Scientists Say Government Blocking Medical Marijuana Researc

[CaptinCrunch]

7/22/2004

Several scientists have filed lawsuits against the federal government, charging that the Bush administration is violating federal law by obstructing legitimate medical-marijuana research projects, the Associated Press reported July 20.

The lawsuit contends that the government is delaying applications to grow marijuana for studies that might support medical use of the drug.

"There is an urgent need for an alternative supply of marijuana for medical research," said Lyle Craker, director of the Medicinal Plant Program at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. He said that the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) "maintains a monopoly on research marijuana. Many researchers believe that NIDA's monopoly is an obstacle to getting needed studies done on a timely basis."

Marijuana used in research must come from a federally contracted farm in Mississippi. UMass has been waiting three years to have its application considered to grow marijuana for federally approved researchers. The government also hasn't acted on a one-year-old application from Chemic Laboratories in Canton, Mass., to import 10 grams of marijuana from the Netherlands to research the Volcano Vaporizer, a device that could provide a nonsmoking method for delivering the medicinal value of marijuana to patients.

In addition to NIDA, the lawsuits filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia names the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Besides Craker, lawsuits were filed by Rick Doblin, president of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, and Valerie Corral, co-founder of the Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana in Santa Cruz, Calif., who uses marijuana to control epileptic seizures.

"Every day DEA delays the applications necessary to initiate research is another day that the patients with illnesses susceptible to treatment using marijuana must either suffer otherwise remediable pain, or risk arrest to use marijuana as medicine," said the scientists.

[CaptinCrunch]

On August 3rd voters in Detroit will vote on a ballot measure that would exempt medical marijuana users from the city ordinance which makes marijuana possession a crime.

Although marijuana possession and use would remain illegal under state and federal law, the initiative, sponsored by the Detroit Coalition for Compassionate Care, intends to provide a greater level of safety to medical marijuana users by removing one layer of law enforcement. According to the coalition, a large portion of those arrested on marijuana charges are arrested by the city police.

Nine states: California, Alaska, Arizona, Oregon, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont, Washington and Maine have legalized the medical use of marijuana.

In the state of Maryland, medicinal marijuana users face fines but no jail time.

The issue of medical marijuana hits home in the LGBT community, says Bruce Mirken, spokesperson for the Marijuana Policy Project, "The gay community has been most effected by AIDS and many AIDS patients have found marijuana helpful in controlling the appetite loss, nausea and pain associated with the disease."

It becomes personal, Mirken said, "Because this is literally about the lives of friends."

Peter McWilliams, bestselling author of "Ain't Nobody's Business if You Do: the Absurdity of Consensual Crimes in America" used marijuana to control the nausea he experienced while taking AIDS drugs. For McWilliams, marijuana was the only treatment that could control his nausea. McWilliams was arrested for possession of marijuana in Wayne County and died while appealing his possession as a medical necessity.

The Detroit initiative has been endorsed by Congressman John Conyers, City Council President Maryann Mahaffey, City Councilwoman Joann Watson, State Senator Burton Leland, the Detroit Free Press and the Metro Detroit Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Polls show a high level of support for legalizing medical marijuana. A 1996 national opinion poll sponsored by the American Civil Liberties Union found that 85% of people surveyed favor the idea of making marijuana legally available when it has been proven effective for treating a given problem.

Religious groups have also begun to enter the discussion of medical marijuana. The General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Assembly passed a Statement of Conscience in 2002 recognizing the difference between drug use, and abuse and addiction, and recommending a system of regulated medical access to marijuana.

Citing ethical responsibilities to care for the suffering, a coalition of religious groups including the United Methodist Church, the Union for Reform Judaism, the Progressive National Baptist Church, the Presbyterian Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church, the United Church of Christ and the Unitarian Universalists recently lobbied Congress to adopt the Hinchey amendment. This amendment would have denied federal funds for criminal cases against marijuana users and providers in states that have legalized medical marijuana.

Last week Congress voted down the Hinchey amendment.

[Aslkahuna]

have passed two initiatives to legalize the medical use of Marijuana, but the Legislature has not passed enabling legislation (despite the fact that they are supposed to) due to pressure from the Feds.

Steve

[azsnowman]

"Don't Bogart that Joint my Friend!" Did I just SAY THAT? Yup....it's TRULY sad, I spend untold HOURS a month chasing people who NEED the STUFF for medicinal purposes, don't make sense to me

Dennis

[coriolis]

There are quite a few modern medicines derived from plants. Is there any effort or research towards distilling the active ingredients into a pill or a liquid or something? If they can make a useful medicine out of the botulism toxin, weed should be a piece of cake. Isn't lidocaine derived from the plant that produces cocaine? Seems that smoking is an inefficient way to deliver a medication and causes some harm, contrary to the Hippocratic oath.

[breeze]

I'm not sure about the Lidocaine, Ed, but, one of
the "biggie" medications, digoxin, trade name
"Lanoxin", is derived from the Foxglove flowering
plant - horticultural name, digitalis. That is always
one of my main arguments with docs that put down
herbs. This medication has been around for many
years to control irregular heart rhythms, and, I
see it growing in many flower gardens. Heck, I
say if pot helps pain and nausea for terminal folks,
then, let them have it! If someone is terminal, I
don't even consider it an issue whether they smoke
it or "pop" a pill. It could be made available for
user-preference, but, I think more states should
consider the fact that God don't screw up - He put
that plant here, for a reason, and, if some
dying person could benefit from it, then, so be it.

But, then, that's just MY two-cents-worth.

[coriolis]

OK, lidocaine does not come from the cocoa plant. It comes from cloves. However cocaine is used as a topical anesthetic in eye and nasal surgery.

[stormie_skies]

First of all, why would a pill automatically be a less harmful way of delivering an active ingredient? Many - possibly even most - of the pills that are commonly perscribed have harmful side effects....does that mean they all violate the Hippocratic Oath?

There is also a cost concern involved. Smokable marijuana costs next to nothing to produce....even if its growth was controlled, that could and should keep patient costs low. A pill form of THC (I believe several are being worked on, if they dont exist already) would be patented, and would be incredibly pricey even with medical insurance.

It seems wrong to me to deny patients who are in need of this drug access to it simply because some people disagree with the form it takes... oh, and it doesnt have to be smoked to be effective, it can be ingested orally also.

[CaptinCrunch]

CANADA's Fight to legalize Marijuana, Surveys for Health Canada have suggested up to seven per cent of the B.C, population — about 290,000 people — use marijuana for medical purposes, albeit illegally. Consider The Implications of that Number for the US!

The prohibition of marijuana has failed, and Canadians are the victims. As the Senate Committee on Illegal Drugs unanimously concluded: prohibition causes more harm to Canadians than marijuana itself.

The evidence is all around us:
Consumption rates today are at all time highs
Marijuana production in Canada is by all accounts out of control
Respect for the political and legal system has been eroded
Medical marijuana patients do not have safe access to quality medicine
Marijuana is more readily available in our schools than cigarettes or alcohol
StatsCan report: 93,000 drug charges in 2003, 75% are marijuana charges
Marijuana offences remain a pretext for search, detention, and arrest
Marijuana continues to be a lucrative source of revenue for organized crime

These are all the symptoms of prohibition and the failure of government to implement clear regulatory controls over marijuana in Canada. The policy of prohibition has failed Canadians and by not removing this harmful and antiquated policy, our politicians are failing us too. Prohibition continues to spur the proliferation of marijuana grow-ops and with the policy of prohibition, consumption rates have risen to levels never before seen.

Prohibition has increased marijuana consumption rates, increased its availability, and poses a serious threat to the health and safety of all Canadians. It's time to repeal a failed policy against a substance which was unanimously found to be less harmful than the laws prohibiting its use. It's time to repeal prohibition and institute rules for responsible adult use of marijuana.

Recreational marijuana use is commonplace in Canadian society, across many age groups. A 1996 Senate review on marijuana laws concluded - it thought conservatively - that as many as three million Canadians are recreational tokers. Canadian laws, as written and as defended by police, would make criminals out of all of them.

That is exactly what the government of the day doesn't want. Laws exist to serve society, not to shape it. If many otherwise law-abiding Canadians want to smoke dope on occasion, without infringing on the rights of anybody else, the laws of the land should accommodate it.

Indeed, the same Senate committee recommended that recreational marijuana use should be legalized rather than merely decriminalized. That is where other countries are headed as they reform their laws, and may even be where Canada is heading.

Alcohol was once prohibited like marijuana is today, and now booze is sold in shopping malls. It's time to admit that no amount of law enforcement can stem the tide of recreational marijuana use in Canada, and that it's a waste of taxpayers' money to try.


http://www.pottv.com/

[CaptinCrunch]

Thursday July 29, 2004

Everything you need to know about Britain's favourite illegal substance


Arrests for cannabis possession have dropped by a third in the five months since the drug law was relaxed in January, according to early estimates published by the Home Office yesterday.
Ministers say the estimates show that 180,000 hours of police officer time will be saved in a year as a result of the reclassification of cannabis from a class B to class C drug.

The change is intended to encourage police officers to confiscate the substance and issue an on-the-spot warning rather than make an arrest in cases of simple possession. The latest published figures show that as many as 97,000 people a year were being arrested for cannabis possession before the change.

The Home Office also published British Crime Survey statistics suggesting that cannabis use among teenagers had started to decline for the first time.

The figures show that just under 25% of 16- to 24-year-olds said they had tried cannabis during the 12 months to March 2004, compared with 28% in 1998.

The Home Office minister Caroline Flint said: "These are encouraging figures, but we are not complacent. The police are spending less time arresting people for possession of cannabis and filling in the paperwork that goes along with it.

"This enables them to concentrate on class A drugs which cause most harm to society."

The Home Office said it did not yet have detailed arrest figures for cannabis possession but had based the estimate on early returns from 26 of the 43 police forces in England and Wales outlining the trend in arrests between February and June this year compared with 2003.