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Sunday, October 30, 2011

Wiley Helped Exclude Whisky & Brandy from Pharmacopeia


Reported in The American Journal of Clinical Medicine, vol 22, issue 8 August 1915

WHISKY AND BRANDY EXCLUDED FROM THE PHARMACOPEIA

Too late for editorial comment in this number of Clinical Medicine comes the news that the Committee of Revision of the United States Pharmacopeia has decided, by a vote of 26 to 24, to exclude whisky and brandy from the new edition of the Pharmacopeia, now nearly complete. It is said that this action is due largely to the work of Dr. Harvey W. Wiley.

We have very little respect for alcohol as a medicine, used in any form; we know there are better stimulants, and better sedatives. But—isn't it a "drug," after all? Isn't it used habitually as a "medicine" by thousands of clean, skilful, able physicians? If so, should it not be recognized as a drug, and proper standards of strength and purity, and suitable directions regarding adulterants be provided for the protection of the physician, the guidance of the pharmacist, and the welfare of the patient?

Just what the status of whisky and brandy will be, legally, especially as regards sales by the pharmacist, we are not yet prepared to say. There will be many expressions of opinion on this subject during the next few months, and they will be given a hearing later, in these pages. Perhaps this decision on the part of the Committee of Revision may help to drive home another nail in the coffin of old Ring Alcohol. Let us hope so.



http://books.google.com/books?id=4qFEAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA782&img=1&zoom=3&hl=en&sig=ACfU3U2MP8qhR6S_CzQo6JBf-lZtqfiHyw&ci=118%2C610%2C421%2C748&edge=0


Alcohol Killed Winehouse

So where's the great media outcry that happened after Len Bias' fatal cocaine overdose?

Saturday, October 29, 2011

HEALTH BENEFITS FOUND IN COCA

25+ years ago

to suppress Diabetes


By Charles Burrows San Francisco Chronicle October 19, 1983

One of the world’s foremost authorities on the coca plant, the source of cocaine, unveiled findings yesterday that chewing the leaves may not damage health after all, and in fact probably helps prevent crippling diseases like diabetes.

The findings, made public during a lecture at the University of California at Berkeley, grew out of more than 14 years of research among Indians of the Andes in Peru, Bolivia and other South American nations.

The researcher, Canadian anthropologist Roderick Burchard, said Coca may be the key ingredient that protects many Andean Indians from bad health associated with their heavy diet of potatoes and other carbohydrates.

He said the findings raise the possibility that cocaine could sometimes be good for health but that his study wasn’t designed to examine abuse of this plant in its various forms. Cocaine is one of the most potent of 14 alkaloids in the Coca plant.

In his continuing studies with rats, he noted, those on a high-carbohydrate diet that did receive the drug cocaine experienced a metabolism shift that left them leaner and healthier.

He warned that current efforts to eradicate coca growing could “bring on one of the major health crisis in the entire world.”

Burchard, a University of Manitoba professor on sabbatical at UC, said extensive medical tests on the Andean natives – the first such exams – showed that Coca slowed the transfer of carbohydrates into blood sugar and helped stabilize insulin flow.

Many Andean natives he said showed initial insulin responses that would indicate the presence of diabetes but were free of the disease because of the “buffering effect” of Coca.

“There’s no question that Coca regulates energy metabolism and glucose response and insulin response,” he said.

The research refutes assumptions cited as early as Sigmund Freud’s time that Coca chewers are malnourished mountain dwellers who use the plant as energy to compensate for lack of food, Burchard said.

“It’s commonly thought that Coca is only used at the high altitudes of he Andes, but that is not true. It’s used at all altitudes.”

Moreover, he said, Coca chewers, on the average, eat at least as well, if not better than non-chewers. He showed a photo of one 80 year old male Coca chewer who had a full head of black hair and skin and muscle tone akin to a 30 year old.

Men chewers also showed slightly less body fat and lipida, but women chewers showed more fat, he said.

Nearly 90 percent of Indians in Peru and Bolivia depend upon Coca as part of their diet, chewing an average of 35 to 40 grams a day. He said that amount would contain about a fifth to two fifths of a gram of cocaine, which is a considered a high dose for cocaine abusers by drug officials.

But a wad of Coca leaves in the mouth – called a Coca quid” is the prototype of an implanted time-release device,” Burchard said. He likened it to experimental drug implants designed to release small amounts over a long period.

Burchard said he completed his field tests in 1979 but was delayed in reaching his findings, partially because it took two years to get permission to import Coca leaves to Canada.

He’s now finishing a book tentatively titled “Coca As a Gift From God. It’s Our Medicine.” Burchard said the title came from the answer one Indian gave him when asked why he used Coca.”

Burchard said his field studies included the only comprehensive medical examinations and diet histories of Indian Coca chewers but were not received without risk.

Taking blood samples, for example, “almost got him and his colleagues all killed,” he said. “Our lives were within five minutes of being taken” by the Indians, who did not understand what was happening.

Friday, October 28, 2011

Obama Hinted At Treating MJ Like Heroin

and that he "learned not to care"...


In the book bearing his name "Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance," by mentioning the terms "junkie" and "pothead" in the same breath- Obama hints that he views them as the same or similarly.
http://www.mapinc.org/newsnorml/v03/n1786/a06.html

"I had learned not to care," he wrote. "I blew a few smoke rings, remembering those years. Pot had helped, and booze; maybe a little blow when you could afford it. Not smack, though. ..."

"Blow" is a street name for cocaine. "Smack" is slang for heroin.

"Junkie. Pothead. That's where I'd been headed: the final, fatal role of the young would-be black man," Obama wrote. "Except the highs hadn't been about that, me trying to prove what a down brother I was. Not by then, anyway. I got high for just the opposite effect, something that could push questions of who I was out of my mind, something that could flatten out the landscape of my heart, blur the edges of my memory. I had discovered that it didn't make any difference whether you smoked reefer in the white classmate's sparkling new van, or in the dorm room of some brother you'd met down at the gym, or on the beach with a couple of Hawaiian kids who had dropped out of school and now spent most of their time looking for an excuse to brawl. ... You might just be bored, or alone. Everybody was welcome into the club of disaffection."
No shit that he "learned not to care". He not only speaks about heroin and Cannabis as if they were the same, he does so when stating that he did not use heroin, only cocaine on occasion, and Cannabis more frequently. How is using MJ and occasionally cocaine mean that one is destined to become a "junkie" - a term referring to heroin - unless one has "learned not to care" about truth?!

By so conflating and confusing the different drugs, "Obama" demonstrates what he here admits, that he learned "not to care".

It should be a textbook example of carefully chosen words- to suggest one thing, while really meaning something else - such as "change", suggesting that for something better, but in reality making no promise of something necessarily better.

Dana Beal Protests Covington & Burling

The law firm where Eric Holder worked just prior to becoming Obama Administration U.S. Attorney General



This protest was held in early 2009. One can see the protesters marching to the Covington & Burling building at 1201 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, from Freedom Plaza (now the site of Occupy D.C.).

A Better Way- My Suggestion for C&B



Covington and Burling was founded in 1919, just a scant half decade after the enactment of the U.S. Harrison Narcotics Act effectively banning Opium and Coca.

I say let’s have a Covington and Burling do something here truly beneficial, starting with a suit to repeal the 1961-1988 United Nations international ‘Narcotics’ Control conventions.

Do it as - ahem - repentance for your decades of shielding the cigarette industry with its sweetheart exemption of labeling requirements.

Do its as excellent public policy, and for people’s health, ridding the ‘legal’ prosecutorial mafia cigarette protectionist scheme, given Virginia Bright Leaf’s deleterious effects versus the safest being Coca leaf, getting rid of this market protection for the substance that killed 100 million in the 1900s and 1 billion in the 2000s, against the safer substances. Insurance companies should logically see their self interest here for their benefit and everyone else- but those insisting upon this continuing drug protectionism.

Do it pro bono, advising the governments of Bolivia and Peru, and/or various unions of Coca growers plus any public health related organizations, for public relations to counter their longstanding involvement with the cigarette industry with its reckless misuse of Virginia Bright Leaf Tobacco laced with numerous additives to promote consumption, which cause their own health problems, yet go unlabeled as part of the sweetheart deal exempting only cigarettes, alcoholic beverages and cosmetics from otherwise routine retail ingredient labeling. Remember that Coca was targeted by the USDA dedicated to protecting domestic agriculture.

Have Covington and Burling, initiate a suit against the United Nations International ‘Narcotics Control Board.

This requires an attorney with polished speaking skills. As apparent from the numerous legal events featuring her as a speaker, Covington and Burling has this with its insurance-food-pharmaceutical industry specialist attorney "assigned primary responsibility for advising the [drug policy] foundation".

I say send her before the U.N. INCB to speak eloquently against the current prohibitive status of Marijuana, Coca, Opium, Ibogaine and other substances, as a basic denial of human rights and public health as a perverse market protection benefiting the intrinsically most dangerous substance – Virginia Bright Leaf cigarettes, particularly those with the unlabeled burn accelerant additives – while perverting the infinitely safer Coca into the infinitely more dangerous concentrated forms of cocaine.

A Suggested Better Use for Our Covington and Burling Connection:

DPF Covington & Burling Legal Connection

http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2008/03/drug-policy-foundation-legal-connection.html

DPF Advised by C&B Food & Drug & Insurance Attorney
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2008/03/drug-policy-foundation-advised-by-c.html

Covington & Burling Food & Drug Practices
http://www.cov.com/practice/food_and_drug/

Coca Come Back
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2009/02/coca-come-back.html

Thursday, October 27, 2011

USAG Holder’s Criminal Mercantilism Against MJ as an ex partner at C&B?


USAG Holder presides over a continuing and renewed inquisition against MJ, particularly within the State of California.

This serves not only entities as prison guard unions seeking even more overtime, but Big Pharm with its investments in such including pharmaceutical MJ derived products, such as GW Searle Pharmaceuticals, which has had legal representation with Washington D.C.’s best established corporate law firm- Covington & Burling, which is where Holder represented pharmaceutical interests as a partner just before his appointment as US AG by President Obama in 2009.


What inquiry has been done?

Could Holder be continually pushing the anti MJ inquisition due to a tendency of persons of his class to protect the interests of their clients?


Could he? We’ll accordingly to the book“The Super-Lawyers: The Small and Powerful World of the Great Washington Law Firm” by Joseph C. Goulden Prologue; pp 13-14

“America’s governmental system is so constituted that some Washington Lawyers constantly violate the public interest, without violating public statutes. These lawyers pervert the Federal government for the financial benefit of private corporate clients. Through legalistic maneuvering, they helped their clients keep on the marketplace a host of consumer products- ranging from pharmaceuticals to pesticides and automobiles- which are gravely dangerous to the American citizen. Through what is euphemistically called “effective representation,” some of them wheedle billions of dollars of tax breaks and public subsidies from a pliant Congress and Federal bureaucracy.” When criticized for emasculating laws designed to protect the public, they lapse into well-rehearsed speeches about “everyone has a right to a lawyer, whether he’s a corporation or an indigent criminal defendant.” Agreed. But some Washington Layers frequently go beyond the advocate’s role in representing industries and become an extension of management. An example: Covington and Burling is among the more self-consciously dignified firms in town, one prideful of its sweet sense of probity. And two of its senior partners- H. Thomas Austern and Stanley Temko- are the legal technicians who have helped manufacturers keep on the market a vast variety of pharmaceuticals and foodstuffs for years after the food and Drug Administration challenged their value (See chapter 1, “Covington and Burling: The Pinnacle of Power.”) There are dropouts. Robert Wald, formerly Washington Lawyer for the Lorillard cigarette interests, quit in 1971 because of personal misgivings about the industry he represented. Wald told The Wall Street Journel’s Jonathon Kwitny: “I haven’t the slightest doubt that cigarettes cause lung cancer. I had to come home every night and face my kids saying, “Daddy, why do you work for a cigarette company?’”

Holder Law Firm Big With Big Tobacco

Holder Law Firm Advised the Drug Policy Foundation

Holder Law Firm Long Involved With Drug Policy

Holder Law Firm's Continuing Involvement With Drug Policy

Holder’s Law Firm Founder’s Romish-Masonic Fraternal Connection

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Pro Bono Programs: Seen as Total Bullshit and/or Public Relations


From “The Super-Lawyers: The Small and Powerful World of the Great Washington Law Firm”
by Joseph C. Goulden; chapter 10 “The New Washington Lawyers: Balancing the Scales”

Pp 356-361

When the big-firm recruiters toured the name law schools beginning in the late 1960s, they encountered a recurrent phenomenon. Ho-hum indifference. No one wanted to listen to them. “Interviews” turned into angry confrontations, with students haranguing dignified lawyers on “responsibilities to society” and “whorish corporate attorneys.” Who wants you money? The students asked. I want to do something more important in life them work for General Motors or United States Steel.

The recruiters were philosophical, if stunned. “We had no trouble in finding enough good people to fill the slots we had vacant,” a Covington and Burling partner told me. He paused. “But I must admit we did miss getting some people we wanted. You’d find someone with good grades and an outstanding law review record, but his attitude would be so fouled up you could get nowhere with him.” One result of this experience was a decision by the major Washington firms to expand and (in some cases) to publicize their pro bono programs. (Not every firm believes in pro bono work, by that or any other names. I asked a man formerly with Corcoran, Foley, Rowe and Youngman what public interest work this firm did when he was there. He thought a moment and replied, “Tommy Corcoran used to be nice to Lyndon Johnson.”)

Pushed by activist young associates, Arnold and Porter’s management committee decreed that as a matter of formal policy the firm would devote fifteen percent of its time to pro bono work. Arnold and Porter assigned a partner as full-time supervisor of the program, with authority to draw upon the full resources of the firm. One figure I saw listed Arnold and Porter’s pro bono outlay, in manpower and non-reimbursed expenses, at $500,000 for 1970. Wilmer, Cutler and Pickering computes that thirteen percent of the firm time went for public-interest/pro bono work during 1970. Mortimer Caplin, of Caplin and Drysdale, says his firm invested a “couple of thousand hours” for nonpaying or low-paying clients during writing of the Tax Reform Act of 1969.

Most of this work is done in the name of individual lawyers, not of the firm. There is a reason. “Any time an office has more than one lawyer in it, you have two opinions on a subject,” states a partner of Hogan and Hartson. A background sheet on Wilmer, Cutler and Pickering’s pro-bono program explains:

The firm’s 57 lawyers have individual and sometimes differencing views on public questions. It is our shared belief that individual lawyers with the form should be free, consistent with the Code of Professional Responsibility, to pursue their own independent and professional goals. Rather than attempting to achieve a unified “position” on any particular matter, the members of this firm encourage each individual to take whatever public position on issues of public concern he feels appropriate.

A sampling of Wilmer, Culer and Pickering cases: Contesting unreasonably high utility charges to the poor, especially in the South and Appalachia. Helping organize a nonprofit corporation to build low-income housing in Mississippi. Challenging early voter registration cutoff dates before Texas primary elections. Assisting the G.I. Office a center for servicemen complaining of military abuses, and the Vietnam Moratorium Committee and the New Mobilizations to End the War in Vietnam, the anti-war groups. Combating freeways planned to cut through a scenic park in Memphis, Tennessee, and New Orleans’s Vieux Carres. The firm can also mobilize manpower for an emergency: in April and May 1968, ninety percent of the lawyers in the firm helped represent persons arrested during the riots following the murder of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King; later, a partner chaired a D.C. committee that revised police court, and jail procedure during situations that result in mass arrests. And Culter has been a guiding force in the Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, virtually the only surviving white-dominated group pressing for desegregation.

Law activists deride the pro bono programs. One morning while awaiting an appointment at the George Washington Law School I talked with two guys at the coffee machine, and we got onto pro-bono. “Pure bullshit,” one of them said. “Public relations,” said the other. “You ever hear of them going after anybody with money, the big corporations?” Yes, as a matter of fact. Arnold and Porter is helping Nader in a suit to require General Motors to recall trucks whose wheels allegedly have the disquietening habit of breaking apart. Some Arnold and Porter clients protested vigorously that the firm would help the demon Nader do anything whatsoever, but the firm persevered. And Benny Kass, who practices all alone, without foundation money or visible sympathy for Washington Lawyers, told me “Unhappily, a measure of sincerity in 1970 is how much money you are paying for something. Covington and Burling had paid $100,000 on the Culebra case the last time I checked. Now that means something.”

But the pro bono programs have inherent defects. The large firms are limited in the type of actions they can bring, lest they are caught in a conflict-of-interest problems with existing clients. For instance, airline business is spread evenly across Washington Law. A Benny Kass was required to sue American Airlines for allegedly deceptive advertising. When student activists wanted to sue District of Columbia banks for alleged violations of usury laws, the big firms politely told them to go away; any firm with a D.C. bank for a client- or possibly any bank- would have a conflict of interest. There are anomalies. Louis Oberdorfer was national co-chairperson of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law at the same time that his firm Wilmer, Cutler and Pickering, represented Crown-Zelerbach, which was being sued for employment discrimination under the Civil Rights Act. (The case ended with Crown-Zellerbach signing a consent decree.)

Even more serious a threat to pro bono work are the internal pressures from within a firm. When Richard Copaken began representing residents of Culebra he asked other public-interest lawyers for advice. “Get all the publicity you can,” he was told. One lawyer suggested that he demand equal TV time to counter Navy recruiting advertising- for each “John the Navy and see the world” spot, he should demand one saying, “Join the Navy and bomb the people of Culebra.” The lawyer told Copaken publicly was always vital on a public policy case being fought in the political forum of Congress. Copakan liked the idea, but told the other lawyer a few days later” “the firm wouldn’t let me do it. We represent a network, and such a suit might embarrass it.” Again, a Covington and Burling partner who formally held a high Department of Defense position subtly suggested that Copaken go easy on the suit. Copaken refused.”

Lawyers reflexive clubbiness is another inhibiting factor in pro bono work. In December 1971 the directors of the Washington branch of the American Civil Liberties Union were debating how much, if any, assistance the ACLU should give to attorney Phillip Hirschkop, who had been cited for contempt of court for his conduct of the defense of anti-war activists. The District of Columbia Bar Association, through its grievance committee, concurrently was initiating its own disciplinary proceedings. Hirschkop’s attorney, Monroe Freedman, wanted ACLU support in a court action enjoining the bar committee from acting. But two lawyers on the ACLU board argued against involving the ACLU in the case. One of them- David B. Isbell, of Covington and Burling- noted that Edmund L. Jones, a leading partner in Hogan and Hartson, another big firm, was chairman of the Grievance committee, and that any suit wold have to name him as a defendant. According to two persons at the meeting, Isbell noted that Hogan and Hartson handles fifteen to twenty cases a year for the ACLU, and that a suit against Jones could so “embarrass” the firm it would withdraw from further pro bono work. Isbel was outvoted. The ACLU decided to aid Hirschkop.

Covington & Burling – Drug Policy Foundation PRO BONO connection
Link FMD 3-31-08

Covington & Burling’s Unique International Practice: as “a prime mover in shaping foreign policy” 1947


From “The Super-Lawyers: The Small and Powerful World of the Great Washington Law Firm”
by Joseph C. Goulden; chapter 1: “Covington & Burling: Pinnacle of Power” pp 42- 49

Illustrations: C&B and Iran

How this reportedly started:

One morning in 1947 the Iranian Ambassador to the United States telephoned John G. Laylin, a senior partner at Covington and Burling, and asked him to come to the embassy immediately. The matter was urgent, the Ambassador said, and he would be appreciative if Laylin would hurry. The firm had already done no work for Iran previously; curious about the summons, Laylin dropped whatever work he was doing and caught a cab. “When I got there and sat down, the Ambassador asked what I liked to drink,” Laylin recollects. “I told him that I was a Scotch man, but that I normally didn’t drink anything that early. After all, it was only ten in the morning. “The Ambassador smiled, “Mr. Laylin’ he said, ‘after what I am going to tell you, I think you are going to need a drink. I have just been authorized to hire you to get the Russians out of my country.” “’Mr. Ambassador,’ I said, ‘I think I would like to have a Scotch.’” And thus began a period of cold war diplomacy which variably made Covington and Burling an arm of the United States Department of State, orchestrating activities of friendly allied governments so they do not conflict with Washington’s foreign policy goals.

Covington and Burling’s international practice is unique in several respects. As do a score of other New York and Washington firms, it advises foreign governments and companies in routine commercial matters. But unlike the others, it is also a prime mover in shaping foreign policy- both of the United States and of its clients and Washington overlap.

In the case of Iran, Laylin says, “the Russians had overstayed their welcome” after the Second World War ended, and both the Iranians and Washington wanted them out. A formal treaty obligated the Soviets to withdraw by March 2, 1946, but they stalled, pressing for Iranian recognition of a pro-Soviet autonomous regime created in Azerbaijan, and for a joint Soviet-Iranian company to exploit oil resources in the north of the country. Because of a strong pro-Soviet element in its Parliament, the Iranian government did not have complete freedom of action, and Ambassador Hussein Ala maneuvered to persuade the United States to take the matter to the Security Council on its own initiative. Secretary of State James Byrnes was sympathetic, but replied Iran would be better received if it acted on its own. The visit to Laylin followed.

Laylin helped the Ambassador draft Iran’s case for presentation o the United Nations Security Council; after some months of haggling, the Soviets appeared to have won their two points and withdraw the troops. Whereupon the Iranian parliament repudiated the oil consortium agreement and sent troops into Azerbaijan to reestablish authority in the breakaway region. Summarizing his efforts, Laylin says, “This was the only time in the postwar period the Soviets were bargained out of anything.”

Dean Acheson had left Covington and Burling in 1941 to reenter government; from August 1945 to June 1947, when the firm was rebuilding its international practice, he served as Under Secretary of State, the department’s number-two position. Laylin, however, insists that Acheson “had absolutely nothing to do” with Covington and Burling representing Iran and Greece, two nations with whose affairs Acheson dealt intimately in his official capacity. “The Iran case came about this way,” he said. “Immediately after the war I handled a routine case for Saudi Arabia. An Arabist in the State Department apparently was impressed. Anyway, shortly thereafter, when Iran asked this man to recommend a United States lawyer for the Soviet problem, he listed three firms- Covington and Burling was among them- and told what I had done for Saudi Arabia. That’s why the [Iranian] Ambassador called me in. Right after we won the Iranian case in the United Nations, the Greek Ambassador said to me, “Congratulations! You ran the Russians out of Iran. Now you are going to run them out of Greece.’”

The Greek case, considerably more complicated, involved much closer liaison with former partner Acheson, and it is also a nigh-classic case of the overlaps between government and the quasi-public world of the Washington lawyer. Greece was near collapse in the winter of 1946-47 because of guerrilla activity, economic turmoil and inept government; Acheson writes in his memoirs that the situation there “deteriorated rapidly during January and February 1947” and that by late February “all signs pointed to an impending move by the Communists to take over the Country.”

On February 15, 1947, Covington and Burling formally consummated its agreement with the Greek government. P. Economous-Gouras, charge d’ affaires of the Greek embassy in Washington, spelled out the terms in a letter to Laylin and John Lord O’Brien, another senior partner in the international field:

You are to act as our sole legal advisors in the United States in all matters brought by Greece to the attention of the Security Council of the United Nations and all questions involved in the application of Greece for loans from the Export-Import Bank, and from the International Bank for Reconstructing and Development [the World Bank].

It is understood that you are not to be asked to undertake any work that may conflict in any way with the foreign policy of your government, and that you may reserve the right to withdraw at any time as our advisors if in your opinion any proposed course of conduct will conflict with the policy of your government.

You have stated it will not be satisfactory to answer isolated questions but that within the scope of your work you must be kept fully informed and consulted on all developments. Te embassy and our country will, of course, be free to follow your advice or not as we think best promotes the interests of Greece, but we fully understand and will respect your desire to withdraw as counsel in the event that your advice is not followed on any matter of importance.

Economou-Gouras agreed to pay Covington and Burling “in accordance with your customary scale of charges on a time basis,” and enclosed a $5,000 retainer. But the amount actually received by Covington and Burling for the case indicates Greece was not a normal commercial client. The fees for three years totaled only $52,263, a pittance for the amount of work done by the firm. The Iranians paid less than $50,000. Laylin, however, denies Covington and Burling got into the case on behalf of the State Department or any other Federal agency.

Three days later, on February 21, Secretary of State George C. Marshall directed Dean Acheson “to prepare the necessary steps for sending economic and military aid” to Greece; shortly thereafter, economically strapped Britain formally announced her intention to cease aid to Greece and Turkey within six weeks, and the chain of events which led to the establishment of the Marshall Plan was underway. Financially, Covington and Burling worked with state Department officials to lobby $400 million in economic and military aid through Congress, paying particular attention to Republican Senator Arthur Vandenberg. Diplomatically, Laylin and O’Brien wrote speeches for the Greeks to present both in the Security Council and in the General Assembly. The issue there, was support of guerrillas in Greece by Yugoslavia, Albania and Bulgaria. “I never spoke for Greece in the debates, but I sat in the audience or right behind the delegates, and I offered my thoughts,” Laylin says. “It was ninety-nine percent legal work.” A Soviet veto killed a U.S. resolution in the Security Council asking for cessation of external aid to the guerrillas, but with Laylin’s guidance Greece managed to push the same document through the General Assembly.

According to the record of U.N. debates, the U.S. and Greek position were indistinguishable during the entire episode. Yet Laylin attempts to draw a clear distinction during the entire episode. Yet Laylin attempts to draw a clear distinction between representing a foreign government – “which we never do” – and advising a foreign government. “I would not go to the State Department and say I am speaking for the government of Greece,” Laylin says. “I say I am advising the Greeks, and that the Prime Minister, or Foreign Minister has asked me to say “this is the position of Greece.” When working for a foreign client, Laylin says, “I make clear that I am American, and I am not going to do anything against the high policy of my government; if it ever gets to the point, I’ll withdraw. But that does not mean I am reluctant about telling people in the State Department that something I am advocating is a good thing for my client and the United States, too.”

The distinction carries with it an independence that Laylin says he would not have if he acted as an agent of a foreign client. “If a lawyer is acting as the representative of a foreign government and instructions come from the home office—the foreign ministry, or the chief executive officer- he has to follow them. This holds also for the Ambassador. But I come back to them and say, ‘I don’t think this is so good, and I don’t think you should do it.’

‘Let me give you an example, concerning a country I’ll have to leave nameless. This country was a beneficiary of a considerable amount of United States financial aid. It fell down in a deal involving a shipment of grain and was sued for certain demurrage charges for the shipping, something relatively simple relating to slowness of the paperwork. The case was pretty clear-cut against the country. The foreign ministry wanted to plead sovereign immunity and get out of the suit. It was silly. At most, the country would save $300,000 or so. But in doing so it would jeopardize literally tens of millions of future aid, because the United States government would be most upset.

“The Ambassador did not have guts enough to tell the foreign minister he was doing a stupid thing. We can speak candidly, for the worst thing they can do, if the foreign minister is offended, is to fire us. We are not dependent upon any one client- but the Ambassador is.” The country followed Laylin’s advice and paid the claim.

Laylin and other firm partners frequently- but non-specifically- speak of Dean Acheson’s “attractiveness” in obtaining new clients. Acheson rejoined the firm on January 21, 1953, the day after leaving the office of Secretary of State. He registered as an agent of a foreign government in only one instance: in August 1959, to aid the Venezuelan government in its successful attempt to extradite the ousted dictator Marcos Perez Jimenez for trial for fiscal corruption. But as a private citizen, Acheson spoke with the authority of a former Secretary of State on issues involving foreign governments which Covington and Burling had represented. He argued to the House Foreign Affairs Committee in 1970 against commercial strictures against South Africa, and he had friendly words for the junta government of Greece. And Acheson also did favors for Presidents. The public awareness of which is not harmful to a Washington Lawyer. President Kennedy used Acheson to pass word to the West German government he wanted a different German Ambassador in Washington, and the sooner the better, and to help through the NATO crisis precipitated by Charles de Gaulle’s withdrawal of France. President Johnson first utilized Acheson as an advisor on civil rights matters, and found him a faithful follower of his Vietnam policy. And President Nixon brought Acheson out of retirement in 1971 to help beat down an attempt by Senator Mike Mansfield to cut U.S. troop commitments to NATO.

Laylin is the Covington and Burling partner responsible for training new associates who intend to work in the international field. He looks for men with a background parallel to his own: an emphasis on political science, history, and government in undergraduate school, then a heavy load of international law courses. After his own graduation from Harvard Law, in 1928, Laylin interviewed at Sullivan and Cromwell, the big New York law firm. This was an era when one could make a serious case for the position that Sullivan and Cromwell outranked the State Department in the conduct of U.S. foreign policy. Both John Foster and Allen Dulles came through that law firm, and Laylin says John Foster Dulles “arranged for an appointment for me to work with Dwight Murrow, who was then our Ambassador in Mexico City. I learned much there about how business is done with foreign nations. It was invaluable.” (Covington and Burling which avoids hiring lawyers from the government actually scouts the Foreign Service for bright people). After two years with Marrow, Laylin returned to Sullivan and Cromwell; although he yearned for an independent practice, some homework was in order. “Talk all you want to about being an ‘international lawyer,’ Laylin says, “first you’ve got to learn to be a good lawyer. I handled all sorts of small cases; the principles are pretty much the same- how to develop a factual situation; what is important to your case; where to draw the issue; how to argue it.”

Notably while stating that Covington & Burling had its start as an arm of the U.S. State Department owing to its hiring by the government of Iran, his book states on p 50 that:

“But Covington and Burling’s longest time client has been Pakistan, for which it has served as permanent solicitor around the world. “We have advised them from the beginning, when they first came into existence in 1947.” The first case involved a dispute with India over water rights in the Indus River basin. Laylin prepared a World Court brief, but India refused to accept the court’s jurisdiction,. And what followed is why Laylin thinks international law is a fascinating way to make a living. “In international law,” he told me, “you about have to create your own forum. If you have a really hot dispute, they certainly are not going to arbitrate.” So Laylin began searching for someone to whom he could argue Pakistan’s cause. He learned that India had asked the World Bank for financing of a dam on its side of the Indes- one which would enable it to halt the flow of water to Pakistan. “I persuaded the World Bank and its directors to adopt a policy under which they would not lend money for structures on international rivers before the parties had agreed on an equitable distribution of water,” Laylin said. India protested the regulation, for she knew exactly why it was being proposed, and by what lawyer. But India also needed the dam, so she agreed to negotiate the settlement of the Indus issue with Pakistan. To tighten the lid on his victory, Laylin also succeeded in persuading the International Law Commission, a UN group, to pass a declaration on the rights of riparian states to waters from international waters.

Laylin worked fourteen years on the Indus River, and very profitably. Pakistan paid legal fees ranging from as high as $125,000 per year during the period, according to foreign agent registration statements filed by Covington and Burling with the Justice Department. Also remunerative is a commercial and political intelligence operation Covington and Burling runs for the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce. The firm periodically reports on “proposed legislation introduced in Congress and on matters raised with the Tariff Commission and with other agencies concerning imports in which the members of the Chamber and/or Federation [of Industries] may be interested.” In 1968 alone, Covington and Burling received $33,450 for its reports on tariff matters. But foreign representations carry with them the potential for nickel and dime cases a firm as august as Covington and Burling would normally shun- for instance, a lease dispute between Guinea and the New York World Fair Corporation, and a row between client Canada and Ghana over who was responsible for repairs to a nine-inch-tall brick fence and retaining wall separating their respective embassies.

And on p 53 it states:

“Actually, Laylin continued, Covington and Burling once had an even more intense internal dispute over representation of a nation at the other end of the political spectrum. “We were attorneys for Poland before it went Communist. On that occasion, we resigned at the insistence of one or two partners- not including Mr. Acheson, I might add. I was dead set against resigning. We were helping them prepare paperwork for an Export-Import Bank loan for construction of coal cars that would service all of Europe. The coal was badly needed, for this was the period of great economic stress, the years right after the war. The State Department was most upset by our decision, for Americans in Poland were having trouble obtaining counsel. I argued, but I lost, and we had to drop Poland.

Laylin was silent for a moment. “You know,” he finally continued, “some of these younger people don’t seem to understand the proper role of a lawyer. We are not here to save the worked, or to force our own ideas on someone else, but to represent clients.”

Poland went communist in 1947.

Not For All


From “The Super-Lawyers: The Small and Powerful World of the Great Washington Law Firm”
by Joseph C. Goulden; chapter 1: “Covington & Burling: Pinnacle of Power” pp 60-62

Not all men who come to Covington and Burling are willing to do what is necessary to be invited to “Jack Valenti’s theater downstairs” to accept a partnership. A young lawyer who was most unhappy when he resigned from Covington and Burling after a year’s work there, bit into his veal cutlet in a small Italian restaurant north of K Street and chewed reflectively a minute before giving me an opinion of his old firm. “Covington and Burling is the top law firm in the country in terms of legal expertise, no doubt about that,” he finally said. “You pay top dollar, but you get top work.

“Why is it good? Because it has made money, lots of it, by representing the big corporations, and therefore afford to hire the best legal minds available. It’s a tradition- don’t hire anyone who isn’t top notch. When you get people who know they can be very rich in a few year’s time, you don’t have to give even lip service to pro bono work, or the public interest. Money. If you don’t want to be rich, you can get out.”

This young lawyer was not naïve about Washington Law. He worked and lived in Europe before graduation, and he had spent time in Washington. He had heard all the law school stories about Covington and Burling being a corporate firm; he knew what it did, and for whom. Why, then, did he go into the firm?

“Fifteen thousand dollars a year is one reason,” he said. “But I had to see for myself whether it was as bad as I had ever heard. It was, even worse. The moral blindness. The idea that the only way to do business was to gut the regulatory agencies. The complete disdain for any interest other than that of the corporation clients. Look at Tommy Austern. Nine years he managed to keep the Geritol case going. [See chapter 5, “Ruling the Regulators: Just Who’s Doing What to Whom?”] Could anyone be proud of a stunt like that?”

Covington and Burling does not like to hear such comments from former Bright Young Men, even secondhand. “We seem to spend an inordinate amount of time during our job interview explaining that corporations have a right to legal representation,” a senior partner says. “I’m always getting questions like, Will I have to represent corporations? Or anything else who comes along?” One year the question was, “What, for example would Covington and Burling do if asked to represent Eichmann?” Covington and Burling now has the answers (although, for the record, no one asked the question was hired): A young associate took a court appointment to defend a member of the American Nazi Party in a criminal action. “The lawyer was Jewish too, and I think maybe he went out of his way to prove something to himself.” Another partner quotes with distaste Robert F. Kennedy’s angry private remark that Edward Bennett Williams, the noted Washington criminal attorney, should be disbarred because he let his client Jimmy Hoffa take the Fifth Amendment more then one hundred times before the Senate rackets committee. The Bill of Rights, this man says, is a very encompassing guarantee, and it protects corporations and individuals alike, and once you start waiving it for one party, you eventually waive it for all. “The public interest- what is it? Who can define it?” asks John Sapienza. He defines “public policy” as an act of Congress that has been upheld by the courts. “I don’t recognize the omnipotence of a Federal official, and I have no qualms whatsoever about challenging a new law in the courts. That is a part of our system.” And Sapienza went into a litany of corporate faith which I heard repeated so many times in Washington law offices that I could mouth he words along with the speakers: If the “public interest” suffers because of one-sided legal representation, the persons concerned with the public interest should find some lawyers of their own, either through the government or through private groups. Covington and Burling isn’t obligated to pull its punches just because it is facing push-over opposition. Don’t gripe at us if we win a drug case at the FDA- gripe at the FDA for not hiring better attorneys. Or at Congress for not providing enough money to hire them. Or at yourself for not being willing to pay the taxes to provide the money to hire the better attorneys. And so forth.

When public interest law became fashionable in Washington in the late 1960s, many firms rather ostentatiously announced formal programs of free or low fee work (See chapter 10), “The New Washington Lawyers, Balancing the Scales.”) Arnold and Porter, for instance, adopted a policy of committing ten percent of the firm’s time to notable causes. Covington and Burling said nothing, but watched with a good deal of detached amusement. “We have been doing this sort of thing in our own unorganized, un-obstructured, un-public way,” a senior partner states, “long before it became “the right thing to do” in Washington Law.” Two outsiders agree. Professor Monroe Freedman, of the George Washington University law facility, and a keen critical observer of Washington firms, states, “C&B has long done this kind of work and shunned the credit.” And the American Civil Liberties Union, which uses Covington and Burling as an informal legal labor pool, gave the firm a twenty five year award for meritorious service a few years back.

Covington partners stress that the firm does not demand public interest work on a collective basis, but simply lets a new man know he can do as much or as little as he wishes, so long as he earns his keep in office. “I’d never tell a kid what to do,” states Thomas Austern. “It’s not our business whether he plays a piano in a whorehouse or in a church.” Some examples: Early partner George Rublee bargained desperately with Joseph Goebbels in the late 1930s to ransom Jews from Nazi Germany. His then assistant, Austern remarks, “I couldn’t even begin to tell you the number of weeks Rublee worked on this deal, because we don’t count things that way.” I could not even begin to tell you the number of weeks that Rublee worked on this deal, because we don’t count things that way.” Charles Horsky, as a member of the Maryland board of education, played a quiet but dominant role in desegregation of public schools in suburban Montgomery County. The fight against the Three Sisters Bridge which would destroy [?] a scenic Potomac landmark [which would have pointed at Jesuit Georgetown University]. A ruling that District of Columbia Courts would consider alcoholism a disease, not a crime. A $100,000, eighteen month fight to stop the U.S. Navy from selling the offshore Puerto Rican island of Culebra. “conscience work,” says one outside critic, “giving society a few cents change from all of the profits it makes.” Perhaps- perhaps not. “It’s a sad commentary on our society,” notes public interest lawyer Benny Kass, “but we judge a person’s sincerity today by how much money he is willing to give to a cause. On that criterion, Covington and Burling is damned sincere.”

Covington and Burling makes no pretense at rapport with all of its clients, and their policies. “Sometimes you really have to grit your teeth,” one man told me in a moment of rare candor about client-firm relations. I saw things I find personally repugnant. But I don’t suppose I’d tell all my clients if I practiced criminal law, or real estate law.” Saplenza insists that Covington and Burling does draw a line. “If a corporation is polluting a river, for instance, we’ll advise of its rights under the law, and how to go about complying with the law. But if some corporation cam in here and said outright, “To hell with the law, we’re not going to follow it, and we want you to fight the government as long as it takes we can,” we wouldn’t represent him.” Sapienza and his colleagues are really somewhat testy about what they feel are suggestions they really don’t give a damn what happens to the country. A broader view- that is what is needed, they say. A firm that pollutes might employ three hundred men whose families are dependent upon staying in business; the practices probably were legal when the factory began operation; management is sincere about obeying the statutes. The lawyer’s task is to find a mode of compliance that does not put the company out of business. And if doing so means haggling with the Federal government, and tough bargaining, so be it- that’s how Covington and Burling lawyers earn their living. “You’ve got to remember,” remarks partner Ernest Jennes, “that we are human beings and children as well as lawyers. Our wives and our children breathe the air, and so do we.”

Okay, Covington & Burling. How about a re-assigning of legal resources as already suggested here.

Covington & Burling is not just another law office


From “The Super-Lawyers: The Small and Powerful World of the Great Washington Law Firm”
by Joseph C. Goulden; chapter 1: “Covington & Burling: Pinnacle of Power” pp 21-22

“… Covington and Burling is not just another law office. It is, in fact, Washington’s oldest, largest and probably best national law firm. At one time or another, it has performed legal services for most blue-chip corporations in America. Unlike many forms, Covington and Burling doesn’t list representative clients in Martindale and Hubbell, the quasi-official legal directory. But, estimates one partner, “We’ve done things for, I’d say, twenty percent of the companies on Fortune’s list of the five hundred top corporations.” GM, AT&T, DuPont, CBS, American Airlines- you get the idea. Because of he diversity of talent afforded by the sheer size, Covington and Burling is perhaps the only law firm in Washington that can assign a specialist to handle any problem a client has before the Federal government, from defending a criminal antitrust case to obtaining an arms export license or convincing the Food and Drug Administration of the safety of a patent medicine or fancy new combination drug. Covington and Burling lawyers possess that special confidence that comes from expertise and power, and think in commensurately grand terms.”

“John G. Laylin, a senior partner who specializes in international work matter-of-factly illustrated this point to me one morning during a casual conversation. First, Laylin showed me a glass bowel, half filled with rocks the size of golf balls and covered with water. “This is something I am spending half my time on, right now” Laylin said. “These nodules are rich in cobalt, nickel and copper. A client of mine found them in fifteen thousand feet of water, in the middle of the ocean. Now the law on mining of deep sea resources is very vague. These nodules are found in high concentrations in a certain area; in other areas, nearby, they are nonexistent. My client has spent millions of dollars locating them.”

Laylin handed me a photograph album with pictures of the nodules littering the ocean floor, taken with deep-sea exploration equipment. “What we want is exclusivity,” he said

For a law firm powerful enough to cajole the United States into drafting an international treaty, requesting legislation from Congress is a routine exercise, even if a time-consuming one. Under a bill drafted by Laylin in 1971, any person subject to a United States jurisdiction would be required to obtain a Federal license before doing any undersea mining work. Reciprocal protection would be given other nations passing similar legislation.” In other words, no claim-jumping. “No state can by itself establish a rule or principle of international law,” Laylin wrote in a draft paper on sea-bed law, “but any state can sow seeds which can grow into a ‘general practice accepted as law.’”

And this is what Laylin is doing- on behalf of a fee paying Covington and Burling client, but in an undertaking bearing the imprimatur of both the United States government (which is to say, all of us) and the American Bar Association. Such is the stuff of big time Washington Law.


C&B- Bottleneck or Facilitator?

http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2011/10/bottleneck-or-facilitator.html

Covington & Burling & Big Tobacco


Tobacco industry

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Covington_%26_Burling

Covington & Burling also served as "corporate affairs consultants" to the Philip Morris group of companies, according to a 1993 internal budget review document which indicated the firm was paid $280,000 to "serve as general counsel thttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifo the Consumer Products Company Tort Coalition, agree the legal objectives with member company litigators, draft legislation and amendments, prepare lobby papers and testimony for legislative committees and administer the coalition's budget". [6]

Covington & Burling was involved in organizing Philip Morris' Whitecoat Project, designed to help obscure the health effects of exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke.

During the $280 billion U.S. federal lawsuit against Big Tobacco, Covington & Burling partner John Rupp, a former lawyer with the industry-funded Tobacco Institute, testified that "the industry sought out scientists and paid them to make an 'objective appraisal' of whether secondhand smoke was harmful to non-smokers, a move they hoped would dispel the 'extreme views' of some anti-smoking activists." He said "the scientists, who came from prestigious institutions such as Georgetown University and the University of Massachusetts, did not consider themselves to be working 'on behalf' of cigarette makers even though they were being paid by the industry." Rupp said, "We were paying them to share their views in forums where they would be usefully presented," according to Reuters. [7]

Partners in Covington & Burling include, but are not limited to, Keith Teel, Allan Topol and John Rupp, who have knowledge of lobbying tactics employed in Texas by the tobacco industry. The "push poll" conducted January 20-25, 1996, regarding Attorney General Dan Morales, was commissioned by Covington & Burling, and funded by Brown & Williamson, Lorillard, Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company. Teel was a member of the tobacco industry delegation who met with Attorney General Dan Morales in February, 1996 in an attempt to prevent the filing of the state's lawsuit against the tobacco industry to recoup Medicaid costs for treating sick smokers. Teel has knowledge of the tobacco industry's tactics employed in Texas, including the use of "push polls" to intimidate or control public officials' actions.

Allan Topol of C&B attended a meeting of the Research Directors of Brown & Williamson, Philip Morris, and Liggett & Myers at Liggett & Myers Operations Center in Durham, NC on May 24, 1968. The objective of the meeting was to determine the variation and the amounts of Federal Trace Commission (FTC)-determined tar exposure which various groups of the population encounter when smoking various cigarettes. He attended the December 7, 1967, meeting at the Research Triangle Institute regarding individual's smoke exposure. He has knowledge of smokers' "compensation" techniques and the inaccuracies of the FTC method for measuring tar/nicotine exposure to smokers. Mr. Topol has knowledge regarding nicotine addiction, nicotine manipulation and disease/cancer causation. Covington & Burling were Counsel to the Tobacco Institute and Lorillard Counsel for Tobacco Sales. (PMI's Introduction to Privileged Log and Glossary of Names, Estate of Burl Butler v. PMI, et al, April 19, 1996)

Covington & Burling & Big Tobacco - 1964

Covington & Burling & Big Tobacco - 1987

Bottleneck or Facilitator?

I have to ask this, because of political dynamics expressed by the Drug Policy Foundation/Drug Policy Alliance's short-selling of 'Harm Reduction' and its lack of coverage of the Coca issue, and the larger issue of the right to plants.

What about Covington & Burling, with background in Food and Drugs, and its bro bono program assigning an attorney listed as a food and drug specialist "primary responsibility for advising the [Drug Policy] Foundation"- Marialuisa S. Gallozzi - when we see there IS the potential, yet it is not being realised?





Covington & Burling's Continuing Involvement with Drug Policy

http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2011/09/covington-burlings-continuing.html

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Dana Beal Letter to DEA's Leonhart About Ibogaine

https://www.facebook.com/notes/dana-beal/new-version-letter-to-michele-leonhart/309370972412958

To DEA Director Leonhart,

This is to let you know of public and Congressional interest in expanded research into ibogaine and its analogs, not only for treatment of addiction but for its broad spectrum antibiotic, antiviral, anti-tumor effects.

The placement of ibogaine in Schedule I discourages research, not just because of the stigma, but because of the immense practical roadblocks it puts in the way of researchers. Right now a research group at New York University that is investigating the synthetic ibogaine analog 18-MC will probably break off their work when the time comes to investigate the parent compound. It took Rockefeller University nine months just to obtain less than a gram of ibogaine.

Couldn’t you find a Schedule for ibogaine a little less restrictive than Schedule I?

Ibogaine has no abuse potential, and great potential for treatment of a number of indications that we have no good medicines for right now, including multiple scherosis, chemo-resistant cancer, parkinsons, and bipolar/binge behaviors. Clinics using ibogaine are springing up all over the world because it works so much better for abolition of narcotic withdrawal as well as craving for psycho-stimulants.

In 2005–6 ibogaine was found to express a growth factor—glia-derived-neurotropic-factor (GDNF)—that not only regenerates dopamine neurons suppressed by drugs of abuse, but back-signals to the cell nuclei to express more GDNF, establishing a benign, self-sustaining loop that obviates the need for artificial elevation of dopamine levels and persists without administration of additional ibogaine. This explains reported ibogaine efficacy against meth-amphetamine and crack cocaine — drugs against which we have no effective pharmaco-therapies right now.

Very simply, ibogaine doesn’t fall under the plain definition of Schedule I —“no accepted medical value, high potential for abuse, no safe use in treatment.” Because of aversive side-effects, it cannot be abused.

First, animals can not be trained to self-administer Ibogaine. Second, it has Sigma-two effects like thorazine or prolyxin; no one is diverting their anti-psychotic drugs to the black market. Third, if you escalate dosages (as someone binging on cocaine would) you get semi-paralysis, nausea and vomiting. Finally, if you try to do small doses daily, after about 14 days you have to quit due to insomnia and lack of concentration.

What is the statutory basis for scheduling Ibogaine in the absence of “high potential for abuse?”

Before we hold hearings, we need the outcome of more clinical research. You can help by taking the initiative and lifting the roadblock imposed by the Schedule I status of ibogaine.

All we are asking for here is some fairness, so the American people don’t have to wait another 20 years for effective treatment for addiction.

Beware The Schedule 2 Trap

to make Cannabis as 'legal' as cocaine hci

have been talking about this for sometime now. Watch, read, be ready to act. This is deliberate and well orchestrated.

Everything will hinge on state and Federal drug scheduling. Currently, cannabis is listed as a Schedule I drug in every state but Oregon, where it is a Schedule 2. Colorado relies on Federal Scheduling (Schedule 1). That's right, even states with a medical cannabis program list cannabis as a Schedule 1 drug (no medical value)

Expect that the Federal Government will re-Schedule cannabis nationally to a Schedule 2 before the elections in November 2012. DO NOT BE DECEIVED. THIS IS NOT A VICTORY. IT'S A SNARE to formally hand cannabis into the hands of the pharmaceutical companies and formally shut out access to the natural plant.

Cannabis users and patients will ONLY be free from arrest if cannabis is removed ENTIRELY from EVERY state Drug Schedule. Plan your legislative attempts and protests accordingly.

see: http://www.medicalcannabisjournal.net/submissions/archive/2010/irs-ruling-against-harborside-no-surprise-by-mark-pedersen-on-thursday-october-6-2011-at-1221pm

Monday, October 24, 2011

Legalize Coca Leaf U.S. White House Petition

Created October 24, 2011

https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions/!/petition/legalize-coca-leaf-teas-and-beverages-opposed-continually-ensuring-its-perversion-concentrated/85CFl1Zy

Legalize Coca Leaf, teas and beverages, as opposed to continually ensuring its perversion into concentrated cocaine

End the post 1906-1914 disparate treatment for Coca and dilute cocaine that ensures its perversion into problematic concentrated forms of cocaine, while denying the many benefits of Coca Leaf.

Created: Oct 24, 2011
Issues: Agriculture, Criminal Justice and Law Enforcement, Trade

Prohibitionist Chickenshits

From Time 4 Hemp's Capser Leitch:

I have tried to get opponents of re-legalizing Marijuana ....as well as other opponents of re-legalizing marijuana. The most recent was an invitation to Judy Cushing, who was speaking on the local news about how awful marijuana is. She stated it was bad for the brain; destructive to health; and was the root cause of crime. She is the president and CEO of http://www.orpartnership.org and seemed to be dedicated to outlawing marijua - and since she was seeking the attention of the media, the below exchange occurred between her people and me (no, she wouldn't even take the time to address my request herself - lol)...please feel free to share this with everyone you feel would enjoy it!

ATTN: Judy Cushing, please be a guest on my LIVE radio show, it's called 'Time 4 Hemp - LIVE' and it airs every M-F from 10-11a.m. on http://www.AmericanFreedomRadio.com and has a listening audience of over a million people around the world. Past guests include Congressman Barney Frank; Sen. Mike Gravel; Gov. Gary Johnson; Ethan Nadelmann (founder of the Drug Policy Alliance); Keith Stroup (founder of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws); and David Boaz (founder of the CATO Institute).

After seeing you on the local news (I live in Portland) I thought it would be of benefit to my audience to hear why it is you and your organization feel that marijuana is destructive to the community and to the individual who uses it.

You struck me as an excellent voice of opposition to address this issue and help to give a balance viewpoint of this topic on the show.

If you or someone from http://www.orpartnership.org were to agree to be a guest on the show, I would want to have Paul Stanford as a co-host on that segment to allow for a well-rounded discussion. Paul also lives in Portland.

To learn more about me you can Google my name or the name of the series as well as visit my website http://www.Time4Hemp.com and to learn more about Paul Stanford, you can visit http://www.HEMP.org or Google his name.

If, for some reason, you would rather have a different co-host for this segment, I can arrange to have Ethan Nadelmann or Keith Stroup as the co-host instead.

I look forward to your reply and hope you find joy in your day.


Sincerely,

Casper Leitch
Host/Creator: Time 4 Hemp



Dear Mr. Leitch,

Thank you for inviting Judy Cushing to appear on your program. However Oregon Partnership is declining your invitation.

Sincerely

Tom Parker
Communications Director
Oregon Partnership
5100 SW Macadam Avenue Suite 400
Portland, OR 97239-3854

Main: 503.244.5211
Direct 971.244.1375
Cell: 503.890.7473

www.orpartnership.org

"Oregon Partnership - Preventing substance abuse and suicide."

Military Helpline: 1-888-457-4838 www.MilitaryHelpline.org


Dear Tom Parker;

OK - I'm not surprised since it is impossible to defend your position and to attempt to do so would only make you look foolish. The message you bring to the public is one that can only be presented WITH OUT an opposing viewpoint. With that said, I will be airing sound bites from past remarks you've made on radio and television and quoting statements you've posted on your website to allow my guests to discuss the messages you are bringing to the public. Do keep in mind that I did offer you the chance to appear in person on my program to represent yourselves and the inept propaganda that you attempt to present as facts.

It the 20-years that I've done this series, no one has ever come on to the show to dispute what I present which is: Prohibition is a failure. Medical Marijuana needs to be available to those who need it. The 50,000 different products that can be made from this plant would create jobs and generate a strong tax base. We can free ourselves from being dependent on foreign oil by growing hemp for fuel. It's silly to arrest people for touching a plant. Instead of making taxpayers cover the cost of arresting and jailing people for touching a plant, we need to regulate the plant and let it produce a tax revenue for this country to pay it's debts.

I've invited the Attorney General of the United States, of the state of Washington, the state of Oregon and the state of California to be a guest on the show - and they don't have the courage to be a guest - I really didn't think anyone in your organization truly had the backbone to come on the show either....but, I did want to give you the chance to be on the show before I and my guests began to dispel the false information you continue to present as facts.

Should you be able to find anyone who can defend you point of view on this topic and wish to have them on my show, keep in mind that I'm on the air 5-days a week and I will definitely be able to find a spot for them.

My invitation will be extended to you publicly today on my show, and - every now and then, my guests and I will take a quote from your site or one of your members who have recently spoken AT the press and discuss it. (Notice I said, "...spoken AT the press..." - that's because you refuse to DISCUSS with the press you point of view. You are only willing to have a sit-down interview with people who just say "YES - that's wonderful" to everything you say....but then again, your point of view on this topic has no true grounding in facts.)

Most sincerely,

Casper Leitch

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Spin


Psychedelics opposed by the church of Christ?

Psychedelics opposed by Protestants

Psychedelics supported by Catholic Bishops

Such was what I hears from a speaker at the Horizons Psychedelics Conference held last weekend in Manhattan, N.Y., N.Y. at the Judson Church.

From such one would understandably overlook the Vatican as a source of problems.

Saturday, October 22, 2011

DPA Behind the Curve

DPA table at last weekend's Horizon's Psychedelics Conference at the Judson Church in N.Y. N.Y.




Notably the DPA promotes Methadone, see the blue pamphlet, yet strangely has no such publications for Coca leaf nor Iboga- that latter a particularly odd exclusion for a psychedelics conference.

Ethan Nadelmann needs to disregard the bullshit advice he has been given, perhaps from a source as this, and create and distribute such pamphlets for Coca, Iboga and even Opium, as alternatives to Methadone.

Friday, October 21, 2011

Dana Beal Letter October 21, 2011

The Banned Dana Beal Stamp

Dana Beal

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Free-Dana-Beal-Release-Ibogaine-in-the-Midwest/120917661262232

A strange thing happened to me right when they were taking me to prison... They had to let me go cause I up and died on them (heart attack.) I have zero memory of what happened. I think the attack was triggered by a panic which caused shortness of breath because they never tell you they're moving you (security). I had already been in the hole twice for saving food; twice for religious dispute over the Koran. Suddenly I'm on the floor and one of the same guys who put in last time is giving me cpr. They transferred me to the hospital in Dodgeville, which was inadequate, so I ended up waking up in St. Marys in Madison, under guard of a Sheriff's deputy.. St Marys does hearts, and after about a week the DA and Sheriff let me bail out, cause Iowa county couldn't afford to keep a deputy in Madison.... A few days later I'm doing a double bypass. After a week they kicked me out...

The thing is, I kind of warned the Judge about my bad health. Both my dad and my mother's dad died of stroke at 65. (I forgot the grand dad also died of a heart attack.) So instead of going to prison for 20 more months, it all became probation. I'm still facing Nebraska charges, and there's no guarantee they're giving me credit for the 9 mos I spent on hold in Wisconsin on their charges. They gave a co-defendant 17 mos. and he didn't even exercise his right to put on a medical necessity defense. I may have to do the same sentencing hearing all over again, with some what different witnesses.

People can send money to my lawyers, Bryon Walker and Glen Shapiro. Aron Kay is coordinating, somewhat. 347-962-5024.

Ethan Nadelmann: Why Some Drugs Are Illegal


http://youtu.be/-9Fa5VD4VQk

Cites racism, it was about who was using a given drug and who was perceived as using it, but no mention of the underlying economic reasonsUSDA-AMA-APhA Agricultural-Pharma Mercantilism.

Ethan surely knows about this, after all he not only attended my 1995 COCA '95 panel at the Drug Policy Foundation conference held in Santa Monica California, but also placed me upon his 1992 panel "The America's- Is the U.S. Exporting its Problems" where I was a panelist, along with the panel "Cocaine- Trade and Policy" at the 1992 D.P.F. conference.






Douglas Willinger, Ethan Nadelmann- 1992 DPF Conference

Dana Beal Stamp BLOCKED

For these reasons, we were unable to process your original order:
Title: Dana Beal 2010, Dana Beal
Product Link: 172764768653079754

Result: Not Approved

Content Issues:
--- Design incorporates material the primary purpose of which is to advocate or protest any particular religious, social, political, legal or moral agenda of any person or entity
--- Design incorporates the name or likeness of a current or former world leader, politician, a local, regional, national or international leader and/or religious figurehead
--- Design incorporates material that is primarily partisan or political in nature
Because Zazzle Custom Stamps are real postage, they are subject to special Appropriate Use Guidelines, detailed at http://zazzle.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/135. One of these restrictions prohibits the printing of any postage that incorporates a celebrity or other famous person's name or likeness.

In this instance, your custom stamp design(s) contained an image of political activist Dana Beal, so we were unable to fulfill your order.

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Mary C. Mcbride Jesuitical Justice

This is the Nebraska Judge Sanctioning Ripping Off of Dana Beal and Others- for the sake of a deceitful ideology

Nebraska Judge Mary C. Mcbride

This is the judge who disregards the U.S. Constitution to uphold illegal searches and seizures of Cannabis in eastern Nebraska, such as that victimizing Dana Beal and his companions in the fall of 2009. A group of us, including those from a local law school, saw her at the suppression hearing in early 2010, where we heard about:

- a 'drug' dog without certification
- a police officer - Engel - who is revealed by Dana's attorney to be a perjurer (liar) in past cases
- a command from the police that 'you are free to go' which the police than ignore and tackle the victims stealing them of liberty and property.
- the fear of the prosecution of inquiry into such behavior as a part of police training (as a response to all of those 'how to deal with the police' video)

Mary Mcbride's unconstitutional decision upholding this search and seizure was only issued later, resting upon testimony that there were multiple cell phones in the vehicle, more than the number of people in the vehicle, hence somehow establishing 'probable cause'. The stop itself, with its multiple interviews (questionings of the vehicle occupants) was predicated upon the driver (Chris) exceeding the speed limit by one mph before slowing to a few mph under and a partially obscured license plate, upon a two lane road paralleling I-80.

Mary Mcbride's decisions appear to be motivated by her personal opposition to Medical Cannabis.

Mary Mcbride committed perjury and conspiracy to commit such against Dana's companion Chris, sentencing him to 1 year in prison for refusing to state that Cannabis is not medicine. She is delusional, if not consciously dishonest, insisting that Cannabis is not medicine, and commits perjury by so insisting that in court, and in insisting that those before her conform to her perjury, even confusing per se bad acts (such as theft and murder) with those that are simply somehow illegal (substance possession and/or commerce).

Mcbride began her legal career in 1982, as a law clerk to Justice Boslaugh of the Nebraska Supreme Court. In 1984, she became corporate counsel to Peter Kiewit Sons', Inc, until being appointed County Court Judge (5th District) in 1992, and in 1998, promoted to the position of District Court Judge in 1998.

Mcbride got her formal legal eduction from Creighton Law School- a JESUIT ORDER institution which is supremely influential though the U.S. via such JESUIT institutions as Fordham and especially Georgetown University.

About Creighton:

Located in Omaha, Nebraska in view of the Missouri River and the Loess Hills, Creighton University School of Law is a Jesuit Catholic institution educating aspiring attorneys in the theory, practice and ethics of lawyering for over 100 years. Consistent with its mission, the Law School's motto is "educating for service and justice" and its goal is to produce attorneys who not only meticulously care for their clients' needs, but also recognize their own over-arching duty to the profession and society at large.

Creighton's Institutional History: 100 Years of Educating for Service & Justice

In 1903, Creighton's president, Rev. Michael Dowling, S.J., began formulating plans for a Department of Law. He sought advice from the local Bar and the University’s major benefactor and namesake, Count John Creighton. The Count is reported to have said: "Why should I lend my support to such a project when it is common knowledge that all lawyers are scoundrels?" Father Dowling responded, "that is one of the best reasons why Creighton University should undertake the education of your men for the legal profession." The support was forthcoming and on October 3, 1904, twenty-three law students were welcomed as the first class. This first group of students was welcomed by a dean, an associate dean, and 31 practicing attorneys who donated their time to teach.

Much has changed in the past century, yet much has remained the same. Coursework for first-year law students at Creighton in 1904 included constitutional law, torts, property, contracts, criminal law, and moot court. That same curriculum is reflected in law schools across the country today with the exception of criminal law, the inclusion of civil procedure, and the addition of a moot court component of the legal writing class. In 1904, the faculty consisted of a dean, associate dean and 31 practicing attorneys who donated their time to teach. Today, 30 full-time professors who are experts and published authors in their fields and who are dedicated to training Creighton's 480 students.

These 480 students are among the best in the nation. Drawn from over 40 states, 7 foreign countries and 165 undergraduate institutions, they move into judicial clerkships and jobs at top law firms in Omaha, Chicago, Denver, Houston, Kansas City and beyond. With three fully functioning courtrooms and a state-of-the-art wireless technology Law Library, students leave Creighton prepared to enter practice and succeed. Anchored in its humble beginnings a century ago, Creighton has emerged as a leader in Catholic legal education and is moving forward boldly into the 21st Century. In 2009, the law school again hosted Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas as he taught a supreme court seminar to second and third-year students, celebrated third-year student Joseph Larson as one of 15 students nationwide selected for a Burton Award for Excellence in legal writing, and sent a student from the Milton R. Abrahams Legal Clinic to argue in front of the Nebraska Court of Appeals.

Creighton's Jesuit Roots

Creighton is one of fourteen Jesuit Catholic law schools in the U.S. One out of every ten American law students is enrolled in a Jesuit law school. Situated primarily in urban centers, these schools were traditionally among the first to provide women and minorities access to high-quality legal education. With a reputation for rigorous study, Jesuit law schools value the pursuit of academic excellence and preparation for public service. ...

Ironically, this Jesuit law school opened the very same year that such "knights having shown great prowess" as Harvey Washington Wiley began the crusade for the pharmacratic inquisition cigarette racketeering scheme later known as the 'drug war'. It is a scheme that has cost over 100 million lives via protecting cigarette markets protecting the most dangerous from the safest -- Tobacco from Coca, far worse than commonly seen than simply prohibition's iron law of shifting markets towards more concentrated forms of the banned drugs, yet one which has been deceitfully presented as somehow protecting people's health.

That's some public service.