Is Medical Marijuana A Crime? - W/Special Guest Shona Banda
When authorities found out that Shona Banda treated her severe Crohn's Disease with cannabis, they took away her child and are trying to send her to prison for 30 years. But she is fighting back! We speak with Ms. Banda about her struggle for health freedom in today's Liberty Report.
You can purchase Shona's book here: http://bookstore.authorhouse.com/Products/SKU-000365849/Live-Free-or-Die.aspx
When authorities found out that Shona Banda treated her severe Crohn's Disease with cannabis, they took away her child and are trying to send her to prison for 30 years. But she is fighting back! We speak with Ms. Banda about her struggle for health freedom in today's Liberty Report.
You can purchase Shona's book here: http://bookstore.authorhouse.com/Products/SKU-000365849/Live-Free-or-Die.aspx
Hello, everybody, and thank you for tuning in to the Ron Paul Liberty Report.
With me today is Daniel McAdams.
Daniel, good to see you.
Good morning, Dr. Paul.
Oh, very good.
We have a special guest today.
She's somebody who's had to put up with some difficulties with our government.
Have you ever heard of anybody having trouble with our government?
No, no.
Well, this is a person we've talked about before, and she's been in the news.
And to me, in a way, it's a sad story about what she's had to put up with.
Her name is Shauna Banda, and she is a victim of the drug war.
Shauna, I want to welcome you to the program today.
Thank you so much for having me.
Well, it's great, and we're going to have you tell us a little bit about that story, but just generally, we've been fighting the war on drugs for a long time.
I can't remember when I really started, but I do know when I left the Congress the first time, and that would have been 1984 that I talked about the drug war and the insanity of it all.
And there's much more harm done by the drug war than the drugs themselves.
So, why don't you start off by telling us a little bit about how this got started, especially the legal part, and also a little bit about why you were involved with medical marijuana?
I found cannabis helped my Crohn's disease, which was very debilitating to me, so much so that I was able to get my life back.
I wrote a journal of my progress through healing with the oil and published it back in 2010.
I moved to Colorado on two separate occasions and ended up leaving my ex-husband and coming back home to Kansas to try to get my head above water.
And when I came back home, I you know, I took my book to all of my local news stations, my local representatives, and even my sheriff's department.
And that was in 2013.
And the state came into my life in March of 2015 from a drug education class at school where my son corrected the drug education officer and let him know that his mom actually called it cannabis and not marijuana.
And they proceeded to take him out of the classroom at that point to find out how much he knew.
Wow.
So it was just an innocent, an innocent comment from your son that set the wheels of the state in motion.
So, what happened after that?
They took him out of the class.
Did they call you right away?
Or walk us through what happened next.
Must have been terrifying.
It was absolutely terrifying.
I didn't even know any of this happened.
I found out when I found officers on my front porch, of which I took video of and was able to release that later online.
The entire thing has been absolutely horrific on me and my family.
It's been very difficult.
I have won, I'm winning my cases.
I won my sink case, which is the child in need of care case, and I got 50% custody during my divorce, of which I fought pro se, with these felony charges over my head.
So I'm winning and I'm just trying to stay healthy and alive long enough to finish it because I would like my day in trial.
Shauna, what type of court is this?
Is this a state court?
Do you have to deal with only state law or do you deal with federal law?
How does that get sorted out?
To my knowledge, it's a state court.
And also it was involved with the Child Protective Service, and would that be a different court that you had to deal with there?
Yeah, it was a completely different court there.
And it's supposed to be harder to prove your innocence on a child in need of care case than it is on a criminal case.
So I'm really hopeful that the state is going to drop the charges.
And so as I understand it, at least the initial charges, I think, were four charges, endangering the child, distribution or possession with intent to distribute controlled substances within a thousand feet of the school, unlawful manufacture of a controlled substance, and possession of drug paraphernalia.
And that, I guess, adds up to about 30 years.
Is that right, Shauna?
What's your favorite?
Yeah, roughly around 30 years.
Definitely won't last that long.
I absolutely need cannabis to survive every day.
And how did you come to that conclusion?
People might say, you know, what's wrong with conventional medicine?
You know, what is she talking about?
How did you come to that conclusion that this is the only thing that would help you?
Conventional medicine led me to 16 surgeries.
And I had tried already every pharmaceutical that they had to offer, including biologics, which are quite dangerous.
Now, Shauna, there's a couple issues here.
One is the political issue of rights and responsibility and parental control and things.
But the medical is what Daniel is talking about there, and conventional medicine didn't do you many favors.
Did you have any medical professionals, MDs, that came forward that testified for you and argued on your side on these court cases?
I had Dr. Robert Melamed came in and testified during my sink case and was able to, in the state of Kansas, you're not allowed to say medical marijuana.
So what we did was we had him come in and testify on the endocannabinoid system for the better part of an hour.
And it's quite clear through science that cannabis isn't harmful if we're making it in our own bodies.
Or cannabinoids.
And so where we stand now, as I understand it, is that your arraignment has been postponed until July so that your defense team can get things together.
Is that correct?
Yes, we're gathering reports, scientific evidence, and expert testimony that needs to be in by March.
And then that will set us and get us ready for trial at the end of June.
Shauna, tell me when your lowest point was dealing with this, immediately when it was discovered or a little bit later when you started looking at the charges.
And if you take it from that point to the point where you are now, have you gotten some optimism back or are you pretty pessimistic about the system?
I'm optimistic, probably dangerously optimistic because I fully believe that I've already done everything in my power as a citizen, as a human being, to right these wrongs along the way.
I don't have time to wait for a law to change.
So I've done everything that I can across this nation and internationally to educate people and get the truth out about this.
And when this happened in my life, the lowest part was they took my child.
They used my child against me.
And I think that's the most horrendous thing in the world.
It shows the character of the state and how disgusting this absolutely really is.
Because they've known from the very beginning that this was a medicine on my part.
Now, in places like California and Colorado, medical marijuana is obviously legal.
Is it considered a valid treatment for Crohn's disease, which is a horrible, debilitating disease?
Is that a valid treatment for the disease in those two places where it's legal?
In places where they've recognized medical cannabis, yes, Crohn's disease is an option to get that medically in those states.
So people already use it elsewhere to their advantage.
It's just because you happen to be geographically where you are that you can't use a medicine that helps you.
Sean, I have sort of a philosophic question on how you proceed because, you know, in one sense, this is medical marijuana.
The most important thing to you is your health can be dramatically improved.
Your life may well be saved by medical marijuana.
And that is a medical issue and also a choice on what medicines you can take.
But does it diminish your arguments if people come and say, you know, people should be able to make all their choices about risky things on all medications and there's so many other choices and we teach our children to deal with danger.
Is the overall philosophic position that we should have freedom of choice to make our own risk, is that harmful to your argument?
What I need is medical marijuana.
Harmful to my argument at all.
In fact, when physicians have offered me different medications such as Remicade or Humera, which are biologics, they tell you you have to take it for the rest of your life.
And being able to choose all natural option that I can take for the rest of my life that I can potentially grow for free in my yard shouldn't be held from me at, I can say.
One thing I've noticed about Shawna is that she has developed a huge social network of people and she has done a great job fighting this, not only in the courts, but really in the court of public opinion.
Shawna's Social Network00:02:35
I see her very active in the different social media so she's really developed a network and I think that's such a smart move on her part.
Now I think this is see I look at the drug war in an optimistic fashion because years ago when there was no sympathy whatsoever, no movement, I see this as very, very positive, not only because it can be helpful health-wise and letting people make their own choices, but this whole principle that our government once stood for, and that was that the states and individuals weren't supposed to be controlled totally by our federal government.
They had nullification, state nullification.
I think we've made progress here.
To me, I'm delighted with that.
Matter of fact, I think that the founders and our early leaders in our country were very enthusiastic about jury nullification.
And jury nullification, it'll pop up in the news, and people find out, you know, that it is the ultimate protection when everybody goes nuts, you know, in government, the House and the Senate and the courts and the president, everybody else, that if individuals, you know, in a trial, if they stand up and say, well, that may be the law, but it's a stupid law, and they can stand up.
So I think someday we are moving in that direction.
That's why I'm really happy.
I hope we don't have a setback.
You know, I'm always worried when we make some progress.
I hope we don't have a setback with the change of the administration.
But we certainly have had made great progress since I've been involved in this issue.
Yes.
And we'll definitely include some links, how people can learn more about the case and get involved, maybe help Shona out a little bit because she is having to fight this pretty tough battle on her own.
So we'll definitely include those in the show notes as well.
Yeah, we should do that because our audience is growing, mainly because we can deal with these issues and people are looking for the truth.
And this is a good story to present the truth and how governments are abusive.
So, Shauna, thank you very much for being with us today and sharing your story with our audience.
Thank you so much for having me.
Good.
And I want to thank our viewers today for tuning in on this very important issue.
And please contribute what you can and check the website and see if you can help out in spreading Shauna's story.
Thank you, everybody, for tuning in to the Ron Paul Liberty Report.