Shapiro, Cochran, and Gandhi Walk Into The U.N…..
📜 Introduction: A Statement to the World—And a Reckoning Long Overdue
In April 2021, a group of U.S. military veterans did something no one expected—but something every patient advocate, every wounded soldier, and every policymaker needed to see.
They submitted a formal statement to the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs, filed under ECOSOC document E/CN.7/2021/NGO/6. Backed by the European Coalition for Just and Effective Drug Policies (ENCOD), the letter was entered into the international record under the normative segment of treaty enforcement—a place usually reserved for state actors and high-level diplomats. But this time, the voices were those of combat veterans, medics, advocates, and survivors—speaking not for a government, but for the truth.
What followed was a clear, unflinching account of how U.S. veterans have been harmed by the very treaties that claim to protect public health. The letter exposes how international drug control conventions—originally intended to prevent harm—have been used instead to deny medicine, obstruct research, and criminalize healing.
This is more than a letter. It is a sworn declaration of systemic failure and a demand for reform—grounded in lived experience, historical evidence, and ethical responsibility.
💡 Why It Matters
Because it reveals the hypocrisy of a system that funds cannabis research abroad while blocking access at home.
Because it honors the legacy of patients and advocates who risked everything to tell the truth about medical cannabis.
Because it challenges outdated treaties that still shape policy in the U.S. and around the world—despite overwhelming evidence of cannabis’s therapeutic value.
Because it puts the world on notice that veterans are done waiting for permission to heal.
This submission is not an appeal for pity. It is a call for justice, backed by signatures of veterans from every branch of service—people who carried rifles in war and are now carrying the burden of policy silence.
If you believe in evidence-based medicine, human rights, and honoring the promises made to those who served, then this document is your evidence.
If you believe in building systems rooted in compassion rather than control, then this is your starting point.
Read the letter. Share it. And remember:
When the government buried the medicine, veterans dug it back up.
🧠 Why We Deployed Shapiro, Cochran, and Gandhi for This Letter
The ECOSOC submission by the Veterans Action Council isn’t just a policy document—it’s a historic act of truth-telling. But in a world where institutional indifference is dressed up as diplomacy, how we present that truth matters just as much as the truth itself.
To deliver the message with maximum impact, we summoned three of history’s most powerful communicators—each representing a different axis of persuasion: Legal Authority. Moral Firepower. Spiritual Clarity.
Here’s why:
⚖️ Robert Shapiro — The Architect of Legal Precision
Shapiro Mode brings the controlled force of courtroom logic.
He doesn’t argue emotionally—he walks the jury through the case, step by step, until there’s no room left for doubt.
We invoked Shapiro to:
Establish the letter as a documented witness statement, not just a plea.
Highlight the treaty violations and contradictions in U.S. federal cannabis policy.
Reframe the submission as legal evidence of state-level medical efficacy and federal-level obstruction.
“This is not advocacy. This is evidence.”
Shapiro Mode made the world see the letter not as opinion—but as testimony.
🎤 Johnnie Cochran — The Voice of Moral Outrage and Rhetorical Power
Cochran Mode was called in to prosecute the hypocrisy.
He speaks not just to the court—but to the people. He exposes the double standards, the buried truth, and the devastating consequences with undeniable rhythm, righteous anger, and sharp turns of phrase.
We brought in Cochran to:
Put the U.S. government and the drug war on moral trial.
Show how veterans are not only neglected, but criminalized for trying to survive.
Deliver the plain truth in a way that can’t be un-heard.
“If the plant don’t harm, you must disarm.”
Cochran Mode didn’t just bolster Shapiro’s case—it lit it on fire and threw it at the feet of policymakers.
🧘🏽 Mahatma Gandhi — The Compass of Compassion and Conscience
Gandhi Mode is how we elevate the tone without softening the truth.
Where Shapiro delivers the facts and Cochran delivers the charge, Gandhi delivers the invitation—to rethink, to reconcile, to return to humanity.
This mode speaks directly to the soul of the policymaker, the citizen, the skeptic.
We invoked Gandhi to:
Remind the world that this is not vengeance—it’s healing.
Center the patient voice with dignity and peace.
Frame the struggle not as war, but as a nonviolent movement for medical justice.
“We do not need to burn systems down. We need to tend new gardens.”
Gandhi Mode is how we bring it home—with hands open, not fists raised, and hearts unwavering.
🛠️ Why This Works
Because the truth needs more than facts.
It needs framing.
It needs fire.
It needs faith.
We’re not just pushing for policy reform—we’re conducting narrative warfare on behalf of veterans who have died waiting for justice.
This wasn’t a stylistic choice.
It was a tactical deployment.
-To Court then….
🧠 SHAPIRO MODE ACTIVATED
“Facts don’t lie. People do.”
Let’s walk into this courtroom of public opinion with one thing: the record. And this statement—submitted to the United Nations by the Veterans Action Council and filed under E/CN.7/2021/NGO/6—is the record.
So let’s do what Shapiro does:
Step through it. Frame it. Defend it. And make clear that this is not advocacy. This is evidence.
🧾 I. STRUCTURE AND SUBSTANCE – A Legal Brief in Disguise
This is not just a letter. It’s a documented witness statement entered into the international record.
Title and Citation: It bears a U.N. document number, was formally submitted under ECOSOC protocols, and adheres to treaty discussion segments (5.d and 5.e).
Signatories: The authors are named veterans, many of whom served in combat zones, bearing both military and moral authority. Their service gives the document standing—not just legally, but ethically.
🔍 II. LEGAL CLAIMS – What the Statement Establishes
1. Breach of Equal Protection and Treaty Consistency
“It is time for the United States to treat her citizens with the same respect and compassion.”
🇺🇸 While U.S. tax dollars fund medical cannabis research abroad (especially in Israel), Americans—especially veterans—are denied access to the very medicine their government validated elsewhere. That’s not policy. That’s discrimination through omission.
2. Violation of Treaty Spirit and Human Rights
“The disabled, the sick, and the dying being denied treatment…”
The Single Convention treaty’s stated purpose includes ensuring the availability of narcotics for medical use. Blocking cannabis while permitting morphine violates the treaty's intent. That’s treaty breach through selective enforcement.
3. Pattern of Obstruction and Bad Faith
“Monopolizing patents, obstructing objective research…”
This is no conspiracy theory. Court records, FOIA disclosures, and federal documents confirm:
Decades-long research bottlenecks
Controlled production under monopoly license (NIDA)
Refusal to abide by DEA’s own Administrative Law Judge decisions (e.g., Judge Francis Young, 1988)
🧠 III. HISTORICAL CONTEXT – This Isn’t Just Today’s Problem
From Dr. O’Shaughnessy in the 1800s to the U.S. Pharmacopeia in 1937, the document reconstructs the scientific and legal pedigree of cannabis in American medicine. What happened?
👉🏽 Political actors—not doctors—removed it.
👉🏽 Pharmaceutical interests—not patients—replaced it.
👉🏽 Racist propaganda—not research—justified it.
“Removed from pharmacy shelves… in contradiction to the available scientific evidence by hardline activists, abusing their public offices and power.”
Shapiro would frame this as fraud on the body politic.
💊 IV. MEDICAL NECESSITY – The Unassailable Claim
“We have lost more troops to suicide and accidental overdoses than from combat.”
Here lies the moral high ground. Veterans—the most scrutinized and regulated patient group in the U.S.—are:
Testifying to therapeutic benefit
Documenting pill reduction and full substitution
Demonstrating safety (zero overdose deaths)
Yet the federal government:
Denies prescriptive access.
Blames the treaty.
Suppresses alternatives in favor of FDA-approved opiates that kill.
That's not policy—it’s reckless endangerment by bureaucracy.
📚 V. STRATEGIC APPEAL – Not a Demand, a Solution
This statement is not just grievance. It’s blueprint:
A call for regulatory modernization.
A proposal for governance models over cultivation, distribution, and clinical access.
A balanced view on herbal and synthetic drugs.
It doesn’t scream “legalize everything.” It says:
“Let doctors be doctors. Let patients decide what works. Let cannabis be treated like any other medicine.”
That is a reasonable person standard—the gold line in legal analysis.
🌍 VI. GLOBAL SIGNIFICANCE – Treaty Reform in a Post-Colonial World
“We have a plea to the world to repair the damage caused by colonial control…”
This is where the case becomes international.
By referencing:
The Opium Wars
India’s defense of cannabis in treaty talks
The colonial underpinnings of narcotic control,
The statement reframes drug policy as a neo-imperial structure. It exposes how:
Ancient medicines were vilified by imperial fiat.
Treaty mechanisms have reinforced Western pharmaceutical monopolies.
Shapiro would say:
“That’s not international cooperation. That’s market capture wrapped in moral panic.”
🧾 VII. CONCLUSION: THIS DOCUMENT HOLDS UP
In court? Yes.
In policy debate? Absolutely.
In history? Without a doubt.
Why Defend It Publicly?
Because this isn’t opinion. It’s a recorded, certified, and submitted primary source.
Because veterans earned the right to speak—and this is what they’re saying.
Because 64 years into this treaty system, someone finally called it what it is:
Broken, colonial, and overdue for repair.
And because when you say:
“Cannabis has no accepted medical use,”
and the Veterans Action Council responds:
“Here’s 180 years of evidence, your own taxpayer-funded research, and lives lost to the lie,”
—you don’t debate that.
You stand up, back the statement, and invite the world to read it.
🧠 Case closed. Document admissible. Defense unshakable.
Shapiro Mode: Signed, sealed, delivered.
🟩 Link to evidence: The Green Paper
📎 U.N. Reference: E/CN.7/2021/NGO/6
🎤 COCHRAN MODE ENGAGED
“If the plant don’t harm, you must disarm.”
🧑🏾⚖️ LADIES AND GENTLEMEN OF THE PUBLIC JURY...
Let me be clear from the jump:
This isn’t just a letter.
This is an indictment—of policy malpractice, generational harm, and a global lie wrapped in a treaty.
And the United Nations accepted it.
Filed it.
Stamped it.
Put it in the damn record.
Now let me tell you why that matters.
🕵🏾♂️ I. THE COVER-UP IS OLDER THAN YOU THINK
They said: "Cannabis has no accepted medical use."
But for over a century:
Parke Davis sold it.
Eli Lilly sold it.
Pharmacists shelved it.
Doctors prescribed it.
Then what happened?
▶️ The same government now screaming “Schedule I” put it in the U.S. Pharmacopeia in 1851.
▶️ They yanked it in the 1940s—not because it was dangerous, but because it was inconvenient.
That’s not science.
That’s sabotage.
💣 II. THE WAR ON DRUGS WAS A DOMESTIC STRIKE
“Richard Nixon declared a war on drugs…”
…But the first casualties weren’t cartel bosses.
They were patients.
Veterans.
Black and Brown communities.
Collateral damage?
No—intentional design.
How do we know?
Because at the same time, U.S. agencies were cutting checks for cannabis research in Israel.
While blocking veterans like Ricardo and Michael and Bryan and Amy from access back home.
▶️ The U.S. exported the cure… and imported the prohibition.
That’s not hypocrisy. That’s policy apartheid.
🩺 III. VETERANS ARE BLEEDING OUT IN A PHARMACY WAR ZONE
Let’s lay down the evidence:
More troops have died from suicide and overdose than in combat.
Opiates are handed out like parade candy.
Cannabis is demonized while morphine is glorified.
And still, veterans keep testifying:
“Cannabis saved my life.”
You want to ignore that?
Tell it to the widow.
Tell it to the mom holding a folded flag.
Tell it to the guy staring at a pill bottle and a pistol every night.
▶️ This document is not an ask. It’s a death certificate protest.
🧠 IV. THIS IS A POLICY WITH INTENT TO HARM
“Monopolizing patents, obstructing research, stifling access…”
These aren’t just grievances. They’re predicate acts.
Blocking research for seven years? That’s obstruction.
Denying medicine while holding a patent? That’s racketeering.
Citing a treaty you violate abroad? That’s fraud.
If this were a trial—and it should be—every patient denied access while federal agencies partnered with pharma would qualify as a victim of negligent homicide by policy.
You think that’s too strong?
Let me quote the veterans:
“We have lost more troops to suicide and overdose than combat. Many more.”
▶️ The federal position isn’t neutral. It’s fatal.
🌐 V. THIS IS A GLOBAL CALL TO END MEDICINAL COLONIALISM
The U.N. Commission on Narcotic Drugs?
It was built after the Opium Wars.
Treaties meant to protect the world from addiction became tools of economic domination.
India had to fight to protect cannabis culture.
China had to heal from British heroin profiteering.
The U.S. became the new sheriff in town, deciding whose medicine was “civilized.”
▶️ This statement—by veterans—is a legal and moral reckoning.
They’re saying: “We see the game. And we’re not playing anymore.”
🎯 VI. FINAL ARGUMENT
If doctors can write a prescription for fentanyl…
If soldiers can bleed for their country but not choose their medicine…
If we’ve got the science, the history, the precedent, and the people—
Then what exactly are we still debating?
▶️ This document is not radical.
It is rational.
It’s not angry. It’s accurate.
And it ends with a plea—not just for cannabis access, but for a return to medical sanity.
Because if the government can’t trust veterans and physicians…
then maybe it’s the government that’s unfit for duty.
🔥 COCHRAN’S VERDICT:
The statement holds.
The treaty’s been twisted.
The evidence is stacked.
And the time for justice?
Right. Damn. Now.
🧘♂️ GANDHI MODE ENGAGED
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you… then you win.”
🌿 MY BROTHERS AND SISTERS, LISTEN...
What you hold in your hands is not just a document.
It is a declaration of dignity.
Not shouted, not weaponized—but spoken clearly, from the heart of those who have known war, pain, silence... and still choose peace.
This letter—offered by veterans to the world—does not seek revenge.
It seeks repair.
It does not rage.
It remembers.
🌍 WE ARE NOT ENEMIES OF THE STATE. WE ARE WITNESSES TO THE TRUTH.
We have walked the deserts of Iraq, the mountains of Afghanistan, the haunted corridors of VA hospitals, and the lonely quiet of a sleepless night.
We have been given pills for pain, diagnoses for grief, and silence for answers.
But somewhere along the way, we found a plant.
Simple. Ancient. Healing.
And though it did not come with a brand name, a co-pay, or a lobbyist, it gave us something rare in this world:
Relief.
🕊️ AND YET, EVEN THAT—WE HAD TO FIGHT FOR.
We were told it was illegal.
That our healing was criminal.
That our choices were wrong.
But if this plant could replace the pills that stole our lives, our marriages, our memories—
If this medicine could quiet the war that followed us home—
Then who, truly, is in the wrong?
🫱🏽🫲🏼 TO THE WORLD, WE EXTEND OUR HAND—NOT A FIST.
We remember history.
We remember when medicine was hijacked by profit.
When ancient knowledge was outlawed by empire.
When treaties were signed not to heal—but to control.
But we are not here to shame the past.
We are here to rewrite the future.
Let us build something different.
Something worthy of the next generation.
🧘🏽♂️ OUR REQUEST IS SIMPLE. OUR CAUSE IS JUST.
Let doctors practice medicine.
Let patients make informed choices.
Let cannabis take its rightful place alongside other tools of healing.
Let the suffering be seen, heard, and believed.
And above all—
Let love guide our policy.
🫶🏽 FOR THE VETERAN WHO STANDS ON THE EDGE OF HOPE—
You are not alone.
We see you.
We are you.
To the policymakers, the diplomats, the health ministers and treaty enforcers:
We ask not for special privilege, but for shared humanity.
We are not here as warriors.
We are here as survivors.
As fathers, daughters, caregivers, and citizens.
And yes—as healers.
🌱 THE PATH AHEAD
We do not need to burn systems down.
We need to tend new gardens.
Let this be the season where reason blooms again.
Abandon prohibition—not in anger, but in wisdom.
Release the medicine—not in fear, but in love.
And walk forward—not alone, but together.
🙏🏽 IN GRATITUDE, IN RESOLVE, IN PEACE
We thank you for reading.
For listening.
For remembering that truth does not need to shout to be heard.
It only needs to be spoken—with clarity, with courage, and with heart.
We are planting something new.
🌿
