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I first saw Jello Biafra speak at the University of Texas at Arlington in 1991, and I took my mother, who enjoyed it. Saw him again a few years ago in Fort Worth at the Ridglea Theater, and he was equally entertaining.

Some folks may be familiar with this poem from Ministry's "In Case You Didn't Feel Like Showing Up Live."

High-ranking government officials in the United States have referred to the concept of medical marijuana as a hoax, a subterfuge by which proponents of a more liberal policy toward this drug will succeed in undoing the long-standing, harsh prohibition.

Ignorant of the role cannabis played in Western medicine from mid-19th into the early 20th century, they and their many supporters view the notion that cannabis has medicinal properties as a new intrusion into allopathic medicine. The parochialism of this view is highlighted by ethnohistorical studies which document not only how ancient is the use of this substance as a medicine but, as well, the multiplicity of cultures that have used it in so many different ways for the treatment of a large variety of human ailments and discomforts.

Its use as a medicine is so widespread and reports of its toxicity so rare, the contemporary judgment of Western medicine seems deviant. One might ask why the government of the United States, the leading oppositional force, clings so tenaciously to this insular and harmful policy?

Marijuana Harms Have Been Proved Scientifically

Marijuana Has No Medicinal Value

Marijuana Is Highly Addictive

Marijuana Is a Gateway Drug

Marijuana Offenses Are Not Severely Punished

Marijuana Policy in the Netherlands Is a Failure

Marijuana Kills Brain Cells

Marijuana Causes an Amotivational Syndrome

Marijuana Impairs Memory and Cognition

Marijuana Causes Psychological Impairment

Marijuana Causes Crime

Marijuana Interferes with Male and Female Sex Hormones

Marijuana Use During Pregnancy Damages the Fetus

Marijuana Impairs the Immune System

Marijuana Is More Damaging to the Lungs than Tobacco

Marijuana Gets Trapped in Body Fat

Marijuana Use Is a Major Cause of Highway Accidents

Marijuana-Related Hospital Emergencies Are Increasing

Marijuana Is More Potent Today than in the Past

Marijuana Use Can Be Prevented

"For each of these claims, we searched the scientific literature for relevant studies. Over and over, we discovered that government officials, journalists, and even many 'drug experts' had misinterpreted, misrepresented, or distorted the scientific evidence. Indeed, there was so little scientific support for the twenty claims analyzed in this book that we have called them 'myths.' Like all myths, these may contain a kernel of truth, but never more than that."

Marijuana Myths, Marijuana Facts - A Review of the Scientific Evidence by Lynn Zimmer, Ph.D - Associate Professor of Sociology at Queens College, City University of New York and John P. Morgan, M.D. - Professor of Pharmacology at the City University of New York Medical School

This is an excerpt from the book 'The Emperor Wears No Clothes', now in its 11th edition.

Why Not Use Hemp to Reverse the Greenhouse Effect and Save the World?

The nutritional composition of oil from the marijuana plant could be beneficial to your health. To most people, Cannabis sativa is synonymous with marijuana, but the plant's Latin name means the "useful hemp." Species designated sativa (useful) are usually among the most important of all crops. In fact, the utility of hemp is manifold: the plant has provided human beings with fiber, edible seeds, an edible oil, and medicine, not just a notorious mind-altering drug.

In our part of the world, these other uses of hemp are no longer familiar. We rarely use hemp fiber and know little about hemp medicine. (Some cancer patients have found it to be a superior remedy for the nausea caused by chemotherapy, and some people with multiple sclerosis are grateful for its relaxant effects on spastic muscles.) Hemp seed is sometimes an ingredient in bird food; otherwise, edible products from Cannabis sativa are virtually unknown.

This may all change. In many parts of the country, promoters of hemp cultivation are working to educate people about the immense potential of this plant and to reintroduce it into commerce. They champion hemp as a renewable source of pulp for the manufacture of paper, as a superior fiber for making cloth, and as a new food that can be processed into everything from a milk substitute to a kind of tofu.

In the 1840s, the Eclectic School of Medicine was formed by Dr. Wooster Beach. The Eclectics focused on herbal medicines to cure myriad ailments instead of traditional, more invasive and oft rather severe, treatments. One doctor involved in the Eclectic movement was Dr. Harvey Wickes Felter. In 1922, Dr. Felter wrote "The Eclectic Materia Medica, Pharmacology and Therapeutics," which is still highly regarded by homeopaths, botanists, and a couple open-minded and wellness-oriented doctors that don't have their hands in the pharmaceutical company's cookie jar. Included in this tome is a rather extensive look at the cannabis plant, the complete text of which is included below.

From 'The Emperor Wears No Clothes'

Contrary to popular perception, marijuana is not a phenomenon rooted in the 1960s. Cannabis hemp is part of our global heritage and was the backbone of our most stable and longest surviving cultures.

Recent psycho-pharmacological studies have discovered that THC has its own unique receptor sites in the brain, indicating man and marijuana have a pre-cultural relationship - indeed, human culture could very well prove to be the blossom of our symbiosis with cannabis.

Ford had a car made from hemp and other fibers back in 1941...