The Green Paper
📜 INTRODUCTION
What Is the Green Paper—and Why It Matters Now
The Green Paper is not just a document.
It is a reckoning.
Written by veterans, for veterans—and for every patient, caregiver, healer, and advocate who has ever had to fight for access to a plant more ancient than prohibition and more honest than politics—this paper is a strategic blueprint, a historical archive, and a moral indictment wrapped in one.
It began with a simple question:
What would happen if we told the whole truth—loudly, clearly, and with receipts?
So that’s what we did.
We took the 1993 policy recommendations of Robert C. Randall and Alice O’Leary—original pioneers of the federal medical cannabis access movement—and reprinted them in full, with permission. Their recommendations were presented to President Clinton at a time when the government had already admitted, behind closed doors, that cannabis helped people live longer and suffer less.
We paired those original demands with current research, veteran testimony, international policy frameworks, and a legal roadmap for immediate reform. We connected the dots between buried DEA rulings, sabotaged federal programs, and the coordinated disinformation campaign that has denied patients safe access for over half a century.
What emerged was not just history—but evidence.
Evidence of neglect.
Evidence of harm.
Evidence of what must be done next.
This is what we did here:
We documented the paper trail.
We exposed the pattern of obstruction.
We reframed the veteran as a federal patient, not a political pawn.
And we called for truth, justice, and cannabis policy grounded in science and compassion—not stigma and control.
If you’ve ever wondered why cannabis is still Schedule I...
If you’ve ever watched a loved one suffer while the government stalled...
If you’re tired of half-measures, amendments that never pass, or officials who pretend change is impossible...
This paper is for you.
This is not a protest. It’s a proposal.
And we’re not asking anymore—we’re informing.
Here’s the truth.
Here’s the path forward.
Now act accordingly.
—International Veterans Leadership Committee
2025
🎭 The Three Modes: Legal, Logical, Moral
Why we use Cochran, Shapiro, and Gandhi… Because truth alone is not enough.
It must be delivered in a voice the system cannot ignore.
Each of these rhetorical archetypes—Cochran, Shapiro, and Gandhi—represents a strategic mode of communication. When we broke down the Green Paper in their voices, we weren’t just being clever.
We were building a multilingual arsenal for justice.
⚖️ COCHRAN MODE — The Courtroom Firebrand
"If the facts don't fit the narrative, you must dismantle the myth."
Johnny Cochran didn’t just defend his clients—he reframed the entire conversation. His genius was in humanizing the victim, demonizing the system, and making complex legal truths emotionally undeniable.
We used Cochran Mode to turn the Green Paper into a closing argument:
To prosecute 50 years of federal malpractice
To demand justice for patients buried under policy
To expose the gaslighting as intentional, systemic, and cruel
When we speak in Cochran, we don’t just cite history—we indict it.
🧠 SHAPIRO MODE — The Relentless Analyst
"Facts don’t care about your feelings."
Ben Shapiro is divisive, but his rhetorical structure is surgical:
He dissects arguments. He weaponizes contradiction.
He demands that policies pass the logic test—and when they don’t, he rips them to shreds.
We used Shapiro Mode to:
Deconstruct the government's broken logic around cannabis scheduling
Reveal contradictions in federal policy (e.g., meth is Schedule II, cannabis is Schedule I)
Expose the myth of “not enough research” using their own data and programs
This is the mode for debate-stage dominance, for wonks and skeptics, for exposing hypocrisy with precision.
🧘 GANDHI MODE — The Soul Whisperer
"In the end, it is not the storm that wins, but the soil."
Mahatma Gandhi spoke to the conscience—not the courtroom, not the campaign trail. He didn’t shout; he invited.
He built moral clarity through stories, simplicity, and unshakable principle.
We used Gandhi Mode to:
Remind readers that this is about real people, not policy acronyms
Center the suffering and courage of patients who risked everything
Transform grief into resolve—and bureaucracy into moral failure
This is the mode for spiritual argument, compassionate resistance, and nonviolent confrontation of power.
🧰 WHY ALL THREE?
Because movements fail when they speak in only one voice.
Some people need the fire of the courtroom.
Some need the clarity of data.
Others need the whisper of justice through conscience.
Together, these modes give us a full-spectrum strategy—legal, logical, and moral. We’re not just trying to win an argument.
We’re trying to win freedom, dignity, and truth back from silence.
And to do that, we must speak in every tongue the system understands—and some it fears.
So pick your mode.
Then speak.
Loudly.
Beautifully.
Unapologetically.
🎤 COCHRAN MODE ACTIVATED
“If the facts don't fit the narrative, you must dismantle the myth.”
⚖️ Ladies and Gentlemen of the Court of Public Conscience…
They call it “controversial.”
We call it the truth we’ve been dying to tell.
They say the science isn’t settled.
We say the government locked the evidence in a bureaucratic tomb—and buried the patients with it.
They say marijuana has no medical value.
We bring Exhibit A: The People.
📜 THE CASE:
For over half a century, the United States government has waged a war—not on drugs—but on the sick. On cancer patients. On veterans. On mothers and fathers trying to see, breathe, move, live.
Let me tell you what’s actually “unreasonable, arbitrary, and capricious”:
The same government that prescribes morphine and fentanyl with the flick of a pen…
…but criminalizes a garden plant that’s saved more lives than a pill bottle ever could.
DEA Judge Francis L. Young said it himself in 1988:
“The evidence in this record clearly shows that marijuana has been accepted as capable of relieving the distress of great numbers of very ill people… It would be unreasonable, arbitrary, and capricious for DEA to continue to stand between those sufferers and the benefit of this substance.”
They ignored him.
And people kept dying.
📚 THE EVIDENCE:
We submit into record:
Judge James Washington in U.S. v. Randall, 1976: marijuana = medical necessity.
DEA Chief ALJ Young, 1988: marijuana should be moved to Schedule II. Recommendation buried.
Tim Braun, AIDS patient: “They’re giving me a death sentence.”
He died waiting for the marijuana his government promised—but never delivered.
This isn’t about getting high.
This is about getting help.
🧠 THE CONSPIRACY:
The Compassionate IND program?
Created in 1978.
Killed in 1992.
Why?
Because people were applying in droves.
Because the truth was catching fire.
And so, rather than meet the demand for justice, Bush’s Public Health Service slammed the door shut—on the sick, on the poor, and on every American who dared to say, “This helps me live.”
Then they handed out synthetic THC like it was salvation, despite it failing patients left and right.
As one dying man said:
“Two or three tokes help me immediately. Marinol? That pill makes me puke.”
🔍 THE PROSECUTORIAL ANGLE:
What we have here is legislative malpractice.
Fraud by repetition.
Negligence by omission.
And cruelty by design.
Every administration that upheld the prohibition after Judge Young’s 1988 ruling is complicit.
Every agency that destroyed IND applications is liable.
And every lawmaker who claims to support veterans, cancer patients, and the terminally ill—but won’t support rescheduling or descheduling cannabis—is performing compassion without practicing it.
👩⚖️ THE VERDICT FROM HISTORY:
35 states passed medical cannabis laws before the feds blinked.
San Francisco: 80% voted YES for medical marijuana.
Santa Cruz County: 77.1% voted YES.
87% of state legislators across the country voted YES.
The jury has spoken.
Again.
And again.
And again.
🛠️ THE REMEDY:
We demand the Clinton-Era Roadmap—resurrected, modernized, and federally enforced:
Restore the Compassionate IND Program—for real this time.
Reschedule to Schedule II—or deschedule completely—and put cannabis where it belongs: in the hands of patients and physicians.
Establish a Presidential Task Force—publicly accountable, patient-led, science-based—to unwind the 50-year tangle of federal obstruction, corruption, and cowardice.
This isn’t radical.
This is reasonable.
This isn’t about culture.
It’s about compassion.
📢 CLOSING STATEMENT:
If the government can prescribe OxyContin,
If the VA can hand out benzos like Halloween candy,
If the pharmaceutical lobby can write policy in boardrooms,
Then surely—surely—a cancer patient can grow six plants without being dragged to court.
This “Green Paper” isn’t just a document. It’s a time capsule of truth, buried under decades of red tape and reefer madness, now finally unearthed.
To ignore it now is not just negligent—it’s criminal.
🖊️ So we say:
Restore the program.
Reschedule the plant.
Respect the patients.
Because this isn’t just about marijuana.
This is about morality.
Case closed.
Now act accordingly.
🎙️ SHAPIRO MODE DEPLOYED
“Let’s break it down—fact by fact, number by number. Because truth doesn’t care if you squirm.”
🧠 FACTS. NOT FEELINGS.
Let’s be intellectually honest. The federal government’s position on cannabis isn’t just flawed—it’s indefensible by any standard of logic, ethics, or public policy.
You want facts? Let’s go:
🔎 POINT ONE: Marijuana has “no accepted medical use”?
FALSE. Flatly. Demonstrably. Legally.
Judge Francis L. Young (DEA’s own Chief Administrative Law Judge) ruled in 1988:
“Marijuana is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man.”
1976, U.S. v. Randall: A federal judge recognized medical necessity as a defense to marijuana possession—for glaucoma. That was almost 50 years ago.
Today: Over 4 million Americans use medical cannabis under state-legal frameworks with physician oversight.
So if 38+ states, hundreds of peer-reviewed studies, and multiple federal courts all agree…
Why is marijuana still a Schedule I substance?
Because the federal government is lying—and has been since Nixon.
📉 POINT TWO: It’s about “public safety”?
Really? Let’s look at what the federal government does allow:
Schedule II = Cocaine, methamphetamine, and fentanyl.
Schedule III = Ketamine, anabolic steroids.
Schedule I = Cannabis.
This isn’t science.
It’s bureaucratic gaslighting with a badge.
You don’t keep cannabis on the same list as heroin unless you’re:
Scientifically illiterate,
Politically compromised,
Or economically incentivized to keep the lie going.
Spoiler: it’s all three.
🧾 POINT THREE: “There’s not enough research”?
This is the most lazy, intellectually bankrupt argument in the playbook.
The federal government has funded research into cannabis harms, not benefits, for decades.
Over 30,000 peer-reviewed studies exist on cannabis.
The FDA, NIH, and even the VA already have cannabis studies on file—but selectively ignore them.
Patients under the Compassionate IND program received 300 marijuana cigarettes per month from NIDA—rolled in a federal lab.
So… the government can grow it, test it, roll it, and ship it…
…but they can’t reschedule it?
Come on. That’s not just hypocrisy—it’s willful obstruction.
⚖️ POINT FOUR: This is about law and order?
Let me be crystal clear: this isn’t about drug policy. It’s about policy failure.
It’s about:
Blocking medicine
Silencing patients
And protecting corporate interests while pretending it’s public health.
The Compassionate IND program wasn’t shut down because it failed.
It was shut down because it worked too well.
Because it threatened to expose the whole Schedule I regime as a sham.
And the more patients applied… the more obvious that became.
🛠️ SOLUTIONS? THEY EXIST. THEY’VE EXISTED.
In 1993, Robert Randall and Alice O’Leary gave the Clinton Administration a step-by-step policy roadmap:
Reschedule cannabis (like Judge Young told you to do in 1988).
Reinstate the Compassionate IND Program.
Create a Presidential Task Force to clean up the regulatory mess.
So let’s not pretend this is complicated.
It’s not.
It’s political cowardice, wrapped in red tape, enforced by inertia, and paid for in veteran suicides and terminal cancer deaths.
💣 THE BOTTOM LINE:
The Green Paper is not a wish list.
It’s an indictment.
A well-researched, historically grounded, legally sound call to action—and the only reason it hasn’t been adopted is because it doesn’t benefit the people who write the checks for Congress.
Cannabis prohibition has never been about science.
It’s been about:
Control,
Power,
And protecting monopolies in pharma, law enforcement, and private prisons.
If the goal was harm reduction, we wouldn’t be banning plants—we’d be banning Purdue Pharma.
🧠 FINAL ANALYSIS:
The federal cannabis stance is anti-scientific
The DEA’s scheduling is contradicted by its own judges
The IND program was murdered in policy silence
The Compassionate Access movement was sabotaged
Veterans, cancer patients, and AIDS survivors were sacrificed
That’s not regulation.
That’s state-sanctioned malpractice.
And if you don’t have the intellectual courage to call it what it is…
Then you’re not just part of the problem—you’re part of the cover-up.
🔨 SHAPIRO OUT.
Now let’s see Congress try to debate that on the merits.
🧘 GANDHI MODE ENGAGED
“When the truth is buried by power, it becomes the duty of the people to unearth it—gently, persistently, without fear.”
🌱 TO THOSE WHO STILL BELIEVE IN DECENCY…
This is not a battle of parties.
It is not a clash of ideologies.
It is the quiet, stubborn plea of human beings asking to be heard.
People who are sick.
People who are dying.
People who are healing.
And what they ask for… is a plant.
🕊️ THE MORAL SITUATION BEFORE US
For over half a century, a lie has ruled. A simple, cruel lie:
“Marijuana has no accepted medical use.”
This was not born of science. It was born of fear.
Of politics.
Of control.
And that lie has been defended—not with reason—but with walls, guns, courtrooms, and prisons.
While the people—your neighbors, your elders, your children—have turned to the earth for relief.
And been punished for it.
👣 BUT WALK WITH ME THROUGH THE TRUTH…
The U.S. government grew cannabis at the University of Mississippi.
They hand-rolled it into cigarettes.
They shipped it—legally—to patients in the Compassionate IND Program.
And it worked.
It worked for glaucoma.
It worked for AIDS wasting.
It worked for chemotherapy nausea.
It worked for pain, anxiety, PTSD, spasticity, and seizures.
The medicine was not new.
But the recognition of its power… threatened the existing order.
And so the doors were closed.
The files were sealed.
The suffering was ignored.
🧘♂️ THE QUIET POWER OF RIGHTEOUS INSISTENCE
Judge Young told them the truth in 1988:
“To stand between sufferers and the relief of this substance is unreasonable, arbitrary, and capricious.”
But they did not listen.
Not because they did not understand.
But because they did.
To open this door means letting go of decades of misinformation, incarceration, and profit.
It means facing the fact that millions suffered needlessly—because the government was too proud to admit it was wrong.
🌻 AND YET… WE KEEP PLANTING
The Green Paper is not a weapon.
It is a seed.
It carries within it the legacy of those who fought before us:
Robert Randall. Alice O’Leary. The AIDS activists of the '80s. The veterans of two wars. The families who turned kitchens into apothecaries when doctors turned them away.
It carries facts.
It carries history.
But most of all, it carries compassion.
And that—compassion—is the force no system, however powerful, can ultimately resist.
🙏 TO THE LEGISLATORS, THE DOCTORS, THE PEOPLE WITH POWER
You may believe you are waiting for the right time.
But the right time has already come—and gone—and come again.
Each day you delay, someone suffers who didn’t need to.
Each day you doubt, someone dies who might have lived.
And still, we do not come in anger.
We come with a truth older than your schedules.
Stronger than your politics.
More enduring than your bureaucracy.
The truth that healing should never be illegal.
✊ TO THOSE WHO FIGHT, QUIETLY OR LOUDLY
You are not alone.
If you’ve grown a plant to ease your pain—
If you’ve risked arrest to care for a loved one—
If you’ve told your story when it was dangerous to do so—
You are part of this movement.
You are part of this history.
You are part of the healing.
🕯️ CLOSING PRAYER, FOR ACTION:
May the truth be seen.
May the lies be gently set down.
May the sick be healed.
May the laws be rewritten not in ink, but in love.
And may we all remember:
“The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problems.”
—M.K. Gandhi
We are capable.
Now, let us act accordingly.
