The Preface:
A
Letter From Jail
by
Dale R. Gowin
Children
of a future age
Reading this indignant page
Know that in a former time
Love! sweet Love! was thought a crime.
—
William Blake
It
is a great honor and privilege to introduce to the world
Joan Bello’s courageous and insightful treatise
on the benefits of marijuana. Grounded in multidisciplinary
science and bolstered by a wealth of documentation,
this groundbreaking work provides ample evidence to
support the intuitive knowledge of millions, that Cannabis
offers miraculous healing potentials for the human body,
mind, and spirit.
For
too long, the many millions who have known the truth
about the Holy Herb have cowered in fear beneath the
shadows of deception and repression. In our own lives
we have borne witness to the healing virtues and spiritual
gifts bestowed by Nature through this plant. Yet we
have languished timidly as our liberty to pursue this
happiness was stripped away, and we have watched in
silence as our sisters and brothers were hauled away
in chains, their homes and property seized by a crooked
State, for no crime other than peacefully partaking
of and sharing the spirit-nurturing Light that is crystallized
within the cells of this verdant and virtuous vegetable.
No
longer can we abide in this conspiracy of silence. The
clarion call of Truth rings from these pages to the
four corners of the world and echoes down the halls
of history. An answering echo is the ancient promise
of prophecy: “The truth shall make you free.”
My
relationship with the holy herb Cannabis began in 1967,
when I was 17 years old. I discovered, to my amazement
and delight, that this humble plant had the power to
bestow the gift of Divine Grace to one who would respectfully
partake of its resinous flowers and leaves. Its subtle
magic gently lifted me from the doldrums of daily life,
into realms of deeply enhanced clarity of mind and vibrancy
of vision. I gradually came to realize that the miraculous
gift of consciousness enhancement granted by Cannabis
and the other psychedelic plants was the most valid,
genuine and authentic manifestation of Spiritual Light
that I had ever encountered. Now, after 30 years largely
devoted to the Spiritual Quest, this realization remains
undimmed.
Ten
years after first partaking of the Holy Herb, I crossed
the Rubicon of personal commitment and devoted myself
to public activism against prohibition. I began to search
deeply into the lore of history and science, and to
speak out publicly about my findings, in print and from
the stage of public forums. This activism inevitably
led to my arrest in a “sting operation” and
a 12-year prison sentence.
My
research about the Holy Herb led to some truly amazing
discoveries. Among the things I learned were these:
Cannabis (marijuana) was probably the first plant ever
cultivated by humans. In the Neolithic period, as the
glaciers of the Pleistocene ice age were receding from
Earth’s temperate zones, nomadic food gatherers
collected Cannabis along with other wild plants. Its
fertile seeds, a protein-rich food source, sprouted
readily and grew abundantly in the disturbed soil near
their campsites. The prevalence of the plant near Neolithic
campsites and its ease of cultivation spurred the transition
from a nomadic food-gathering economy to settled agriculture
— a quantum leap in the evolution of human civilization.
Cannabis was a uniquely useful survival resource to
our prehistoric ancestors. Every part of the plant had
important uses. Fibers stripped from the stalks were
twisted into twine for bows, fishing lines and snares,
and were woven into fabric for clothing and canvas for
shelter. The wood-like “hurds” inside the
stalks were used as cooking and heating fuel. The seed,
as well as providing sustaining food, was pressed for
oil, providing light in our earliest earthenware lamps
and pushing back the threatening shadows of night. The
leaves and flowers were used as medicine — Cannabis
is mentioned in the earliest extant herbals — and
were used by shamans and worshippers as aids to spiritual
revelation.
In more recent eras, the Cannabis plant was used extensively
in industry for the manufacture of paper, plastics,
fabrics, fuels, chemicals, cosmetics, and literally
thousands of other products. It was the economic value
of these applications — and its competitive threat
to the monopoly profits of petroleum-based corporate
cartels — that led to the imposition of Cannabis
prohibition in the 20th century.
Cannabis was widely respected as a medicine since ancient
times throughout the world. Before prohibition, the
U. S. Pharmacopoeia listed over 100 approved uses for
it, and it was one of America’s most popular over-the-counter
medications in the 19th century. Cannabis
was the standard treatment for asthma, emphysema, epilepsy,
migraine, arthritis, glaucoma, insomnia, and many other
conditions. Recent research has shown that Cannabis
is a safer and more effective treatment for many of
these conditions than the expensive synthetic pharmaceuticals
preferred by the monopoly-based medical establishment.
Cannabis has been recognized as a spiritual sacrament
by virtually every religious tradition in the world.
Chinese Taoists, Hindus from India, Tibetan Buddhists,
the Gnostics and Essenes of Judaism, Coptic Christianity,
the Sufi and Ishmaili traditions of Islam — all
of these and more have known and respected the holiness
and religious value of the Cannabis experience.
There is no truth to the government-sponsored propaganda
about the alleged dangers of marijuana. From the “reefer
madness” campaign of the 1930s to the claims made
by DARE and the Partnership for a Drug Free America
today, the prohibitionist rhetoric is nothing more than
a smokescreen of lies and fabrications, promulgated
by the Corporate Monopoly State for economic and political
purposes. Every unbiased scientific study has found
that Cannabis is non-addictive, non-toxic, and potentially
beneficial.
Joan
Bello’s brilliant and illuminating text acknowledges
the truth about Cannabis without kowtowing to the sacred
cows of prohibitionist political correctness, and it
pushes the debate past conventional limits, into virgin
territory fraught with relevance to today’s most
urgent social issues.
A
work of 21st century science, this book sets
the agenda for a new generation of discourse. The bold
thesis presented in these pages is that Cannabis is
not only harmless and benign as a recreational euphoriant,
but is as well a holistic medicine for deep healing
of the human body, mind and spirit — and a specific
remedy for the spiritual malaise of Western civilization,
the disastrous disharmony that characterizes this last
decade of the Old Millenium.
The
repressive violence of the War on Drugs, and the global
police state that it portends, are symptomatic expressions
of a dysfunctional society obsessed with immediate selfish
gratification, competition, and materialistic acquisitiveness.
The gentle therapy facilitated by the Sacred Herb may
offer a path to social transcendence and self-actualization,
a restoration of balance between cooperative and competitive
inclinations, between the intuitive-artistic and the
rational-linear modes of psychic functioning.
The
rigid character armor of authoritarianism and its attendant
dissociation from nature and community — traits
characteristic of today’s ruling classes whose
twisted dream of an oligarchic New World Order are eerily
foreshadowed in the daily headlines — may yield
to the compassionate vision of psychic wholeness and
transpersonal integration typically associated with
the Cannabis experience.
Cannabis
played a vital role in human evolution thousands of
years ago, providing sustenance and solace to the scattered
survivors of the great glaciers. It may yet prove to
be an equally important asset in our next great evolutionary
hurdle, as the human race faces the challenge of survival
in the New Millenium.
As
this book makes clear, the Holy Herb Cannabis is an
essential part of the natural birthright of all Earthdwellers
— and its prohibition is truly a crime against
humanity.
Dale
R. Gowin
Prisoner #91-B-0209
Midstate Correctional Facility
Marcy, New York
July 4, 1996
