Click to see preamble.

   

 
AUGUST 14, 2022

WE THE PEOPLE RADIO

Hour 1  "Pope Francis and Putin’s war against Ukraine" - WE THE PEOPLE RADIO

with Francis Rooney

       
Hour 2  "If cannabis legalization were an experiment it would be halted, declared a failure, and found unethical" WE THE PEOPLE RADIO

 with Dr. Stuart Reece

Hour 1

"Pope Francis and Putin’s war against Ukraine"

About Francis Rooney

Francis Rooney served as United States Ambassador to the Holy See under George W. Bush from 2005–2008. He is Chief Executive Officer of Rooney Holdings, Inc.

In his new book, THE GLOBAL VATICAN, Ambassador Rooney provides an unprecedented inside look at the Catholic Church, its role in world politics and diplomacy, and the extraordinary relationship between the United States and the Holy See.

Ambassador Rooney serves as a member of the Advisory Board of the Panama Canal Authority, a member of the Council of    American Ambassadors, and a Trustee of the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress. He is a graduate of Georgetown University and Georgetown University Law Center. He also has Honorary Degrees from the University of Notre Dame and the University of Dallas.

 

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/pope-francis-creates-confusion-putin-war-against-ukraine-rages

The Holy See and Putin’s War

By Former Rep. Francis Rooney (R-Fla.)

The Holy See has consistently deployed its “soft power” in the world of foreign affairs and relations among states. From helping resolve historic border disputes like the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494 to securing the release of UK soldiers taken by Iran in 2007, the Holy See has for several hundred years provided constructive intervention into global problems. It was Pope Benedict in 2007 who called into question Islamic radicalism in the 21st century—making the argument that the Islamic world needed to fit into the modern world, and not vice versa. Since that critical juncture, many Islamic scholars have joined together with leaders of other faiths to seek consensus on divorcing faith from radical and hostile actions. With war now raging in Ukraine, where is the Holy See? And how has it chosen to use its moral authority and influence?

In the Ukraine, the world now faces the worst brutality and inhumanity since the Second World War and Stalin’s purges. Vladimir Putin is actualizing his expressed long-term goal of regaining territories lost after the fall of the Iron Curtain. For years, he has longed for the territory held by Catherine the Great. Now, he’s even comparing himself to Peter the Great in executing this hegemonist aggression.

And the Holy See’s response?

While Pope Francis has made clear that he does not support the war or Putin’s personal butchery, he has created more confusion than resolution. He has nurtured, even if unintentionally, a false mantra that, essentially, the West is to blame for Putin’s aggression by having expanded NATO. As he said, quoting a source he valued, “They are barking at the gates of Russia. They do not understand that the Russians are imperialists and will allow no foreign power to approach them.” Despite the lack of evidence of any NATO hostility toward peaceful Russian actions, or the fact that NATO is in the business of protecting western democracies, including our newest members, Pope Francis has argued that (1) its expansion is itself an aggression; and (2) that because it would offend a Russian “imperialist” culture we have been the wrongdoers.

Unfortunately, an authoritarian strongman like Putin will only be ennobled by these comments coming from the top of one of the West’s most esteemed institutions. Appeasement has never worked. As Churchill said, “An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile—hoping it will eat him last.” In light of the history of Hitler and Stalin’s co-option and then destruction of the Church, one would hope that the pope would know this.

The pope has added to this confusion about the Holy See’s diplomacy regarding the Ukraine war by criticizing those who see the war as a struggle between good and evil. He advises those who view the war in such stark black and white terms to abandon this “Little Red Riding Hood” pattern of thought. He even contends that “there are no metaphysical good guys and bad guys, in an abstract sense.” So a few questions: what level of death and destruction are necessary to make the wolf a malevolent aggressor? Has not the obliteration of a large part of the Ukraine already accomplished this? Are there no universal truths and objective realities? Is the pope actually endorsing moral relativity?

Lastly, the pope has said that “While we see the ferocity, the cruelty of Russian troops, we must not forget the ‘real problems’ if we want them to be solved.” Is not the Russian war of attrition and extermination a real enough problem?

The Holy See is an important participant in global diplomacy. It has a long tradition of constructive value-added engagement so it is especially unfortunate to see lost opportunities to bring moral clarity—to clearly articulate who are the bad actors in this conflict; and in an unqualified manner denounce the killing of innocents, destruction of non-military buildings and factories, and illegal and unjustified aggression by a foreign power into a fledgling democracy. If the Holy See can’t say this clearly, who will?

—Francis Rooney was a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives, representing Florida's 19th District from 2017-2021. He also served as the U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See from 2005 until 2008.

BOOK:
From the centuries-long prejudices against Catholics in America, to the efforts of Fascism, Communism and modern terrorist organizations to “break the cross and spill the wine,” this book brings to life the Catholic Church’s role in world history, particularly in the realm of diplomacy. Former U.S. ambassador to the Holy See Francis Rooney provides a comprehensive guide to the remarkable path the Vatican has navigated to the present day, and a first-person account of what that path looks and feels like from an American diplomat whose experience lent him the ultimate insider’s perspective. Part memoir, part historical lesson, The Global Vatican captures the braided nature of religious and political power and the complexities, battles, and future prospects for the relationship between the Holy See and the United States as both face challenges old and new.

"If cannabis legalization were an experiment it would be halted, declared a failure, and found unethical"

with Dr. Stuart Reece

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About Professor Albert Stuart Reece and Clinical Research

Dr. Stuart Reece is a family physician working in Brisbane in Australia where he runs a large clinic with a special interest in the medical treatment of drug addiction. He is interested both in the underlying pathophysiology of drug addiction – how drugs work in the body and why they are so destructive to long term health – and also in the treatment of drug addiction including its radical cure.

Dr Reece has a long standing interest in cannabinoids particularly as they relate to genotoxicity, epigenotoxicity and chromosomal and mitochondrial toxicity which have downstream effects lasting for multiple generations. For these reasons Dr Reece has published several epidemiological research papers on cannabis-induced genotoxicity as reflected in the incidence of both birth defects and cancer development both in exposed adults and in the offspring of exposed individuals and subsequent generations.

Dr Reece extensively uses advanced space-time statistical analytical techniques and the formal techniques of causal inference to analyze not just associations across space and time simultaneously but also to quantitatively evaluate the evidence for truly causal relationships.

Dr. Reece was appointed and now re-appointed a Professor in the School of Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences at both the University of Western Australia and Edith Cowan University in recognition of his many contributions which advance our understanding of the toxicopathophysiology and treatment of drug addiction in general and cannabinoid exposure in particular.

PREVIOUS SHOW WITH DR. REECE:

April 3, 2022   "Cannabis & Childhood Cancer"

December 12, 2021  "Cannabis in ALL FORMS takes a Weed Whacker to Your Chromosomes" - Dr. Stuart Reece (this includes smoking it, eating it, hemp products AND also CBD in all forms)

 

Cannabis is known to damage the brain in many ways, is known to damage 70% of human genes and is known to damage the cell software which controls gene function for several generations.

Recent studies link cannabis use to most major
mental illnesses including over 70 homicidal shooting attacks in USA. Cannabis drives the exponential autism epidemic which now affects over 5% of American boys.

Cannabis drove the doubling of American rate of
testicular cancer and the 50% rise in the rate of childhood cancer. Cannabis has also been linked with many other cancers.

Cannabis has also been linked with many
birth defects including damage to the heart and bowels hanging out. Data from both USA and Europe confirm that cannabis is linked with babies born without arms and legs, just like thalidomide.

Cannabis ages cells by over 30% and more as folks grow older.

It becomes hard to avoid the conclusion that the systematic doping of the American public is closely linked with the orchestrated duping of the American electorate at the ballot box.


If cannabis legalization were an experiment it would be halted, declared a failure, and found unethical. Massive commercialization does not reverse the law of gravity.
 
Conclusion:
Looking across the broad vistas of the enormous amount of data presented in this volume both in the detailed epidemiological analyses and the extensive literature citations one cannot but help being struck by the enormous concordance between every level of the data. The present work is designed to provide detailed and extensive data and analyses across the areas of enquiry to complete these substantive gaps in the extent evidence base. The domains examined include mental illness, autism, teratology, carcinogenicity, epigenomics and aging including the overlap between these areas.

In relation to neurotoxicity evidence of direct cannabinoid-mediated inhibition of neuronal mitochondrial metabolism and oxidative phosphorylation, imp[aired synaptogenesis, impaired synapse reinforcement, impaired long term activation and depression, impaired neuronogenesis (birth of new neurons), enhanced gliogenesis (birth of new glial cells) relating in part to brain inflammation, greatly impaired grey-white matter connectivity, blockade of the major receptor ligand-pairs mediators of forebrain development (slit-robo, retinoic acid and its receptors and the cerebellins)c accord closely with the observed epidemiological pattern of diseases at all developmental ages. Following in utero exposure this is expressed as smaller heads and brains, microcephalus, severe microcephalus and anencephaly and in infancy and childhood appears as the autism spectrum of disorders and various intellectual impairments and developmental delays. In adolescence and young adulthood there are now well documented links with most major mental disorders and all four metrics of mental illhealth measured by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

With regard to genotoxicity again close concordance is clearly demonstrated between adverse metabolic, genomic, epigenomic, morphogen gradient data. There is very close agreement between genotoxic assays conducted with mitochondria and chromosomes, and in single cells, sperm, oocytes, animal models and the patterns of congenital anomalies seen epidemiologically amongst humans. 59% of the human genome was shown to be directly implicated by cannabis genotoxicity in teratogenicity and cancerogenicity studies. There is very close agreement between many epigenomic studies of cannabis exposure. Concerningly there were 810 hits identified in the recent longitudinal study from the North Carolina group and more than two dozen cancers [1]. Direct and epigenomic damage to actin, tubulin and the microtubules of the mitotic spindle and the chromosomes which they control imply chromosomal instability and mis-segregation which are known to underlie many cancers, teratogenic syndromes and intellectual impairments [2, 3]. Overlap between cannabis and thalidomide was demonstrated at both the mechanistic and clinical phenomenological levels.

Many cannabinoids are implicated in these genotoxic effects including Δ9THC, Δ8THC, cannabidiol, cannabigerol and cannabinol. It is usual for assays of cannabinoid genotoxicity to demonstrate exponential effects with rising dose level. It becomes important to observe that this exponentiation observed experimentally has been repeatedly confirmed by epidemiological studies of both teratogenesis and carcinogenesis in clinical populations in space-time frameworks. In the present context with rapidly rising rates of cannabis use, rising cannabinoid concentrations and rising rates of high intensity and daily use this exponentiation can be expected to appear epidemiologically as relatively abrupt jumps in cancer and teratogenic incidences, as are now well documented in Colorado, France, Kentucky, Canada and Melbourne in Australia. This plethora of pathways and mechanisms and the fundamental and far-ranging impacts of these derangements makes the vast range of malignant and teratogenic outcomes documented mechanistically plausible.

In relation to aging and epigenomics cannabis has been shown to disrupt the fundamental epigenomic machinery responsible for adding and removing methyl groups to DNA and methyl and acetyl groups to histones. Cannabis therefore disrupts the DNA methylome, the histone code and the tubulin codes, and - because it is immune active and affects aging – likely also disrupts the sophisticated and far-reaching glycan code. Importantly the state of cells lineage determination and differentiation determination are fixed by interlocking and mutually reinforcing mechanisms between the metabolome and the epigenome. The documentation of cannabinoid-dependent disruption of both metabolome and epigenome necessarily implies that this mutual metabolomic-epigenomic cellular locking apparatus is perturbed, and cells are therefore at least poised for de-differentiation and entry into a more primitive stem cell-like state from which malignant transformation to cancer becomes more likely. Since aging is characterized by a progressive loss of gene function, and gene promoters are known to be increasingly methylated with age, a body of evidence is fast accruing that whilst many factors impinge upon the aging rate, the final common pathway and mediator of aging is the epigenome. For this reason the recent demonstration of accelerated cellular aging following cannabinoid exposure is actually concordant with the now very uniform and robust body of epigenomic literature.

Many lines of strong evidence of severe cytogenetic, metabolomic and epigenomic damage to the oocyte and sperm indicate that the appalling conclusion that egg and sperm are prematurely aged even prior to fertilization - as is the resulting fertilized zygote - is inescapable.

Epidemiologically upstream of these considerations are concerns relating to food chain and indeed whole ecosystem contamination. Large crops sewn to hemp necessarily contaminate the local water table and this appears to be resulting in documented patterns of disease in Kentucky and downstream Mississippi, in parts of France and in Melbourne. Crustaceans in San Francisco bay with documented levels of cannabinoids [4] implicates general upstream contamination of the waterways of Northern California. This in turn implies that the exposed populations have not been adequately warned of these risks which further indicates that informed consent from populations exposed to cannabinoid genotoxins and neurotoxins has neither been sought nor obtained.

At the time of writing these is enormous research energy and resources being poured into the potential of medicines active on the endocannabinoid system as therapeutics and to this end thousands of clinical trials are presently being conducted. It seems likely to us that new agents are likely to enter clinical use from this large body of drug development work. However as it does we would strongly urge that the genotoxic – neurotoxic – aging considerations documented herein be carefully born in mind when determining human safety tests and fitness of compounds to come to market.

Prescribing information for US registered cannabinoid medicines “Sativex”, “Epidiolex”, and Marinol all carry strident warnings for use by soon-to-be or pregnant women, inclusive breast feeding, and for potential fathers. Similarly unregulated hemp oil alleged to be low in THC on supermarket shelves in Australia carries similar warnings. These are the standard warnings for all genotoxic compounds indicating that both regulatory agencies and agent marketers openly acknowledge the genotoxicity of these products.

It becomes obvious from the concerns outlined above, and detailed empirical and scientific data present in the current volume that the current pro-cannabis legislation in many US States which has bypassed established and expected community and Federally established legal safeguards potentially constitutes one of the major health risk of this century, not only to the consuming individual but to the unborn child, to the broader community at large, to all who have been and continue to be naïvely exposed and to the next several generations.

In any formal sense the cannabis industry exits outside the Federally established legal safeguards, and unfortunately, often supported by US State legislation. However the central plank of any business should be to place environmental and human safety before profit. Towards this end industry, and indeed State legislators who determine their ability of industry to operate require clear and up-to-date scientifically validated empirical data upon which to base their determinations and planning.

It is upon this gracious and virtuous quest that the present pages embark.
 

References

1.         Schrott R, Murphy SK, Modliszewski JL, King DE, Hill B, Itchon-Ramos N, Raburn D, Price T, Levin ED, Vandrey R et alRefraining from use diminishes cannabis-associated epigenetic changes in human spermEnvironmental Epigenetics 2021, 7(1):1-10.

2.         Drews RM, Hernando B, Tarabichi M, Haase K, Lesluyes T, Smith PS, Morrill Gavarró L, Couturier DL, Liu L, Schneider M et alA pan-cancer compendium of chromosomal instabilityNature 2022, 606(7916):976-983.

3.         Steele CD, Abbasi A, Islam SMA, Bowes AL, Khandekar A, Haase K, Hames-Fathi S, Ajayi D, Verfaillie A, Dhami P et alSignatures of copy number alterations in human cancerNature 2022, 606(7916):984-991.

4.         California Water Boards:  State Water Resources Control Board:  Water Boards Cannabis Cultivation [https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/water_issues/programs/cannabis/]