Free Means Free! A Cannabis Country Declaration of Independence

Shona's Secret

Cannabis patient rights pioneer Shona Banda is fighting for her life. Again. The first time she survived a nearly fatal bout with Crohns by treating herself with THC oil she learned to make from Rick Simpson’s YT classic Run from the Cure.

Now Shona’s been dragged into drug war hell for secrets she was forced to keep as a citizen living under prohibition. Making cannabis concentrates—in the presence of a child, especially—for herself and fellow cannabis patients is a serious crime in Kansas and in many other states. She’s been branded a criminal, and worse, an unfit mom. She’s facing thirty years for defying grossly un-American laws. The ‘good’ news is her story might just be enough to end the war.

The big reveal in this saga is that Ms. Banda is alive only because of a most convenient truth; cannabis is a non-toxic, not physically addictive medicinal flower that is (when used properly, of course), totally safe, even for children and pets; an ancient remedy that can work for some of the most common ailments of these ‘progressive’ times; alcohol abuse, insomnia, stress, migraines, depression, fibromyalgia, MS, ADHD, PMS, PTSD, late-night barking…

Doubters search US patent 6,630,507; Cannabinoids as Antioxidants and Neuroprotectants, filed back in 2003 by none other than Health and Human Services, the same agency that continues to insist that cannabis is bad, just bad. And these are the people We The People are taking orders from? Wake up America!

In the waning years of prohibition, 20th-century industrialists have every right to be pissed. The cannabis trades are booming, despite every attempt by a hoard of Federal agencies to dismiss, disrupt and intimidate ganjapreneurs. Cannabis patients and fans alike are leaving the ‘pills butts and booze’ drug reservation in droves; choosing their favorite forbidden flower for medicine because it works, treating themselves in private because it’s nobody’s business but their own, and sharing the truth they discover with anyone who will listen.

Treating yourself in private—using doctors for diagnosis and emergency care and taking care of the rest with herbs, flowers, good food and practices—drives drug prohibitionists crazy--a third choice between greedy and frightened; it's just a flower, madam.

So now a lad with cannabis country smarts dares to stand up to drug warriors he knows are full of shit—and unwittingly unleashes on his family the very worst of America. The eleven-year-old is detained. Authorities are notified. His mom, Shona Banda, no less, arrested and charged.

Sorry Kansas. We’re Americans first. Our lives. Our bodies. Our right to explore, choose and responsibly use nature’s bounty of options. For Christians in the know it’s Genesis 1:29; Cannabis is ours; God said.

And boy oh boy, just wait until Middle Americans find out about all this! Washington will have some serious explaining to do. And soon after that, America’s longest and most indefensible war will be over.

Stay strong Shona; we’ll get you out of this.

Tunes to make our quiet revolution less so...

Top 10 Reasons Cannabis Legalization is Inevitable

…and why freedom will happen sooner than later.

1. Prohibition is against the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

2. States are asserting their right to restore liberties lost, and politicians who get it, like Colorado Congressman Jared Polis and the new Kennedy-seat Senator from Massachusetts, Elizabeth Warren, are on the rise in Washington.

3. Cannabis is a fast-growth, taxable enterprise frontier that delivers real medicine, good jobs, and sustainable opportunities to recession-weary Americans.  See related piece: http://cannabisrising.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-cannabis-trades-wheel-of-fortune.html

4. On the hemp front, struggling American farmers watch from the sidelines as countries like China, Canada and Romania take the lead in hemp cultivation for fiber (paper, textiles, composites, building materials), nutritious food, and earth-friendly bio-fuel.

5. Famously peaceful binge-bonging, chain-toking cannabis festivals now draw huge numbers, proving over and over that no matter how baked they get, cannabis fans pose little threat to themselves or to society.

6. Home cultivation for personal use is taking off because growing supplies can be freely sold, and small grows are impossible to police. 

7. We the People are demanding fiscal responsibility from Washington, and the failed drug war is a fiscal abomination that has met its match; a taxable economic frontier with a rising cultural distaste for intrusive government.

8. Research shows drunk driving fatalities decline in states that restore the right to choose and responsibly use cannabis.

9. The convenient truth, that cannabis is an ancient healing flower that never kills and is not physically addictive, is being re-discovered and shared online.

10. The US Government already knows cannabis is medicine, and has the patent to prove it (#  6,630,507 Cannabinoids as antioxidants and neuroprotectants).

In the 1800s cannabis use as medicine was all the rage.  It shall be again.

Mr. President; 

Americans are more than ready to embrace a healing flower that comes with its own economic frontier. The US has fallen way behind on the enterprise front, especially with regard to encouraging hemp cultivation for food, fiber and fuel. It's not dope, sir. And you know it. Tell the truth and restore our freedom to choose and make good use of cannabis.

If you don't, you can be sure you'll be hearing from us. Soon, and often.