Rx for America

1. First, we must admit that we have a problem, and a major one at that. In fact, the more one examines this problem, the uglier it gets. The American Cosmos might collapse, and my typing right now could be a waste of my time, but you gotta have faith sometimes.

2. The next most important step, beyond everything else, is we must ensure that all Americas have clean fresh water. Even if this means building desalinization plants along the coast and piping fresh water inland, so be it. Life will be bad if we run out of clean water, let's prevent that from happening first.

3. It would be most advantageous to use vacant real estate and parks as gardening areas to grow fruits and vegetables. Next to water, access to food will be the most important demand of civil society. Without food and water, only chaos grows.

4. We should learn how to grow our own fuel. This is not all that difficult, and there are a wide variety of plants to choose from. The best biofuel plants would grow fast, require little water or fertilizer, and if possible, draw nutrients from deep within the soil via long taproots, and then deposit those nutrients on the top soil via composted leaf remains. This is the ideal plant, and it actually exists, but it is currently illegal to grow in the U.S.

5. Equip trucks, tractors, and automobiles with engines that run on the biodiesel and green ethanols produced from the above ideal biofuel plants.

6. Establish economies and markets that promote the scientific and medical uses of natural plants (but we have to legalize them first).

7. Encourage Americans to work with the neighbors to build community gardens, and community composting parks. Encourage the spread of botanical knowledge, so that more citizens can be take more responsibility for their lives.

8. Reduce government spending by reducing the number of incarcerated nonviolent plant-related "drug" abusers. Reduce the number of "crimes" by reforming bad laws, thus avoiding the latent criminalization of a significant minority of Americans who's only crime was smoking the flowers of a plant that God made by mistake

9. Remove the driving impetus for the escalating increase of civil violence in Mexico. Narco-trafficers are waging war against the Mexican government. The Narco-trafficers get their money to buy guns by selling illegal drugs, and then they buy the guns in America, before taking them back to Mexico to shoot Mexican police. Part of admitting we have a problem is biting the bullet to say "we don't know what we're doing here, and we're in trouble." Making "drugs" and "plants" illegal only benefits governments and organized crime (the narco-trafficers). It would be hard for the narco trafficers to make money to buy guns to wage war on the mexican police if their "drugs" could be prescribed by a doctor and bought at Walgreens or grown at home as the plant God intended.

10. Legalize Cannabis sativa, Cannabis indica, and Cannabis ruderalis. If a single bullet started World War 1, imagine what a plant can do.

Ah, Mexico...

My Apologies to Glenn Beck.

I use to avoid listening to Glenn Beck. Now, today, I'm not going out of my way to listen to him, but concerning the above issues, he is straight on.

It's too bad he thinks no one else is thinking about the Fall of Mexico.

Tabernaemontana divaricata

One of the many great botanical ironies of the 21st Century.

If you frequent plant nurseries, keep your eyes out for this plant, also called Carnation of India and Crepe Jasmine.

This plant thrives in part sun, part shade, and performs well as a large house plant in front of a bright window. It blooms prolific white flowers through most of the year, and can tolerate dry soil conditions if necessary.

Tabernaemontana divaricata is an important medicinal plant to the rural folk of western India where it is native. There, the leaves, blooms, and extracts have been used since ancient times to heal nervous disorders, headaches, and infections among many other ailments. Western science has found that this plant produces over 66 different alkaloids, which are nitrogen-based molecules that bind to key receptors in the animal nervous system that drive nervous function.

One may ask why any plant would produce substances that mimic the action of endogenous animal neurotransmitters... this is an important question, with an even more important answer, but don't bother asking it, because most people in America don't give a crap and are happy to remain ignorant about these matters.

You, dear reader, are different, though, simply because you are reading this.

Because you are reading this, you now know that Tabernaemontana divaricata also produces the illegal alkaloid Ibogaine. You have probably never heard of Ibogaine as a drug because it is not very common in the States (it's not alcohol-based). Ibogaine is a tryptamine alkaloid that doubles as an opiate receptor agonist. In other words, it can trick the human nervous system into thinking it has an opium fix. The handy part of all this concerns the use of Ibogaine as a treatment for heroine addiction. A daring few researchers have spent decades examining the effects of Ibogaine on opiate-addicts with encouraging results. Ibogaine's action is multi-faceted: on one level, it helps ease opiate dependence, on another level, the tryptamine action of Ibogaine sends the "patient" into a mild, yet euphoric state of mind for an extended period of time during which most patients experience a period of life recollection and cognitive "cleansing" that enables a stronger recovery. And all this, with ONE application of Ibogaine. Not repeat use necessary, and no new addiction required.

So, why would such a potentially useful plant alkaloid be illegal in the United States? Because Ibogaine as a "drug" is named after the plant it was discovered in, Tabernathe Iboga, an evergreen shrub from Africa. This plant is illegal to cultivate in the United States under the Controlled Substances Act. In fact, if you read the C.S.A., you find that many "drug" producing plants from Africa are illegal (damn Africans...). However, the world possesses tens of thousands of "known" plant species that produce "drugs". I wonder why Congress made the ones from Africa and Asia illegal, and not the ones from, say, Texas, like Datura innoxia, Argemone mexicana, Sophora secundiflora, and Peyote (oh wait, that Red Skin cactus is illegal too, good thing too, America can't have its citizens thinking like Injuns).

And along comes Tabernaemontana divaricata. Actually, this plant has existed for a long time. "White" Europeans (the same ones that write "White" history) only discovered the plant roughly 150 years ago. Back in the late 1960's, when the Controlled Substances Act was written, no one in Congress knew that Tabernaemontana divaricata produces the alkaloid Ibogaine. There just weren't enough black people using it. And so, today, the African Ibogaine-producing plant is illegal, and the Indian version is a good buy at Home Depot.

The Fall of Mexico

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/02/04/mexico.general/index.html
Mexico drug fighter killed after less than a day on job




http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,164890,00.html
Kidnapping, Murder Sweep Nuevo Laredo


http://narcosphere.narconews.com/node/651
Nuevo Laredo: a case study in macro narco-economics


and that's just the beginning.

The Mexican government is showing many of the signs of a failed state including the increase in civil violence, organized crime, and poverty.

Ironic that while America is preventing two Muslim states from failing on the other side of the Earth, we would, by legal default, encourage the failure of a major nation sharing our southern border. And what are the benefits of creating a failed state on our southern border? Well, there aren't many.

And why is America creating a failed Mexican state?

Because, everywhere you see civil instability, violence, and brutal political slayings in Mexico, you find illegal drug cartels. And why do these illegal drug cartel-families have so much power? Because, they control the value of the drugs they sell. Illegal drug cartels determine the value of the drugs they sell because national governments like the United States of America ban these products from legal trade. Prohibition only benefits two parties: government, and organized crime. While both parties jockey for power over the trade of illegal drugs, everyone else gets screwed.

I won't get into the biological complexities of why plants produce human neurotransmitters here, or why these plants have been valuable commodities for human economies since before the recollection of history. Instead, I'll just conclude that we Americans have created on our worst problems.

We won't change or fix anything until we first understand where we went wrong.

We may never do that.