Former DEA Spokeswoman : Marijuana is Safe and The DEA Knows It
By Belita Nelson 15.12.16 http :// illegallyhealed . com / former-dea-spokeswoman-marijuana-safe-dea-knows /
“ Marijuana is safe , we know it is safe . It ’ s our cash cow and we will never give up ,” Belita Nelson told an audience of doctors and nurses at the Marijuana for Medical Professionals Conference in Denver , Colorado this month .
Nelson says that was the first thing she learned from her Drug Enforcement Administration ( DEA ) education coordinator , Paul Villaescusa , when she was hired in the Dallas office in April 1998 .
“ I was having fun , I was very good at my propagandist job — I was the chief propagandist for the DEA ,” she said .
Nelson represented the DEA in the international media from 1998 to 2004 . She did regular appearances on the talk show circuit , including the Oprah Winfrey show and Nightline , espousing the dangers of cannabis . Today she advocates for its medical use , specifically in the treatment of chronic traumatic encephalopathy ( CTE ) in professional football players through an organization she founded : The Gridiron Cannabis Foundation .
Belita Nelson grew up in what she calls a “ Texas Football Family ”. Her father loved the Dallas Cowboys and taught her “ life lessons from football .” Football has always been a major part of her life and she has often called well-known players her friends .
She says in 2000 , two years into her tenor at the DEA , a close friend and Dallas football player was diagnosed with stage-4 lung cancer . She watched him go through three rounds of chemotherapy and deteriorate from 340 to 140 pounds . She says he could no longer eat or sleep and was miserable .
Nelson went home and asked her then-teenage son if he could find her marijuana . “ Even if the DEA is behind my name I am not willing to sit here and watch my friend die ,” she said .
The cannabis helped ; he started eating and gaining weight and slept more restfully at night . With new motivation , he started a clean eating and juicing diet to complement the marijuana therapy and lived an additional nine years .
Nelson says she even grew the cannabis herself so that she knew it was safe and not smuggled from Mexico .
In 2004 , Nelson resigned from the DEA . She had been investigating the heroin epidemic in Plano , Texas and learned that addicts who turned to cannabis were having a higher success rate getting off opiates using it . She chose to resign .
“[ When they hired me ] they forgot to get me to sign a confidentiality agreement — and boy did I know the dirt . They called me in and said ‘ name your price , $ 10,000 a month ? $ 20,000 ? What do you want Belita ?’”
She said she left the office screaming , “ You know this is safe and you are keeping it from people who are sick ! I am not taking your money and you better worry about what I am going to say !”
Nelson relocated to Colorado with little idea what she would do next , but quickly found a