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Special Report on the Global Trade in Body Parts in the New Print Edition of CounterPunch! Peter Linebaugh on the Resurrectionists: Organs of Chinese Prisoners Harvested While Still Alive; Group Executions for Mass Body "Harvesting"; Israel's Global Network for Body Parts; Kidney Belts Flourish from Romania to Iraq to the Philippines; Brave New World of "Organ Suppliers" and Organ Receivers Monitored by Berkeley Prof Nancy Scheper-Hughes; Origins of Body Part Market in 19th Century England; Body Snatching Gangs; Plus Bruce Anderson on How the Hippies and New Settlers of California's North Coast Became the Democratic Party Machine: Scratching Their Own Backs, Crushing Dissent. CounterPunch Online is read by over 20 million viewers each month! But remember, we are funded solely by the subscribers to the print edition of CounterPunch. Please support this website by buying a subscription to our newsletter, which contains fresh material you won't find anywhere else, or by making a donation for the online edition. Remember contributions are tax-deductible. Click here to make a (tax deductible) donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! Introducing CounterPunch Books! Call Toll Free 1-800-840-3683 or write CounterPunch, PO BOX 228, Petrolia, CA 95558

Now Available! Dime's Worth of Difference: Beyond the Lesser of Two Evils Order Here! Today's Stories September 18 / 19, 2004 Alexander Cockburn Forgeries, Fingerprints and Forensic Fakery Septemeber 17, 2004 Ray McGovern Gossing Over the Record Patrick Cockburn The New Iraqi Economy: Baghdad's Thriving Kidnapping Industry Lee Sustar The State of Working America: an Autopsy of the American Dream Mike Whitney John Kerry: 195 Lbs. of Political Helium, Not an Ounce of Sincerity Victor Kattan Black September Ray Hanania Israel's Demographics Greg Bates Nader's Victories: a Mid-Campaign Assessment Website of the Day The Road to Hell   September 16, 2004 Landau / Hassen Meet the New Villain: Syria Joanne Mariner Inside Darfur: a Photo Essay Patrick Cockburn US Offers Conflicting Accounts of Baghdad Bloodbath Greg Moses Four Million Children Might Be News Joshua Frank Nader in the Battleground States Christopher Brauchli The Bush Drug Lottery Flops David Himmelstein Folke Bernadotte: a Rosh Hashonah Remembrance Website of the Day The Abu Ghraib Index   September 15, 2004 Patrick Cockburn Hell on Haifa Street Ron Jacobs Oppose War, Not Just Bush David Lindorff Blanking Out Dissent Joanne Mariner Talking About Darfur: Is Genocide Just a Word? Angela Godfrey-Goldstein An Open Letter to Madonna: Please Don't Support Israeli Apartheid Dave Zirin Is the NFL Ready for Us? Yigal Bronner "They Are Building Walls Around Us" Sex, Drugs & the Blues! Serpents in the Garden CounterPunch's Sizzling New Book on Culture and Sex is Now Available Click here to purchase   September 14, 2004 Gary Leupp The Problem of Chechnya Jennifer van Bergen What's Wrong with Torture? Stan Goff Wake Up and Smell the Jungle Rot Patrick Cockburn The Punishment of Fallujah: US Precision Strickes...on Ambulances Anis Memon Nader in Michigan Michael Donnelly The Nuance Comes Off: Former Naderites Beg for Kerry Votes Werther Zell Miller: the Peckerwood Pericles Website of the Day Osama Bin Forgotten?     September 13, 2004 Gabriel Kolko Elections, Alliances and the American Empire Phillip Cryan How Do You Say "Death Squad?": Language in Colombia's War Patrick Cockburn One of Baghdad's Bloodiest Days: "I'm a Journalist! I'm Dying! I'm Dying" Noah Leavitt The War on Civil Liberties Robert Jensen Highjacking Catastrophe: Bush, the Neo-Cons and 9/11 Mike Whitney Alan Greenspan: Fed-Master to the Wealthy John Chuckman Stop Talking About the "Election" Mike Burke Kerry/Edwards Website Censors Discussion of Israel/Palestine Issues CounterPunch Wire The Quotations of David Cobb: "I Don't Care How Many Votes I Get" Website of the Day Keep It In Your Pants: the Bush Plan to Combat Teen Promiscuity   September 11 / 12, 2004 Alexander Cockburn Swatting at Flies Fred Gardner Yet Another Prozac Scandal Saul Landau When Our Assassins Go Free Jennifer Van Bergen How to Beat Bush: a Simple Strategy for the Average American Roger Burbach / Jim Tarbell The Real Dead Enders: Iraq and the Crisis of Empire Christopher Reed 9/11 in an Historical Context: a Minor Event When Compared to Worldwide War Casualties Francisc Catalin An ABC of American Interventions Carl Estabrook Big Science and Government Terror Bernard Chazelle Anti-Americanism: a Clinical Study Sharon Smith Third Party Blues Dave Lindorff Perhaps This Time We're the Silent Majority Mike Whitney Fallujah: an Iraqi Beslan? Frederick B. Hudson Their Sons Perished in the Flames, But Not Their Faith Mickey Z. Round Up the Usual Suspects: a Look Back at 9/11 Ron Jacobs Redneck Music for the New Century Greg Moses Soap Opera Moments in Texas School Funding Trial Benjamin Dangl / Andrew Kennis An Interview with Leslie Cagan Poets Basement Del Papa, Albert, Gelman     September 10, 2004 Patrick Cockburn Disappointment at Samarrah? Michael Donnelly Democrats v. Democracy Alan Farago Mosquitoes in a Hurricane Doug Giebel Karl Rove's Terror Playbook Mike Whitney Bob Graham's Political Tsunami David Domke God's Will, According to the Bush Administration     September 9, 2004 Joe Bageant Karaoke Night in Bush's America Ed Kinane Abducted in Baghdad Peter Bohmer The Cuban Revolution: Present and Future Todd May The Emerging Case for a Single-State Solution Jeremy Scahill The New York Model: Indymedia and the Text Message Jihad Joshua Frank Green House Party Gasses Fran Shor The Crisis in Public Dissent: When Protest is Considered a Terrorist Act Patrick Cockburn Welcome to the Dirtiest City in the World: Despair in Baghdad Website of the Day Liberty Street Protest: No to War at Ground Zero   September 8, 2004 Patrick Cockburn This Doesn't Smell Like Victory: A War on Two Fronts in Iraq Dave Lindorff Bush Confuses; Kerry Mute: Spinning 1000 Dead Bulent Gokay Russian and Chechnia After Beslan Lisa Viscidi Land Reform and Conflict in Guatemala Niranjan Ramakrishnan Byrd's Eye View Mike Whitney Afghanistan: American's Drug Colony Stan Goff Body Count: 1001 Website of the Day Bush and the Love Doctors     September 7, 2004 Diane Christian Hostage Tactics: a Game of Mortal Poker Joshua Frank Greens Unravel from Within Patrick Cockburn Fallujah Erupts Again: US Death Toll in Iraq Nears 1000 Ron Jacobs Bush and Putin: "We're Not Girlie Men" Chris Floyd Cry Havoc: Bush's Own Personal Janjaweed Dr. Carol Wolman No Blood for Oil at Paul Bunyan Day Parade John Ross The Politics of Darkness North / South     September 6, 2004 Alexander Cockburn An Anti-Labor Day That Lives in Infamy: How Many Democrats Voted For Taft-Hartley? Ralph Nader The Cruel Legacy of Taft-Hartley: a Labor Day Call for Rights for Working People Lee Sustar What's Driving the Attack on Pensions? Kathleen and Bill Christison Dual Loyalties: the Bush Necons and Israel     September 4-5, 2004 Alexander Cockburn Elephants and Gramsci Ted Honderich The Way Things Are Sasan Fayazmanesh The Holy Empire: Who We Are and What We Do Douglas Valentine What the World Should Know About Guantanamo Patrick Cockburn New Iraqi Police State Flexes Its Muscles Gary Leupp Neo Cons Under Fire Fred Gardner Pot Shots: the Hempstead T-Shirt William A. Cook The Day of the Lemming Dave Zirin Kobe Bryant and the Price of Freedom John Chuckman The Day the World Ended Karyn Strickler God Save the Endangered Species Act Vanessa Jones Bad Day with an Ikea Cup Mike Whitney Kerry: the "Better" War Candidate Mark Donham Dear John (Kerry): Start Explaining and Fast Mickey Z. McBypass Nation: Feeling Clinton's Pain Alan Farago Can the Everglades be Fixed? Poets' Basement Landau and Albert     September 3, 2004 Jeffrey St. Clair High Plains Grifter: Jesus Told Him Where to Bomb Rahul Mahajan Bush's RNC Speech: an Annotated Response Carl Estabrook The Book of Slaughter and Forgetting Joshua Frank The Florida of the Northwest: Oregon Dems Sabotage Nader Again Gary Leupp Music to My Ears: Sunday's March James Hollander Deja Vu in Manhattan: Assisted Political Suicide? Mark Engler Republicans Among Us: a Week at the RNC, Inside and Out Jesse Sharkey Making Students and Teachers Pay for the Crisis in Education Jane Stillwater Calling the Cops on Your Own Kid Stephen Green Serving Two Flags: the Bush Neo-Cons and Israel     September 2, 2004 Jeffrey St. Clair High Plains Grifter: Part 3: More Pricks Than Kicks Max Gimble Et Tu, Menchu? Extrajudicial Killings and Clandestine Graves in Guatemala James Petras President Chavez and the Referendum: Myths and Realities Christopher Brauchli Bush and the Afghan Electoral Model: "If They Want to Vote Twice, Let Them" Todd Chretien & Jessie Muldoon Will the Democrats Expel Zell Miller? Jack Random Spite and Venom Day: the Turncoat and the Profiteer Alan Maass The Real Vietnam Christa Allen Contre Bush Website of the Day [Redacted]     September 1, 2004 Alexander Cockburn The Stench of Doom Kathleen and Bill Christison Poor Larry Franklin Dave Lindorff Kerry's Litmus Test Josh Frank Protest in White: Not All of New York Rises Up John L. Hess Moles, Scoops and Flip Flops Mike Whitney Deconstructing Arnold Jack Random Kindergarten Night at the RNC Andrew Wilson War on the Pachyderms: Why Do Elephants Hate Us? Jeffrey St. Clair High Plains Grifter: Part Two: Mark His Words     August 31, 2004 Joseph Nevins Escapism and Global Apartheid: The Dominican Republic & the NYTs Matt Vidal Beyond Bush's Rhetoric on the Economy Neve Gordon Kerry and the Middle East Dave Lindorff Bush the Peace Candidate? Mike Whitney NPR Leads the Charge for War Against Iran Jack Random Opening Night: Playing the War Card Jeffrey St. Clair High Plains Grifter: the Life and Crimes of George W. Bush (Part One) CounterPunch Photo of the Day Pete Seeger in NYC     August 30, 2004 Justin Podhur The Disappeared Mayor Shaun Joseph The Hypocrites at TheNaderbasher.com Mike Whitney Israeli Moles in the Pentagon: What More Could They Possibly Want? Ron Jacobs Live, From New York: the Majority of Protesters Claimed No Candidate David Lindorff Sunday in Manhattan: the Sound of Marchin', Chargin' Feet, Boy Dave Zirin USA Basketball: The Team White America Loved to Hate Sam Husseini Israeli Spying on the US: a Long History     August 28 / 29, 2004 Alexander Cockburn Zombies for Kerry Patrick Cockburn Najaf Ceasefire Good for Iraq, But Weakens Allawi and US Ray McGovern Blowing Smoke on Intelligence Dr. Juan Romagoza From El Salvador to Abu Ghraib: Reflections of Torture Survivor Ray Hanania An Israeli Spy in the Pentagon? Ridiculous! Fred Gardner Eddie Lepp Busted by DEA: Facing Life for Growing Medical Pot Diane Christian Big Men: the Better Leader Lets You Live William S. Lind The Desert Fox Paul D'Amato The Left Takes a Dive for Kerry Joshua Frank Greens at the Crossroads Mickey Z. Media Declares War on Anti-War Protests Winslow T. Wheeler Sen. McCain's Pork Chops: an Exchange Justin E.H. Smith The New Age Racket and the Left Thomas St. John Burning Slaves at the Stake: On "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" Ali Tonak Help the NYPD? Mark Engler New York Says "No" Justin Felux Haiti: the Attica of the Americas Poets' Basement Gelman, Albert, Ford and Hamod     August 27, 2004 Gary Leupp Neocon Musings Robin Cook The Ghosts of Abu Ghraib Diane Christian Disarming Michael Donnelly Situational Democracy: the Show Me the Green Party? Jack Random 4F and Other Heroes: an Army of War Resisters Mike Ferner "To the Swift Boats!" Mazin Qumsiyeh 7000 Palestinian Political Prisoners Veronza Bowers, Jr. "You Won't Be Leaving Tomorrow"   August 26, 2004 M. Shahid Alam The Clash Thesis: a Failing Ideology? Diane Christian War Rules: Bush is No Sun Tzu Derek Seidman "They're As Bad As Wal-Mart:" Starbucks Workers Get Organized David Lindorff Court to RNC Protesters: Drop the Rally Christopher Brauchli Signs of Dissent: the Bush in the Bubble Stew Albert Reporting Suspicious Activity Mark Donham Judgement in Athens: Give the Koreans Their Day in Court Saul Landau Pinochet: the Al Capone of the Southern Cone Website of the Day The Kerry 527 Ad You'll Never See     August 25, 2004 Amelia Peltz Can I Have 9.8 Seconds of Your Time? Noah Leavitt Defining and Redefining Torture Ron Jacobs Takin' It to the Streets: It's Not About the Election, It's About Democracy James Brooks Coronado Crosses the Jordan Akiva Eldar How to Win the Jewish Vote: Turn Gaza into a "Mini-Afghanistan" Gemma Araneta Chavez's New Brand of Populism Philip Cryan Uribe's Boys: the Death Squads of Colombia CounterPunch Wire Cheney Opens the Closet Door     August 24, 2004 Jeremy Scahill John Kerry: the Warchurian Candidate Gary Leupp "We Want Them to Go Away" David Domke God Willing: an Echoing Press and Political Fundamentalism William Loren Katz The Meaning of Hugo Chávez: Black and Indian Power in Venezuela Jonah Gindin With Chavez? Reading the International Private Media Fran Schor Denying Atrocities: From Vietnam to Fallujah Joe Bageant Driving on the Bones of God Website of the Day The Great America Lockdown: a Primer for the RNC   August 23, 2004 Winslow Wheeler Don't Mind If I Do: Porkbarrel and the War on Terror John Pilger Bush May Be the Lesser Evil Stan Goff Swift Boat Dogfight Bill and Kathleen Christison Notes from the West Bank: Build, Demolish, Rebuild Mike Whitney The Unraveling of Afghanistan William Blum Brave New World of Iraqi Sovereignty Ralph Nader A Letter to the Washington Post: a Shameful and Unsavory Editorial     August 21 / 22, 2004 Cockburn / St. Clair "They Want Blood:" The Bi-Partisan Origins of the Total War on Drugs Landau / Hassen Failing the Mission? Form a Commission Brian Cloughley The Bush Team in Iraq: Moral Cowardice, as Practiced by Experts Josh Frank Nader as David Duke? The ADL Wants You to Think So Mike Whitney Reincarnating Mengele: the Torture Doctors of Abu Ghraib Ron Jacobs Day Labor Blues Mickey Z. Shooting at Whales: 40 Years After Tonkin Fred Gardner Dr. Wolman Comes Out: The Cannabis Consultants Dave Zirin Uprising in Athens: Iraqi Soccer Team Gives Bush the Boot Josh Saxe Witnessing Police Brutality in LA Yanar Mohammed Letter from Baghdad: a Democracy of Killings and Bombings Helen Williams Ali's Story: a Taste of Reality from Baghdad Michael Donnelly Elemental and NaturalForests, Fire and Recovery Elizabeth Schulte The Crisis in Affordable Housing Poets' Basement Adler, Albert, Virgil, Ford and Krieger                                   Hot Stories Alexander Cockburn Behold, the Head of a Neo-Con! Subcomandante Marcos The Death Train of the WTO Norman Finkelstein Hitchens as Model Apostate Steve Niva Israel's Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings? Dardagan, Slobodo and Williams CounterPunch Exclusive: 20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians Steve J.B. Prison Bitch Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber True Lies: the Use of Propaganda in the Iraq War Wendell Berry Small Destructions Add Up CounterPunch Wire WMD: Who Said What When Cindy Corrie A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter I Can't Hear From Gore Vidal The Erosion of the American Dream Francis Boyle Impeach Bush: A Draft Resolution Click Here for More Stories.     Subscribe Online

Weekend Edition September 18 / 19, 2004 Pot Shots Financial Torture (Asset Forfeiture) By FRED GARDNER Richard Marino, 51, opened a cannabis dispensary in Roseville, California, a small city west of Sacramento, in January of this year, soon after Senate Bill 420 clarified the legality of such operations. Marino wanted to do everything by the book. He leased a brick building in Roseville's historic downtown that met the guidelines adopted by the City Council to regulate cannabis dispensaries. (Distance from a school, etc.) He organized a co-operative, as per SB-420, in which documented patients named him their "caregiver," entitling him to cultivate six flowering or 12 immature plants for each of them. Members' paperwork was scrutinized and checked by the co-op staff. In June Marino, a former electrician, purchased a house on a five-acre spread in nearby Newcastle-zoned residential-agricultural- and proceeded to grow some 200 outdoor plants for co-op members. He had several hundred more under lights. In late August Marino told the Sacramento Bee that his "Capitol Compassionate Care Co-op" had 1,000 patients and that he was growing only a tenth as much marijuana as he could under the law. On Sept. 3 DEA agents raided him home and dispensary, seizing some 500 plants and $105,000. A few days later the DEA filed suit in federal court in Sacramento seeking forfeiture of Marino's house and money, plus the building that housed the dispensary, which is owned by a Roseville attorney named Richard Ryan. The forfeiture laws enacted by Congress allow the government to seize and claim property used to facilitate a federal crime. Forfeiture claims usually -but not always- accompany criminal cases. As of this writing Marino has not been charged criminally and no formal attempt has been made to close his business -although confiscation of his inventory and operating capital may suffice. The DEA used federal forfeiture law in 2001 to seize the Los Angeles Cannabis Resource Center's building, in which the city of West Hollywood had invested and held a second mortgage. The DEA has since sold the building for $1.25 million. The city is suing for remuneration. The forfeiture move against Marino and his landlord has sent a shiver of fear through the medical marijuana community, especially growers and distributors with assets the government might covet. Landlords will undoubtedly become reluctant to rent to growers and dispensaries. In the days following the federal move against Marino, several cities that were debating guidelines for dispensaries have put the applications on hold until the U.S. Supreme Court rules on the Raich case. (In Raich, a case in which medicinal cannabis had been grown and consumed within California, the Ninth Circuit court of appeals ruled that the feds had no jurisdiction because interstate commerce wasn't affected. Attorney General Ashcroft is taking it to the Supreme Court, which will hear oral arguments in January '05.) Some who fear the feds' forfeiture powers console themselves with the thought that Marino brought about his own downfall by ignoring his neighbors' disapproval. The Aug. 28 Sacramento Bee story by Niesha Lofing quoted the neighbors' complaints -barbed wire, security guards, night lights, kids inhibited from playing nearby- and Marino's reiteration of his rights under state law. Lofing described the neighbors as "furious" and state and local officials as impotent to intervene. She called the DEA for a comment, and the timing of the ensuing raid suggests that her article may have roused them to action. A federal source told the Bee after the forfeiture suit was filed that Marino had "tugged on Superman's cape." * * * Brenda Grantland, Esq., of Mill Valley wrote the book on asset forfeiture ("the Asset Forfeiture Defense Manual," with Judy Osburn and Susan Raffanti) and runs the foundation that published it in 2001, Forfeiture Endangers American Rights (FEAR). "There's nothing new about this," she says about the Roseville situation, "but for a while the feds had backed off. Now they're becoming more aggressive." The DEA was making forfeiture claims against landlords in the 1980s and early '90s, says Grantland. "Their attitude was, 'If we can't stop drug dealing in the inner cities, we'll put the responsibility on the landlords. We'll just take their property, and we'll benefit from drug dealing and we won't have to go out and do any policing.'" A spate of negative publicity led to the Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act of 2000 (CAFRA), championed by Rep. Henry Hyde, Republican of Illinois. Conservatives who believe in the sanctity of private property, "more than the liberals," according to Grantland, expressed outrage over incidents such as an elderly couple losing their rental property because, without their knowledge or consent, tenants were dealing drugs, or the forfeiture of a motel whose owner could not know what guests did in their rooms. The feds are also resuming a more aggressive approach, Grantland says, by seizing citizens' property at "forfeiture traps" along the Interstates. "They're in the same places in Louisiana and Florida that had them in the mid-90s," she says. The victims get listed in 6-point type in full-page ads running regularly in the Wall St. Journal. A high percentage of them have Spanish surnames. Grantland explains: "If they see a Latino with out-of-state tags, they know 'boom' whatever money these people have, we can take and they won't be able to come back to fight it.... CAFRA didn't change the standard it takes to seize property. It's still probable cause and there's no review of the probable cause. Probable cause can be: these people fit a drug-courier profile, they're Latino, they're from out of state. They're traveling to or from a 'source city' for drugs. Every city in the United States is a source city. And if there's enough money so that the person might contest the forfeiture, they'll bring out a drug-sniffing dog which is guaranteed to alert to the money." CAFRA placed the burden of proof on the government to show at trial by a preponderance of the evidence that the asset was acquired as a result of illegal activity. Its proponents assumed the Justice Department would not prosecute when they knew they didn't have enough evidence to prove a case. But in the real world, Grantland observes, the Justice Department is John Ashcroft and those whose assets have been seized tend to give up because they can't find or afford an attorney willing to fight for its return. "Justice being taken away, then, what are kingdoms but great robberies?" -St. Augustine   Rimonabant Becomes Acomplia The California Cannabis Research Medical Group has changed its name to something more accurate and simpler: "the Society of Cannabis Clinicians." Rimonabant is changing its name, too, to "Acomplia." The manufacturer, Sanofi (the world's third biggest pharmaceutical company behind Pfizer and Glaxo), claims their new cannabinoid-antagonist drug will help people ACCOMPlish two difficult goals, weight loss and quitting cigarettes, without adverse side effects, if they're COMPLIAnt. Your correspondent scooped the Wall St. Journal and NY Times by a couple of weeks on the Rimonabant story. The Times Sept. 1 piece by Mark Landler started atop the Business Section and ran about 60 inches, conveying excitement of a kind not felt since the Prozac/SSRI launch. "'It gives us another bullet in the gun,' said Robert M Anthenelli, an addiction psychiatrist at the university of Cincinnati... 'it is totally unlike other medicines.'" Also sadly familiar was the downplaying of danger signs. "The obesity trials in Europe and the United States turned up some evidence of side effects, including nausea and diarrhea. But doctors involved in the tests said the effects were generally mild and transient," wrote Landler, reassuringly. The words "cannabinoid" and "antagonist" did not appear in his story. "Rimonabant works by blocking a certain kind of receptor, or trigger, that governs food intake and tobacco dependency. The receptors are in the brain, but also throughout the body, notably in fat cells. Among other things, they account for the sudden surge of appetite felt by people who smoke marijuana." No mention of the c-word in the Journal story, either, although Jeanne Whalen and Angela Cullen did report that some analysts foresee $7 billion in annual sales. We can expect "Cannabinoid" to become as much a household word as "serotonin" did in the '90s. The cannbabinoid-antagonist angle should ultimately help Sanofi peddle their pills, because millions of prospective customers know or have heard that marijuana causes heightened appetite. So buy the stock (if you're flush and not too moralistic), but don't take the drug. Potshots Bryan Epis was among those enjoying the sunshine at the WAMM Fest in Santa Cruz Sept. 5. Epis, who had been cultivating for fellow patients in Chico, did two years of a 10-year federal prison sentence before getting out on bail last month (pending the Supreme Court ruling in the Raich case). He looked strong and trim, having lost 35 pounds doing 300-400 push-ups every other day in his cell at Terminal Island. "Most people in prison want to get big, I wanted to get lean," he says. While Bryan was strolling about looking cool in shorts and a tank-top, Bruce Mirken of the Marijuana Policy Project was seated at a table wearing a tie and jacket on one of the hottest days of the year. A PBS camera crew was present and he was hoping to be interviewed, Mirken explained to your correspondent, who coveted the plaid woolen tie but thought the overall look was... too darn hot. The MPP seeks to project an image of respectability at all times. "Minimizing the harm associated with marijuana" is their slogan. Angel Raich flew to New York last week to tape the Montel Williams show, along with other medical-mj advocates and a few prohibitionists, led by Drug Czarette Andrea Barthwell. The show is due to air Tuesday, Sept. 21. One of the guests, Irvin Rosenfeld, a Florida stockbroker whose marijuana comes in 300-cigarette cans from the federal government, says that Montel, an MS patient who knows first-hand that marijuana has medicinal benefits, made good use of the homecourt advantage. An amicus brief filed on Ashcroft's behalf in the Raich case by Drug Warriors Robert DuPont, MD, Peter Bensinger (ex drug czars) and Herbert Kleber, MD (Columbia University addiction expert), asserts that the Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research at UC San Diego "has apparently determined that future research, if it is to lead to a prescribable medical product, must involve purified cannabis administered through alternative, nonsmoked delivery systems, as well as synthetic cannabinoids." The Drug Warriors' brief cites the CMCR's "Future Directions in Cananbinoid Therapeutics" workshop held in Paestum, Italy, this summer as if it provided evidence that the herb itself has no future. The brief also quotes our CounterPunch piece from July 17/18: "Advocates for herbal cannabis have criticized the CMCR for deviating from research involving 'the crude plant that grows in the crude soil.'" We're worse than tree-huggers, we're dirt-grubbers! Fred Gardner can be reached at journal@ccrmg.org Weekend Edition Features for August 7 / 8, 2004 James Petras The Anatomy of "Terror Experts": Meet the Mandarins of Abu Ghraib Fred Gardner Run Ricky Run: Football, Pot and Pain Justin Delacour Anti-Chavez Pollsters Panic: Fix Numbers; Reinvent Venezuela Brian Cloughley Persecuted by All; Supported by None: Who Would Be A Kurd? Joshua Frank The Outsider: a Talk with Ralph Nader Iain A. Boal On "Shame": Warmed-Over Orientalism and Racist Projection Chris Floyd All About Eve: Open Season on Women in DC and Rome Andrew Fenton Fighting for Democracy and Justice in Haiti Aseem Shrivastava Saga of an Anguished Afghan Neil Corbett See Cuba: Sometimes a Cigar is Just a Cigar, Mr. Bush Carol Miller / Forrest Hill Rigged Convention; Divided Party: How David Cobb Won with Only 12% of the Vote Tarek Milleron Breaking the Principled Voter Donald Macintyre The Battle of Najaf Ron Jacobs Spirits of The Dead: Why I Love My Petty Bourgeois Tendencies Mickey Z. Kid Gavilan's Grave: Propaganda Scores a TKO Poets' Basement Adler, Ford and Albert WWW http://www.counterpunch.org   /