Propagnada and History - calling out Journalism

This is a picture run in the Tennessean on 1-6-2014

I had to write in….as I have at least 5-6 times in the past 6 months and I have never recieved a response.

But today I got a response! see it at the bottom!

To whom is may concern,

I am writing this letter today in response to a comic picture I was made aware of that was run in your daily newspaper, The Tennessean. The picture depicted 2 adults making snow angels and  a young child complaining that the parents need to quit smoking pot and feed him his frito’s.

This deeply concerns me as as citizen here in the middle Tennessee area. I am extremely disturbed that such an influential and legitimate journal would dare to create such false propaganda about a subject that is already riddled with historical disinformation.

By publishing this simple cartoon, the people in middle Tennessee, who trust you to bring them the news- not your uneducated humor, have once again been the victim of the outlandish lie that a simple plant, put here by God, is somehow a sinister drug.

Facts about cannabis are everywhere. From the legitimacy of the medicinal use to the non addictive character of cannabis used as medicine as well as recreational.

Here in Tennessee we have one of the highest prescription drug problems in the nation. Those prescription drugs were made in a lab, behind closed doors. They were then tested, behind closed doors. They were then patented, marketed and sold as ‘medicine’, when they are nothing more than a poison with very little medicinal value. Millions of deaths occur every year due to these prescription medications, millions more die because the poisons do not keep us healthy - the biggest lie of all. Do I need to mention  that not one single death can be found due to cannabis consumption, although there are millions of deaths related to the enforcement of the cannabis laws.

Tennessee has made a choice not to expand it’s medicaid system, leaving hundreds of thousands of Tennesseans without health insurance. Not only has Tennessee created an atmosphere where the residents cannot access healthcare, we can no longer access ways to care for ourselves without the benefit of the medicine that God provided for us. Cannabis was first mentioned in the U.S. P. ( United States Pharmacopeia) in 1851, with references to extracts, tinctures and smoking blends. It not only remained there - the definition and use expanded over a period of 75 years with more ways to use this plant to treat more and more maladies. In 1936 the extract of cannabis was removed from the pharmacopeia, however it remained and still does on the national formulary.

Cannabis is also one of the top ten herbs in the Ayurvedic tradition. This is a health system that is used widely in the east and focuses on balance of the body mind and spirit. This medical tradition goes back over 5000 years and has recorded the medicinal use of cannabis to treat several ailments for the same amount of time.

Cannabis has a very checkered history within our world, the American Drug War against the use of this substance is just a small chapter in a very long and varied history. Cannabis crops were managed in the days of the babylonians, the ancient egyptians, the South American tribes, the Buddhist monks in the Himalayas, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin to name just a few.

It is very alarming that a newspaper, with a wide reach of influence would ignore these facts and report on propaganda that is still less than 100 years old, while paying no heed to everything prior to this in our history. Creating your comic from the propaganda of the reefer madness, the dis-information campaigns of the cotton industry, the pharmaceutical companies, the oil industries and the politicians who line their pockets with black market profits.

These are just the tip of the iceberg, when we look at incarceration rates, felony convictions, loss of work, loss of family, exorbitant fines that your humor represents, it shames me that I claim to be a citizen of this great state. Why are there not cartoons on half of a prison being closed down in Colorado since the decision to legalize cannabis.

How can a newspaper believe that they can get away with this kind of humor, when a mixed racial anchor can’t even make a joke about a black grandchild? The humor is politically and fundamentally incorrect. You have stated an untruth, and I hope you go back and do your homework now. Don’t miss the fact that cannabis has been used medicinally for over 5000 years, the fiber from cannabis and hemp is better than any other fiber we have available today, Hemp crops require little fertilizer and pesticide compared to cotton, Cannabis is a sacred herb to many indigenous cultures, cannabis has been used historically in every country and by every culture - it is an herb, not a drug.

When we poke fun at people who want to use cannabis to escape, as others use alcohol or heroine or crack - we are ignoring the fact that the drug use IS NOTthe problem. Our society is the problem, when we create a society that we no longer want to escape from, then drugs will no longer be a problem. 

It is very disconcerting to see a newspaper stoop to such a low level in journalism, one that feeds off of a frenzy of racial segregation and fear mongering from individuals who only research how to steer public opinion rather than the topic they are writing about.

Colorado opened legal sales up just a few days ago, and within 1 week the supply of legal cannabis is  already threatened, dangerously low to the point that they have had to ration sales. The public has spoken, it is time for the government and the Tennessean to listen.

The réponse - so it isn't a great response but it's a reposnse!

"Thank you for your thoughts on this."

Ted R. Rayburn

Editorial Page Editor

The Tennessean

office: 615-259-8063

trayburn@tennessean.com

fax: 615-259-8093