Tianamen Square and the Drug War
A teenager, today, sent me e-mail asking for information about the Tianamen Square massacre in China.
On June 14 of this year I seen an episode of “Touched By An Angel” based on the Tianamen Square Demonstrations, and I wanted to know more on the subject. So I did a search on the net in which I found your website. In 8th grade we were told to write an essay on what freedom meant to us. Well I guess you could say that I took my freedom for granted, because I never really thought about how lucky I as an american really am. But that was before I seen pictures of the Tianamen Square Demonstrations that actually made me cry!
The student went on to ask if I had any links to information about Tianamen Square. While searching for information on the About.Com News About Freedom web page, I ran across an obituary for Peter McWilliams. Sometimes the world is just too fucking ironic.
Peter McWilliams was an outspoken critic of the government. He was a critic of the continuing war against gays and lesbians, and especially a critic of the war on drugs.
McWilliams had AIDS. He was taking medication for the disease, and under doctor’s orders and California’s Proposition 215 relegalizing the medicine, held a prescription for medical marijuana. The medicine for AIDS treatment is extremely difficult to keep down. Marijuana is prescribed by doctors to assist AIDS and cancer patients hold down their other medicines. Forced by the federal government off of his prescription, his AIDS medication became a four hour living hell every day. Federal judge George H. King had refused any use of California’s medical marijuana law in McWilliams’ defense. If he were to test positive for marijuana, he would go to jail, a death sentence for someone with AIDS. As I write this, the cause of death is completely unknown on the net. It could be anything from AIDS, or AIDS-related complications, to suicide from having to go through what he needed to do to hold down his AIDS medication, day in and day out.
I have another article here from the San Diego Union Tribune, from August 15, 1997, almost exactly four months before McWilliams’ arrest.
The death of one of the defendants in the first criminal court case involving the state’s Medical Marijuana Initiative has forced prosecutors to drop the charges.
Alan Martinez claimed that he had been using marijuana to successfully combat epileptic seizures for ten years on his doctor’s advice. Jason Miller claimed that he was Martinez’s caretaker, and grew the marijuana legally under Proposition 215.
On July 3, Martinez died in a car accident. “Possibly after a seizure” due to his no longer taking marijuana to combat his epilepsy. Chief Deputy District Attorney Kathleen DeLoe dropped the charges against Miller, saying “I felt it would be real hard to convict Mr. Miller by himself.” Yeah. Doctors said Martinez should use marijuana to end his seizures. The government forces Martinez off of marijuana, and then Martinez dies of a seizure. That sure as hell ought to make conviction “real hard”.
It didn’t stop the authorities from continued persecution of other patients. Do they know that they’re killing people? They must, and yet they keep on killing. DeLoe and King have blood on their hands. And the killings continue.
People dead by the government’s hands at Tianamen Square: Unknown. People dead by the government’s hands in the war on drugs: Unknown. Plus one. Plus one.
July 15, 2000
Well, we know what he died from now. He choked on his vomit while trying to hold down his medicine. This is precisely what he was using medical marijuana to stop. This is precisely why doctors with cancer and AIDS patients recommend the use of medical marijuana.
When will the killings stop?
- Obituary for Peter McWilliams
- Peter McWilliams, 50, best selling author, poet, photographer, publisher, libertarian crusader, medical marijuana activist, AIDS patient and cancer survivor, was found dead on the floor of his bathroom, apparently having choked to death after vomiting, for want of medical marijuana.
- Peter McWilliams
- Most of Peter McWilliams’ web site remains available, including the text of his book.
More Peter McWilliams
- Misplaced compassion: more deaths, less dignity
- I fear that a successful “death with dignity” movement will only exacerbate the bad laws and choices that result in excessive pain, and will result in a slippery slope towards more and more assisted suicides.
- Raising Peter McWilliams
- The United States government killed an author over a book. Buy that book now.
- Ain’t Nobody’s Business If You Do
- Peter McWilliams died in defense of freedom: this book, an incredibly well-written and well-researched book about “the absurdity of consensual crimes in a free society” was probably his death warrant.
More prohibition
- Learning from alcohol prohibition
- If the people against ending drug prohibition had been around in the thirties, we would never have ended the prohibition of beer and cocktails, because of the dangers of pure alcohol and bathtub gin. One of the lessons of the alcohol prohibition era is that we don’t have to go from banning everything to allowing everything. There is a middle ground.
- Progressives ruin a different kind of race in New Jersey
- As a potential triple-crown winner prepares for the third race of the Triple Crown, it’s almost impossible to place a bet in Atlantic City, NJ.
- U.S. homicide rate compared to gun control measures
- Extrano’s Alley lists the U.S. homicide rate from 1885 to 1940, and somebody else puts it into a chart.
- The Great Illusion: An Informal History of Prohibition
- Herbert Asbury’s book has to rank as one of the greatest arguments ever written against the drug war; this book about alcohol prohibition chronicles and forecasts all of the problems with modern prohibition that we see today.
- Cannabis Britannica
- Subtitled “Empire, Trade, and Prohibition”, this is an in-depth history of how prohibition came about in Britain, and ends up describing how marijuana prohibition came to the forefront of international attempts to ban opium.
- 26 more pages with the topic prohibition, and other related pages