vision.html
Global Emergency Alert Response http://www.angelfire.com/on/GEAR2000
Science and Technology in Society and Public Policy http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dcwilliams - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/new-energy-solutions
Interim Secretary, The American Agenda Committee http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the-american-agenda
An American Peace Movement http://groups.yahoo.com/group/an-american-peace-movement
Global Peace Zones Development Project for "Global
Peace Now!" as a Universal Human Resolve
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/global-peace-zones
|