Song in my Head: Plame's outing threats our security, It's Traitorgate, it's Traitorgate.........Mad Kane

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Alter-Abled News

From today's Newsday

Ex-Judge's Verdict: Drug Laws Unjust

It isn't that Marks, 88 and now retired, is soft on crime. It's just that he regards the Rockefeller drug laws enacted in September 1973, as the "most unjust enacted in my time." Marks says the draconian drug laws have snared the weak and the poor in its net, but few drug lords - who can afford expensive lawyers to keep them out of jail.


From Drug WarRant

Clark said he doesn't condone widespread use of marijuana but would consider allowing it for pain relief. "We need to look at that and make some allowances one way or another," the candidate said of so-called medicinal marijuana usage


From Marijuana Policy Project

Federal Appeals Court To Hear Medical Marijuana Suit

Patients, Caregivers Sue To Stop Raids
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA -- On Tuesday, Oct. 7, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will hear oral arguments in the lawsuit brought against U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft and the Drug Enforcement Administration by medical marijuana patients Angel McClary Raich and Diane Monson and two caregivers. The suit seeks to bar the federal government from raiding or arresting the plaintiffs for growing or possessing medical marijuana.


Prescription Pot: A Leading Advocate's Heroic Battle to Legalize Medical Marijuana
by George McMahon, Christopher Largen

Here's one review from Amazon: (link)

As of the writing of this book, McMahon was one of seven persons in the U.S. who could smoke marijuana legally. As a person with the rare genetic disorder Nail Patella Syndrome, he participates in the federal government's Compassionate Investigational New Drug Program. Under the program's auspices, he receives 300 government-grown-and-packed joints each month. (Thanks to the redoubled war on drugs, the program no longer accepts new participants.) The herb frees him from most of the pain associated with the bone and joint deformities resulting from his disease and allows him to live a more normal life. Those 300 joints replace 400 morphine pills for him, yet medical morphine is legal and medical cannabis isn't. McMahon has made campaigning for legalization of medical marijuana his life's mission, and the book documents his dialogues with legislators and law-enforcement personnel to date. It also includes heartrending testimony from other medical marijuana users, legal and not, and the transcript of a supportive scientific study. A well thought-out argument in favor of legalizing cannabis for clinical use. Donna Chavez

Nail-Patella Syndrome....that's what I was born with, too. Dislocated knees and elbows, no thumbnails, glaucoma, chronic pain, IBS....are some of the symptoms.