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<$Project P.E.A.C.E. -- Planet Ecology Advancing Conscious Economics$>
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Dear global drug policy reform community,
It's too late for Shanmugam, but it's not too late for Schapelle...
It is my intention to initiate broad, energetic effect by suggesting a global strategy for the release of Schapelle Corby and other prisoners of the drug war. This idea is the result of profound moral outrage regarding intolerable abuses, such as that of Miss Corby in Bali, Aaron Paradiso in California, and Shanmugam Moregesu in Singapore.
I know that many of you share this outrage, but at this point there has been no global expression of it. In an era of internet communications, this is an inexplicable oversight.
Unlike the drug policy reform movement, the drug war is global and coordinated. I wonder if there could be some unifying effect if every drug policy reform group in the world were to contribute to a list of drug war prisoners, whose immediate release is called for -- globally.
Drug war terrorism against individuals is being carried out in many 'dark corners' of the world, with hardly the merest mention in the "free world" press. Occasionally there is an article in the alternative press, but even on sites such as TNI and DPA, people like Schapelle and Aaron go unmentioned.
I feel compelled to rant, for whatever good it may do, with others in mind. I know many people who feel similarly over-loaded with the conscious realization of our individual responsibilities regarding the vast injustices and prolonged illogic we are all living with and participating in. Many of the people I've talked with who use drugs and herbs ("legal" or not) do so in an attempt to recover from feelings of anger, frustration and imbalance imposed by the drug war.
I truly don't know what else to do. What else to say. What else to write. I am feeling poisoned by awareness, terminally ill from reading about obscenely arrogant and recalcitrant, hypocritical drug war zealots imprisoning people for a truly sacred plant, given to mankind by what some call "God" through an incomprehensibly complex natural process.
The world is being influenced by the economic pressures exerted by the monolithic force of the U.S. to the point that people are being victimized by many governments. This is extinctionistic, unsustainable behavior. If our species continues to behave in a such an illogical and irresponsible way, then we will continue to evolve in the direction of arrogance and disrespect for something much bigger, and much more dispassionate, than our young and arrogant species.
Last month, in Singapore, it was the murder of Shanmugam Moregesu, a father of two sons. Shanmugam was hanged for a kilo of 'marijuana.' For this, his life was ripped from the lives of his children and his community. This will have no effect other than to create more sorrow and more anger and more imbalance.
This week, in California, where I was born, a man who is suffering the misfortune of being quadriplegic -- and his care-giving mother -- are being Federally prosecuted for 'marijuana' in a "Republic" where the voters over-whelming approved medical 'marijuana' legislation, almost a decade ago. Where is the beneficial effect in this shameful atrocity?
So much harm is being done to so many in a failed campaign to suppress a therapeutic plant, unique and essential in so many ways. What is being achieved here, except insult to Nature, and create a multitude of terminal imbalances?
Black market economics, loss of civil liberties, needless death, illness, environmental destruction, and "global broiling" are all products of the drug war. Those responsible for perpetuating prohibition must be identified as the true "terrorists" that they surely are. An international court must be convened to determine an alternative course of action, since the existing political structures are unreasoningly impacted, vested in the "economics of punishment."
All I can think of to write about this is the obvious: Shame (and "damnation," if there is such a thing) upon those twisted people who regurgitate presumptive moralizations, couched in self-serving lies, about the most useful agricultural resource on Earth as a so-called "drug."
How often do the drug war hypocrites ever refer to caffeine, sugar and alcohol as "drugs?" How many of the drug war dinosaurs are popping anti-depressants? How many of their children are forced to take Ritalin as a quick fix to counter the cultural epidemic of parental neglect and soda-pop poisoning?Are pregnant mothers ever warned not to eat sugar or drink caffeine?
I remember in June 1998, watching Kofi Anan and other U.N. officials toasting the globalisation of the drug war, with champagne! Even Buddhist monks from Thailand, Cambodia and Sri Lanka take drugs, though they are exempted by semantics:
"Monks are expected to shun vice and life's luxuries yet there is no religious edict banning them from smoking, as there is against drugs or alcohol."
http://abc.net.au/science/news/health/HealthRepublish_1380995.htm
Cannabis is a plant, a "God-given" herb, put upon this planet to be used with thanksgiving and respect. The obvious truth is that no one will ever know for sure whether Schapelle Corby carried 'marijuana' into Bali. Yet her life is threatened by a counter-productive drug war which originated in the U.S.
Maybe she did, or maybe she was just used by some black market smugglers, motivated by the black market prices being created by prohibition. Either way, the incarceration and abuse being visited upon Ms. Corby is egregiously immoral, far worse than the effect on society of any herb. Social sickness in name of "law" is still a disease. The criminalization of the Cannabis plant is the perfect example.
That this young woman is in prison, exposed to the atrocities of prison life is barbaric. Such obviously immoral political policy is to be condemned in the strongest possible terms.
Project P.E.A.C.E. and the THC Ministry International calls upon the world to demand the release of Schapelle Corby, at once. The world must turn its back on barbarity in Bali, now a place to be shunned.
How can anyone enjoy the beauty of Bali, knowing that such injustice exists there? Anyone who would accept or condone another human being this way, for such an innocuous event, is surely under a spell of by perversity.
Release Schapelle Corby or face the inevitable karmic repercussions, that come with violating the most sacred commandment of every "Lord." These can be found, for example in Genesis 1:29 (King James Bible) but every religion says the same thing: What "God" has made is good. Our responsibility is at the individual level, to respect or disrespect at our own peril.
That Shanmugam Moregesu was "legally" murdered is an atrocity that is beyond measure. That Adam Paradiso is being prosecuted is no less outrageous.
I call upon the drug policy reform community to speak with one voice for the immediate release of Schapelle Corby, Aaron Paradiso, and other drug war prisoners.
I call for a global boycott of tourism and trade with Bali, as part of a global campaign for the release of non-violent drug war priosners everywhere. I invite you all to join this mandate by writing to the bureaucrats of Bali and California, and I wish that all may awaken to regret the loss of freedoms that so many have died for.
for peace,
Paul J. von Hartmann
Project P.E.A.C.E.
Planet Ecology Advancing Conscious Economics
http://webspawner.com/users/projectpeace
THC Ministry International
http://www.thc-ministry.org
posted by projectpeace @
12:30 AM
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Saturday, June 04, 2005  |
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