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<$Project P.E.A.C.E. -- Planet Ecology Advancing Conscious Economics$>
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- In the US: According to a rural Mississippi study, almost three fourths of respondents had used plant-derived remedies during the preceding year. Another study found that one third of US citizens have used herbal medicines. One survey in an urban hospital showed herbal use to be 27% and highest (36%) among the Asian population. A national survey examining trends in alternative medicine found that use of at least 1 of 16 alternative therapies increased from 33.8% in 1990 to 42.1% in 1997.
- Internationally: The World Health Organization (WHO) has estimated that herbal and other plant-derived remedies are the most frequently used therapies worldwide. WHO estimates that 4 billion people, 80% of the world population, use herbal preparations for primary health care. One South Australian survey found that 48.5% of respondents used at least 1 nonmedically prescribed alternative medicine (including vitamins).
Mortality/Morbidity: The FDA noted 2621 adverse drug reactions and 184 deaths due to herbal products over a 5-year period. However, the report relied on voluntary physician reporting, which may substantially underestimate total incidence. Actual mortality and morbidity are difficult to assess due to underreporting. Race: Some ethnic groups are more likely to utilize herbal preparations. One survey in a New York urban hospital showed overall herbal use to be 27% and highest (36%) among the Asian population.
from Plant Poisoning, HerbsJon Mark Hirshon, MD, MPH, Associate Professor, Division of Emergency Medicine, University of Maryland Medical Center Coauthor(s): Fermin Barrueto, Jr, MD, Assistant Professor, Department of Surgery, Division of Emergency Medicine, University of Maryland http://www.emedicine.com/emerg/topic449.htm
posted by projectpeace @
6:29 AM
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Saturday, February 12, 2005  |
FOR RELEASE: 8 February 2005
"Claiming Novel Strategies for Harm Reduction and Addiction Recovery"
Paul J. von Hartmann
Project P.E.A.C.E.
Planet Ecology Advancing Conscious Economics
"Claiming Novel Strategies for Harm Reduction and Addiction Recovery"
"A popular government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a
Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy - or perhaps both.
Knowledge will forever govern ignorance, and a people who mean to be their own Governors must arm
themselves with the power which knowledge gives."
- James Madison
"Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary
evil; in its worst state an intolerable one;
for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in
a country without government,
our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer."
- Thomas Paine
Naturalborn Rights
Apparently we are all in the position of having to reclaim our individual "self-evident" right to
heal ourselves of hunger and illness. Insults to "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God",
practiced in counter-productive prohibitionist policies have long been too egregiously immoral for
informed people living in civilized cultures to further pretend, respect or support as "law." (1)
"Bush's neglect of the domestic epidemic has borne fruit. New data show that the
government is set to fail at its 2001 goal to cut new domestic HIV infections in half by 2005. Far
from declining, HIV infections plateaued at 40,000 a year during 2002 and 2003; this year,
documented HIV diagnoses actually rose."(15)
Reducing or reversing drug-related harm seems an essential and compassionate objective, worthy of
universal support -- colloquially, a "no-brainer". Responsible social policies and institutional
processes made necessary by people's use of drugs would obviously benefit from expanding
discussion of harm reduction measures to include any and all strategies that help people prevent
and repair damage done to their health by the use of drugs, whether prohibited or not.
"What's Up, UNDOC?"
It seems insane to imagine anyone seriously objecting to reducing the harms associated with
consumption of drugs, yet under the thumb of the U.S. drug war regime, that's exactly what U.N.
drug policy has degenerated into. In November of 2004. The Executive Director of the United
Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Antonio Maria Costa, wrote to United States Assistant
Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) Robert "Bobby"
Charles, because the U.S. government threatened to cut funding to UNODC, unless assured that UNODC
would abstain from any involvement in, or expression of, support for harm reduction.
Expressed in Mr. Costa's bizarre distillation is a convoluted, institutional paranoia,
demonstrating mistrust of motivations for addressing several global human health epidemics,
including malnutrition and AIDS.
"Under the guise of 'harm reduction', there are people working disingenuously to alter the world's
opposition to drugs.
These people can misuse our well-intentioned statements for their own agenda, and this we cannot
allow...
we are reviewing all [UNDOC] statements, both printed and electronic, and will be even more
vigilant in the future." (2, 3)
U.S. interference with education and implementation of proven harm reduction measures obviously
runs counter to common sense and threatens the common good. The Transnational Institute's urgent
observation clarifies impeccable reason.
"Conflicting views and policies within the UN system on harm reduction have become a major
concern.
Consistency in messages is crucial especially where it concerns joint global programmes
such as the efforts to slow down the HIV/AIDS epidemic; efforts in which harm reduction practices
like needle exchange and substitution treatment play a pivotal role." (3)
While needle exchange, substitution treatment and drug-injection rooms are primary elements of
effective harm reduction efforts, there are other more progressive and profound dimensions of harm
reduction that are being censored by those who share Mr. Costa's regressive visions.
With drug war fanatics in the U.S. and Europe objecting to the mere mention of harm reduction,
what chance do those of us who have (or are at-risk of contracting) HIV/AIDS have, for learning of
innovative strategies for healing, that involve unconventional, alternative therapies? The
attitudes of illogic and discompassion that characterize prohibition have effectively obscured,
interfered with and suppressed scientific investigation and public education that could be
implemented to broaden a realistic, holistic approach to harm reduction, and health issues in
general.
"Herb!, Not Bush."
One major strategy for reducing drug-related harm, currently being overlooked by the U.N. , U.S.
government, and even by harm reduction activists, is the clinical use of 'marijuana' for treatment
of addiction to alcohol and chemical drugs. In the beginning of the Twentieth Century, physicians
specializing in addiction therapy recognised Cannabis as an herbal therapeutic that helped people
safely and gently break the cycle of dependence on alcohol, heroin, and other addictive, toxic
substances.(4)
According to research published recently,
"Growing evidence on the involvement of cannabinoids in the rewarding effects of various kinds of
drugs of abuse has suggested that...
the endocannabinoid system is implicated in the brain reward system. Furthermore, the interplay
between
... systems has been shown to be an essential [one]...underlying many aspects of drug addiction
including craving and relapse.
"Relapse, the resumption of drug taking following a period of drug abstinence,
is considered the main hurdle in treating drug addiction
...the endocannabinoid-arachidonic acid pathway may also [play] an important part in the neural
machinery underlying relapse.
This evidence may provide an alternative approach that will open a novel strategy in combating
drug addiction." (5)
Recognition of herbal Cannabis as a relatively benign, functionally preferable alternative to hard
drugs is emphasized in the following observation made in a study conducted by the U.S. National
Institute of Drug Abuse:
"An important finding emerging from this study concerned the effect on individuals and communities
from the scarcity of marijuana
due to the eradication campaigns. Users often reported this was a major contribution
to the increase in the use of meth [i.e. methamphetamines] especially in Honolulu.
In many communities it had a devastating effect." (8)
Confusion In Paradise, or "What the HELL's Goin' On Here?"
51% of U.S. adults take two or more pills every day.(18) In 1998 an extensive study published in
the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) showed that 106,000 people die each year in
American hospitals from medication side effects. (19)An estimated 15% of North American children
will at some point be diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) —on the basis
of their exhibiting symptoms such as carelessness, noisiness, chattiness and difficulty waiting
their turn. Most of these children will be prescribed stimulants (like methylphenidate —
"Ritalin") as treatment for their brain disease (in blind comparisons, Ritalin is
indistinguishable from cocaine).(20)
Prohibition induces quasi-religious daydreams, forcing selective abstinence on the general public
at the point of a gun. Schizophrenically and hypocritically, this is happening while the
government is pushing "legal" pharmaceutical drugs on a population that's supposed to be aspiring
to be "drug-free."
Illusory misperception, misinformation, and confusion is functionally essential for perpetuating
failed governmental policies. The very real damage done to human health and global food security
by the prohibition of Cannabis is only possible as long as the truth about the nutritional value
of the plant is ignored or suppressed. (12)
Additionally, the potential for nutritional approaches that take maximum therapeutic advantage of
proteins and essential fatty acids (EFAs), in proportions that are unique to hemp seed, emphasize
the need to encourage more broad-minded use of Cannabis in healing the physiological damage of
drug abuse at the cellular, nutritional level. (6, 8, 9, 10, 11)
"The essential fatty acids are truly the welding link in nutritional health. Simple deficiencies
can cause symptoms which may be mistaken for major systemic diseases such as diabetes. Essential
fatty acids provide many health-giving properties which positively impact human vitality. Their
myriad benefits include regulating blood pressure, nourishing the immune system, controlling
inflammation in the body, and preventing the formation of abnormal blood clots."(7)
"The body responds to HIV invasion just as it responds to a burn, tumor, or surgery.
It demands extra nourishment, and if necessary, it breaks down the protein stored in the body's
own muscles.
To compensate they should get almost twice as much protein intake as a healthy individual."(9)
Cannabis seed is rich in edestin proteins, essential fatty acids, and a wide complement of
vitamins and minerals. The United Nations doesn't even recognize hemp seed as food or respect
people's right to grow it. (12)
Qigong for detox
After investing billions in the economics of punishment, itis less likely that the U.N. will have
the money needed to educate people about investigations that are being done into alternative
therapies, such as the use of qigong, meditation and yoga to detoxify and heal heroin addiction.
Qigong is an ancient Chinese health practice, believed to have energetic healing and recovery
powers. Researchers in China reported,
"By day 5 of treatment, all subjects in the qigong group had negative urine tests, compared to day
9 for the medication group and day 11 for the control group. Results suggest that qigong may be an
effective alternative for heroin detoxification without side effects..." (13, 14)
Conclusion
The global war on drugs is a failure whose limit of accountable duration is long past. Selective,
hypocritical and naive at best and tragically "devastating" at worst, the reality of prohibition
is an escalating, consistent decent into dysfunction. Threats to sustainability are actually being
financed by tax-payers, conscripted into supporting biological attacks being carried out in the
name of drug eradication.(21, 22)
To continue regarding prohibition laws as other than counter-productive, threatens all of society
with synergistic collapse of environmental integrity, world economic balance and essential social
structures. To reverse this degeneration into chaos it is necessary for every person to claim
responsibility for the truth about what is essentially valuable, individually, and stand together
to defend what is therefore truly and naturally legal. Out of respect for ourselves, past
generations and those who will follow us into a more perilous future, it is the responsibility of
our generation to hold accountable those among us who continue to stonewall history, disregard
science and insult reason.
Failed government policies, charged with bipartisan ideological inertia, tend to fail further.
Recalcitrant obstruction to altering course, according to a scientifically sound and moral
rationale, is functionally disproportionate to the urgency of multiple crises facing
mankind, and the other creatures with whom we share this planet.
A peaceful alternative to compliance, standing by while living conditions on Earth deteriorate,
would be a systematic progression of coordinated tax-revolt, in solidarity with labor
strikes-of-conscience and an on-going global forum to achieve consensus. Faced with dysfunctional,
predatory leadership, people have a responsibility to evolve systems of governance in accord with
our ability to communicate, to "throw off" (1) the limitations of the toxic chemical,
military-industrial, "politiconomic" structure.
Whether or not mankind will still have the capacity to heal the damage we're doing to the Earth,
and each other, depends on how soon the essential changes occur. Time is the limiting factor in
the equation of survival. With our ability to communicate globally, there may yet be time to
achieve rational global consensus, necessary to ending the sociopathic, and potentially
extinctionistic, "drug war."
Out of respect for the gift of life itself, honoring the sacrifices of past generations to secure
our freedoms, and out of concern for those who will follow us into a more perilous
future, it is the responsibility of our generation to hold accountable those among us who continue
to stonewall history, disregard science and insult reason. Respect for prohibition has ended in
our common consciousness, that man's "laws" inevitably follow.
#
Paul Jeronimo von Hartmann
Project P.E.A.C.E.
Planet Ecology Advancing Conscious Economics
http://www.webspawner.com/users/projectpeace/
References and suggestions for sidebars*:
*1."The Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies"
In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.
http://www.law.indiana.edu/uslawdocs/declaration.html
"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political
bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the
separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent
respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them
to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by
their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit
of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their
just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes
destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to
institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in
such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence,
indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and
transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to
suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they
are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same
Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their
duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. —Such has
been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them
to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain
[George III] is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the
establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a
candid world.
"He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
"He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless
suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has
utterly neglected to attend to them."
*2. "Dear Bobby" letter from the Executive Director of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC),
Antonio Maria Costa, addressed to the U.S. Assistent Secretary of State for International
Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL), Robert Charles. November 11, 2004. PDF document.
http://www.colombo-plan.org/www/images/pubs/pdf/
3. TRANSNATIONAL INSTITUTE. DRUGS & DEMOCRACY: The United Nations and Harm Reduction.
http://www.tni.org/drugs/
4. Dr. Willis Butler, Jr., Kaiser Permanente, personal communication.1999.
See: response to "Dedicated or addicted?" mid-page at
http://www.expatica.com/source/site_article.asp?subchannel_id=6&story_id=144&name=Genocide+and+cannabis+logic
5. "New perspectives in the studies on endocannabinoid and cannabis: a role for the
endocannabinoid-arachidonic acid pathway in drug reward and long-lasting relapse to drug taking."
Yamamoto T, Anggadiredja K, Hiranita T.
Journal of Pharmaceutical Sci. 2004 Dec;96(4):382-8. Epub 2004 Dec 10.
Department of Pharmacology, Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Kyushu University, 3-1-1
Maidashi, Higashi-ku, Fukuoka 812-8582, Japan. e-mail: tyamamot@phar.kyushu-u.ac.jp
URL:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15599102
6. "Fats That Heal, Fats That Kill" Udo Erasmus. Alive Books, Vancouver, B.C. 1993.
7. "Essential Fatty Acids" Deborah Lee. Woodland Publishing, 1997.
8. "ICE and Other Methamphetamine Use: An Exploratory Study"
National Institute of Drug Abuse. 1991-1994 Final Report.
http://thc-ministry.org/NIDA_Report.jpg
9. "Positive Nutrition for HIV infection and AIDS" S.J. Bell. (Chronimed Publishing, 1996).
10. "Hemp for Health", Chris Conrad. Healing Arts Press. 1997.
11. "Juice Fasting & Detoxification" Steve Meyerowitz. Sproutman Publications, 1999
12. "HEMP FARMING COULD BE SCUPPERED BY HEALTH DEPT"
A.N.C. Daily News Briefing, Cape Town, S.A.
15 September 2004.
http://www.anc.org.za/anc/newsbrief/2004/news0916.txt
13. "Use of qigong therapy in the detoxification of heroin addicts."
Li M, Chen K, Mo Z. Institute of Qigong Research, Guangzhou University, People's Republic of
China.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=11795622&dopt=Citation
14. "Qigong therapy--its effectiveness and regulation."
Am J Chin Med. 1994;22(3-4):235-42. Tang KC.
Southern Sydney Health Promotion Unit, Kogarah, New South Wales, Australia.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=7872235&dopt=Citation
15. "The Bush AIDS Machine"
Esther Kaplan. The Nation, December 2, 2004.
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20041220&s=kaplan
16. "UN says AIDS deaths at new high"
The Boston Globe, John Donnelly. 11/26/2003
http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2003/11/26/un_says_aids_deaths_at_new_high/
17. "The Economics of Prohibition" Dr. Mark Thornton, University of Utah Press, 1992.
18. "51% Of U.S. Adults Take 2 Pills or More a Day, Survey Reports" Bowman, L. , San Diego
Union-Tribune. Jan. 17, 2001: Pg. A8.
19. "Incidence of adverse drug reactions in hospitalized patients: a meta-analysis of prospective
studies." Lazarou J; Pomeranz BH; Corey PN. 1998 Apr 15, 2005. JAMA, 279(15): Pg. 1.
20. "Ritalin nation: rapid fire culture and the transformation of human consciousness."
R DeGrandpre. (284 pages, £15.95.) W W Norton & Co. Ltd, 1999. ISBN 0-393-04685-0.
21. "Classical Biological Control of Narcotic Plants" ARS Research Project.
http://ars.usda.gov/research/projects/projects.htm?ACCN_NO=402468
22. "U.S. Congress Heads Up ARS Project: "World's Most Useful Plant" targeted for Biological
Attack"Paul J. von Hartmann. June 10, 2004.
http://www.dutch-passion.nl/news/2004/June/US-%20Congress%20Heads%20Up%20ARS%20Project%20-%20Cannabis%20targeted%20for%20Bio%20Attack.htm
======================================================================================
Paul Jeronimo von Hartmann is an ecologist, photographer and biodynamic agriculturist.
Project P.E.A.C.E., Planet Ecology Advancing Conscious Economics, is an individual, global
communications project started on Maui, Hawaii, in 1991. For two years before that Paul was the
director for the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society in Hawaii.
posted by projectpeace @
11:23 PM
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Friday, February 11, 2005 |
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