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Steve McWilliams is Dead
Cal NORML is sad to report that San Diego medical cannabis patient
activist Steve McWilliams has taken his life. McWilliams, who had
been fighting federal charges for growing a modest home garden for
the Shelter from the Storm Collective, was depressed over the Supreme
Court decision and in terrible pain, having been denied access to
medical marijuana since his arrest in 2002.
activist Steve McWilliams has taken his life. McWilliams, who had
been fighting federal charges for growing a modest home garden for
the Shelter from the Storm Collective, was depressed over the Supreme
Court decision and in terrible pain, having been denied access to
medical marijuana since his arrest in 2002.
Cal NORML is sad to report that San Diego medical cannabis patient
activist Steve McWilliams has taken his life. McWilliams, who had
been fighting federal charges for growing a modest home garden for
the Shelter from the Storm Collective, was depressed over the Supreme
Court decision and in terrible pain, having been denied access to
medical marijuana since his arrest in 2002. Steve was a courageous
fighter for the cause and will be sorely missed. Our deepest
sympathies to his partner, Barbara MacKenzie.
- Dale Gieringer, Cal NORML
David Bronner Reports:
Hello all,
Barbara MacKenzie, Steve's partner, called to say that Steve
committed suicide by overdose late last night/early morning. Steve
had been depressed and in terrible pain, and been hospitalized last
week. Steve's depression was apparently a combination of dread of
going to jail in light of Raich and his deteriorating health. He had
had to take powerful pharmaceutical opiates, anti-nausea,
anti-migraine, etc. drugs in far higher amounts than when he was able
to medicate with marijuana, and evidently was what he used to
overdose.
Steve was an incredibly kind, compassionate, intelligent and wise
man, as well as a balls to the wall activist. He inspired me and
many others, and will be dearly missed. I was proud to know him and
be his friend.
Steve will be cremated and flown back to his family in Colorado, but
I'll be helping Barbara with a memorial service here for the medical
marijuana community. I'll be at the protest tomorrow at noon (San
Diego Police Dept. Headquarters, 1401 Broadway).
Please forward this note as appropriate.
David Bronner
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Steve McWilliams came to our first MILLION MARIJUANA MARCH in Los Angeles 1999, at the Ervin Magic Johnson Park. I believe it was he who sang and played the guitar.
None the less, i met his crew and his partner/wife who accompanied him. He was a vibrant young man and yes, had a lot of heart to come to Los Angeles to help US on this end whilst he was fighting THEM on the other.
I wonder if he didn't mean to do anything other than keep himself out of pain, and unfortunately his body and soul took all it was going to take, and surcumbed to the pharmaceuticals.
I have no doubt that the same will happen to people like myself whose reputation has been defamed by the constant and continual HATER RAIDS to shut down our healing ministry.
ULTIMATE USER is the only AFFIRMATIVE DEFENSE against the CONTROLLED SUBSTANCE ACT that i know of that has worked. Damn the dumb stuff that "marijuana" has no medical usage.......you must insist that CANNABIS or NIGRITIAN KIEF is MOST EFFECTIVE FOR YOU. Can you dig it?
The FEDSs and the STATE do not want to haul people into Court and hold TRIALS BY JURY to test the ULTIMATE USER AFFIRMATIVE DEFENSE, because the otherside would have hell to pay, in trying to prove that CANNABIS IS NOT GOOD FOR YOU.
There's a little somptin somewhere that says when other methods or formulas, or substances availlable DO NOT WORK, then YOU have the INALIENABLE RIGHT to PURSUE your LIFE, LIBERTY and HAPPINESS, in the best you know how to take care of oneself, including ingesting or taking a particular plant or food.
Steve McWilliams understood that people like us are PLANT PEOPLE, who by nature have been drawn to our destiny to see to it that "folk remedies" are not formulas lost and/or hidden away, to fatten the pockets of the pharmaceutical industry and the physicians that push the pharmaceutical drugs for the industry.
Thank you Steve Mc Williams. We're not mad at cha. I'll make you a deal though , Bro. Help us from the otherside to get some help into Court in our CIVIL LAWSUIT against the LAPD and the CITY OF LOS ANGELES for their refusal to apply the Compassionate Use Act 1996 for over 8.7 years.
I hope i didn't say anything offensive about pleading guilty. Damn! I'm not angry at anyone for pleading guilty. I so deeply apologize for criticizing ANYONE who has pled guilty to the charges that the feds bring on.
But, frankly my good people, WE MUST HOLD OUT FOR THE TRIALS. That's were the redemption is! Not in Court!
ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE....
Till liberation,
yo Sister Queen Negus Somayah Kambui
http://www.hempishep.org
323 232 0935
NIGRITIAN KIEF SOCIETY
Crescent Alliance Self Help for Sickle Cell
project Hemp is Hep
None the less, i met his crew and his partner/wife who accompanied him. He was a vibrant young man and yes, had a lot of heart to come to Los Angeles to help US on this end whilst he was fighting THEM on the other.
I wonder if he didn't mean to do anything other than keep himself out of pain, and unfortunately his body and soul took all it was going to take, and surcumbed to the pharmaceuticals.
I have no doubt that the same will happen to people like myself whose reputation has been defamed by the constant and continual HATER RAIDS to shut down our healing ministry.
ULTIMATE USER is the only AFFIRMATIVE DEFENSE against the CONTROLLED SUBSTANCE ACT that i know of that has worked. Damn the dumb stuff that "marijuana" has no medical usage.......you must insist that CANNABIS or NIGRITIAN KIEF is MOST EFFECTIVE FOR YOU. Can you dig it?
The FEDSs and the STATE do not want to haul people into Court and hold TRIALS BY JURY to test the ULTIMATE USER AFFIRMATIVE DEFENSE, because the otherside would have hell to pay, in trying to prove that CANNABIS IS NOT GOOD FOR YOU.
There's a little somptin somewhere that says when other methods or formulas, or substances availlable DO NOT WORK, then YOU have the INALIENABLE RIGHT to PURSUE your LIFE, LIBERTY and HAPPINESS, in the best you know how to take care of oneself, including ingesting or taking a particular plant or food.
Steve McWilliams understood that people like us are PLANT PEOPLE, who by nature have been drawn to our destiny to see to it that "folk remedies" are not formulas lost and/or hidden away, to fatten the pockets of the pharmaceutical industry and the physicians that push the pharmaceutical drugs for the industry.
Thank you Steve Mc Williams. We're not mad at cha. I'll make you a deal though , Bro. Help us from the otherside to get some help into Court in our CIVIL LAWSUIT against the LAPD and the CITY OF LOS ANGELES for their refusal to apply the Compassionate Use Act 1996 for over 8.7 years.
I hope i didn't say anything offensive about pleading guilty. Damn! I'm not angry at anyone for pleading guilty. I so deeply apologize for criticizing ANYONE who has pled guilty to the charges that the feds bring on.
But, frankly my good people, WE MUST HOLD OUT FOR THE TRIALS. That's were the redemption is! Not in Court!
ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE....
Till liberation,
yo Sister Queen Negus Somayah Kambui
http://www.hempishep.org
323 232 0935
NIGRITIAN KIEF SOCIETY
Crescent Alliance Self Help for Sickle Cell
project Hemp is Hep
For more information:
http://www.hempishep.org
I did not know you but I pray for your relations and that you rest in peace.
Dear friends,
This message is meant to honor of the life of Steve McWilliams. As part of the P.E.A.C.E. process, intended to initiate "essential civilian demand" for the "strategic resource" known as Cannabis theses ideas are being posted on http://www.indybay.org and sent to a select group of drug policy reform activists, organizations, and interested parties all over the world.
It is my belief that the institutionally impacted, illegal statutes prohibiting Cannabis cultivation, manufacture and trade will be most efficiently transcended by a global consortium of NGOs, supportive individuals and organizations, hosting a global Cannabis film festival. This will lead up to a massive global planting of this "strategic resource," in time to give backbone to the Million Marijuana March, next Spring.
If this ahd been done last year, it is most likely that Steve McWilliams and millions of others who have been lost to avoidable causes, would still be alive today.
More influential than any other factor in the equation to end Cannabis prohibition, is the degree of public awareness of the "war on herbs", as it effects such universal concerns as health issues, Global broiling, political corruption, harm reduction, food security, civil liberties, the black market, etc...
(i.e. See : "The solution to Afghanistan's opium?"
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3704878.stm
and
"Marijuana can be Anti-Addictive"
http://www.cures-not-wars.org/leshner.html
and
National Institute On Drug Abuse Report 1991-1994
http://www.thc-ministry.org/NIDA_Report.jpg
and
"What is Policy Coherence?"
http://www.tcd.ie/iiis/policycoherence/index.php/iiis/policy_coherence/what_is_policy_coherence
and
“GRAVE CONSEQUENCES AWAIT IF MILLENIUM GOALS ON WATER, SANITATION GO UNMET”,
http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:KF0y8MAIlfgJ:http://www.acsf.net/Kofi%2520Annan%25202.doc+Agriculture+Millenium+Goals&hl=fr&client=firefox-a
and
"Agriculture, Food Security, Nutrition and
the Millennium Development Goals"
http://www.ifpri.org/pubs/books/ar2003/ar2003_essay.htm )
A series of film premiers in different capitol cities, leading to global solidarity, would put legislators in every country on notice that people are now aware of the facts of this issue, and any attempt to stall or diverge the end of prohibition will be interpreted as a sign of corruption, ignorance, inertia or some other unacceptable excuse for continuing dangerously counter-productive policies.
I recommend that the idea of "essential civilian demand" be introduced as a major facet of the global discussion. U.S. President Clinton is especially well-liked in Europe and other countries, since the Bush regime took power (and for getting caught with Monika). His Executive Order 12919 (1994) doesn't carry any legislative weight on a global scale, other than in introducing a powerful reference for properly re-valuating Cannabis as a "strategic food resource." Obviously prohibition is suppressing wise use and common knowledge of the true value of this multi-functional, potentially globally distributed and sustainably abundant organic crop.
In all of our countries we could be pointing out that the UN/FAO is failing to recognize a resource that should be promoted and encouraged. Especially in light of recent reports detailing the scale of malnutrition, global broiling, various agriculturally-related global emergencies, etc.
(i.e.: http://www.micronutrient.org/reports/default.asp )
we all share a moral obligation to grow as much Cannabis as we can, and begin regenerating marginal arable lands through proper agricultural techniques, our "god-given" "self-evident" Natural right to use "every herb bearing seed."
Unless mankind initiates a massive global planting of Cannabis, and other critically essential agricultural resources, then it is an absolute certainty that we are doing less than we could be -- and perhaps not nearly enough -- in time to reverse the continuing, accelerating incineration of this planet, the impoverishment of billions of people, and synergistic collapse of integrated systems commonly referred to as the "Natural Order."
There is no rational excuse for allowing corrupt, chemically-vested politicians to perpetuate fundamentally destabilizing interference in production of essential resources. To accept prohibition of Cannabis any longer, conscripts our species to verifiable extinctionistic, chemical-industrial servitude.
Allowing prohibition to continue, for any reason, is unthinkable. Essential civilian demand may be the shortest route to shifting values, in order to achieve balance within the primarily significant Natural Order.
Here is the t-shirt slogan: "Cannabis freedom. If not us, who? If not now, when?"
Whatever events, press conferences or communications you have with politicians, Parliamentarians or drug policy officials, the message will carry a thousand times more weight if they know that the population at large knows "the whole truth and nothing but the truth" about prohibition.
The Harms of Prohibition posted at
http://projectpeace.blogspot.com/
are just a fraction of the harms being induced by prohibition. On an individual level, we are robbed of our time, our freedoms and our loved ones, in a variety of ways as a direct result of these obscene and blatantly illegal "laws."
For those of you who may have known or heard about medical 'marijuana' activist and chronic pain sufferer, Steve McWilliams, you may be moved and motivated by knowing that Steve chose to end his struggle to live a life of freedom, by committing suicide last week.
Comments on the loss of this great human being, may be added on-line, following the statement written by David Bronner.
http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/07/1752383.php
The first film premier could happen in San Francisco, New York, Brussels, Amsterdam, Bern or anywhere else there is huge popular support for ending the "drug war." Money raised and donated items and services could then be used to finance other premiers/auctions in other cities.
I've already begun this process, by posting the Formal Complaint at
http://formalcomplaint.blogspot.com/
I would be proud to take individual responsibility for any legal actions that may result from the exercise of essential civilian demand. All that's needed is a little bit of practical support to get this ball rolling in the right direction.
for Steve,
for peace,
for All Our Relations,
Paul von Hartmann
Project P.E.A.C.E.
Planet Ecology Advancing Conscious Economics
http://www.webspawner.com/users/projectpeace/
THC Ministry International
http://www.thc-ministry.org
ENCOD Member
http://www.encod.org
This message is meant to honor of the life of Steve McWilliams. As part of the P.E.A.C.E. process, intended to initiate "essential civilian demand" for the "strategic resource" known as Cannabis theses ideas are being posted on http://www.indybay.org and sent to a select group of drug policy reform activists, organizations, and interested parties all over the world.
It is my belief that the institutionally impacted, illegal statutes prohibiting Cannabis cultivation, manufacture and trade will be most efficiently transcended by a global consortium of NGOs, supportive individuals and organizations, hosting a global Cannabis film festival. This will lead up to a massive global planting of this "strategic resource," in time to give backbone to the Million Marijuana March, next Spring.
If this ahd been done last year, it is most likely that Steve McWilliams and millions of others who have been lost to avoidable causes, would still be alive today.
More influential than any other factor in the equation to end Cannabis prohibition, is the degree of public awareness of the "war on herbs", as it effects such universal concerns as health issues, Global broiling, political corruption, harm reduction, food security, civil liberties, the black market, etc...
(i.e. See : "The solution to Afghanistan's opium?"
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3704878.stm
and
"Marijuana can be Anti-Addictive"
http://www.cures-not-wars.org/leshner.html
and
National Institute On Drug Abuse Report 1991-1994
http://www.thc-ministry.org/NIDA_Report.jpg
and
"What is Policy Coherence?"
http://www.tcd.ie/iiis/policycoherence/index.php/iiis/policy_coherence/what_is_policy_coherence
and
“GRAVE CONSEQUENCES AWAIT IF MILLENIUM GOALS ON WATER, SANITATION GO UNMET”,
http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:KF0y8MAIlfgJ:http://www.acsf.net/Kofi%2520Annan%25202.doc+Agriculture+Millenium+Goals&hl=fr&client=firefox-a
and
"Agriculture, Food Security, Nutrition and
the Millennium Development Goals"
http://www.ifpri.org/pubs/books/ar2003/ar2003_essay.htm )
A series of film premiers in different capitol cities, leading to global solidarity, would put legislators in every country on notice that people are now aware of the facts of this issue, and any attempt to stall or diverge the end of prohibition will be interpreted as a sign of corruption, ignorance, inertia or some other unacceptable excuse for continuing dangerously counter-productive policies.
I recommend that the idea of "essential civilian demand" be introduced as a major facet of the global discussion. U.S. President Clinton is especially well-liked in Europe and other countries, since the Bush regime took power (and for getting caught with Monika). His Executive Order 12919 (1994) doesn't carry any legislative weight on a global scale, other than in introducing a powerful reference for properly re-valuating Cannabis as a "strategic food resource." Obviously prohibition is suppressing wise use and common knowledge of the true value of this multi-functional, potentially globally distributed and sustainably abundant organic crop.
In all of our countries we could be pointing out that the UN/FAO is failing to recognize a resource that should be promoted and encouraged. Especially in light of recent reports detailing the scale of malnutrition, global broiling, various agriculturally-related global emergencies, etc.
(i.e.: http://www.micronutrient.org/reports/default.asp )
we all share a moral obligation to grow as much Cannabis as we can, and begin regenerating marginal arable lands through proper agricultural techniques, our "god-given" "self-evident" Natural right to use "every herb bearing seed."
Unless mankind initiates a massive global planting of Cannabis, and other critically essential agricultural resources, then it is an absolute certainty that we are doing less than we could be -- and perhaps not nearly enough -- in time to reverse the continuing, accelerating incineration of this planet, the impoverishment of billions of people, and synergistic collapse of integrated systems commonly referred to as the "Natural Order."
There is no rational excuse for allowing corrupt, chemically-vested politicians to perpetuate fundamentally destabilizing interference in production of essential resources. To accept prohibition of Cannabis any longer, conscripts our species to verifiable extinctionistic, chemical-industrial servitude.
Allowing prohibition to continue, for any reason, is unthinkable. Essential civilian demand may be the shortest route to shifting values, in order to achieve balance within the primarily significant Natural Order.
Here is the t-shirt slogan: "Cannabis freedom. If not us, who? If not now, when?"
Whatever events, press conferences or communications you have with politicians, Parliamentarians or drug policy officials, the message will carry a thousand times more weight if they know that the population at large knows "the whole truth and nothing but the truth" about prohibition.
The Harms of Prohibition posted at
http://projectpeace.blogspot.com/
are just a fraction of the harms being induced by prohibition. On an individual level, we are robbed of our time, our freedoms and our loved ones, in a variety of ways as a direct result of these obscene and blatantly illegal "laws."
For those of you who may have known or heard about medical 'marijuana' activist and chronic pain sufferer, Steve McWilliams, you may be moved and motivated by knowing that Steve chose to end his struggle to live a life of freedom, by committing suicide last week.
Comments on the loss of this great human being, may be added on-line, following the statement written by David Bronner.
http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/07/1752383.php
The first film premier could happen in San Francisco, New York, Brussels, Amsterdam, Bern or anywhere else there is huge popular support for ending the "drug war." Money raised and donated items and services could then be used to finance other premiers/auctions in other cities.
I've already begun this process, by posting the Formal Complaint at
http://formalcomplaint.blogspot.com/
I would be proud to take individual responsibility for any legal actions that may result from the exercise of essential civilian demand. All that's needed is a little bit of practical support to get this ball rolling in the right direction.
for Steve,
for peace,
for All Our Relations,
Paul von Hartmann
Project P.E.A.C.E.
Planet Ecology Advancing Conscious Economics
http://www.webspawner.com/users/projectpeace/
THC Ministry International
http://www.thc-ministry.org
ENCOD Member
http://www.encod.org
For more information:
http://formalcomplaint.blogspot.com/
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