Pubdate: Sun, 15 Jul 2012
Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (PA)
Copyright: 2012 PG Publishing Co., Inc.
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/pm4R4dI4
Website: http://www.post-gazette.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/341
Author: Micki Myers
Note: Micki Myers (mickimyers.com) is a writer and poet living in 
Squirrel Hill. She writes about terrible cookbooks at "Yuckylicious" 
(yuckylicious. blogspot.com).
Review: "POT INC: INSIDE MEDICAL MARIJUANA, AMERICA'S MOST OUTLAW 
INDUSTRY" by Greg Campbell. Sterling ($22.95)

POLITICS HAS DEMONIZED MEDICAL MARIJUANA INDUSTRY

One of the most humanizing elements about the recent revelations 
regarding President Barack Obama's youthful marijuana use (in David 
Maraniss' book "Barack Obama: The Story") isn't that he was an 
enthusiastic pot smoker, but that he and his pals called themselves 
"the Choom Gang." Cannabis goes by many names - one of the reasons it 
has had such a checkered legal history - but "choom" has a quaint 
veneer of nostalgia about it for those old enough to have developed 
an extensive vocabulary for this simple weed.

Mr. Maraniss' disclosure comes at a time when this Schedule I drug 
has found renewed vigor as a hot topic.

In this election year, many voters who were encouraged by Mr. Obama's 
seemingly tolerant stance four years ago are bubbling with 
frustration about how his policies have played out. Meanwhile, the 
list of states which have adopted medical marijuana legislation 
increases, and pro-legalization candidates are usurping staunch 
hard-liners in local elections.

What all of this has caused, Greg Campbell argues in his new book 
"Pot, Inc.," is a deeply fractured nation whereby neighboring states 
hold wildly differing stands on persecuting those involved in 
growing, dispensing or using cannabis, while the federal government 
threatens to override them all, despite Mr. Obama's landmark "Memo" 
which suggested (but suggested) leniency on the matter.

In short: it's a mess.

Mr. Campbell is the award-winning journalist whose 2002 "Blood 
Diamonds" exposed the links between West African war funding and 
diamond smuggling, so he's no stranger to controversial topics.

He was prompted to explore the complicated and legal morass 
surrounding the way cannabis is treated in this country in order to 
understand it from the inside-out, and to shed light on it for the 
rest of us, a task he does with considerable craft.

Like many people, Mr. Campbell experimented with pot during his 
college years, but concluded that it wasn't for him. When he found 
himself living in what became Ground Zero for the recent 
establishment of a medical marijuana industry (Fort Collins, Colo.), 
he decided to join the fray to experience the other side of the coin, 
as it were, firsthand.

He duly got himself a license to grow a small, state-sanctioned 
number of cannabis plants so that he could view the process from the 
cultivator's point of view.

His experience as a legitimate (though still secretive) grower 
carries us through this highly informative and heartfelt book, from 
uneasy paranoia as he embarks on interviewing top law enforcement 
figures deeply opposed to any kind of legalization, to a sense of 
confidence and even pride, when his horticultural efforts, modest 
though they are, produce results.

But Mr. Campbell is no midnight toker.

Though he convincingly concedes that the plant does indeed have 
legitimate medicinal merit (a point he carefully and thoroughly 
guides the reader through via historical studies, 
government-sponsored research and personal testimony), he does not 
imbibe, but turns over his crop to another licensed user for 
medicinal use, his experiment and research done.

It is certainly fascinating to read such a well documented and 
extensive case history: Mr. Campbell always supports his findings 
with astonishing facts about the plant's botanical and legal place in 
our biology and economy.

But what this book does really well is make a tricky subject seem 
very simple indeed.

Mr. Campbell concludes that the removal of cannabis from the list of 
Schedule I drugs (the most dangerous, those with no known medicinal 
value) is not only long overdue but also morally and ethically 
necessary to alleviate the suffering of those for whom it has been 
irrefutably proven to help. He makes the argument effectively and 
eloquently. The testimony of individuals for whom the relief from 
unbearable symptoms caused by cancer, chemo, and a host of other 
conditions, has only come from the natural cannabinoids found in 
cannabis (and nowhere else, including synthetic THC), is both moving 
and heartbreaking.

Uncovering the dark political forces that put it there among the 
opiates in the first place is only the first step in showing how 
politics - rather than science or economics - is responsible for its 
continued demonization. (The connection between noted xenophobe 
William Randolph Hearst, the Mexican Revolution, and hemp vs. timber 
papermaking is just one of the intricate political webs Mr. Campbell 
unravels; the insider electoral politics of Richard Nixon, which put 
the nail in the medical marijuana coffin, another.)

It's essential reading for anyone wanting to know a little more about 
why a teenager in Hawaii gleefully intercepting a joint many years 
ago could be such a big deal (as president, Mr. Obama has the power 
to demand cannabis's reclassification as a drug with known medicinal 
benefit), whether you're a member of the choir Greg Campbell's 
preaching to or not.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom