Ron Paul introduces Medical Marijuana Patient Protection Act

Ron Paul introduces

planetsave.com

Paul has introduced the “Medical Marijuana Patient Protection Act”, H.R. 5842, which would bar the Federal Government from intervening in doctor/patient relationships that violate no state law.

(visit the link for the full news article)



[edit on 29-4-2008 by Maxmars]

Seems as though the real question is, will the Federal Government submit to the will of the state?

This confrontation between the Federal majesty and States rights could lead to other such assertions of legal power re-defining the national landscape. If the States can successfully create law to bar the federal government from anything - that's a start. I dare say a good one.

Currently we have a rather self-absorbed bully of a federal government, infatuated with itself mostly, and populated with all sorts of people who's objective appear to have little to do with the welfare of our nation. State's rights are not a bad thing, as long as we can remain a nation. The federal government went from employee to boss - that was a mistake.

The issue is one patently good for medical application, most would agree. But the irony of using the term 'patently' is not lost on me. The application of this substance by medical discretion without governmental control will not be accepted. Whether it be direct or through a health care superstructure they will not allow this substance to be freely available.

They stand to lose too much money. Who? you say? Big Pharma? The CIA? I don't know - but somebody will. You'll be able to spot them, they'll object

planetsave.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Starred and Flagged...Hopefully Dr. Paul will get somewhere with these idiots. Arrests for Cannabis use, particularly medically scripted, is a total joke. That a gov entity has the right to tell ANY adult human being what they can and cannot put in their own body is sickening.

If anyone would object, it would be everyone...if that makes sense. The world of medicine is prevalent in every society and therefore everyone from the doctor to the CEO of GenericMeds to the janitor at the pharmaceutical building stands to benefit from this. Add in illegal substances and the federal government is inherently involved, regulating everything within their limits and bending to the wills of the companies with the fattest pockets. This is not entirely the case with everyone involved...just the greedy.

reply to post by Sacreligion


However the fact that marijuana is illegal really can't be the issue can it? That would mean if it weren't 'illegal' there would be no issue with it. Circular, no?

'Pot' can't be illegal simply because it's illegal. There is supposed to be a cause to justify proscribing a naturally occurring substance.

The truth is, there have been several a strong legal cases challenging its criminalization as 'cruel and unusual.' Unfortunately the federal government has virtually succeeded in rendering any dialogs of the matter into the realm of the 'fringe.' As can plainly be evidenced by the more or less arbitrary 'censorship' we frequently observe in the media.

But, if society does, as a whole, resists the practice, it will diminish as the market vanishes. Perhaps we'll never know for sure.

go ron paul!, my shrink wont prescribe it for me simply because hes afraid of the feds smaking him around and after years and years of use i know for a fact its the only thing found so far that evens me out and stops some of my symptoms with out horrendous side effects.

Big Flag, and Seven-Tipped Star, Max!

Love Dr. Paul even MORE now! Federal raids on marijuana-legal states
really irritate me. If a state passes law on medicinal use of the drug, then
THAT'S IT! Period! Fed should stay OUT!

I'm confident laws like this will eventually win. After all, generational
evolution on this matter is building.

I got put on different psychopharmaceutical meds for P.T.S.D.;; NONE of
them makes any difference! MJ helps tremendously, and it's all natural.
The synthetic pharma makes me like a half-sleep-zombie, where as MJ
eases my pain, and smoothes me over, and mellows me out, and helps
balance me.

Originally posted by DimensionalDetectiveThat a gov entity has the right to tell ANY adult human being what they can and cannot put in their own body is sickening.

"I will end the Nanny State. I will give personal responsibility back to the American people. The decisions on how to live your lives are yours. The decision on vaccinations for your children is yours. The decision on what to eat is yours. The decision on what to watch on your computer or television is yours. The decision to own a gun is yours. The decision to smoke or drink or gamble is yours. The job of government is not to protect you from yourself. Or to prosecute victimless crimes. Big Brother will no longer be open for business under my watch."

--Wayne Allyn Root

How can anyone not love this guy?

Good to see Ron Paul with this part as well (from above linked article)...

Congressman Paul is also co-sponsor of H.R. 1009, calling for the legalization of industrial hemp as an agricultural product. Hopefully, these two bills will begin to chip away at the DEA and it’s stranglehold on the issue of industrial hemp and medical marijuana.

[edit on 4/30/2008 by RabbitChaser]

If congress passes the bill, I would bet dollars to donuts that our fearless leader would veto it. I am sure big pharma would get the best lobbyists that money can buy to ensure this bill won't pass.

It is a shame that corporate greed supercedes common sense.

I bet the "big pharma" is secretly working on medical grade marijuana derivative medications to prescribe & distribute the instant such derivatives become "legal" to pursue and prescribe in such a manner.

Will there ever be pre-rolled marijuana cigarettes in packs of twenty sold by Phillip Morris and RJ Reynolds at American convenience stores? It looks doubtful, very doubtful indeed. However, this takes nothing away from the potentiality of patients with real issues being allowed to take real medications that really work .. but as of right now the Government won't allow them to.

What this does say, in effect, is "Try what we already have to give you for your ailments", this is what the Government, is in effect saying, by saying that you cannot be prescribed medical marijuana under their watch. They commonly defend their measures by saying that they already have these markets full of "useful" drugs. Useful .. to enslave a nation with?

It is the secret epidemic that is quietly sweeping the nation. No one is talking about it much .. because everyone is in on it, or has a family member or friend in on it. Just like the Heroin epidemic of the 70's .. and 80's .. and the Crack epidemic of the 80's and 90's .. we now have a new epidemic in the 90's and 00's .. through the 10's .. and that is, illicit subversion and usage of opiate/opioid based prescription narcotics, which molecularly are not much different from something illicit and illegal in all forms such as Heroin (at least in the USA, in the UK they prescribe it under the brand name "Diamorph" .. im serious! prescription Heroin in the UK for pain). As such, their effect on the brain is very similar as well, and unknowingly, the pain sufferer creates a physical addiction and dependence to these medicines, whereby their very bodily functions that we take for granted every day become unusable, inoperable, disabled, or aggravated, due to a lack of a chemical substance into their brain and body which they had been prescribed for the past number of months or years or whatever. And if they do not receive their pain medication, they will go into outright withdrawals no different than a Heroin addict does. If you sat them side-by-side, a pain sufferer withdrawing from a prescribed pain medication, and a Heroin addict withdrawing from an illegal street habit, their symptoms will be identical, while varying from person to person in intensity and other peculiarities, such as duration.

Now hear me out ATS, I am not demonizing poppy derivative medications. I am glad we have them, in fact, outright lucky we are indeed to have them when we have a Government that won't allow Doctors to prescribe and provide Marijuana. We should be counting our blessings right now for all the medications we do have access to, which could be argued against quite thoroughly in the Senate or whatever, should a Senator choose to demonize it with a bill they are sponsoring for approval. What I am doing is showing you in quite real terms, in a quite realistic fashion, the nature of what we currently have as our "best" tool for pain relief in persons with extreme pain issues, ranging from daily chronic pains to acute pains to .. pains you suffer during a surgery when they cut you up, or pains you suffer when you break bones. All pain .. this is the BEST we got .. essentially legal smack. Well thanks a boat load Uncle Sam.

So then, does it not look to be the least bit silly of them, the Senators and opponents of medical marijuana policies to say, "This plant has no true medicinal values". This is outright incorrect; we have marijuana derivative medications on the market right now for nausea, although typically only prescribed to Cancer patients undergoing Chemotherapy and so forth. There is the proof that there is something in that plant which is useful to medicine.

If we judge every plant by the worst thing which has become of it, surely we will have a short list of plants we can make medicine from. Here is a quick rundown for you:

All numbing agents (lidocaine, novacaine, coc aine, etc) are derived from, or synthesized to match the molecular structure of, derivative chemicals from the coca leaf plant. This is the same plant "responsible" for Crack.

All pain relief narcotic medications are derived from, or synthesized to match the molecular structure of, derivative chemicals from the poppy plant, aka the opium plant. This is the same plant "responsible" for Heroin.

And this is just focusing on pain related things. So Mr. X, are you ready for your 11 o'clock oral surgery today? We're going to be pulling those nagging teeth for you .. don't worry .. you won't feel a thing!
(but we cant numb you up for the process, or give you relief afterward when your face swells to the size of Jay Leno's .. )

Its so easy to grow at home that the government who finds ways to get a nice big cut from most of the "illegal" drug trade knows theres no way for them to profit anywhere near as much by making it legal and as a result want to keep it illegal and profitable. anyone thats smoked cigarettes or drunk enough alcohol to make themselves sick should be aware that weed does everything both of them do and better without anywhere near and amount of side affects. theres too many people blindly believing ridiculous propaganda that it makes people hallucinate or act violent (there was a news report recently that described a murder as "a cannabis induced rage" ) that lack of education is the only thing stopping a more natural and peaceful alternative to alcohol (which DOES make people aggressive) from being legalized in the western world.



you cant overdose on it and ive never in my life even heard let alone seen anyone get more aggressive than normal while stoned (besides outright lying fear based manipulative news reports) and their only legit complaint of people driving or working stoned goes out the window when you realize that anyone foolish enough to drive or go to work under the influence is the cause of the problem not the drug they choose to use when they make the foolish decision. and we have laws against drink driving so theres no reason why we cant have laws against stoned driving. i had a lot of pain and infection after surgery a while back and after being made more ill by the poison doctors hand out i tried weed and was amazed how the pain became almost unnoticeable and the swelling and infection finally went down.



i got in trouble with the police over an old pipe id used back when i needed it (i used it for about 2 weeks until id completely healed and got caught with it about a week after id stopped treating myself with it) and since then ive been too uncomfortable to use it on a regular basis but im looking forward to the day we finally pry one more natural herbal cure from the greedy hands of profiteers because i remember that was the only time in my entire life that my lower back and knee problems stopped causing me pain altogether and the side affects (my immune system got severely weakened from one of the "legal" things they gave me for the pain for example) from the chemical rubbish they force on people at massive profits (ever notice how most cures come from herbs but they add all sorts of rubbish to it and copyright it?) make me just bear the pain i have to suffer from these old injuries that refuse to heal.



one day people will wise up to the fact that we already have natural cures for most things and are forced to use ineffective and side effect inducing poison just so certain people can get insanely rich and will demand change en mass and on that day i will once again be free to use it as a natural painkiller without having to worry about breaking the law to do it. and im only one of millions that could benefit from legal cannabis, isn't it time we all stop believing the lies and start realizing how many people could be helped by finally maturing our legal system and start using it once again to improve peoples lives instead of fatten the bank accounts of those that abuse their power?

I heard about a US District Court ruling a short while ago that appears to solve the problem so long as the counties in question stand up to the feds.

www.keenefreepress.com...

The duly elected sheriff of a county is the highest law enforcement official within a county. He has law enforcement powers that exceed that of any other state or federal official.
...

"If a sheriff doesn’t want the Feds in his county he has the constitutional right and power to keep them out, or ask them to leave, or retain them in custody."

I really encourage a read of that entire article. The 10th Amendment is not dead yet. I don't know what will happen if and when this makes it to the Supreme Court, but until then it appears that when the DEA conducts illegal raids in states that permit medical use, the sheriff has the right to arrest them.

Of course the marijuana aspect of this legislature is highly relevant in today's America, especially as it pertains the the health care industry, namely, insurance, big pharma, and the government (which includes media nowadays).

But I wish to reassert the fact that we shouldn't ignore or undervalue the act of the introduction of this legislature in and of itself.

States have had little recourse but to submit to Federal 'wisdom' for several decades now. When a state or states begin to see the value of disallowing federal authority to override the will of their citizens a great 'contest' begins. It's not just about marijuana, it's about whether the federal government is 'the boss' or 'the employee.' I suspect we can imagine where the administration and their judiciary stands on this issue. The only force left to the people is the legislature, which has been quite impotent over the last decade or so.

One could say the problem has been our media's complicity in propagating the 'partisan' myth, making us all think that party alignments represent 'protection' from some high-level agenda depending on it's source. We can see that even our legislators have been somewhat naive about the sources of the information on which they base their 'positions.' And of course, the party 'whips' can literally push a 'vote' in any direction the 'party' deems necessary. All this with little to no input from the constituency they represent.

The merits of the Marijuana case will be the 'straw man' in this contest, debating and calling in tremendous influxes of data, contrived medical nonsense, anecdotal evidence. Of course, the 'complex issue' of the will of the people will be completely 'lost' in the debate.

I maintain that the question is - Will the Federal Government once again rebuke the State's desire to exercise governmental control within it's own borders? Or will the corporate media lull the American people into the delusion that the federal government (which is to say the DEA/DHS combine joined with the Corporate interests we call Health Care) knows better and continue to exert authority over the state.

Can we expect an awakening, and how much 'disinformation' will become part of the congressional record? Will the states be marginalized? Is there truly an American voice in the matter, or will it all be the usual legislatorial road show?

I fear the only 'citizens' our government will deign to 'listen' to will be the 'corporate citizen'. Perhaps they'll allow some citizens group or other to join the fray - but only if they can be easily marginalized as a bunch of dopers, or fringe 'green' concerns the talking heads can chuckle about.

So you see, I'm wondering; is marijuana just the best vehicle to allow the federal government an opportunity to formally lock down on state's rights, because they know they'll get major support from corporate media and huge corporate interests? Or can it be that using marijuana legislation as a vehicle, we may get a tiny portion of population-driven legislature ratified, securing hope that we can recover from this mad spin towards the federal super-government mandating states as if they were divisions of a corporation.

[edit on 30-4-2008 by Maxmars]

Wow.
A Ron Paul idea thats not nuts?
I didnt realise that was possible.

reply to post by Shazam The Unbowed


Well, there are no guarantees about anybodies ideas, but I think, if you examine your sources closely, you might find that some of those ideas popularly considered 'nuts' weren't so 'nuts' after all.

As with all things political I always suggest the same course of action - check your sources' sources. - you might be surprised to find that what you were 'told' was not always entirely accurate or free from bias before it got to you.

reply to post by apc


Excellent post! I would hope that more patriots such as this duly elected peace officer surface as the Fed continues it's power-grab. Maybe we can afford to see this as a sign of hope.

I wonder if other Sheriff's across the country will have the moral courage to stand by their communities against the growing trend towards fascist law enforcement? Only time will tell. In the meantime I am strongly considering moving to Maine - before the Federal Government tells me I can't.

Originally posted by Karlhungis
If congress passes the bill, I would bet dollars to donuts that our fearless leader would veto it. I am sure big pharma would get the best lobbyists that money can buy to ensure this bill won't pass.

It is a shame that corporate greed supercedes common sense.

Welcome to the American Oligarchy. thanks to Karl for pointing out the reason why we don't live in a Representative Democracy.


More to the specific topic... I have this habit of polling police officers during conversation (I work in the Heart of Nashville, Which has a strong foot patrol/bike patrol/scooter patrol presence... Cops bored out of their mind and with nothing better to do than talk to the locals (which also keeps us all safe in the daytime)

Anywho, I always ask them on question. I tell 'em straight up... I don't think of pot as a drug... I believe the only reason it is not on par with alcohol is because of purchase restrictions by tobacco companies and lumber companies. Being this is the case... What is your honest opinion on Marijuana? Should it be legal?

Of the hundreds I've asked (literally at least 100)... 1... thats right 1 said he thinks pot is bad and should be illegal. The rest said they only bust people for it because it's there job, and they can't overlook one thing without overlooking other things (the original purpose for the stop, etc.)

When you're forcing your protective services to enforce laws they don't even support, of course your cops are going to be harsh. They could lose their livelihood for simply being understanding... Something that never would have happened 40 years ago.

Coven

this is why this man's campaign keeps getting pushed to the ground.

He's upsetting all those apple carts. And the rotten apples keep rolling up to the microphones and TV cameras.

Paul is a national treasure.

Ron Paul has introduced not only a medical bill, but also a decriminalization bill (co-sponsored with Barney Frank).

I posted this is RATS, but this is something everyone needs to know.

Originally posted by biggie smalls
One of the biggest conspiracy of the world, in my opinion, is the suppression of this plant.

We could eliminate our dependence on foreign oil, become a "green economy," and save trillions of dollars per year in the process.

However, industries such as the paper, logging, petrochemical (plastic, fuel, etc), and textile industry would feel the hurt.

You cannot copyright this plant, unlike GM foods.

LEGALIZE IT.

Uses of Cannabis Sativa/Hemp

The plant can be broken down into a few categories of usage: seeds, fiber, stem, flower, and the entire plant.

The seeds can be used for (from the original link I posted):

Confectionary, baked goods; salad oil; body care and cosmetics; animal food; dietary supplements; and industrial oils.


The fiber can be used for:

Plastics; Paper; Construction material; and Textiles.


The stem can be used for:

Bedding; insulation; and construction fiber and plasterboard.


The flowers can be used for:

Medicine; Essential oils; and insect repellant.


The entire plant can be used for:

Alcohol; fuel; and fodder.



The major uses of industrial hemp:

And you ask why its illegal? Simple. The politicians worship the almighty dollar or the god mammon.

Profit makes the world go round sadly. Gotta make that pape.

Can anyone refute my claim and say cannabis sativa or indica is "evil"?

[edit on 4/30/2008 by biggie smalls]

With Ron Paul getting on in age, i really hope theirs going to be someone else like him to actually voice sense and reasonable thoughts once he's gone instead of all the other politicians who are all just walking price tags for their voice.