Joan Bello, author of The Benefits of Marijuana: Physical, Psychological & Spiritual, is incredibly courageous and brilliant in her presentation of marijuana as the SUPREME HOLISTIC MEDICINE. Her hypothesis, that marijuana balances the Autonomic Nervous System — which then sets the stage for health beyond the ordinary — is in keeping with the tenets of Yoga Science. Her expertise was garnered through vigorous academic training in a specialized Master of Science Program accessible to only a few hand-chosen students. She is fulfilling her mandate of bringing the Eastern wisdom to the West in this revolutionary handling of the abiding connection between esoteric discipline and the state of consciousness fostered with marijuana.

This is a book to spark the interest of the skeptical and awaken hope for those suffering the ills of modern civilization. The author contrasts today’s competitive, acquisitive lifestyle with the state of ease encouraged by marijuana.

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1. Joan Bello, 66, holds a Master of Science degree in Eastern Studies and Holistic Health. She studied under the direct guidance of Swami Rama, whose lineage of wisdom dates back more than 4750 years.
2. She has worked as a public school teacher, specializing in Social Studies and English.
3. She has clinical experience as a Substance Abuse Counselor.
4. As Director of the National Class Action for Therapeutic Cannabis, she personally interviewed over 475 patients, finding validation for her already-published work. The patients who participated suffered from all types of disease, including, MS, Glaucoma, Epilepsy, Migraines, Asthma, Depression, Pain, Anxiety, Digestive Disorders, among many other stress-related diseases.
5. She became interested in marijuana after it was instrumental in helping to cure her young son’s grande mal epilepsy almost 25 years ago.
6. She served five months in jail for “constructive”  possession of marijuana.

[A letter from a Broome County, New York jail, 1996]

Dear Friends,

It looks curiously like any sleep-away camp, but without a clue as to the season, year or even the country. It’s 2 AM, and the overhead light fixtures have been turned off for the past three hours. Everyone is asleep in their bunks but me.

Unusually bright night lights cast an eerie yellow outline of 22 single beds around the perimeter of a conspicuously barren room. There are no decorations on the walls, no night stands, no curtains on the eight plastic windows that obviously never open, and no clock. A few beds have pictures taped to headboards showing children and memories from different times.

The camp fantasy has quickly faded to the sinister reality. If I unhitch my usual thinking process and let the emanation of this unnatural conglomerate of women impinge on my consciousness, I can actually feel an overwhelming and grossly inappropriate emotion of sheer indifference.

They say human beings will adjust to nearly any situation, accepting even the most uncomfortable conditions. The women here have surely done just that. They live in limbo, wondering when their time to rejoin life on the outside will come. Most of them are without financial resources, which automatically relegates them to sitting in jail — often for nearly a year — even though they have never been convicted of anything.

Once incarcerated, the injustice and inhumanity of the system becomes obvious. Sanity is maintained by an assumed apathy and quiet resignation. But I am acutely aware that this outward display of acceptance is just a defense mechanism against the rage that seethes in other woman inmates — as I feel it too.

I understand for the first time what an unjust and cruel society we have conceived and why so many deprived people are driven to violence. I can taste the fear of having no freedom. I feel the fury of an unfamiliar anger which leads to images of revenge. But, miraculously, I am also experiencing all this from a distance.

I am in the meditative zone of being high. Here in jail, alone and remembering the sacred effect of the Marijuana Spirit, I am one with that vibration. I am in awe of the realization that, over years and years of experience with being high by the grace of Holy Hemp, I have learned how to uncouple from the conditioning without benefit of the embodied sativa. The Grace of the Spirit within the cannabis plant has been imparted to me just by meditation!

Ironically, the magnificence of this hallowed experience is the reason why I am in jail, and why my husband sat in jail before me, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of peace-loving Americans who are presently incarcerated. Those of us who are the casualties in the front lines of the marijuana witch hunt are, of course, the best versed in all the depraved reasons our militaristic government is waging this criminal war on innocent citizens. Our numbers sadly keep growing as our commitment to the inalienable, natural right to medicate ourselves, pursue our own methods toward enjoyment, and worship the Divinity in the best way we can imagine, grows ever stronger, gathering more and more people from all walks of life and all disciplines of science. Our prisons are inadequate to house what has become the most populated prison society in the developed world — because our laws define natural actions as crimes. The political system that upholds this foolhardy, cruel, unjustifiable policy is bolstered by the drive for profit.

The prison industry is booming, the police-state tactics are escalating, lawyers and judges are inundated with work as our inner cities are starving, our corporate giants are downsizing to maintain their profit margins, the medical profession is closing ranks around the pharmaceutical synthetics even as the death toll in side effects reaches horrendous proportions — all while one natural plant could ease the pain and suffering of so many sick and dying people, help save our dangerously diminishing forests from further exploitation, feed the billions of hungry and unfortunate people around the globe, and cleanse the toxins from the air we breath — and certainly increase the breathing capacity of us all.

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