Dear Presidential Candidate Donald Trump;
My name is Emory Caudill, over the years I’ve published writings to media and organizations such as NORML as a Medical Marijuana (MMJ) Advocate. That is the topic I wish to inquire your firm platform stance on, including Legalization for Recreational use. This is a personal request and I write from no organizational point of view. I have not received and will not take compensation for publishing this letter for dissemination and discussion purposes. As an advocate, I receive much inquiry on your official stance of Marijuana reform; I’ve had little to firmly respond other than tidbits I have heard you speak here and there. I thank you in advance of your forthcoming public comments on the subject and I will be sure to repost them.
Mr. Trump, if you are elected President would you support and lead a Congressional rescheduling to treat Cannabis/Marijuana the same as alcohol?
Though I am a person who has been in tremendous pain I will not treat my condition with opiates, primarily due to the death of a person I once loved while she was under the care of a pain management Doctor. I listened to you speak against heroine coming into our country, Scientific evidence cited below is showing a reduction of opiate death use in states that have legalized marijuana, think of how many bright minds, talents that could have been saved over the years by Marijuana instead of opioids in treating pain. I heard you say one time that LED lighting is insufficient in buildings and as such the need for stronger lighting, that is a good comparison how it is between opioids and Ibuprofen of which I take now, except cannabis has the power to do the Job of opioids or even better and safer than weaker medicine.
October 2014, vol 174, No. 10 JAMA Internal Medicine;
“Medical Cannabis Laws and Opioid Analgesic Overdose Mortality in the United States, 1999-2010” Interesting note Medicare is also showing a great reduction in opioid based medications in MMJ Legal States as well. I qualify under stringent State qualifications to possess a MMJ state issued card and possess several written Dr recommendations to use Cannabis/MMJ but have abstained from use over the last couple years. This has been to prevent targeting and claims of my not being a fit parent, if I were to be consuming cannabis for treatment. I have no way of separating my intertwined freedom of speech activities from medical use as others who are not advocates protected under anonymity and HIPPA laws, they have much less to fear in our forward progress.
I could have chosen to be silent as with the last couple years, but this is an important time in our reform of marijuana laws and all hands need to be on deck. My States prop 203 MMJ law specifically prevents family court actions, but Child protective services has been known to circumvented the law in the past against others, such as report of a disabled Law enforcement officer’s story. Child protective services (CPS) denied child placement in his home simply because he had a state issued MMJ card. If I recall the L.E.A.P (law enforcement against prohibition) story correctly, from years ago, he was even disabled in the line of duty. I decided protecting my child from possible abuses within CPS care is more important than my enduring pain so put a hiatus on my advocacy and medical use. Threat of taking our children was an effective tactic I must say, and the authors of such a plan, who were they? Politics has interesting bedfellows.
I have received feedback recently that perhaps some of my advocacy from years ago has led CPS to be more tolerant now, they go by a different name now as so much death associated with the old name. If they have changed their attitude to people treating with MMJ wonderful, we continue to move in the right direction, but I bet there is “discretion” left for advocates and “special interests”. Now the battle turned against us to diminish our numbers is turning to owning a firearm while possessing a Card, could it be to discourage the Republican surge of support for marijuana legalization?
They state cardholders are addicted and as such should be excluded under existing anti gun laws. But drunks can own guns, people with pain pill prescriptions can own guns. I hope the NRA will take a stance on our behalf. I’m not addicted to anything, I rarely drink and I have been determined by the court to be a responsible parent with knowledge of past recreational use of cannabis. Way back then it was for medical use as well but there were no legal protections under the law or distinction at the time between medical and recreational. To make matters more complex CPS did not have a problem with illegal Recreational use only legal MMJ card holders. According to Co. Attorney Bill Montgomery he stated a MMJ card could just be a form of Identification, then how can they claim we are all addicts? Confusing chase the tail games.
Just like the vast majority of police are not criminals, they possess a identification card and badge. The badge doesn’t make them bad or good; some shouldn’t have guns because they are bad cops. A MMJ card doesn’t make a person addicted that should be determined by an actionable offense, its also a Republican value. This is what we call “reefer madness” propaganda. First the goal imprison us our message will go away, then snatch our kids our speech will go away, now make us defenseless so we can be victims of violent crime of which our paid politicians seem to have little desire to solve, given the crime statistics.
Marijuana doesn’t cause paranoia, corrupt public officials and politicians do, I’ve heard you say we need to get rid of them and I agree. We need to hear from you on this important topic MR Trump, this is serious business. The “kill the messenger” stance must end and America should take no more Political Prisoners, the most notable being the late Jack Herer arrested in 1981and sentenced to Prison for “collecting voter signatures after dark on federal property” of course that wasn’t really why they wanted him behind bars.
That conviction motivated him to writing a best selling book from Prison, that book was such a great contribution leading to where we are now from the dissemination of facts he presented in his writings. You can learn about his true story on youtube “Jack Herer-Emperor of Hemp” or even better, read his book “the Emperor wears no clothes”. We still hear our Government mantra we can’t reschedule cannabis, we need more Scientific research and that it is lacking. How many more years does the Government need? Its’ laughable at this point and further from the truth, reputable Scientific study is and has been conducted, published publicly and in secret. A paradigm shift is occurring, the anti-Marijuanna peddlers of lies are now being trampled and cast into the pit of irrelevance. I say that figuratively of course, we are peaceful people who wish to protest in a respective manner.
I’ve listened to you make statements of support of MMJ holding your ground when pressed, that you have friends who reported to you the medical benefits of MMJ and you believe them, of which I can attest, you should. Your son Donald Trump Jr tweeted on October 20th of 2011 “ If they legalized pot and taxed it, well it would prob prevent a lot of other crime and raise money” Is that still Donald Jr’s belief and do you share his belief?
If you are unaware Arizona Passed Proposition 203 back in 2010 legalizing Medical Marijuana (MMJ) with bi-partisan support from Republican voters as well as independents who voted in opposition to the official Republican Party stance against it. After the votes were tallied in 2010 the Republicans in opposition stated they respected the will of the people.
2013 Gallup poll 53% U.S population
Support legalization,
Then, October 21, 2015 Gallup poll 58% back Legal Marijuana use, and now March 25th 2016 Washington post article “Support for marijuana legalization has hit an all-time high” at 61%.
However, they are at it again, now in 2016 the Republican party is in opposition to legalization of Prop 205, what happened to “we respect the will of the people” in all honesty in 2010 they tried to burn the program down, unsuccessfully I might add, in court after court battle. There is also “the compassionate side of prop 205” of which they neglect to see. I am a registered Republican and do not feel our politicians have an accurate gauge on what we want, I realize they are upset, seeing quite a number of us independents crossing over to the Republican side and it must frighten them. I also wonder if they realize one of the reasons why Arizona is now a “state in margin of error” as opposed to 2010 being staunchly red is our disbelief in their words “we respect the voters wishes” I recently heard you state you want to represent everyone, well this is a significant topic that the majority of Americans support and we need to hear from you definitively in a manner we can bank on, figuratively speaking of course.
Looking at Pinal County Attorney primary vote between two Republicans, Mr. Voyals and Mr. Kent Volkmer demonstrates this point of the lack of finger on the pulse. Kent Volkmer probably thinks his larger number of votes was his campaigning against Voyals pointing to his firing attorneys and his conviction rate, I’ll get to the conviction part later. Not to say Mr. Volkmer didn’t have a point but feedback I’ve gotten is that Voyals, being an outspoken anti-Marijuana advocate, was short lived in office in part due to his loud vocalization against MMJ and legalization offending “the will of the voters”. Looking back to 2010 prop 203 voting day as evidence, the proposition to legalize for medical use was first reported to have failed, cheers erupted within the anti MMJ crowd, but as rural outlying areas (where your supporter are) trickled in over a long period of time, it passed. Republican supporters of Marijuana reform, such as myself Mr Trump, are fearful of us going back to the old days, bathed in untrue or slanted propaganda, and based upon some people bending your ear. We need to hear your firm stance, I’m sure Bernie Sanders voters on the fence as well would like to hear from you on this topic.
We heard,
the sky is falling,
the sky is falling, in the run up to 2010 passing of Prop 203 as well. With all the scientific crime labs, money pouring into law enforcement, we have an appalling rate of solving crime that the citizens of Arizona really care about most. One look at the data over the years now regarding MMJ, the sky didn’t fall. When MMJ was legalized, the crime rate didn’t rise as prohibitionists hoped and heads went in the sand on that topic. Looking at the data, I hope you come to realize, if you already haven’t, ending the Cannabis witch-hunt would help make America Great Again. Anti Cannabis Public officials like to talk about diversion of drugs, it’s a scheme to divert attention. It’s been a diversion in attention from dismal arrest rates, prosecution rates of real criminals, all the while pointing a finger at Marijuana users and advocates. It’s worked so well for so long like a worm knitted sweater but it has gaping holes in it now and though Grandma made it, It’s time to throw it out. There must be a diversion so the public wont notice the real problem, like the Roman Gladiator games, the crowd will be satisfied with peasant blood, the Roman empire eventually fell but it worked for a while..
The majority of citizens are becoming informed they have been lied to, thus the majority support legalization, that simple. Advocates such as myself will abstain so no one can call me a pothead or other derogatory names for my political belief and support because I’m not using MMJ until I feel safe to do so, not from the plant but the politicians. Those like me also counter the claim of addiction of which people can become addicted to almost anything. I support Law enforcement officers and public officials who are honest, I say thank you for your service to every officer I meet and even shout it in parking lots with a response almost always to the paraphrase “thanks Bro”. But there are bad cops, bad leaders and there are bad MMJ users.
Looking at Arizona government’s own reports paint the picture were being lied to. We should focus on real crime, real criminals. The “time clock” information from the reports I cite below seems to be the easiest way to assess if crime has gone up, down or stayed the same during the years of MMJ legalization. I of course encourage you to take a hard look at the reports details as well. It’s shocking to see the amount of a given crime such as Rape and to see the paltry arrests, then the conviction rates. The predators in our society must laugh every time they hear “crime doesn’t pay”.
Looking at the 2009 report of reasonable page number and compared to the enormity of the 2015 report, it is hard to see the forest through the trees. So lets see how likely we are of becoming a crime victim by looking at the clock data. We can see crime didn’t increase it decreased, as we are less likely to be a crime victim, for an amount of time anyway. Over the course of a year it’s reasonable to assume that amount of time between the years data stacks up to lives and property saved.
Crime data source; Crime Clock http://www.azdps.gov/About/Reports/Crime_In_Arizona/
Population source Wiki:, 2015 population 6.828 million.
Arizona 2009 population of 6.343 million
1 violent crime every 20 minutes zero seconds,
Major crime 1 every 2 minutes 2 seconds,
Property crime 1 every 2 min 16 seconds.
2015 population of 6.828 million;
1 violent crime every 21 min 43 seconds
Major crime 1 every 2 minutes 19 seconds
Property 1 every 2 minutes 36 seconds
This data does not even reflect that our Population grew 485,000 from 2009-2015. Our data shows crime went down consistent with other states that pass some sort of Marijuana legalization. I think we can assess that crime is up in many states that did not legalize and ours fell so let the Marijuana whipping boy free, he’s not to blame.
I grew up hearing “if you want to double your money fold it in half and put it back in your pocket”
if we consider there were 701,000 cannabis arrests year in the U.S. X $300 petty offense fine = $210,300,000. In our coffers + Savings on court, prison, probation, Child Protection Services ect = a Staggering number of dollars spent on fostering lies. Not to say we have to fire those with jobs in those professions, no, they can focus on the real crimes citizens want them to peruse, like preventing child abuse resulting in death. Can you imagine the money that could be generated, I think we need to take your sons advice and the Gallup polls say I’m not alone. Did you know that Arizona before Prop 203, had and still has one of the highest rates of death of Children from abuse? Taxes generated from Prop 205, if the Republican Party would just stand aside and it is passed, are earmarked to benefit our children. Instead of the best teachers fleeing Arizona due to such low wages, the best would be attracted. As a former k-8 music teacher I disagree that we don’t need more money in education, with that said we don’t need all the money to stay at the top with administrators, but that is another story.
You are correct Mr. Trump, today America is being left behind and our leaders are not the smartest bunch. Most are unaware that buried history in our archives also shows the Boston Tea Party was more about unfair trade practice than Taxation. An Internet search for inventions such as Lotus Hemp car would elucidate this point today. Superior building materials made from hemp, bricks that are lighter but yet stronger, pvc like plumbing materials etc. Demonstrate how America is being left behind.
Arizona would benefit greatly by our passing of prop 205 of which would legalize hemp production in our State. The farm act cleared way to a degree but hands are still tied and we are gagged in our State. Hemp for automotive construction is nothing new, we invented it, in fact it was done here in America first by Ford not just with motors that run on hemp oil, resembling diesel fuel, but in it’s body construction. Search youtube and you can see vintage film of a man wielding an ax at the body of a Ford car constructed of hemp, not denting it or even chipping the paint. To think that fuel and house construction can be made from materials that are safer and should they catch fire, that don’t give off the dangerous gases as petroleum base products is amazing. Just think of the potential lives of citizens and firefighters that could be saved.
It was for the reasons of the many uses of this plant that the system was rigged Mr. Trump, it was a threat, not just for textiles but also to Pharmaceutical companies who wanted to push their pills and frankly anyone could and did grow hemp or cannabis for their own use, new hemp and cannabis discoveries are still being made hidden in the history archives of our Country. One scientific research paper I’ll cite below, is just one of many I followed that can dispel the myth of Cannabis getting stronger of which seems to be the ignorant talking point of today. That re-invented talking point has been used plenty through the years, if it were true then cannabis should be as strong as Rocket Fuel for NASA today, because with recent testing techniques it was proven samples have had high grade THC content 2700 years ago.
All kidding aside, What prohibitionist advocates misunderstand is that the illegal 1000’s of tons of marijuana crossing into our county from Mexico have been pollinated by male plants and have seeds. American grown MMJ cannabis is by far superior in quality because it is cultivated in a manner without pollination, thus no seed. Plants containing no seed are generally stronger than plants without, another twist of the truth exposed. As with the 2700 year old discovery I cite below, man has cultivated cannabis for a very long time in a manner for medical and recreational reasons. As documented in our founding fathers writings the technique of culling male cannabis and hemp plants is nothing new, the potency is within range of historic record.
Within the reference paper I cite below, you will also note reference dates scientists cite marked within the research paper. These references, point to times new testing methods materialized all of which are relatively recent. Those dates of new discovery of scientific techniques used to determine Marijuana’s potency demonstrate unfounded and exaggerated claims. Hearing the wild claims of Marijuana getting so much stronger, it must be asked how would they know with scientific certainty or even able compare potential old samples of highest potency of the time when have been destroyed from evidence rooms. Even if old samples remain, were they just hemp, ditch weed? Ask any Vietnam vet how strong the cannabis was grown in Thailand by those who knew what they were doing.
Journal of Experimental Botany vol. 59, No. 15,pp. 4171-4182,2008; China Gushi discovery research paper titled “Phytochemical and genetic analysis of ancient cannabis from Cenral Aisia” You should note the 789g of cannabis sativa L buds, lack male plant material, lack of hemp made baskets or other materials, the lack of hemp tools, the lack of stems, stalks and the seeds discovered were of differing strain (for replanting). The conclusion the plant flowers were not a biproduct for textile use, it was cultivated with advanced techniques for the medicinal, ceremonial or recreational use and not harvested wild.
The likes of Maricopa county Bill Montgomery and now unseated Pinal Co. Attorney Voyles are flat out wrong, skilled individuals have always existed to cultivate the “strongest” and it never killed anyone. Stronger MMJ is actually better if we believe their words, Inhaling smoke is not good for you,they also claim. Ok, if we believe that then taking 2 puffs to medicate instead of 6 to achieve the same effect would be beneficial, these are suppose to be smart people but they can’t have it both ways as politicians frequently attempt.
Citings within this one scientific publication demonstrates Cannabis has deep roots as medicine, back in time to such places as Judean Cave birthing pots contain cannabinoid resins and burnt cannabis reportedly inhaled during childbirth at times of Christ, for this reason there is actually a Cannabis church, of course not federally recognized. They believe cannabis is the tree of life and the plant is mentioned in the bible and supported by at least some Rabbi’s and historic reference. I realize that is not mainstream belief but If so, perhaps the devil it to blame for it’s attempted eradication.
So if a 2700 year old Indo-European shaman burial contains high THC content, it can safely be said it hasn’t gotten much stronger in all these years. Early US pharmaceutical Eli Lilly produced fields of cannabis for medicine reported to be as strong and potent as that from India of the time. Tilden produced elixirs of Cannabis as well, It’s said almost all Americans growing up in the 1920 took one of the popular cannabis tinctures as medicine. So how is it our Government cannot admit its medicine? Many years ago around 07-08 I was informed about a patent the United States Government made after contacting a plant DNA specialist inquiring about patenting cannabis seed genetics.
“cannabinoids as antioxidants and neuroprotectants” Pat #6,630,507
And began to point out this hypocrisy, they even went so far as to try to give exclusive license at which time I informed opposition of this patent and plan. The system has been rigged Mr.Trump, rigged against Cannabis after the very first Model T ford Automobile being produced ran on hemp oil.
We are in need of powerful medicine that doesn’t kill as Opiods do, we need medicine any responsible person could cultivate and process at low cost. Citizens can cultivate tobacco or producing home beer, or wine,of course most would just likely procure it through a legal process at a store like purchasing beer or buying cigarettes. This plant was an integral part of the foundation of our country, evidence of which has survived attempts to hide that fact. No advisers will likely tell you that it was only discovered recently in 1992 that we have cannabinoid receptors in all of our organs, MMJ is medicine and non toxic, sad that research is now showing cannabinoids could have prevented or helped Ronald Regan with his disease progression. I believe cannabis cured a tumor in my back I believe was cause from years of epidural injections. I also believe our creator gave Cannabis as a gift for man and Archeology is now proving we grew together; Future Science may even prove it helped develop our minds. I look forward to hearing you address this issue.
Thank you,
Emory Caudill
Link to citings:
Phytochemical and genetic analyses of ancient cannabis
from Central Asia http://www.medicinalgenomics.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/J.-Exp.-Bot.-2008-Russo-4171-82.pdf
Arizona Crime clock link http://www.azdps.gov/About/Reports/Crime_In_Arizona/
Cannabinoids as antioxidants and neuroprotectants
US 6630507 B1 Abstract https://www.google.com/patents/US6630507
Medical Cannabis Laws and Opioid Analgesic Overdose Mortality in the United States, 1999-2010 http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1898878
The edited version and first publishing received by Donald Trump can be viewed at AzMMJadvocates.com