For those who came in late...

"In March 1993, after a decade of raids and arrests, and a particularly intensive recent period of random street searches, arrests and rough treatment, a spontaneous demonstration erupted, and marched to the police station, pelting it with eggs and toilet paper. Negative newspaper reports followed. Nimbin Hemp Embassy (formerly "Nimbin Hemp") members decided to hold a peaceful protest in a non-confrontational atmosphere, that ordinary people could comfortably attend, on May 1, 1993. That was the first MardiGrass. (The spelling is that officially used by the MardiGrass Organising Body) The MardiGrass Organising Body (MOB) was formed to manage the event and consists entirely of volunteers. The intention is to hold a MardiGrass every year until prohibition ends."

That's what Wikipedia says and we couldn't have summed it up better ourselves.

What YOU can do
to end drug prohibition

In order to end drug prohibition four things need to occur:
• Reformers need to organize.
• Information about the failures of the current system and potential benefits (and challenges) of a new approach needs to be shared widely.
• Discussions need to happen.
• Politicians and other leaders need to be persuaded that it is in their best interest to talk about ending prohibition.

The battleground for change will be in the media. Journalists and reporters need to be engaged in the process where ever possible.

Get organized
• Join existing drug policy reform groups and / or start new a new group, meet regularly, plan and implement strategies.
• Contribute money, resources and time to existing groups!!!!
• Go to drug policy reform conferences to share ideas and meet people.
• Organize fund raising events.

Share Information
• Educate yourself. Explore the internet, read books, find and understand the research (www.whyprohibtion.ca, www.drugwarfacts.org, www.tdpf.org.uk, www.drugpolicy.org, etc)
• Share the best of the above with family, friends and community.
• Learn the language of change. Talk about the need to regulate and control all currently illegal drugs based on human rights and public health principles – not “drug legalization” and the need to “protect our children – end prohibition now”. See the document “questions, answers and soundbytes at www.markhaden.com)
• Find good books and recommend them to your local library.
• Give research information on the failures of drug prohibition to students and encourage them to write papers on this topic.
• Join email list-serves where you get regular information about what is happening.
• Make distribution lists and then tweet, facebook, email and spam others with the information.
• Start a web site where you share information.
• Develop an information brochure and hand this out widely.
• Come out of the closet – take about your own experiences.

Promoting Discussion
• Hold events which support open public discussions – invite speakers to share their ideas. Invite the media to attend and participate where possible. Be prepared for lots of tears when people speak as prohibition is the source of a lot of pain and suffering in many people’s lives.
• Show up to existing drug policy reform events, offer your support and speak your truth.
• Ask health officials / managers why they are not speaking out about the need to promote of a health perspective to drugs and challenge the criminalization of drugs. Show them that the research shows that criminalization of drugs increases both health and social problems and remind them that they say that their approach is “evidence based”.
• Ask the police what evidence they have for supporting drug prohibition and ask them why they are not encouraging alternative approaches to reducing drug use and associated harms, as the research shows that criminalization of drug users encourages crime.
• Be honest with your children. Teach them about both the harms from drugs and the harms from drug prohibition.
• Buy or make bumper stickers, T shirts, mugs, stickers with catchy slogans and use them everywhere.
• Stage visually dramatic events, take lots of pictures, send to the media and post on the web. Examples: Put up crosses in a park with the names of all the people who have died from illegal drugs, carry a coffin into city hall, hang a drug war dummy, have groups with logo T shirts in interesting locations.
• Call in to radio talk shows after memorizing the soundbytes of change.

Influencing politicians and leaders
• Talk to the leaders. Find people who play a leadership role in a variety of communities (e.g. faith communities, civil rights groups, health groups, citizen action groups, union leaders, aboriginal groups, etc) and share the research with them and ask them to help.
• Write a letter to a politician - “yes” this makes a difference.
• Set up a table in a public place where you have a variety of text / sentences / Q&A’s on small sheets of paper exploring a range of reasons to end drug prohibition. Ask people who walk by to write a letter, either in their own words or using the supplied text supporting the cause. Keep and copy the letters and meet with politicians and the media and give them the letters. Save the copies and repeat.
• Write letters to the media.
• Participate in online polls and sign online letters and declarations and share the links to these widely (e.g. Vienna Declaration)
• When you see an article in the news about drugs, prohibition or HIV, etc find the article online and contribute a thoughtful, compassionate response in the comments section. Assume politicians are reading what you say and present yourself as a concerned member of mainstream society who wants to reduce the damage done to our children by drug prohibition.
• Organize peaceful public demonstrations or go to existing protests. Take professional looking banners, signs to be waved, brochures and bullhorn (with new batteries). Memorize catchy chants.
• Vote for politicians who support freedom / liberty and against politicians who promote fear of others.

Be prepared to be persistent as lots of polite repetition is required.

This document is available at www.markhaden.com

2011

2011 HEMP Olympix Results:

Growers Iron Man:

1st - Luca (Italy) - 31 seconds
2nd - Clemont (France) - 33 seconds
3rd - Ollie (France) - 37 seconds

Growers Iron Woman:

1st - Karen (Sunshine Coast) - 51.06 seconds
2nd - Hannah (Sunshine Coast) - 51.45 seconds,
3rd - Sarah (Aratula) - 55.23 seconds

Mens Bongthrow:

1st - Hayden (Bongchucka Heads)
2nd - Garry ( Nimbin)
3rd - Luke (Caboolture)

Womens Bongthrow:

1st - Rachael (Ipswich)
2nd - Sallie (Nimbin)
3rd - Lisa (Dublin)

Joint Rolling:

Speed Roll:

1st - David (France) - 24 seconds
2nd - Bob the Joint Builder
3rd - Sally (Nimbin)

Blindfold:

1st - Bob the Joint Builder - 53 seconds
2nd - David (France)
3rd - Sarah (Aratula)

Adverse Conditions:

1st - Raphael (France) - 36 seconds
2nd - Bob the Joint Builder
3rd - Selina (Brisbane)

Artistic Roll:

1st - Tobias (Germany) - "Orchestral Triangle with Striker"
2nd - Sarah (Aratula) - "Tulip"
3rd - Bob the Builer - "Prince William" & Sally (Nimbin) - "Kate Middleton" - a Joint Effort.

A New Perspective for people opposed to ending Prohibition. By WGH.

Imagine if you will, that you are eating a nice meal and drinking the best red wine in your collection, or maybe just an medium priced bottle of good Aussie wine. In front of you is the newspaper you picked up on the way home and suddenly with disbelief you read the headline on the front page, “Alcohol Prohibition Now a Certainty, New Laws Passed!”

You read it again and look at the wine bottle on the table. This is the first you have heard, but for weeks now, the new government has talked constantly about the need to tackle the huge social cost of this legal nightmare drug, alcohol. Violent crime in the city is up nearly three hundred percent, alcohol related health costs are soaring as the population ages, and the number of chronic alcoholics has reached epidemic proportions.

“We had to do something drastic” claims the minister of health, a newly elected Christian anti drug campaigner and active member of the Drug Free Australia organization.
You read on, “During a tumultuous parliamentary session lasting all night, the bill to add alcohol to the list of already illegal drugs, such as cannabis and heroin, has passed with a very narrow majority through both houses of parliament”. “Production and consumption of alcohol will now be a criminal offense with possession of up to a litre (in any form) punishable by a maximum of a two thousand dollar fine, or two years in prison”.

After your disbelief settles, you get angry, “How dare they do this!” you think and “screw them, I will make my own wine and beer and they can go to hell!”. You are not alone, Many, otherwise law abiding citizens, make the same decision to use the drug of their choice. After all, what right has the government to tell us what we can and can't put in our own bodies? Lots of legal rights, as it turns out. You feel it is a little like the censorship of your thoughts, and you would be right. It turns out there are millions of fellow Australians who are willing to break this ridiculous law in the privacy of their own homes. Most think, “they can't lock us all up”. What you soon realize though, is that the law enforcers, at the behest of the government, are prepared to violently invade your home and your basic civil liberties, to search for this newly added contraband.

One year into total prohibition and now the zealots have added tobacco to the list of prohibited products. Taxes have risen markedly to cover the black hole created by the loss of tax revenue. There has been a huge increase in spending on law enforcement and the prison budget has blown out by billions, with fifteen new private prisons planed to house the nearly four million expected inmates. There are now thousands of people, who the previously legal industry employed, out of work. Some get new jobs, others have joined the ever growing black market entrepreneurs, to supply a huge number of illegal drinkers.

This large black market industry of very unsavory types controls every aspect of the supply of alcohol and other drugs, except that is, the safety of it's users. They don't ask our kids for ID, they don't care as long as they have the money for the product. Prohibition supporters are now claiming a link between alcohol and harder drugs such as heroin. The so called “gateway drug” status is now associated with alcohol. Over seventy percent of all prisoners, are now inside for a drug, alcohol, or tobacco related crime, at a cost of $65,000 per prisoner, per year. Some members of the public are pushing to have the law changed, but powerful vested interests, are now lobbying the government to retain the status quo.

Police remain stretched to the limit. Rapes, murders and burglaries go unsolved as priority is given to “drug crimes” because the tables laden with cash and contraband look so much more glamorous in the media. The drug lords of the black market now just sit back and watch the “tax free” dollars flow in like a river in full flood. They now have no other means of settling disputes over territory so violent turf wars are a regular occurrence in the streets.

You have also decided not to deal with street dealers. You are prepared to take a greater legal risk to do so by using your shed to produce beer or grow tobacco for your own use. You also install a carbon exhaust filter system to clean the smell from the air, to reduce the risk of your neigbours reporting you to the police. You still buy illegally distilled spirits from street dealers, risking possible blindness from high levels of wood alcohol. You feel a little paranoid whilst watching news reports each night showing raids by heavily armed SWAT teams on suburban homes suspected of producing alcohol or growing tobacco illegally. You think “I could be next”.
Each day, normal people from all walks of life - teachers, police, lawyers and doctors, are arrested. In many cases they become unemployed because the criminal record for “drug production” never really goes away - it is a actually a life sentence. These newly created criminals also find out when they go to travel that many countries refuse them a visa based on their criminal record. Those who can't find work further burden tax payers through welfare payments.

As the penalties increase over the next twenty years, due to lack of impact, or any real reduction in “alcohol crime”, drinkers and smokers become more and more cautious and scared to speak out.Politicians are now afraid to suggest bringing an end to prohibition for fear of being labeled “soft on alcohol”. Action groups are forming all over the Internet, claiming this law has to change and the issue treated as a health problem - not a criminal one, but this cry falls on deaf ears.

There is a major annual festival in the former wine growing district of the Hunter Valley to draw attention to the heavy handed approach by the Police and lack of evidence behind this failed and costly policy. Helicopters circle the area for months each year, searching for clandestine grape crops hidden in state forests, or grown hydroponically under lights in many suburban homes.

The recently elected Prime minister admits to “having a few drinks” at university and no one bats an eye, I mean, who cares, everybody does it, don't they? Just don't get caught.

ooOoo

Entirely fictitious, the above scenario sounds quite ridiculous and far fetched by today's standards. It is however, the very real and unjust situation many of the world's millions of cannabis users live with every day of their lives, and have done for the past forty or fifty years, simply for choosing to use a drug now well known to be much safer than alcohol or tobacco, but unfortunately illegal and considered a serious criminal offense. In the USA today, a cannabis user is arrested every thirty seven seconds, think about that for a minute.

The penalties cannabis users and small time growers face do far more harm than the drug itself. Self righteous anti drug campaigners would rather see thousands of people's lives and families destroyed by overly draconian penalties maintaining a failed and costly policy, for doing nothing more than getting a little high in the privacy of their own homes.

Welcome to the evils and the nightmare that is cannabis prohibition.

2010

2010 HEMP Olympix Winners

Women's BongThrow:

1. Rachael - Ipswich - 43.8 metres
2. Liddie - Bong Chucker Heads - 37.6 metres
3. Emma - Bong Chucker Heads - 35.1 metres

Men's Bong Throw:

1. Brendan - Bong Chucker Heads - 51.5 metres
2. Zac - Newcastle - 51.3 metres
3. Voss - Sydney - 46.6

Men's Iron Grower/Person:

1. Scott - Sydney - 1minute 14 seconds
2. Ghost - Coast - 1 minute 17 seconds
3. Mark - Tasmania - 1 minute 19 seconds

Women's Iron Grower/Person:

1. Andrea - Victoria - 1 minute 31 seconds
2. Jakira - Nimbin - 1 minute 35 seconds
3. Rachael - Ipswich - 1 minute 44 seconds

Joint Roll - Speed:

1. Bob the Builder - Australia - 25 seconds
2. Sally - Nimbin
3. Matt - France

Joint Roll - Blind:

1. Bob the Builder - Australia - 44 seconds
2. Matt - France - 1 minute 14 seconds
3. Sally - Nimbin - 1 minute 15 seconds

Joint Roll - Adverse Conditions:

1. Bob the Builder - Australia - 31 seconds
2. Sally - Nimbin
3. Ash - Sunshine Coast

Joint Roll - Artistic:

1. Matt - France
2. Bob the Joint Builder
3. Groover - Sydney

Saturday, 4:20, Million Man Marihuana March.

2010 Mardigrass Photos

In the Adobe photo galleries below, clicking on an image makes it BIG, ok?

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Jann Subiaco Photo Gallery Adobe

Jann Subiaco Photo Gallery Picassa

Kathwa's Photos Flickr

Gallery by Byron Bay Photographer Tao Jones Porta

Dr Bob Melamede and Mark "Moose" Heinrich at MardiGrass.

The winds of change blowing on cannabis law reform

Global cannabis prohibition dates from a League of Nations meeting in Geneva
in 1924. The arguments put up at that meeting made no scientific sense but
were accepted by the delegates. Australia was represented at the meeting so
the Commonwealth then wrote to the states advising that cannabis should be
prohibited. NSW wrote back saying that the drug was not known in this state
but if the Commonwealth wanted NSW to prohibit the drug, then NSW would
comply. More than three score and ten years later we still prohibit
cannabis. But an edifice built on sand is slowly getting unstable.

It is hard to keep the same attitudes to cannabis prohibition when Obama and
the two previous US Presidents are known to have smoked cannabis. Perhaps
cannabis is a gateway drug after all * the drug that young Americans have to
try if they want to become President of the USA.

Public opinion on cannabis prohibition is changing rapidly in the USA. In
1969, the national Gallup poll recorded 84% opposition and 12% support for
the question ‘do you support the legalization of marihuana?’ But in 2009,
opposition had dropped to 54% while support had increased to 44%. At this
rate of change, supporters will outnumber opponents within a few years. In
several other national US public opinion polls, supporters already outnumber
opponents. Medical marihuana is already legal in 14 states of the USA
(representing a sizeable proportion of the population of the country). The
number of states starting to allow medical marihuana is steadily increasing.
The Obama Administration is allowing state law to prevail ov er federal law
on the question of medical marihuana. In November, the citizens of
California (and possibly some other states) will vote to decide whether or
not cannabis can be taxed and regulated. The global financial crisis has
bankrupted several states (including California). Taxing cannabis provides a
new revenue stream while abandoning prohibition promises to cut law
enforcement costs. The need to increase government revenue while cutting
expenditure is likely to grow in other countries, including Australia.

In Europe, several countries have either directed police to not enforce laws
against personal possession of drugs including cannabis (the Netherlands,
Germany) or removed legal sanctions against personal possession (Portugal,
Spain, Italy and the Czech Republic). Similar developments have occurred in
half a dozen South American countries.

Attitudes to medicinal cannabis are also starting to more closely reflect
the scientific evidence in a growing number of countries. The evidence for
benefit keeps growing. It is scandalous that Australian men and women in
2010 continue to suffer from symptoms that could be made less unpleasant
with cannabis.

The proportion of Australians consuming cannabis is among the highest in the
world. But in Australia the health damage from tobacco is 40 times greater
than cannabis, alcohol is eleven times greater than cannabis and all illicit
drugs is ten times greater than cannabis. Concerns about possible mental
health problems in people smoking cannabis are discussed a great deal in
Australia and the UK. There is still no evidence (or even arguments) to
suggest that these possible health complications are decreased while demand
is largely supplied by criminals and corrupt police.

The debate on cannabis law reform in Australia is now way behind the debate
occurring in other developed countries. It’s high time (no pun intended) we
started asking whether prosecuting minor cannabis offences is an appropriate
use of scare law enforcement resources in 2010, or whether we would be
better off treating cannabis more like alcohol and tobacco * and therefore
taxing and regulating it. many senior police now favour a more rational
response to cannabis.

The safest way to use cannabis is not to use it at all. But if you are going
to use it, please follow the Nimbin Health and Medical Research Council
(NHMRC) guidelines on safer use.

Let’s work together to achieve the taxation and regulation of cannabis and
its medicinal use to ease suffering.

Dr Alex Wodak,
President,
Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation

Ganja faeries have started meeting each Tuesday at 5.30pm at the market stage. All welcome

"Drug Lords" vs "Drug Czars": Cut the ground out from under both of them!

Prohibition is a sickening horror and the ocean of incompetence, corruption and human wreckage it has left in its wake is almost endless.

Prohibition has decimated generations and criminalized millions for a behavior which is entwined in human existence.

Based on the unalterable proviso that drug use is essentially an unstoppable and ongoing human behavior which has been with us since the dawn of time, any serious reading on the subject of past attempts at any form of drug prohibition would point most sensible people in the direction of sensible regulation.

By its very nature prohibition cannot fail but create a vast increase in criminal activity, and rather than preventing society from descending into anarchy, it actually fosters an anarchic business model - the international Drug Trade. Any decisions concerning quality, quantity, distribution and availability are then left in the hands of unregulated, anonymous, possibly ruthless drug dealers, who are interested only in the profits involved.

Many of us have now finally wised up to the fact that the best avenue towards realistically dealing with drug use and addiction is through proper regulation, which is what we already do with alcohol & tobacco --two of our most dangerous mood altering substances, the two with the most deaths caused. But unfortunately policy is dominated by those who will no doubt remain sorely upset with any type of solution that does not seem to lead to the absurd and unattainable utopia of a drug free society.

There is an irrefutable connection between drug prohibition and the crime, corruption, disease and deaths caused. If you are not capable of understanding this connection, then maybe you're using something far stronger than the rest of us. Anybody 'halfway bright' and who's not psychologically challenged, should be capable of understanding, that it is not simply the demand for drugs that creates the mayhem; it is our refusal to allow legal businesses to meet that demand.

No amount of money, police powers, weaponry, diminution of rights and liberties, wishful thinking or pseudo-science will make our streets safer; only an end to prohibition can do that. How much longer are you willing to foolishly risk your own survival by continuing to ignore the obvious, historically confirmed solution?

If you still support the kool aid mass suicide cult of prohibition, and erroneously believe that you can win a war without logic and practical solutions, then prepare yourself for even more death, corruption, terrorism, sickness, imprisonment, unemployment, foreclosed homes, and the complete loss of the rule of law and human rights.

"A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded." (Abraham Lincoln)

The only thing prohibition successfully does is prohibit regulation and taxation while turning even our schools and prisons into black markets for drugs. Regulation would mean the opposite!

From: Malcolm Kyle

Hello Australia and the fine folks at Nimbin Hemp Embassy

Greetings from Canada’s 2nd Annual Treating Yourself Expo!

Treating Yourself magazine is excited to host the upcoming 2nd annual Treating Yourself Expo in June of 2011 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. We want you to be a part of it. Mark June 3rd - 5th, 2011 on your calendar and join patients, their friends and loved ones, professionals, distributors, manufacturers from the Alternative Medicine , Hemp , and the Medical Cannabis industries from across North America, Europe and other parts of the World. Showcase, demonstrate, educate you about their products.

Counting patients, vendors, medical and professionals from the alternative medicine and hemp industries among it’s expected attendance of 20,000+. Treating Yourself Magazine’s 2nd annual Expo promises to be a world stage like no other seen before in Canada, offering three days of networking, learning, advertising, and vending in an interactive, inclusive environment.

Don’t miss your chance to be a part of this extraordinary event!

Treating Yourself .Com was founded in May 2002 by Marco Renda. In 2005 we started our publication and is now distributed in countries world-wide, Treating Yourself is a journal written for patients, by patients. Our mission is to build awareness, generate interest, educate and provide our readers (which include medical cannabis, alternative medicine users, members of the hemp community, their caregivers, professionals in this and related industries) with conscientious, ethical, and reliable information to assist them with the management of their wide and varied health needs and provide them with access to safe and reliable products.

To help us achieve this goal, the 2011 Expo will be hosting a series of workshops, seminars, documentaries and short films on subjects like alternative medicine , medical cannabis, activism, security and safety, nutrition, hemp, cooking, and more.

This one-of-a-kind event will also have a government-approved 4000 square foot vapor lounge to accommodate medical cannabis patients who can feel comfortable and relaxed medicating. While there is absolutely no selling or distributing of cannabis permitted at the Expo, we encourage patients to bring their own medicine along with them, as vaporizers of all makes and models will be available for use. These include, but are not limited to the HerbalAire, and the De-Verdamper. Our hope is to give patients an opportunity to determine which type is most suitable for their individual needs.

Go to our event website for more information or to purchase tickets.
http://www.treatingyourselfexpo.com/

Take Care and Peace
Marco Renda
Federal Exemptee
Publisher
Treating Yourself
The Alternative Medicine Journal

This webpage prior to MardiGrass 2010

This webpage prior to 27th January 2008

This webpage prior to MardiGrass 2007