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END PROHIBITION NOW!
statement from ACT UP SF

According to the Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala, "marijuana is immunosuppressive." We of ACT UP SF have to laugh at her absurd reefer madness like exaggeration concerning the so-called "dangers" of marijuana. Over thirty years of government research and billions of dollars worth of stoned monkeys have demonstrated one thing, marijuana is benign, does not cause any harmful effects, and is considerably safer than cigarettes and alcohol. Emaciation, neuropathy, blindness, dementia, cancer, renal failure, birth defects and metabolic deformations are only a few of the side effects of the so-called "AIDS" drugs that Donna Shalala brazenly promotes in the name of health care. AZT, DDI, DDC, D4T, 3TC, IL2, Saquinavir, Ritonavir, Crixivan, Sustiva, Viracept, Ziagen and Thalidomide are the worst drugs possible for immunosuppression. Of course synthesized THC (Marinol) is available in capsule form; it seems marijuana fine if the pharmaceutical industry can profit from it. But our civil right to alternative medicine continues to be a crime. We see that our fight to expose the HIV lie and our advocacy for the HIV positive as all part of the same battle. Bombarded with misinformation from their doctors and other "authorities," subjected to psychological terrorism, convinced of an imposed death sentence, and poisoned with toxic pharmaceuticals, any individual designated HIV positive is well deserving of a few stress busters, including marijuana. The sham policy of Donna Shalala is in keeping with the whole repressive increasingly totalitarian society we live in.

As gay people we know that our history is to be found with the witches of Old Europe who knew secrets and magics of herb lore. Healing, performing abortions, attending births, our ancestors long ago found themselves at odds with an utterly draconian Church. Rubbing their bodies with flying ointments made potent with ergot, belladonna and henbane, our sisters and brothers too flight to unimaginable regions of the mind and were persecuted and burned for such activity by the prison guards of Christian Civilization. For thousands of years marijuana, peyote, kavakava, morning-glory seeds, coca leaves, psilocybin, yage and innumerable other sacred plants have been used, and continue to be used, by indigenous people as both sacrament and medicine throughout the New World. One of our favorite revolutionary figures of the 20th century, Pancho Villa, is said to have smoked pot before going to battle to become mas valiente (more valiant). References to the marvelous effects of marijuana fill Mexican revolutionary corridos (ballads) made famous by Villa's army. In the twenties marijuana entered the bohemian crowds of NY and Chicago vis a vis the traveling jazz and blues bands of the time. The psychedelic subculture of the 1960s only rediscovered what was already in place as an oppositional underground current. We mention all of this to point out the prohibition of marijuana is rooted in Puritanical bigotry, racism, cultural chauvinism and fear of the unconscious.

Most recently the California State Attorney General, William Lockyer, has stated publicly that he voted for 215. Welcome news! What is needed is an immediate amnesty for all people in the courts and prison system and a complete dismantling of the failed "War On Drugs." An abysmal policy that has only proven to be a ruse to prepare the world for a global police state. We of ACT UP SF believe that legalization is not enough. Utilizing fear, hysteria, and media manipulation, the NIH, the FDA, the CDC and their funding cohorts - the drug companies - continue to divert attention away from the sociological and emotional causes of illness while preventing focus on a holistic nontoxic approach to individual healing. The much hyped "crisis in health care" is simply a matter of people's needs being sacrificed for the sake of corporate profits.


Pancho Villa smoking marijuana with his comrades on his ranch in Chihuahua.
Photo by Agustin V. Casasola 1923

ACT UP San Francisco 1884 Market St San Francisco, CA 94102 Ph: (415) 864-6686 Fax (415) 864-6687 info@actupsf.com