Many doctors and patients believe there are many legitimate medical uses for marijuana, yet there is relatively little serious scientific evidence to support such claims, particularly as concerns smoking it. One reason for this could be that the federal government makes it so difficult — indeed, virtually impossible — to conduct scientific research on marijuana’s potential medical benefits, as today’s NYT reports.
Lyle E. Craker, a professor of plant sciences at the University of Massachusetts, has been trying to get permission from federal authorities for nearly nine years to grow a supply of the plant that he could study and provide to researchers for clinical trials.
But the Drug Enforcement Administration — more concerned about abuse than potential benefits — has refused, even after the agency’s own administrative law judge ruled in 2007 that Dr. Craker’s application should be approved, and even after Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. in March ended the Bush administration’s policy of raiding dispensers of medical marijuana that comply with state laws.
“All I want to be able to do is grow it so that it can be tested,” Dr. Craker said in comments echoed by other researchers.
Marijuana is the only major drug for which the federal government controls the only legal research supply and for which the government requires a special scientific review.
Despite these limitations, fourteen states have legalized the medicinal use of marijuana, most recently New Jersey. Some are even beginning to debate going further and decriminalizing marijuana altogether. States’ fiscal woes are only likely to reinforce this trend as legislators consider the potential revenue stream taxing legal marijuana could provide.
The WSJ editorial page was pathologically hostile to any discussion of drug legalization under the late Bob Bartley. Under Paul Gigot, however, the Journal has broadened its range of published opinions and has even begun to publish the occasional pro-decriminalization op-ed piece. The most recent was this piece last week by a New Jersey psychiatrist. Could a call for decriminalization from within GOP ranks be far behind?
bobc says:
I beleive medical marijuana has real benefits. I am also pro-legalization (and pro-use). I oppose the medical marijuana systems in California and Denver. I have seen it used too often as a way for people to aquire recreational drugs. I feel it is an immoral exploitation of something set up to help people.
January 19, 2010, 9:38 amseattle law student says:
That would be a pleasant surprise. I’ve assumed that many if not most members of the leadership of the GOP(broadly defined) hold this view in private. I’ve just also assumed that for the GOP the perceived political advantage of being the party that was tough on crime was worth the slight betrayal of the principles of personal freedom on this issue. Just as only Nixon had the anti-communist credentials to travel to China, it has been the case for a while (IMHO) that only the GOP can end the so-called “war on drugs.”
January 19, 2010, 10:12 amMark N. says:
The restrictions on research are really bizarre. Even if you’re anti-decriminalization, it’s hard to argue that marijuana is more dangerous than, say, cocaine, a drug that researchers do not have nearly as much trouble getting access to.
January 19, 2010, 10:26 amA. Criminal says:
…[DEA] more concerned about abuse than potential benefits …
Surely one jests or is incredibly gullible. The sociopaths at the DEA are only concerned about maintaining their “turf.”
I have seen it used too often as a way for people to aquire recreational drugs.
All you have to do in CO is tell some bogus doctor that “my whatever hurts at night”, pay him off, then pay off the state ($90) and you’re all set. No medical exam and no medical records.
I feel it is an immoral exploitation of something set up to help people.
I gather you’re referring to the doctors and the state of CO (or CA). They’re just parasites.
The restrictions on research are really bizarre.
Since when is censorship by totalitarian-leaning gov’t orgs bizarre or unusual?
January 19, 2010, 10:28 amKen Arromdee says:
It sounds like you
1) support medical marijuana
2) recognize that “medical” marijuana in Colorado is used for non-medical purposes
Okay, how do we get 1 without 2?
January 19, 2010, 10:48 amegd says:
But there are other locations where marijuana research is presumably not prohibited, I imagine that the Netherlands would be an ideal setting to conduct research. Presumably research into the usefulness of marijuana is also allowed in Canada.
Belief in legitimate uses for marijuana appear to be just what they purport to be, an issue of faith. There’s little to no reliable empirical scientific evidence that smoked marijuana is any better than extracted drugs administered in a non-smoked form.
There are certainly plenty of pro-liberty reasons to decriminalize marijuana, cloaking the issue as one of medical necessity is disingenuous.
Although I generally support criminalization of marijuana, I don’t see any rational purpose to prohibit scientific inquiry into its uses. Especially since cocaine is regularly stocked and used in hospitals.
January 19, 2010, 11:08 amFub says:
From TFA:
The prohibitionist talking points haven’t changed in 40 years:
“O NOES! THINK OF THE CHILDRENZ!! IT’S GATEWAY DRUGZ!!! ORGANIZED CRIME WANTS TO LEGALIZE IT SO THEY CAN HOOK YOUR KIDS!!!! WE SHOULD NEVER HAVE LEGALIZED ALCOHOL!!!1!”
The only one they’ve dropped is:
January 19, 2010, 11:11 amOren says:
Read the NJ statute.
January 19, 2010, 11:12 amtheobromophile says:
I don’t have much of an informed opinion on medical marijuana, per se, but I would just be happy if this were to be a state, not a federal, issue.
It’s also rather strange that the federal government restricts access to marijuana that is used for medical research. I can understand restricting access to federal funding, but criminalising the possession of the plants, when used for research, seems beyond asinine.
January 19, 2010, 11:13 amPete says:
As a member of the GOP ranks, I hereby call for an end to the prohibition on marijuana. Legalize it, regulate it, and tax it, and end the insane and ineffective war on drugs that has cost a fortune and has limited so many of our Fourth Amendment rights.
January 19, 2010, 11:13 amSeaDrive says:
I think most everyone understands there are things a politician can’t say out loud. You can’t say that cops are arrogant, or the firemen are lazy. No, no, the cops are the finest and the firemen are the bravest. These “truths” can only be challenged in particular circumstances and by people with certain credentials. As noted above, Nixon/China is a good example of how one person can be in a unique position to initiate a paradigm shift.
I think it’s more usual for the public to get out ahead of the politicians as they are with gay rights issues in general, and same sex marriage in particular. The MJ-using public (which does not include me, by the way) is gaining some ground.
The brouhaha about Bill Clinton not inhaling illustrates the point. He was slapped down because he ignored the “truth.” By Obama’s time, the “truth” had changed.
January 19, 2010, 11:26 amDennis N says:
There is too much money being made, both legally (e.g cops) and illegally for legalization to happen easily. Too many empires would be destroyed.
As far as availability, I asked my then 10 year old grandson how long it would take him to score some pot at school. He’s a really straight arrow. His answer, “Well, I don’t know any of the druggies. Maybe twenty minutes.” So much for the drug laws making the stuff unavailable. It would be harder for him to score a pack of Luckies.
The bureaucratic resistance to liberalization of drug laws reminds me of a comment by a Chicago talk radio host:
“I’ll not be happy until the last Al Qaeda has been hanged from the guts of the last bureaucrat.” I have some sympathy for that statement.
January 19, 2010, 11:37 amJust Dropping By says:
Re the Nixon quote on marijuana legalization: It’s a pity the Nixon tapes weren’t publicly available when Mel Brooks was in his prime. The sheer amount of comedy gold he could have mined out of them would have made Watergate worthwhile.
January 19, 2010, 11:49 amFub says:
Prof. Adler wrote:
Ask and ye shall receive:
Found this morning at Radley Balko’s Agitator.
January 19, 2010, 12:08 pmChris Travers says:
Fub:
I can’t tell if Nixon is antisemitic or whether he is anti-psychiatrist. It makes it sound like there is an international conspiracy of Jewish psychiatrists out there looking to legalize pot….
January 19, 2010, 12:21 pmwm13 says:
I’m a little puzzled: if there is no research, how can a doctor ethically prescribe marijuana? I’m also puzzled as to why, if markets are so efficient and trans-global, there isn’t research done in other countries. Maybe one of the libertarians around here can explain the latter conundrum.
My own view is that “medical marijuana” is a pure scam, advocated by people who actually want to legalize marijuana use for recreational purposes, and whose concern for scientific and medical integrity is so low that they don’t mind perverting the scientific and medical apparatus to achieve their policy goals.
January 19, 2010, 12:24 pmLucius says:
So far we have:
“The WSJ editorial page was pathologically hostile to any discussion of drug legalization…”
“The sociopaths at the DEA…”
“…seems beyond asinine.”
I’m so damned right, someone who prefers a contrary policy (i.e., opposition to marijuana) suffers a psychiatric illness.
Should we soon expect Pot Criminalization is a Mental Disorder: Addled Solutions by Jonathan H. Adler?
Methinks some of thee should take a pill…or, in your cases, a few more tokes.
January 19, 2010, 12:24 pmU.Va. Grad says:
But research is done in other countries, and much of the published research on medical marijuana comes from European universities.
January 19, 2010, 12:34 pmSigivald says:
Well, an official GOP statement about it is pretty unlikely in the near term, but don’t forget that the late Wm. F. Buckley was pro-legalization, and said so more than once in the National Review.
Luciius: It’s unfair to conflate three different people like that (remember that Prof. Adler made only the first statement) to make such a point.
(Further, “asinine” merely means “extremely foolish”, and does not indicate a mental disorder or illness, while Prof. Adler’s “pathological” has an established meaning as “extreme, excessive, or markedly abnormal”.
Given the relative difficulty impose by the Government on marijuana research as opposed to that with other Schedule I drugs [and the presence of marijuana on Schedule I at all, given its properties and effects compared with the other members], it seems justifiable on the facts.
The only facially abusive or inappropriate term was “sociopath”, which was, again, provided by a commenter, not Prof. Adler.)
I assume you’re not going to try and argue that to call a policy very foolish or damagingly excessive is a pseudo-Stalinist “medicalization of dissent” strategy? Because if one goes there, it becomes impossible to “honestly” criticize anything, and from that absurd result we must conclude that the method is absurd.
January 19, 2010, 12:39 pmAdam J says:
Lucius- if you dislike the rhetoric used by your opponents, maybe you should refrain from using similar rhetoric yourself- seems a tad hypocritical.
January 19, 2010, 12:42 pmDilan Esper says:
wm:
that is partly right. but it’s also something else. i am sure that for people with painful, debilitating ilnesses, getting stoned helps them through the day. denying a cancer patient a toke seems needlessly cruel, and one of the problems with moralistic anti-drug types is that their morality is blind to the daily needs of those with grave illness.
it’s like telling the guy in a wheelchair who can’t meet any women that he can’t pay a hooker. there’s something very bad about forcing people in terrible circumstances to make sacrifices so the rest of us can feel more moral.
January 19, 2010, 12:43 pmLucius says:
I will take Sigivald’s criticism that my post unfairly tarred Jonathan Adler with the comments of other posters.
I will not agree with Sigivald’s white-washing of medicalization terms in arguments. Advocates use medical, biological and psychiatric terms for a reason – it attempts to communicate that their adversary’s position is faulty, not due to logic, but due to inherent defects in the adversary himself. Most people have sufficient enough grasp of the meaning of the prefix/suffix “-path-“ (e.g., pathology, pathological, sociopath, etc.) to use it as a rhetorical club, yet insufficient enough comprehension to respect the root’s proper definition and usage.
It is one thing for libertarian adherents to believe that the State should be unable to exercise anti-marijuana powers, but it is another thing entirely to propose that an individual’s anti-marijuana position is utterly illegitimate (re: Bob Bartley).
I’m completely amenable to honest criticism of a position. I’m just not seeing much of that here.
January 19, 2010, 1:32 pmWilliam D Freismuth says:
egd @ 11:08 & wm13 @ 12:24
A few years ago a good friend of mine was diagnosed
with throat cancer. He survived with a combination
of chemo and radiation.
He was unable to take oral Marinol as he threw it up
as soon as he swallowed it. He was able to smoke.
He still smokes to maintain something like a normal
appetite, since the radiation killed his salivary
glands and many of his tastebuds.
If MJ has a positive effect on a sick persons morale,
well to me that’s a feature not a bug.
Will Freismuth
January 19, 2010, 1:32 pmChris Travers says:
Really? I always thought that “asinine” meant “like an ass” (as in the animal), so “foolish, stupid, uncivil, and ill-tempered.”
January 19, 2010, 2:02 pmChris Travers says:
(BTW, I agree that the DEA’s position is beyond asinine even based on the definition I suggest. This is not a new thing of course, as the DEA has been afraid for a long while that merely allowing research would send a message that “it’s not so bad.”
That sounds quite close to admitting that one’s opponents are right. BTW, I support legalization, but would entirely stay away from the stuff myself.)
January 19, 2010, 2:07 pmegd says:
There are a lot of other ways to inhale medications, either by nebulizer, MDI, or DPI. None of them have the hazards of inhaling carcinogenic burning material into your lungs, and they all still deliver the medication.
There are also other methods of administering medication, including intravenous, transdermal, or even intranasal. Again, none of them involve actually burning a drug to get the beneficial effects.
Medical marijuana initiatives are about getting high, not about advancing medicine.
January 19, 2010, 2:18 pmBen says:
An unlikely champion for pot decriminalization in the GOP has already emerged: Tom Tancredo.
January 19, 2010, 2:24 pmChris Travers says:
When I get bronchitis, the one thing that REALLY works to shorten the illness and restore productivity is smoking a plant called mullein (botanical name Verbasculum thapsis). This is the traditional way of administering it. I have tried taking it as a tea, etc. but while it addresses congestion in that form, it doesn’t seem to reduce the length of the illness. Apparently, in this case, it is nice because it deposits a combination of medically active compounds, including some which are strongly anti-inflammatory, in the bronchial tubes.
I tend to smoke 1-2 mullein leaves every time I get sick in this way which is every few years. Very occasionally I use the same method to treat asthma (a quarter of a mullein leaf will usually relieve asthma for the better part of a day and with fewer side effects than I get from an inhaler– with asthma though I usually follow up with tea since this lengthens the effect substantially).
Personally I don’t see a problem with smoking something occasionally for medical purposes. Mullein doesn’t get me high. Smoking it, however, is medicinally helpful in some cases. It is also entirely legal.
I would note that tobacco is carcinogenic even when not smoked (chewing tobacco is carcinogenic too). I would want to see specific links between a specific plant in medical doses and increased cancer rates before assuming it causes cancer.
January 19, 2010, 2:27 pmLindsey Abelard says:
The Economist (back when it was still good) had a well-balanced reasoned article in summer of 2001 on drug legalization. If you can find it, it is well worth reading. It was balanced presentation with both pros and cons, one significant con was the argument that legalization would result in a 5X increase in the number of drug users, that was based on rational argument rather than emotive yammering. The article came out in favor of legalization, but recognized significant problems that would have to be dealt with in the event of such legalization. This article was about all drugs, not just marijuana.
Even though I am in favor of drug legalization, I recognize legitimate arguments against it. For one, the addict population will certainly increase. It might not increase by 5 times, but it will most certainly double or triple. A legitimate argument against the legalization of marijuana, brought up by Steve Sailor, is that people who smoke pot tend to become lazy and do we really need any more lazy people in this society?
My problem with the opponents of drug legalization is that, instead of presenting reasoned arguments, they present mostly emotive responses based on irrationality. This undermines their credibility and reinforces the case for legalization.
January 19, 2010, 2:35 pmPintler says:
Indeed. They were certainly willing to prescribe morphine and antidepressants when my father entered hospice care. At that point, why not prescribe magic mushrooms, LSD, cocaine, heroin, meth, or anything else the patient wants. What’s the worry, that people are going to become hooked and stop being productive members of society?
FWIW, my father refused the antidepressants and put off the morphine as long as he could; he wanted to enjoy the life he had with as clear a mind as possible. But if someone has a different preference, let them be.
January 19, 2010, 2:41 pmDonald says:
A Republican delegate in the Virginia legislature has proposed two marijuana bills for the legislative session just underway.
Del. Morgan is a 79-year-old pharmacist from rural Gloucester, Va. He’s been in the state legislature since 1980.
One bill would essentially render simple possession of marijuana a civil offense, punishable by a fine of up to $500 (the bill would also raise the threshold amounts for felony distribution charges, and create a presumption of personal use in small home cultivation cases).
The other bill would expand Virginia’s very limited (and totally ineffectual) provisions for medical use (the law currently requires a valid prescription, which no doctor can give; CA circumvents this by requiring only a “recommendation”).
January 19, 2010, 2:50 pmJohn Neff says:
The Iowa Pharmacy Board has held a series of public hearings on the technical question about the proper classification if marijuana. In particular is it a dangerous drug and does it have any legitimate medical uses.
I attended the hearing at the University of Iowa Medical School where most of the testimony was by doctors and medical researchers. The doctors were unanimous that MJ is not dangerous and my take was there was a consensus that MJ had limited legitimate medical uses.
I also concluded that the doctors did not like MJ smoke because it was a mixture of beneficial and dangerous chemicals and there was no practical way to control the dosage. The other serious drawbacks were the lack of controlled clinical trials (it turns out there is much more research on MJ than I realized but the results were mixed) and the problems of medical liability.
One of my friends a retired pharmacologist studied the chemistry of MJ and he got his samples by walking around the UI campus and collecting the MJ that was growing wild. I suppose it had a rather low THC content but obviously served his purposes.
I was also interested to learn that the federal government grows MJ to supply medical MJ to a small set of remaining patients under an old federal law. On one hand they claim that MJ has no legitimate medical uses and on the other they operate the only legal facility for growing medical MJ.
January 19, 2010, 2:52 pmChris Travers says:
BTW, part of the problem with the argument that “it causes cancer” in the absence of real epidemiological data is that we are CONSTANTLY consuming carcinogens all the time. Mushrooms you buy at the store contain them. So does peanut butter. Gumbo file contains significant quantities as well.
Against this carcinogenic background, we also take into our bodies, often from the same things that contain carcinogens, cancer-inhibiting compounds as well. Just because some compounds CAN cause cancer doesn’t mean that they will.
Tobacco smoke is connected to very specific forms of lung cancer (such as small cell lung cancer), and other uses of tobacco are connected to other forms of cancer, but these are generally very rare outside the population of tobacco users. In short, we can say epidemiologically that almost EVERY case of small-cell lung cancer is caused by tobacco. While there are a number of studies which suggest that marijuana use theoretically can cause cancer, there haven’t been good studies which have shown that it actually does.
Contrast that with peanut butter cancer risks. For most people the risk of cancer from ordinary consumption of peanut butter seems to be negligible and may in fact result in a net DECREASE in cancer rates. But for some people have a significant risk from consumption of peanut butter (and this risk is interestingly genetic).
January 19, 2010, 2:53 pmDonald says:
@John Neff:
Here are a couple of stories about Irvin Rosenfeld, one of 3 or 4 people now living who receive federally-grown MMJ pursuant to a doctor’s prescription:
Irvin Rosenfeld Has Received Over 115,000 Joints from the Federal Government (ABC News)
How Marijuana Became Legal [for a handful of people] (CNN / Fortune Mag)
January 19, 2010, 3:03 pmbillb says:
Vis-a-vis the smoking is bad for you angle: there’s always vaporizers for heating the MJ to an appropriate temperature to liberate the volatile compounds without burning anything. This is the same process that’s used in the new(ish) e-cigarettes. With a vaporizer, you can inhale your MJ w/o smoking it. I understand this to be an exceptional way to consume MJ, though I have no first-hand experience.
January 19, 2010, 3:13 pmOren says:
Insofar as an individual asserts that his anti-marijuana position ought to have coercive effect on the choices of others, I consider it illegitimate or at least misguided.
There is a world of different between being against smoking marijuana and being in favor of coercive enforcement of that preference against others.
January 19, 2010, 3:28 pmCurt Fischer says:
What is this distinction between “legitimate” or “medical” uses and “recreational” uses of MJ that everyone keeps bringing up?
Suppose I drink one glass of red wine a day. Do I have to have heart disease before my wine consumption is “medical”? What if I enjoy drinking the wine too much? Is it then “recreational”? The whole idea that we can distinguish “legitimate” or “medical” uses of MJ from the purely recreational is refuted by the data: there isn’t any (data) to let us reach a decision one way or the other. Anyone who is “for” these kinds of uses but “against” recreational use is making a pure belief-system-based value judgement that is unsupported by any firm evidence.
I thought that was one the main points of this post!
January 19, 2010, 3:38 pmA. Criminal says:
Being libertarianish, that’s not an issue to me. I don’t think any adults should require the permission of some other person to injest anything at all: heroin, antibiotics, paint thinner, whatever. Kinda like Mexico (tho they exclude narcotics).
And, BTW, there’s no constitutional basis for the concept of “prescription drugs” or the nanny-role of doctors: I don’t recall seeing “doctor” or “medicine” mentioned anywhere in the document.
I didn’t see the actual law mentioned at that link; the description there (and in one of the links from there) make the NJ law sound about like the CO law with the exception of how the dispenseries are run.
Oh, no, not at all. I call them sociopaths because they act like sociopaths: dishonesty (witholding information, as mentioned here, is a minor example) and harming other other people on purpose. Besides, the “drug war” has been based on lies since it’s beginning the 19-teens (or 1930s, whatever you want).
The medical thing’s kinda interesting. I know several people doing it properly (for migraines and muscular distrophy[sic?]) but another guy who’s crippled from polio and has had stomach cancer doesn’t want his name on any lists.
January 19, 2010, 3:51 pmTed says:
If laziness is reason to criminalize marijuana, is hyperactivity — or what ever term you choose as an antonym to “lazy” — a reason to legalize meth and cocaine? I don’t know about you, but I think I have the right to choose to be lazy or not, I don’t need you or the government to choose for me.
I’m sure this is part of the DEA’s rationale. But I think a scientific consensus that marijuana is not particular dangerous scares the hell outta the DEA. I suspect a very large portion of the law enforcement world would become obsolete very quickly if marijuana was decriminalized. Although I don’t have specific statistics, I suspect it is by far the most widely used illegal drug in the US. No one wants to support research that undermines their raison d’etre.
My two cents: MJ is considerably less harmful than alcohol. From my brief experience in criminal defense, drug-related crime, such as DUI, domestic violence, assaults, and property crimes would decrease substanitally along with the legalization of MJ. No one beats their wife because they get too high; after all, “it makes you lazy.”
As for the argument that more teenagers will use it, or that it is a gateway drug, I would think that few kids try MJ before alcohol, caffeine, or sugar (tobacco seems to be very uncool at the moment). Uh, maybe correlation is not causation? I’ll bet the number of kids using sugar is greater than those using caffeine, which is greater than those using alcohol, which is greater than those using MJ, which is greater than those using meth, which is greater than those using heroine, etc. It seems to me that choice to use drugs is personality driven more than “Marijuana made me do it.”
In fact, I wonder if anti-drug “spin” comparing MJ to “harder” drugs doesn’t actually undermine the credibility of that “information.” Once kids realize that the TV ad with the frying “brain” or the deflating BFF is just BS, they might actually try harder drugs. “Yikes, Tommy! Smoking that joint was nothing like frying my brain in a frying pan! Maybe huffing spray paint won’t hurt me either!”
January 19, 2010, 3:54 pmChris Travers says:
As I said, “we can’t research it or people will doubt that we are right” is dangerously close to “we know we are wrong anyway, but don’t question our authority!”
January 19, 2010, 4:16 pmSmarty says:
It should be a FEDERALIST call to decriminalize all but interstate and international transport. If you grow it in Oregon and Smoke it in Oregon, why should that be an issue for the Feds? It is not a power enumerated to the federal gov’t.
January 19, 2010, 4:32 pmTheNino85 says:
Is there anyone out there that actually believes that anyone in the medicinal marijuana crowd is even remotely serious?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m completely for revoking arbitrary restrictions on substances that have as few harmful side effects as a can of Coke. But the “medicinal marijuana” movement is so painfully easy to see through.
Really, on some level, it’s sad that we have to convince people that something is *good* for you in order to get the federal government to back off legislating.
January 19, 2010, 5:05 pmCrunchy Frog says:
Ryan Waxx:
Usually I agree with you but…
What the hell are you talking about?
Exactly how do you get a successful legalization vote? Do we have federal referenda now, and nobody told me?
As long as mj is a schedule 1 drug, everything else is pointless.
January 19, 2010, 5:12 pmOren says:
Did you even RTFA? In NJ the doctor must certify that you have an ailment on the approved list (AIDS, MS, glaucoma). In CO, doctors are not restricted to the approved list of real ailments but may also perscribe for
Which, in practice, means basically anything.
And still others might have multiple sclerosis, for which codeine is a terrible remedy.
You must have missed Holder’s announcement — the DOJ (DEA/FBI) will not go after medical users who are in strict compliance with State law. So the distinctions between the States matters.
On the other hand, if you want wholesale decrim/legalization, you might want to work on lobbying a Congress that is nearly wholesale against the issue.
January 19, 2010, 5:33 pmRicardo says:
Doctors prescribe medicines “off label” all the time. Is that unethical in your view also?
There is a reason why research scientists and clinicians are two separate groups of people. Practicing doctors are allowed to use their own judgment and experience in deciding what treatment is best for a patient. If a doctor has a patient with severe and untreatable nausea who seems to get better within 15 or 30 minutes of smoking marijuana, of course the doctor is going to tell him to keep doing it with all the caveats concerning potential harm.
January 19, 2010, 5:54 pmChris Travers says:
[deleted due to on wrong thread]
January 19, 2010, 6:05 pmOren says:
Also I think it’s hilarious to be concerned about the negative effects of MJ on people that are nearly certain to die from, say, MS.
The level of negative long-term health effects that we tolerate from a drug should absolutely be measured with respect to the life expectancy of the patient. Those with terminal diseases should be more or less free to take drugs that might well kill them seeing as they are already about to die.
January 19, 2010, 6:12 pmChris Travers says:
Did anyone else notice the (humorous?) assertion in Gonzales v. Raich that legalization was inevitable?
Sort of “where goes California, there goes the rest of the nation?”
January 19, 2010, 6:20 pmChrisTS says:
TheNino85 says:
A number of commenters have sounded this horn. I’m not sure what the ‘crowd’ is or who is supposed to be part of the ‘scam,’ but the fact is that there are people for whom mj – smoked, sipped, or atomized (?) – is the most helpful ‘drug’ we have.
My own objection to current law is that it is inconsistent (you many drink your liver to pudding and smoke tobacco until your lungs turn black, but you may not touch the dreaded mj) and ineffective. I’m also inclined to think the ‘gateway’ effect is largely due to criminalization. When I was young, people moved from pot to other things primarily because the other things were pushed by the same guys who sold the pot.
But to suggest that no one has any genuine concern those whom mj does and can help or any broader interest in finding out what the heck it is/can do, is facile and unfounded.
Like William F., I had a friend who struggled with cancer and who could only find relief in his last days through mj. Unlike William’s friend, mine did not survive. But he told me a few weeks before he died that he was glad two of his students and his sons had ‘made’ him try the pot. It had made that last month bearable, and he was able to say good bye to his family and friends with the calm and good humor we all cherished in him. And he was angry, at that late stage of his life, to discover that the ‘government’ had deceived him about mj and to know that there were/are others whom it could help but who were denied it.
So, take your assumptions about what ‘everyone-who-says-X-is-a-liar,’ stuff it in a pipe, smoke it, and pause to reflect a bit.
January 19, 2010, 6:31 pmDavid Sucher says:
Follow the money.
Governments are tapped out while narco-crooks are making billions.
Can nature abhor a vacuum? It seems to me that a confluence of interests will eventually break the pathological mania — marijuana is as harmless as alcohol, narco-criminals are undermining Mexico, states need moolah, libertarian rights etc.
January 19, 2010, 6:36 pmOren says:
There is almost always evidence of success for a drug before a bona-fide clinical trial. That evidence may be less ironclad and require followup but it is still evidence.
January 19, 2010, 7:14 pmArthurKirkland says:
We “permit” people to drink beer, operate automobiles that exceed the speed limit by a factor of three, attend church, smoke (or suck) tobacco, eat fast-food saturated fat delivery vehicles, carry firearms and other weapons, gamble at casinos, enter fourth marriages, wander through public woodlands with a half-million other armed (and in many cases drunken) people, and in general engage in all manner of activities presenting a blend of good and bad attributes, for them and for society. I doubt marijuana — particularly with technology’s help, with respect to healthful consumption methods and detection of impaired drivers — would be substantially worse than anything on that list.
I have found positioning on the criminalization of marijuana to be a useful of barometer of people. I encounter some whose views on abortion conflict with mine but whose thinking seems reasonable and valuable, at times to the point of causing me to reconsider aspects of the debate. Same with guns (from both sides), government surveillance and/or secrecy, tax policy, climate change, energy policy and most other issues. Except marijuana. After excepting the reflexive, set-in-their-ways, never-really-thought-it-through elderly, if I encounter someone who is comfortable with arresting and imprisoning people for marijuana offenses, I generally am going to find that I disagree with that person on most issues and, in addition, consider that person a jerk. The more adamant or aggressive the person’s disdain of liberty and decency on this point (sometimes to the point of denying the sick any benefit marijuana might offer), the bigger the jerk.
Not infallible, but one of the better, if not the best, among rules of thumb.
January 19, 2010, 7:20 pmFran A says:
Currently, I support tightly controlled medical use. Also, I would be willing to support a “grow your own” law. But, before we cut loose on legalization, we desperately need to understand what is truth and what is fiction.
January 19, 2010, 7:37 pmDavid Sucher says:
“…before we cut loose on legalization, we desperately need to understand what is truth and what is fiction.”
What questions, do you believe, are still unresolved? What truth and what fiction are needed? What scientific studies are necessary?
January 19, 2010, 7:41 pmTed says:
Does your response mean to suggest that there is no evidence supporting the medical usefulness of MJ? Don’t the testimonials by other posters provide, at a minimum, anecdotal evidence of such usefulness? And if you mean that there is no U.S. closed-study-based scientific evidence, is that a reason support MJ as a schedule 1 substance and restrict its production, distribution, and use? After all, there is no U.S. closed-study-based scientific evidence that MJ is harmful either.
January 19, 2010, 7:54 pmFran A says:
Unresolved?
Long and short term effects. What it may or may not do to developing brains. What it may or may not do to regular brains. I was in the workplace in the late 60s/early 70s when young post-college people first began to use – I have seen some bad cases of the “don’t give a damns” among heavy users. I have also known people in their 40s who have used it since college on a recreational basis who seem to have no harm. I want to understand the difference and the limits. Whether we would develop pot-a-holics at the same or a different rate than alcoholics.
January 19, 2010, 7:54 pmRandy says:
egd: “None of them have the hazards of inhaling carcinogenic burning material into your lungs, and they all still deliver the medication.”
There is no evidence that smoking MJ causes cancer. In fact, there is precious little evidence that MJ causes any ill health effects, either long term or short term.
And yes, it is possible to deliver the effects of MJ in ways other than smoking (although some people dispute this), but why should you care? If a person wants to smoke MJ rather than take it intravenously, so what? Medicine is okay only if you don’t get high? I’m sorry, but that would eliminate a whole category of painkillers out there, including morphine.
I suppose you would approve of drinking a glass of red wine each day for people with heart disease, provided it was purely non alcoholic. Otherwise, red wine should be outlawed for its medicinal purposes, right?
January 19, 2010, 7:55 pmDavid Sucher says:
I think it is pointless to do more research. Based on common knowledge, it seems to me that anyone can read the literature that one can immediately stipulate that excessive use of marijuana can produce all sorts of undesirable side-effects.
Why prevent decriminalization prior to study?
January 19, 2010, 8:05 pmTed says:
An interesting generalization. Though I think what a person’s view on marijuana laws betrays most is his position on government intrusion. IMO, this blog is generally slanted to the conservative right. But there appears to be heavy libertarian traits amongst its subscribers. This post manifests that tendency more than most.
But yeah, I agree with you. People who support the criminalization, or illegalization, of MJ are, almost always, jerks.
January 19, 2010, 8:06 pmKen Arromdee says:
As I’ve said before, I’m pretty close to libertarian. I’d support making marijuana as legal as tobacco (with the same rules about exposing others to second-hand smoke.) I don’t, however, support pretending that you want it for “medicinal purposes” when 99 out of 100 people who say that just want to get high, and are hiding behind the 1 out of 100 who are actually cancer or glaucoma patients or whatever.
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January 19, 2010, 8:30 pmKen Arromdee says:
Medicine can be okay if you get high, but the odds are against it. Given human nature, someone who really wants to get high is pretty likely to exaggerate how good it is as medicine, because their conflict of interest affects their judgment. (Or sometimes, because they’re deliberately lying.) If you don’t have any motivation to take the medicine other than to treat illness, it’s much more likely that your claim to need it is genuine.
January 19, 2010, 8:39 pmNoah David Simon says:
dude!
January 19, 2010, 8:39 pmKen Arromdee says:
“Everyone who says X is a liar” doesn’t mean that literally every single individual is a liar. It means that the liars far outnumber the honest men. Are you seriously claiming that your friend with cancer is a typical supporter of medical marijuana?
January 19, 2010, 8:42 pmRicardo says:
It seems to me he is the kind of supporter who actually counts — the one with skin in the game. Unlike the vast majority of people on both sides of the issue.
January 19, 2010, 9:17 pmeyesay says:
SeaDrive wrote,
I’m not sure what you mean by “slapped down,” but I think the most common reaction in the media was along the lines of criticizing Clinton’s middle path instead of either righteously enjoying it or righteously not smoking it at all. In defense of Clinton, I can easily envision a circle of friends in the 1960s passing around a joint, and those not wishing to get high taking a ceremonial toke and passing it along, just to be part of the group. Clinton’s quote never bothered me and I think too much was made of it, but whatever was made of it, it didn’t affect the election outcome, and Clinton won anyway.
January 19, 2010, 9:25 pmRicardo says:
On Republicans and decriminalization, it’s my experience that many Republicans are privately in favor of decriminalization or even legalization. Yet this has been true for the past 15 years and I haven’t seen any serious movement by the Republican Party in any state or at the federal level for this. Ron Paul spoke openly of ending the war on drugs but he is a relative outsider.
It’s noteworthy that even a relatively open-minded guy like Rudy Giuliani instructed NYC police to arrest and book anyone caught with marijuana in the city. It’s noteworthy because marijuana is already decriminalized in New York State. Marijuana possession is a civil infraction or violation in New York and police are apparently under no legal obligation to arrest (as opposed to issuing a citation) anyone they catch.
The “Nixon in China” factor is probably outweighed by the fear of humiliation of being outflanked by Democrats on such a “tough on crime” issue.
January 19, 2010, 9:32 pmRicardo says:
According to Hitchens based on what friends of his who were at Oxford at the time said, Clinton is apparently allergic to smoke. On the other hand, he can certainly knows how to enjoy a brownie…
January 19, 2010, 9:35 pmt says:
前列腺炎
January 19, 2010, 9:46 pmChris Travers says:
I dunno. I would never smoke the stuff myself, just because so much of what I do depends on short-term memory.
I do think medical marijuana is important because it gets to the heart of irrationally classifying the drug as having no medical uses. It is an important step in restoring sanity.
Note that I can grow opium poppies in my flower garden legally. What is so dangerous about C. sativa that is not dangerous about P. somniferum?
January 19, 2010, 9:58 pmDave Rabbitt says:
Marijuana was made illegal to protect the commercial business interests of the petroleum and pharmaceutical industries..
January 19, 2010, 11:15 pmLN says:
Who cares? People suffering needlessly is an important issue, and keeping people suffering just because some other people are going to get away with some fun is not an intellectually serious position.
On top of that, let’s say that the political landscape is such that people who want to legalize marijuana for recreational purposes need to focus on medicinal uses. If you don’t disagree with the legalization of marijuana, why make a big deal about tactics? Do libertarians normally spend a lot of time complaining about how most voters who support tax cuts don’t really have a grand political philosophy, but are just selfishly taking what seems to be a good deal for themselves? If a libertarian opposes health-care reform on libertarian grounds, does he make a big deal about how insurance companies aren’t really libertarian, just self-interested?
I don’t think I’ve ever seen this grandstanding about the “right reasons” on any other political issue.
January 20, 2010, 1:26 amOren says:
While I agree in principle, let’s suppose that we don’t have the full “menu” of policy options to play with. In particular, let’s posit that decriminalization is already on the books for small amounts but possession/transfer/cultivation is heavily criminal. This is or was the situation in most liberal/libertine States (AK, CA, OR, CO, MN, NY, MA, ME, VT). Let’s further posit that your preferred policy is deeply unpopular with the electorate (consider, e.g. the 60-40 failure of CO initiative 44).
This puts you in a bind — you don’t want to give 99 people the incentive to come up with “medical” excuses to get pot. On the other hand, you don’t want to materially screw over the glaucoma patient because everyone else is a jerk. The question of which is the lesser evil is not an easy one.
January 20, 2010, 2:20 amHSofAUS says:
You might be interested to know that here, in Australia, we don’t have legalised medicinal marijuana. And yet the offence for possession or outdoor growing, at least here in the state of South Australia, carries only a small fine (for non commercial quantities). In addition it is very rarely enforced.
So it seems that we do not have an extreme ideological concern about the drug but yet will not allow for the use of it in medicine.
January 20, 2010, 2:29 amKen Arromdee says:
Voters who support tax cuts for themselves are normally motivated by the benefits those tax cuts would give them as written. They are not normally motivated by the benefits the tax cuts would give them based on their plans to cheat the tax cut law.
January 20, 2010, 3:34 amKen Arromdee says:
Because lying (and lawbreaking) special interest groups aren’t much better better than lying (and lawbreaking) politicians.
January 20, 2010, 3:39 amRicardo says:
There are two different claims. One is that pro-medical marijuana advocates want to set in motion a slippery slope that leads to legalization. The other, which you appear to be making, is that the advocates (and the voters as well?) actually want to be able to game the system themselves by getting bogus doctors’ notes so they can get high legally.
One reason this is silly is that in California — the original medical marijuana state — simple possession is already decriminalized and has been for over 30 years. If someone lacks the social connections to find someone who will sell to them, they can surely make those connections by joining a medical marijuana advocacy group which, by your argument, must be teeming with potheads already.
Actually pushing for a change in the law doesn’t make any sense for self-interested people. If you actually think about it, simple possession is a mere misdemeanor already. If you want to get a fraudulent doctor’s note you’re putting yourself in much greater legal peril than if you just buy from the usual sources.
January 20, 2010, 4:00 amFub says:
If the tax cut law permits tax credit for pet clothing, and you buy a doggie T-shirt for Fido, you aren’t cheating. One might think the law offers a ridiculous tax break, but those who use it aren’t cheating. They are following the tax code.
If the medical cannabis law permits possession and use upon an MD’s recommendation for pain relief, and your MD recommends you use it to relieve the pain of your hangover headaches, you likewise aren’t cheating. One may think the law too permissive, but you are still following the law.
CA’s law (H&S Section 11362.5) contains a clause permitting possession, cultivation and use for “any other illness for which marijuana provides relief.”
It also provides that “no physician in this state shall be punished, or denied any right or privilege, for having recommended marijuana to a patient for medical purposes.”
Those who avail themselves the protection of that law are not cheating. They are following the law.
You may think those provisions too permissive, but 55% of CA’s voters thought otherwise.
January 20, 2010, 7:17 amLN says:
Who cares? “Oh no, those kids are going to get high! Just like that! It’s so unfair!”
January 20, 2010, 8:30 amOren says:
Just as an aside, I think if Californians knew then what they know now, they would have opted for slightly more stringent language.
January 20, 2010, 11:13 amKen Arromdee says:
By this reasoning there shouldn’t be any fraudulent doctor’s notes worth speaking of. I don’t know about CA, but from what’s reported above it seems like CO is full of fraudulent doctor’s notes.
January 20, 2010, 11:42 amKen Arromdee says:
The doctors aren’t prescribing marijuana to relieve an illness; they’re only pretending to do so. So they aren’t following this law. It’s just that there’s no way to prove it.
If a law said you get a tax credit for pet clothing, and I claimed that a new coat of paint on my car is pet clothing, I’d be cheating, even if the law was written in a way that made it impossible to gather evidence to prosecute me.
January 20, 2010, 11:47 amChris Travers says:
Would Australia seek to prohibit R&D of Cannabis-derived medicines? For example would the government seek to prohibit the development of a THC inhaler on that basis?
I ask this because medicine has changed significantly in the century or so since Wellcome Burroughs & Co first started marketing their Tabloid(R) products (the trademark has been abandoned, of course but it WAS registered).* In particular the concern about fixed doses has become a much larger concern.
* I have a copy of Henry Wellcome’s memoranda for his 1910 lecture to the AMA on 10th century Anglo-Saxon medical techniques. The advertising section is quite interesting… Actually the whole work is very interesting, but only the advertising section is relevant here.
Even at that time though, most medical compounds were primarily herbal in their base though great care was going into making the dosages fixed at certain amounts of active chemicals.
The rise of the fixed dose pharmaceutical tablet (first marketed as WB&Co Tabloid brand products) has changed the basic process under which medicine is generally allowed to be marketed.
Wellcome Burroughs & Co was bought by Glaxo, to become Glaxo Wellcome, which later merged with Kline Laboratories.
January 20, 2010, 1:09 pmChris Travers says:
So now you have moved from criticizing proponents of medical marijuana for trying to get high to criticizing doctors. I think that leap is unjustified, having discussed this issue with some in the medical profession.
January 20, 2010, 1:14 pmChris Travers says:
My reason for asking this is that herbal medicines in the US are generally regulated as dietary supplements, not medicines per se. While this weakens the case for medical marijuana, my main point is that one can have one without the other depending on general requirements.
January 20, 2010, 1:15 pmDilan Esper says:
Marijuana was made illegal to protect the commercial business interests of the petroleum and pharmaceutical industries..
This isn’t really true. Marijuana is a Schedule I narcotic because there were a couple of media panics (one of which, I have to admit, was partially fed by and capitalized on by my grandfather, with his film ‘Marijuana: Weed With Roots in Hell’) involving allegedly licentious young people smoking the demon weed and doing crazy things.
Indeed, it’s probably easier to understand the history of narcotics prohibition if you think about how there was a popular push for alcohol prohibition. There was simply a tremendous anxiety that people were taking or imbibing dangerous, family wrecking, irresponsible, intoxicating substances. It happens that the demand for alcohol was so widespread that eventually there was a call to repeal prohibition, whereas the constituencies for other narcotics were not as large or powerful. But there was a strong, religiously-motivated movement pushing temperence, and drugs AND alcohol were demonized.
(By the way, there were also parallel fears about adulterations and quack medicines. Essentially, the entire “drug” industry had a very bad reputation in the late 19th Century, with lots of intoxication and fraud and bad results and very little effective treatment. One of the major tenets of Progressivism was to clean all this up. I don’t think you can really see the drive to criminalize narcotics as separate from this project.)
January 20, 2010, 1:34 pmChris Travers says:
Well, there were a couple of issues that need to be mentioned to put that comment in context.
The first is that there was a high degree of variable quality between pharmaceutical companies. Some (Burroughs Wellcome & Co and Merk for example) were seemingly quite good. Others were engaging in outright fraud.
The second is that there was a major push among the reputable pharmaceutical companies to improve both safety and consistent doses in medicines, neither of which was a trivial problem given the tendency to prescribe things like mercury or petroleum, and the fact that most other medicines were plant-based (and hence consistent doses become a bigger problem). The upshot of this tendency was the fact that pharmaceutical tablets (first pushed by BW&Co under their Tabloid trademark) over raw plant matter and elixers. This trend eventually required a move towards refined and synthesized drugs instead of plant matter. One of the big difficulties one runs into here, however, is the fact that these were done in part to improve stature and lock in markets. They had both pro- and anti-competitive elements.
On the pro-competitive side, this meant better quality and more consistent dosage. On the negative side, this meant ever-increasing barriers to entry.
So I don’t doubt what you are saying about the politics, but I think it also has to be seen against the backdrop of advances in medicine that were going on at the time. I am not entirely sure one can separate the Progressive drive to “clean up the pharmaceutical industry” from the desire of the leaders of that industry to forestall competition.
January 20, 2010, 2:01 pmKen Arromdee says:
The proponents who would buy from the doctors violate the law too.
January 20, 2010, 2:05 pmDilan Esper says:
So I don’t doubt what you are saying about the politics, but I think it also has to be seen against the backdrop of advances in medicine that were going on at the time. I am not entirely sure one can separate the Progressive drive to “clean up the pharmaceutical industry” from the desire of the leaders of that industry to forestall competition.
Well, can you ever?
Look, whenever you enact health and safety regulations, you create barriers to entry. The Pure Food and Drug laws were no exception. Nonetheless, they were a response to a real public outcry, not just special pleading from the pharma lobby. Remember, there were also a lot of industry players who stood to lose from these laws, and even those who were protected from competition would also have to face increased regulations that would take a bite out of profits.
I think there’s a tendency among some libertarian and conservative types to confuse the fact that industry stands to benefit from the protectionist aspect of regulation (which is often the case) with that being the major motivator for the regulation (which is much more rarely the case). Certainly the latter happens– Wisconsin legislators, after all, weren’t really concerned about a fraud on the public when they prohibited the sale of yellow-colored oleomargarine. But it isn’t the norm– the norm is that you have a public demand for regulation and then jockeying by industry to shape the regulatory environment in favorable ways. And that is surely how our drug laws have evolved.
January 20, 2010, 2:30 pmChris Travers says:
They don’t buy from the doctors. They get a prescription which prevents criminal sanctions on the part of those who sell the MJ to them.
January 20, 2010, 2:31 pmFub says:
CA docs aren’t prescribing anything. The law does not permit prescription. The law provides for recommendation. The law further protects docs from any state professional licensing punishment based only on recommending cannabis for the relief it offers for the illness.
I think your argument is with the breadth of the term “illness”. If a patient presents a doc with a symptom that indicates an illness, and the patient wants it relieved, the doc is not “pretending” if he recommends cannabis to relieve the symptom. If the patient isn’t actually suffering the reported symptom, then the patient is pretending, not the doc.
If the law is written so broadly that painting a car is considered clothing a pet under the law, then you aren’t cheating.
The CA law is very broad in the rights it confers to patients and docs. Neither are cheating if they avail themselves of those rights. One can disagree with the breadth of the rights conferred, but that’s a different argument from saying that the docs or patients are cheating.
January 20, 2010, 2:42 pmChris Travers says:
Yet it is hard to separate the rhetoric in the BW&Co advertisements from the political rhetoric of the Progressives. My suspicion is that these fed on eachother to a very considerable extent (at least having access to some period advertising).
January 20, 2010, 2:43 pmChris Travers says:
BTW, question: Is the US allowed to decriminalize MJ or would that be a default on our obligations under various treaties?
January 20, 2010, 3:16 pmDilan Esper says:
1. Does it really surprise you that industry would latch onto arguments that were basically persuasive to the public? I suspect if some sort of carbon-reduction policy ever catches on with the public, industry groups and corporations that stand to benefit or who wish to shape it in particular ways will advertise how they support “our greener future” or whatever.
If you know anything at all about the state of medicine in the late 19th Century (medicine shows, patent medicines that didn’t do anything or, worse, were harmful, adulterated food and drugs, little scientific testing of medical claims made by pharma companies and device producers, etc.), you’d understand why I say there was a huge public outcry for some sort of regulation. Given that, you’d expect that the industry players who stood to benefit and who wanted influence over the shape of regulation would come on board, and they did.
2. I suspect we could decriminalize possession without defaulting on any treaty obligations. But anything relating to distribution would probably run us afoul of SUNT and perhaps some other international agreements.
January 20, 2010, 4:47 pmChris Travers says:
But these weren’t immediately related at first to the real problem. BW&Co marketed tablets of mercury compounds (as treatment for syphilis), tablets containing petroleum as the medically active ingredient (for abdominal pain), etc. well after this trend started, for instance. And they were the reputable guys. Indeed Henry Wellcome pointed to 10th century herbals prescribing the use of petroleum for similar reasons as evidence, not only of the efficacy of consuming petroleum but also of the level of medical knowledge in the 10th century.
Patent medicines were a major problem but it was far from evident to anyone that a large part of early modern medicine really did more harm than good. However, it was the pharma companies at that point (1910 and therabouts) which were really pushing the ideal of scientifically tested medicine. Indeed Wellcome’s AMA lecture memoranda has a substantial advertising section and these include highlighting BW&Co’s efforts at providing consistent dosages. They point out, quite correctly, that this is a very difficult problem to solve where herbal medicines are at issue, and it provides a fair bit of detail as to HOW they were going about solving the problem.
So what I am trying to get at is that the real extent of the problem was unknown to anybody, but further that the ones who knew the most about WHAT needed to be done were the pharma companies and that the main businesses in that industry were pushing for such changes.
one of these days I am going to correlate the remedies advertised in that memorandum with a contemporary edition of the Merk Manual….
I was thinking mostly of SCND. Plain reading suggests that legalizing it would run afoul with the treaty but plenty of intelligent lawyers seem to disagree with eachother on it.
Personally I think the SCND is a very pernicious treaty and think we should withdraw from it. For example, it seems to require that we restrict Native American access to controlled drugs, and it unfairly singles out Quechua peoples in South America.
January 20, 2010, 5:09 pmChrisTS says:
My friend is dead. I have no idea what ‘most’ people who support mj research and use for medical ends believe. I wonder what evidence there is that most such advocates are simply eager to get high? More to the point, who cares why X number of people support medical mj use, so long as 1 person could beneift from it?
I appreciate Ricardo’s point. Some people do have ‘skin in this game.’ I cannot comprehend the interest of those who simply do not want others to have access to mj – for any purpose, medical or ‘recreational’ – in using the criminal law to prevent the satisfaction of those interests.
January 20, 2010, 6:43 pmKen Arromdee says:
Six of one and half dozen of the other. The proponents still will benefit from the law they propose because they intend to violate it. If you’re not getting the prescription for the purpose of curing illness, you’re violating the law; it’s just that the violation is impossible to prove.
January 20, 2010, 10:28 pmBonze Saunders says:
The concerns expressed here about medical marijuana and its possible abuse would be much more persuasive if there were not an epidemic of prescription drug abuse: e.g., this SAMHSA alert from 2003: Trouble in the Medicine Chest (I): Rx Drug Abuse Growing.
These are all “controlled” drugs whose abuse often entails major health consequences–such as sudden death–unlike marijuana abuse.
As for cannabis lacking any legitimate medical uses, who you gonna believe? A “Drug Czar” who is required by law to lie about it, or your lyin’ eyes and ears?
January 21, 2010, 12:10 pmChris Travers says:
Yeah, well, unfortunately the DEA’s record in prosecuting doctors for legitimate medicine has also been quite asinine. See the United States v. Hurwitz.
I have talked with doctors who were attempting to treat folks with serious chronic pain when that case happened. The result is that doctors now have to choose between prosecution and medical malpractice liability. The result is that people with serious chronic pain are often unable to find ANY help at all.
January 21, 2010, 1:06 pmseth says:
while the discussion of the role nascent pharmaceutical companies played in the criminalization of marijuana is more apropos to the topic of the thread, my understanding is that criminalization had much more to do with a racist agenda to inhibit mexican immigration than any baby big pharma concerns over competition from readily available natural remedies. can anyone shed any light on this?
January 21, 2010, 2:29 pmBonze Saunders says:
Ryan Waxx:
Gosh, you’re totally right on here! Of course the criminalization of cannabis use had nothing to do with prejudice against Mexicans! That’s why, when influential worthies alerted us to its horrors, they called it… marihuana… rather than ganja, or bhang, or kif, or dagga, or by its botanical genus… cannabis, which had been widely prescribed for medicinal purposes in America since O’Shaughnessy introduced it into the Western pharmacopeia in 1841.
History is bunk! Quotations from historical sources by Professors of Law published in the so-called “Virginia Law Review” can only be engines of mass distraction from the goal of reinforcing mandates demanded by the highest ideals of our civilization! Don’t click on this link! Ignorance is bliss!
And finally, DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES browse through the “Clinical Pharmacology” sections of drug monographs, where you will find many pharmaceuticals tagged with the (ominous) phrase: “Its mechanism of action is unknown.” Or the “Side Effects” sections: Heaven Forbid!
Because this might trigger a dangerous state of disillusionment, when you consider that THC is one of the best-characterized drugs known to man, and after 40 years of massively-funded efforts to prove it profoundly dangerous, its mechanism of action and side effects are well-known… and relatively benign.
(For all those who are skeptics about the medicinal value of cannabis: why is Marinol a schedule III drug? Is there something magical about synthetic THC?)
January 21, 2010, 6:28 pmseth says:
ryan,
January 22, 2010, 8:45 ami tend to have a pretty high level of respect for the commenters and level of discourse on this blog. as such, when i ask if ‘anyone’ has any information on a specific topic, i tend to omit any sort of qualification that would indicate that when i ask for the input of ‘anyone,’ i am actually looking for the informed perspectives of intelligent individuals. in the future, i’ll be sure to make it clear that ‘anyone’ is not tantamount to any anthropoid who fancies themself a smart ass.
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March 4, 2010, 5:39 am