Medical marijuana: Politics trumps science at the FDA

Ah, if only the world turned on logic instead of politics. I think the smear campaign against marijuana was originated by the chemical companies, who saw a threat to their pesticide profits. Hemp grows much faster than cotton, requires no pesticides, and is a stronger fibre. It makes better clothing than cotton, better paper than trees, and better plastic than petroleum. Hemp is just a weed with no 'active' ingredients, yet the campaign to equate rope and dope has been very successful.

And, the 'evil, nefarious' dope turns out to have beneficial medicinal qualities. No, no, we can't have that.

Pretty hard to do any genuine research, isn't it galaxee, when the conclusions precede the experiments?

 

Maybe it's the perception that the use of marijuana leads to recreational drug use with drugs that have more potent and mind altering affects?

I'm far more concerned with the use of alcohol than I am with marijuana. When is the last time someone drove recklessly from getting high and killed someone, or wasn't able to manage and keep together their personal or work lives due to marijuana?

I agree with Hyo, it's a shame that we're not utilizing hemp to it's capacity. There are so many beneficial qualities of this plant. The only thing left of concern to me is whether or not it would have the potential for it to become invasive, which could cause serious environmental and economic concerns.

 

"More Americans die in just one day in prisons, penitentiaries, jails and stockades than have ever died from marijuana throughout history. Who are they protecting? From what?"

- Fred Oerther, M.D., Portland, Oregon, September 1986

Actually, the whole campaign against marijuana was waged long ago by the duPonts and William Randolph Hurst. In 1931, Harry J. Anslinger, the first Commissioner of the Treasury Department's Federal Bureau of Narcotics, got his job at the recommendation of Andrew W. Mellon, Secretary of the US Treasury, who just happened to be his father-in-law.

Mellon, also director of the Mellon Bank, was U.S. Secretary of the Treasury. He associated with other wealthy men such as William R. Hearst, Sr. and the DuPont brothers. Hearst owned a chain of newspapers across the U.S. as well as a large lumber company. The DuPont family had just patented a paper making process using wood pulp some years earlier. As well, they had a new invention, a kind of synthetic cotton called nylon.

In the 1930s, Hearst, who owned newspapers all over the country, started publishing sensationalist-type "news" stories about marijuana use. These stories, often written by Hearst or Anslinger himself, talked about "insanity, criminality, and death" caused by smoking marijuana, sometimes after just one joint. This intense propaganda campaign led to anti-marijuana laws in many states.

In 1937, the Marijuana Tax Stamp Act was passed, effectively prohibiting possession or use of marijuana. It was claimed to be needed to oversee and coordinate existing state law concerning marijuana.

The following are excerpts of Mr. Anslinger's testimony before a Senate hearing on marijuana in 1937:

"There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos, and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz, and swing, result from marijuana use. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers, and any others."

"...the primary reason to outlaw marijuana is its effect on the degenerate races."

"Marijuana is an addictive drug which produces in its users insanity, criminality, and death."

"You smoke a joint and you're likely to kill your brother."

"Marijuana is the most violence-causing drug in the history of mankind."

Pretty fascinating stuff. No, I am not a marijuana user. I did try it in college on more than a few occasions. I just happen to like history and used some of this information in a paper I wrote about big business using the media to distort facts in a paper I did for my MBA.

 

Here are 2 short articles on the Nixon/Marijuana issue published in the Spring 2007 issue of the 'Oaksterdam News':

http://www.oaksterdamnews.com/index.php?op...33&Itemid=1
Written by Dale Gieringer, Ph.D

As the Report of the National Commission On Marihuana marked its 35th anniversary, its reform message is even more pressing today than it was then.

Recommendations to Congress by the National Commission on Marihuana (sic) and Drug Abuse that called for ending the criminal arrest and prosecution of adults who possess or use small amounts of cannabis are more applicable today than they were then, says NORML Executive Director Allen St. Pierre.

Instead, then-President Richard Nixon rejected the Commission’s determinations, electing to launch a federal “War on Drugs†strategy that still exists today.

The first, and only, US Congressional commission to address cannabis and public policy recommended Congress amend federal law so possession and use of small quantities of cannabis by adults would no longer be a criminal offense. Nixon’s appointed Blue Ribbon Panel, “The Shafer Commission,†concluded:

“[T]he criminal law is too harsh a tool to apply to personal possession even in the effort to discourage use. It implies an overwhelming indictment of the behavior which we believe is not appropriate. The actual and potential harm of use of the drug is not great enough to justify intrusion by the criminal law into private behavior, a step which our society takes only with the greatest reluctance.â€

The Commission recommended, for the first time, that Congress enact a national policy of marijuana ‘decriminalization,’ whereby the possession of cannabis for personal use as well as the casual distribution of small amounts of marihuana for little-or-no remuneration would no longer be a criminal offense.

“In the years since former President Richard Nixon and Congress rejected the Shafer Commission’s recommendations, the US government has spent billions of taxpayers’ dollars targeting and arresting minor marijuana offenders without achieving any reduction in marijuana use, availability, or demand,†St. Pierre says.

He notes that since 1972:

* Approximately 16.5 million Americans have been arrested for cannabis violations — more than 80 percent of them on minor possession charges;

* US taxpayers have spent well over $20 billion dollars enforcing criminal marijuana laws, yet cannabis availability and use among the public remains virtually unchanged;

* Nearly one-quarter of a million Americans have been denied federal financial aid for education because of anti-drug provisions to the Higher Education Act. Most of these applicants were convicted of minor cannabis possession offenses.

“In 1972, the year the Shafer Commission first recommended decriminalizing small amounts of cannabis, the FBI reported that fewer than 300,000 Americans were arrested for pot,†St. Pierre said. “Today, nearly 800,000 Americans are arrested annually on marijuana charges — an increase of more than 150 percent — and 90 percent of those are charged with simple possession only, the very practice that Commission demanded Congress end 35 years ago.â€

“One in eight inmates incarcerated for drug crimes is behind bars for pot, at a cost to taxpayers of more than $1 billion per year. It’s time for the new Democrat Congress to revisit this issue and bring an end to the needless arrest and incarceration of otherwise law abiding citizens who consume cannabis in the privacy of their home.â€



http://www.oaksterdamnews.com/index.php?op...34&Itemid=1
Written by Administrator

Previously Unheard Nixon Recordings To Be Broadcast Exclusively On NORML’s Daily AudioStash

Former President Richard Nixon repeatedly warned members of the National Commission on Marihuana (sic) and Drug Abuse not to issue findings that could appear “soft on marijuana,†according to never-before aired Presidential audio-tapes played online on NORML’s Daily AudioStash, at normlaudiostash.com.

The audio, made available to the public for the first time on the NORML AudioStash, captures several conversations between Nixon, his staff, and former Pennsylvania Gov. Raymond P. Shafer, who headed the 1972 Marihuana Commission.

In the recordings, Nixon and Shafer consistently voice their objections to legalizing or regulating cannabis use in a manner similar to alcohol — a proposal that they note was then-favored by several members of Congress.

Nixon also warned Shafer about making any recommendations that might appear to run contrary to his own anti-drug position. “The thing that is so terribly important here is not to appear that the Commission [is] frankly just a bunch of do-gooders that would come out with something that would run counter to what the Congress feels and what we’re planning to do,†Nixon told him Sept. 9, 1971.

He added, “On the marijuana thing, I have very strong convictions. Just on my own analysis, once you start down that road, the chances of going further down that road are great. I know there’s a lot [of experts] who disagree with that because of the people that are, frankly, promoting it [but] they’re not good people.â€

Recordings from March 21, 1972, the day before the Commission released its findings, indicate that the White House intended to bury its findings. Speaking with domestic policy advisor John Ehrlichman, Nixon affirmed that his administration would not endorse the Commission’s recommendations to decriminalize the private possession and use of pot.
President Nixon: What is your feeling about this damned report, this thing?
John D. Ehrlichman: A lousy report. Nixon: Can we give an inch on this?
Ehrlichman: No, sir. No. There is no place.
Nixon: How was he able to sell all that ... [inaudible].
Ehrlichman: Well, I’ll never understand what went on in that commission, ’cause this guy, for instance, from Rockford is a ...
Nixon: John Howard [inaudible].
Ehrlichman: ...rock-ribbed conservative.
Nixon: Well, what do you think about legalizing the use and possession of marijuana?
Ehrlichman: It’s a crazy rule. What they’ve done is they’ve come half way. It’s this, it’s like liquor. There would be no law against consuming liquor at home, but there’d be a law against selling it. Now how the hell can you make that work?
President Nixon: Well, I made it clear enough to him that I don’t endorse it.
Ehrlichman: He’s not [under] any illusions, and I made it very clear to him before he came in here so that he’s not under [any] misapprehensions.

* To hear these and other audio transcripts, please visit normlaudiostash.com.

[MJ here: To begin with, marijuana and hemp are 2 separate issues, and the merits should be considered separately. Marijuana can be used as a way to relax, as a medicine, social ice breaker...in general ingested. Hemp, on the other hand, is used as an industrial product, not to be ingested. Many nations (including Canada) continue to use hemp industrially as it has been used for thousands of years. Like bamboo, hemp grows rapidly and can be substituted for many plant products which we presently use but which require fertilizer and deplete the soil.

Marijuana, as a separate issue, has many pros, and fair balance dictates one look at the cons too. However, factual cons , not the scare-tactics used by threatened corporations and broadcast thru government mouthpieces as scare-tactic propaganda. Just the fact that the federal government refuses to allow or acknowledge research on the efficacy
of the product (combined with the fact that it has been used for millennium) is proof positive for me there must be some positive uses.

Fortunately, there are more and more study results coming in from controlled research in other countries and in general, the conclusions are positives out weigh negatives.

My personal feeling is that caffeine, sugar, tobacco, stress, alcohol, transfats, and a host of other legal products are more damaging than marijuana. Factor in legalized pollution, auto accidents due to unsafe driving techniques, overwork and war, all are more problematic than marijuana. Indeed, many feel marijuana is an antidote for a day of these assaults on the body.

The majority of the people in the US are coming to understand the use of scare tactics for political and personal gain as a way of life. When they insist science trump the cynical use of scare, poverty, and religion in lawmaking, and once again feel a partnership with a stake in the rule of law we, too, will make a 'great leap forward'. Till then, hold on, we're headed down to the lowest common dominator of 'lowered expectations'.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(efusco @ Jun 21 2007, 03:42 PM) [snapback]465993[/snapback]</div>

Alcohol? What about tobacco? Who has killed more Americans? Muslims in all of history, or tobacco in the last month. If Osama Bin Laden really wanted to kill with impunity he should just buy Philip Morris.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(galaxee @ Jun 22 2007, 03:01 AM) [snapback]465725[/snapback]</div>

Hey Galaxee.

I started out in psychopharmacology/psychochemistry back when I was a grad student (working with a compound called SP111A --- v. long time ago) and it seemed to me then that nobody was going to get serious about medical applications of cannabis for several reasons

First, when there is a safe unpatentable version of the compound, no pharma wants to invest in theraputic research (think of the Lithium example). Without theraputic research, there is no compelling motivation to wage the PR campaign needed to overcome the decades of fear-mongering and mis-trust sown by the anti-cannabis "war". Note that the big pharmas have been quite successful to keep the War on Drugs hysteria from generalising to compounds in which they do have a financial interest.

So probably not a big conspiracy or anything, just financial contingencies shaping investor behaviour. My personal opinion is that in the case of cannabis it may ultimately be better to keep it out of the hands of the pharmas and work on identifying simple home-cooked cannabinoid remedies along with working to get them classified as health supplements. I guess this fits with my prejudice that energy generation should also be de-centralised and returned to individuals... Still a hopeless 60's believer I guess B)

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(efusco @ Jun 21 2007, 04:34 PM) [snapback]466031[/snapback]</div>

Just my attempt to show the hypocrisy of certain logic. No amount of evidence will overcome the inertia of well established cashflow and blind religious moral indoctrination.

 

If the government can make it so Big Pharma will reap immense profits from the legalization of Pot, you can bet we'll be seeing it on the shelves in eye catching packages, being supported by television advertising featuring people running through fields, or cartoon characters.

It's amusing that, for example, lots of the current anti-depressant ads carry a disclaimer that says something to the effect of "the causes of depression are not fully understood, but this drug seems to make people feel better in a way which we can't quite explain."

Yeh, that sounds fully scienced-out to me!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Pinto Girl @ Jun 22 2007, 11:47 AM) [snapback]466466[/snapback]</div>

In defense of the SSRI's, any honest psychiatrist will tell you that we have only vague notions of why these antidepressants work. But damn, do they work, Pinto! Watch your argument there. There's very clear benefit in that particular risk vs benefit analysis, at least for the general population of depressed. Agreed, the science is not worked out. In this particular instance, you choose the wrong example.

What you put there in quotation marks is a paraphrasing of exactly what I tell people when I prescribe them meds like that. I don't prescribe those meds willy-nilly -- I think about it carefully, and I act in my patients' best interests, to the very best of my ability to ascertain that.

If you want an example of extremely, extremely egregious profiteering at the cost of human life, look up "Rezulin." Remember that one at all, Galaxee? That's an example of economics trumping the value of human life. I will look for the link I have that summarizes it well.

But Pinto, I fully support your first point. If Big Pharma saw profit in pot, you'd have free samples of it coming in the mail, with coupons for $10 off the first month's RX.