Pubdate: Wed, 31 Aug 2005
Source: Stephenville Empire-Tribune (TX)
Contact:  http://www.empiretribune.com/
Copyright: 2005 Stephenville Empire-Tribune
Author: Kay Lee
Note: Headline created by newshawk

END THE PAIN OF PROHIBITION

Before age 50 I didn't question the laws, nor the people who make and
enforce them.   Mine was a late-in-life rude and painful awakening.

The truth that set me on my path was a simple one: Bad laws hurt good
people. Tonight I cannot sleep because someone I love is in great pain
and is being denied relief by those around her because they are afraid
of the enforcers of a very bad law.

She's only in her 30s but her fingers are swollen and twisting
painfully with advancing crippling arthritis.  She cries,  I cry
because I know there is a plant that eases her pain without the side
effects she fears from manmade medicines.  A tiny amount can make her
feel better,  loosens her joints and elevates her mind above the pain
so that she can enjoy life, and may slow or halt the progress of the
ravaging disease.

But her husband refuses to let her use it because dangerous men could
come into their home and take his child.  He felt forced to make a
choice between his child's future or his wife's which will give him no
  comfort in a few years.

Bible verses lead me to believe that everything we need to sustain
life, to ease our pain and heal ourselves is  already here - created
for the use of mankind, woven right into nature by some wonderful
force that obviously intended plants to ease suffering.

Everyone knows our medicines are culled from plants.

How can a small group of people claim total ownership over portions of
a nature they didn't create and can't even come close to imitating?  I
weep because they stand waiting to destroy a very good person and the
people she loves should she dare to reach in her anguish for one of
those plants.

Grown men dress up like toy soldiers to wage war, not on evil human
beings, but on medicinal plants. My gosh, even manmade alcohol wasn't
denied to doctors and patients for medical use during that
prohibition.

I don't care about immoral laws, drug wars,   pharmaceutical profits
or an imaginary drug free utopia!  What I do care about is people,
particularly one beautiful lady who fears the deformity of her hands
in coming years, and her husband, who should never feel pressured to
make such a choice between his son's security and his wife's pain.

It doesn't even matter how a group of men slunk in and used awful lies
to take total dominion over the plants of the field.  What matters is
that the masses, meaning you and I, continue to allow them to hurt
good people, continue to feed their never ending lies to our children,
continue to finance such absurdity as a war on plants, and continue to
believe that liars, cheats, and underhanded profiteers are going to
create a perfect world for us with their guns and handcuffs and
prisons.  To heck with the drug warriors!

END THE PAIN OF PROHIBITION NOW!

GREATGRANDMA KAY LEE

Atlanta, Georgia 
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