Civilizations are remembered based on how they treat the most vulnerable within their society, and based on our performance so far, history will not have a favorable record of us, if any.

We have allowed greed and ignorance to victimize our children, to discard our elders, to brutalize our delinquents, and to dehumanize our invalid. Fear has consumed our collective. Its toxicity has rotted our humanity, which is why compassion seems to have vanished from our vocabulary.

The Frame of Reference:
Through my life journey so far, one of the most devastating and enlightening bits of information about our collective psyche that I have ever come across has been the story of Jonathan Magbie, “a 27-year-old quadriplegic man sentenced to serve ten days in a Washington, DC jail on charges that he possessed a minor amount of marijuana.”

“Although he had never been convicted of a criminal offense and although he required private nursing care for as much as 20 hours a day, Magbie was given a 10-day sentence in the D.C. jail in September 2004 by D.C. Superior Court Judge Judith E. Retchin.”

“The marijuana conviction was a first offence for Magbie, who was paralyzed from the neck down at age 4 after his school bus was hit by a drunk driver. Since then Magbie had been under almost constant nursing care, and got around on a chin-operated wheelchair.”

Judge Judith Retchin “chastised Magbie for honestly saying that he would probably continue using marijuana, because it made him ‘feel better.’”

Magbie died within 4 days of being incarcerated due to negligence and inadequate health care by the State.

Retchin’s judgement to send Magbie to jail was malicious and should have been considered judicial homicide. Unfortunately however, no one was ever charged with Magbie’s homicide.

“What makes his death even more horrific is that Magbie was arrested contrary to the will of DC voters. In 1998, 70 percent of voters approved a medical marijuana law.”

Words fail me when I try to explain what it felt like to read about this State sponsored execution of a quadriplegic man for the crime of consuming his medication, which in this case happened to have been cannabis. Disgust with my species for building this wretched civilization is the most accurate description of what I felt.

In essence, we, who do not hold our government representatives accountable for their actions, tortured and executed a quadriplegic because he was smoking the flower of a plant that has been proven to make life tolerable for those who suffer from such conditions.

The Incident:
A few months after coming across Magbie’s story I learned that a friend was harassed by a security guard at a local mall for taking her medication (PDF - see page 4). This time however, my feeling of loathing for humanity turned into fury. I’m not sure if the reason for this was because the person being persecuted was a friend, a friend who I knew was only able to continue her existence because she had access to marijuana, or if my anger was a result of realizing that the ignorance prevalent in the United States had infiltrated my home country, Canada.

After a meeting between my friend, her partner and I, a decision was made that something had to be done. First however we had to figure out the root cause of this incident. It took just a few seconds for us to state what we knew the problem to be - the answer was obvious - ignorance. Not just individual ignorance, but collective ignorance. It was not the security guard who was at fault; it was the management, the corporate structure, our education system, our society, our civilization, us.

After cursing at humanities stupidity for a while, we tried to figure out what the remedy for this disease, as Wilhelm Reich would put it, could be. Aside from the obvious two-by-four to the side of the head, education seemed to be the only viable solution.

Information regarding the medical benefits of cannabis are easily accessible to anyone who wishes to know the truth. Cannabis heals us, helps us, and can save the environment and us. It is part of our ecosystem and for us to wage war against it is complete stupidity. It means that we are waging war against nature, and as the least among us would agree, the only way that we will be able to win a war against nature is by destroying ourselves in the process. So trying to educate through providing scientific data would have just added one more drop to an ocean.

We due however, lack sufficient knowledge regarding the human experience. We lack information on how one lives life with such an ailment, which is why we made the decision to educate through the personal path.

For the next two weeks the voice you will here on chycho.com will be that of a Multiple Sclerosis (MS) patient. Names have been changed to protect identities, since both Harper’s Conservatives and the United States government are directing us towards a draconian society. I’m sure no one here wants to be the next Jonathan Magbie.

We hope the information that is being presented will help educate people on what it feels like to be human. We also believe that it will help those suffering from MS and other similar diseases to be able to deal with life.

To a brave little lady who has decided to share a small portion of her life with us, from the mundane to the insane, my thanks and love to Olga.