Interesting post on the Old Days, before drugs were illegal and therefore before gangs and cartels. It’s extremely good—read the whole thing.

Hendrik Hertzberg reports two casualties along with news from the front:

1. In Seattle, a fifty-six-year old man died last Thursday after being refused a liver transplant because he had followed his doctor’s recommendation to use marijuana to ease the symptoms of hepatitis C. From the Associated Press story:

His death came a week after a doctor told him a University of Washington Medical Center committee had again denied him a spot on the liver transplant list. The team had previously told him it would not consider placing him on the list until he completed a 60-day drug-treatment class…

The Virginia-based United Network for Organ Sharing, which oversees the nation’s transplant system, leaves it to individual hospitals to develop criteria for transplant candidates.

At some, people who use “illicit substances”—including medical marijuana, even in the dozen states that allow it—are automatically rejected. At others, patients are given a chance to reapply if they stay clean for six months.

The cruelty and stupidity of this beggars belief. This patient did not need “drug treatment.” He was already undergoing drug treatment. Nor did he need to get “clean.” He was already clean. It’s the drug war that’s dirty. (H/t: John Leone.)

2. Until about a week ago, Marie Day Walsh was a hyper-respectable fifty-three-year-old housewife living in suburban comfort in Del Mar, California, near San Diego, with her husband of twenty-three years. They have two grown daughters and another still in high school. Then came a knock on the door. She was arrested and carted off to jail.

The back story: In 1975, when she was a nineteen-year-old hippie in Saginaw, Michigan, and her name was Susan LeFevre, she got arrested for peripheral involvement in a heroin deal. While awaiting trial, she took college courses. Hoping for mercy, she pleaded guilty. The judge, full of righteous wrath, sentenced her to ten to twenty years in prison. After a year or so, she walked away from a prison work site, escaping as she had offended: nonviolently. She had never been in trouble before and has never been in trouble since. Now she will probably be extradited to Michigan and imprisoned until she is in her sixties. Take a look at her and see if you think she is a menace to society.

3. Two years ago, a large-scale study by Dr. Donald Tashkin, of U.C.L.A., a pulmonologist whose previous studies of marijuana had been used by drug-enforcement authorities to support their view that pot is dangerous, unexpectedly concluded that there is no connection between marijuana smoking and lung cancer, even among heavy pot smokers, which he defined as people who had smoked more than twenty-two thousand joints, i.e., a joint a day for sixty years. The study, which was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, further suggested that pot might actually have some preventive effect.

The story didn’t get a lot of publicity, though the Washington Post did run a story on page A3. It will not surprise you to learn that it has had no effect on the nation’s drug “policies.”

Dr. Tashkin reiterated his findings last month before an audience of doctors and nurses. According to Fred Gardner’s detailed report,

Tashkin and his colleagues at U.C.L.A. conducted a major study in which they measured the lung function of various cohorts for eight years and found that tobacco-only smokers had an accelerated rate of decline, but marijuana smokers—even if they smoked tobacco as well—experienced the same rate of decline as non-smokers. “The more tobacco smoked, the greater the rate of decline,” said Tashkin. “In contrast, no matter how much marijuana was smoked, the rate of decline was similar to normal.” Tashkin concluded that his and other studies “do not support the concept that regular smoking of marijuana leads to COPD [Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease].”

On the other hand, imprisonment, disqualification for organ transplants, and the activities of the federal drug harassment industry remain hazardous to your health.

Good article by Bob Egelko in the San Francisco Chronicle:

Ever since California voters became the first in the nation to legalize medical marijuana in 1996, the state has faced unyielding opposition from the federal government, which insists it has the power to prohibit a drug it considers useless and dangerous.

That could all change with the next presidential election.

As the candidates prepare for a May 20 primary in Oregon, one of 12 states with a California-style law, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois has become an increasingly firm advocate of ending federal intervention and letting states make their own rules when it comes to medical marijuana.

Read the rest of this entry »

Last july I had a post on how the UK was going to classify drugs by their harm potential. The current classifications, there as here, were not based on any sensible rationale but simply reflected various legislative attitudes at different times.

Apparently that initiative succeeded, but now it’s being rolled back despite the recommendations of a panel of experts appointed by Gordon Brown. Here’s the story. A couple of extracts:

The home secretary said she wanted to reverse Tony Blair’s 2004 downgrading of the drug because of “uncertainty” over its impact on mental health.

The move from class C means the maximum prison sentence for possessing cannabis rises from two years to five years.

Her statement to MPs came despite the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs’ review - commissioned by Gordon Brown - saying it should stay class C. …

Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne said that, as its advice had been disregarded, ministers should disband the advisory council of experts and replace it with an advisory council of “tabloid newspaper editors”.

Labour MP Chris Mullin, who was chairman of the Commons home affairs select committee when it recommended that cannabis was downgraded to class C, said: “The government should follow the advice of the experts rather than that of the tabloids.”

Interesting post at Mind Hacks:

In the wake of the Nature survey that found that 20% of scientists admit to using brain enhancing drugs, Wired has just published an article detailing what drugs their scientist readers use to keep on keepin’ on.

Although the drugs issue is obviously the headline-grabber, the publication also has a great feature on cognitive enhancement that largely covers tips, tricks and techniques to boost your mental skills that aren’t drug-related.

The article itself is anecdotally interesting, but has a curious tone throughout:

Surprisingly large numbers of people appear to be using brain-enhancing drugs to work harder, longer and better. They’re popping pills normally prescribed for narcolepsy or attention-deficit disorder to improve their performance at work and school.

“We aren’t the teen clubbers popping uppers to get through a hard day running a cash register after binge drinking,” wrote a Ph.D. research scientist who regularly takes a wakefulness drug called Provigil, normally prescribed for narcolepsy. “We are responsible humans.”

Whenever people talk about using drugs, they’re always keen to distance themselves from that sort of drug user. You know, the ones that aren’t responsible.

This belies the fact that most people use most drugs with few problems. Even teen clubbers popping uppers.

While all drugs have risks and illicit street drugs increase the health risks and definitely have an impact on body and brain function, it’s only a minority of drug users who have problems that interfere with their daily lives.

For example, a recent study found that 4% of Australian workers use the (fairly nasty) drug methamphetamine. The figure rises to over 11% for 18-29 year olds. That more than 1 in 10.

While the study found that using methamphetamine significantly increases chances of a range of health problems, it’s still the minority of users that report significant problems. This is the typical pattern for studies on drug use.

In other words, drugs are bad for you but most people manage the risks. A small minority, of course, don’t, and die instantly or suffer long-term consequences.

The benefit and using and abusing prescription drugs for ‘brain doping’ is largely in the fact that you can be sure of the purity of the product and that probably (depending on how you acquire them) you’re not funding a vicious criminal network.

At the end of the day though, the process is the same, whether you’re using legal drugs, illegal drugs, for recreation or for performance.

Just make sure you’re educated about the risks and know the consequences. Just like everything else in life.

I blogged earlier about this bill, and just now received this email from Drug Policy Alliance:

The first federal marijuana decriminalization bill in 25 years was just introduced in Congress. Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) and Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) introduced H.R. 5843, the “Personal Use of Marijuana by Responsible Adults Act of 2008,” which would decriminalize possession of marijuana for personal use. Please urge your representative to support this important legislation.

A deluge of messages from constituents will help members of Congress feel more confident in declaring their support for the bill. We don’t expect the bill to become law just yet, but it will help us find out which members of Congress support marijuana decriminalization and which do not. The more representatives who co-sponsor it, the more support we can show for marijuana law reform.

Take action now.

Last year alone the police made almost 830,000 arrests for marijuana law offenses in the United States. 89 percent of those arrests were for posssession for personal use. Those arrested were seperated from their families, branded criminals, and in many cases fired from their jobs and denied school loans and other public assistance. The arrests cost taxpayers billions of dollars and consumed an estimated 4.5 million law enforcment hours (that’s the equivalent of taking 112,500 law enforcement officers off the streets).

H.R. 5843 would make it legal under federal law for adults to possess up to 100 grams (3.5 ounces) of marijuana for personal use. It would also allow not-for-profit transfers of up to one ounce of marijuana between consenting adults. Please urge your member of Congress to support this bill.

Our executive director, Ethan Nadelmann, made a powerful case for ending marijuana prohibition in a 2004 cover story in National Review (PDF).

Sincerely,
Bill Piper
Director of National Affairs
Drug Policy Alliance

More Information

–In 1972 a special commission formed by Congress and President Richard Nixon concluded that punitive marijuana laws do more harm than good. Among other things, the National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse urged states and the federal government to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana for personal use. Twelve states eventually did, but most states and the federal government ignored the report. You can read the National Commission’s 1972 report here.

–Since 1972 twelve states have decriminalized the possession of small amounts of marijuana for personal use: Alaska, California, Colorado, Maine, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, Ohio, and Oregon. Decriminalization generally means people caught possessing marijuana for personal use are not subjected to imprisonment for at least their first offense, although they may be subject to a small fine.

–A 2001 Zogby poll found that 61 percent of Americans oppose arresting and jailing nonviolent marijuana smokers. A 2002 Time/CNN poll found that 72 percent of Americans think people arrested for marijuana possession should face fines and not jail time.

–A study that examined arrest statistics for smoking or possessing marijuana in public in New York City from 1980 through 2006 found that blacks were four times as likely as whites to receive jail time for possession of marijuana. Hispanics were three times as likely. In 2002 about 2.4 percent of all marijuana users were arrested for marijuana possession. The arrest rate for blacks was 94 percent higher.

The idea is to make it a state matter, much as liquor is. This bill probably deserves an email to your Representative. Here’s the press release:

Congressman Barney Frank today introduced bi-partisan legislation aimed at removing federal restrictions on the individual use of marijuana (HR 5843). One bill would remove federal penalties for the personal use of marijuana, and the other (HR 5842) – versions of which Frank has filed in several preceding sessions of Congress – would allow the medical use of marijuana in states that have chosen to make its use for medical purposes legal with a doctor’s recommendation. Representative Ron Paul (R-TX) joined Frank as a cosponsor of the federal penalties bill. The cosponsors of the medical marijuana bill are Rep. Paul, along with Reps. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), and Sam Farr (D-CA).

Congressman Frank released the following statement explaining the legislation.

“I think it is poor law enforcement to keep on the books legislation that establishes as a crime something which in fact society does not seriously wish to prosecute. In my view, having federal law enforcement agents engaged in the prosecution of people who are personally using marijuana is a waste of scarce resources better used for serious crimes. In fact, this type of prosecution often meets with public disapproval. The most frequent recent examples have been federal prosecutions of individuals using marijuana for medical purposes in states that have voted – usually by public referenda – to allow such use. Because current federal law has been interpreted as superseding state law in this area, most states that have made medical use of marijuana legal have been unable to actually implement their laws.

Read the rest of this entry »

Very good news:

Representative Ron Paul (R-TX) introduced H.R. 5842, the “Medical Marijuana Patient Protection Act,” earlier today.  This bill would make federal authorities respect states’ current laws on medicinal cannabis and end DEA raids on facilities distributing medical marijuana legally under state law.

Representative Paul, whose presidential campaign prominently featured the ending of the drug war as a platform plank, was joined by Representative Barney Frank (D-MA) in sponsoring this bill.

“I think marijuana is a helpful medical treatment for the people who have intractable nausea,” Paul said in a 2004 House debate regarding a similar measure.  “I would like to point out this is not something strange that we are suggesting here. For the first 163 years of our history in this country, the federal government had total hands off, they never interfered with what the states were doing.”

Twelve states have approved the use of medical marijuana, beginning with California in 1996 with the passage of Proposition 215. The DEA continues to raid and harass medicinal cannabis dispensaries operating within these states’ laws.  Presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have both indicated they would end such raids should they be elected.

Michigan will vote on an initiative to adopt medical cannabis legislation this November.  Minnesota and Rhode Island’s respective legislatures are also considering pro-reform legislation this year.

For more information, contact NORML Legal Director Keith Stroup at (202) 483-5500. Supporters should write their Representatives in favor of this bill.

Via 21209.org, an excellent article by the former mayor of Baltimore on how we can start to recover from all the damage wrought by the War on Drugs. The article begins:

A different commander-in-chief will soon assume leadership of the War on Drugs. Let’s hope that a new leader will implement a new strategy, because for nearly a century now– following the passage of the Harrison Narcotics Act of 1914–America’s War on Drugs has been seen primarily as a criminal justice problem. And for nearly a century, we’ve seen this approach to fighting drugs fail and fail and then fail again. Almost nobody’s pleased with the results. So my question is: Why haven’t we been able to change course? And why haven’t we been able to convince policymakers and the public to deal with one of our great domestic blights the way it should be dealt with: primarily as a public health issue?

It has been twenty years since I, as Mayor of Baltimore, joined in efforts led by others to reform America’s national drug control policy. Prior to my election, I had served as a loyal foot solider in the drug war as a prosecuting attorney. From that vantage point, I viewed the drug problem one-dimensionally, as a crime problem. Drug dealers and users were to be arrested, prosecuted, incarcerated, and their material gains were to be seized. The assumption was (and remains) that in time this would decrease the problem and rid our cities of the scourge of substance abuse. Throughout the country, major arrests and drug seizures were announced with great fanfare. Cars, planes, boats, and houses were confiscated. Arrest and incarceration statistics soared. The public perception was that we were winning the War on Drugs.

Read the rest of this entry »

You can see all presidential candidates and their positions, but the big three:

Against medical marijuana: Clinton, McCain

For medical marijuana: Obama

From an email:

I am excited to announce that the Drug Policy Alliance Network (DPA’s lobbying arm) is sponsoring a ballot measure in California that represents the biggest sentencing and prison reform in United States history.

The Nonviolent Offender Rehabilitation Act (NORA) is unprecedented in scope and magnitude. It will transform California’s dysfunctional, $10-billion-a-year prison system, reversing its rampant and costly expansion. NORA will, within just a few years, reduce by tens of thousands the number of people unjustly and unnecessarily incarcerated, while maintaining public safety. At the same time, it will provide a comprehensive model for a public health approach to substance use.

Success in California will transform the drug policy reform landscape nationwide!

At a time when one in 100 adult Americans is in prison, California faces a prison overcrowding crisis that may be the worst in the nation. The system is at 175% of capacity. This is due in large part to excessive incarceration of nonviolent offenders, many of whom are drug law violators. Overcrowding has been exacerbated by the state’s failure to provide meaningful recidivism-reduction programs, including addiction treatment and other rehabilitation services.

Read the rest of this entry »

The reports, in various formats, are based on 2005-2006 national surveys on drug use and health and constitute the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Office of Applied Studies, State Estimates of Substance Use from the 2005-2006 National Surveys on Drug Use and Health. OAS Series #H-33, DHHS Publication No. (SMA) 08-4311, Rockville, MD, 2008.

Some highlights:

The report is based on 136,110 people aged 12 and older who were interviewed for a national survey in 2005-2006.

Illicit Drugs
North Dakota had the lowest percentage of people who reported using an illicit drug during the previous month (5.7%). Rhode Island had the highest percentage (11.2%).

Marijuana use was reported by 10.4% of participants in 2005-2006. Vermont had the highest rate of marijuana use in the past month (9.7%). Utah had the lowest rate (4.3%).

Cocaine use was reported by 2.4% of participants in 2005-2006. Cocaine rates were highest in Washington, D.C. (4.9%) and lowest in North Dakota (1.6%).

Nonprescription use of painkillers was reported by 5% of participants, up from 4.8% in 2004-2005.

About 2.8% of participants were dependent on or had abused illicit drugs in the past year, the report shows.

Tobacco
About 30% of participants said they had used tobacco during the previous month. And 25% said they had smoked cigarettes during the previous month.

West Virginia had the highest rate of past-month tobacco use (40.6%) and cigarette use (32.5%). Utah had the lowest rate of past-month tobacco use (22.1%) and cigarette use (19.3%).

Among youths, 10.6% reported smoking cigarettes in the previous month, down from 11.3% in 2004-2005.

Alcohol
Utah residents were the least likely to report drinking alcohol in the past month (32.4%). That’s nearly half of Wisconsin’s rate (63.1%).

Nationwide, binge drinking was most commonly reported by young adults aged 18-25. But binge drinking rates dropped among youths aged 12-17, compared to the previous year’s data.

Underage drinking among people aged 12-20 was rarest in Utah (21.5%) and most common in Vermont (38.3%).

Nationwide, 7.7% of people age 12 or older abused or were dependent on alcohol.

Depression, Psychological Distress
Depression rates were lower in 2005-2006 than in 2004-2005, according to the report.

Among adults, 7.3% experienced an episode of major depression in 2005-2006, down from 7.7% the year before.

Major depression struck 8.4% of youths aged 12-17 in 2005-2006, down from 8.9% the year before.

Nevada had the highest rate; 9.4% of adults were depressed. Hawaii had the lowest adult depression rate (5%).

Overall, 11.3% of U.S. adults had serious psychological distress in 2005-2006. Utah had the highest rate (14.4%) and Hawaii had the lowest rate (8.8%) of adults with serious psychological distress.

Read. Some of these are heartbreaking and show that the War on Drugs was used as a pretext. Stop the insanity.

Donald Scott
Age 62 at the time of his death at his home in Malibu, CA. on October 2, 1992.

Scott and his wife, Frances Plante, were awakened by violent pounding at the door on the morning of October 2, 1992. As Frances attempted to open the door, a narcotics task force from the LA County Sheriff’s Dept. burst into the home, weapons in hand.

Frances was pushed forcefully from the door at gun point. She cried out, “Don’t shoot me, don’t kill me!” With a gun aimed at her head, Frances looked to her right and saw Donald charging into the room, waving a revolver above his head. She heard a deputy shout, “Put the gun down! Put the gun down! Put the gun down!” As Scott was doing so, Frances heard three gun shots ring out, apparently from two sources.

Her husband was killed instantly.

Scott was a millionaire who owned 250 acres of breathtakingly beautiful land that was adjacent to federal park lands. Attempts had been made by the feds to buy the property, but Scott was not interested in selling. Claims that there might be pot growing on the land, made by agents who did aerial surveillance, were used to get a search warrant.

An official inquiry suggested that agents had hoped this raid would lead to asset forfeiture of the property Scott would not sell. The coroner’s report listed the cause of death as a homicide. No marijuana was found. Scott did not even smoke it. In January, 2000, the Scott family won a $5 million wrongful death settlement from the government over the shooting.

From Healthbolt:

Trust California to push the boundaries.

First there were marijuana vending machines.

Now there is a University offering a two day course that will prepare people for jobs in an apparently thriving medical marijuana industry.

This is not your ordinary everyday higher education classes. Here, lecturers stand at the front of the class and point out the finer details of the marijuana plant.

Students are taught the art of cultivating and cooking with cannabis. They study the various strains of marijuana and learn which strain works best for particular ailments. And they are instructed on the legalities of an ‘illegal’ business, at least in the eyes of the federal government.

Oaksterdam University is the brain child of Richard Lee, an activist and pot-dispensary owner, who wants to ““…try to professionalize the industry and have it taken seriously as a real industry, just like beer and distilling hard alcohol.”

And there are obviously a number of people out there who agree. So far 60 students have completed the course which is now booked out until the end of May.

It’s been pointed out many times that putting the GOP in charge of the government is not a good idea: the GOP strongly believes that the government doesn’t work, so when they are in control, they make sure that it doesn’t. And if some government program is working, they immediately shut it down—it’s contrary to the message, you see? And it’s not just in the US:

Since 2003, addicts in Vancouver, British Columbia have been able to shoot up with free heroin at a supervised “safer injection facility,” the first of its kind in North America. It has been a success, in the view of the 500 people who use it daily, their downtown east side neighbors (who report less crime), the city government (which sees it as part of its pre-2010 Winter Olympics beautification campaign) and even the cops. Research published in the British Medical Journal, the Lancet and elsewhere shows the facility has helped slow the spread of HIV and cut crime. Counselors available at the site have helped get many addicts off drugs. The same approach has been used for decades in Western Europe.

But conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper doesn’t like it and has enlisted American help to strengthen his case. The Drug Free America Foundation, a Department of Justice-funded, Republican-dominated Florida group that started out as a controversial youth drug rehab program has run a series of reports attacking the center and its “harm reduction” approach on a pseudoscientific online journal. The site, which describes itself “online open access journal” in fact simply runs opinion pieces that attack drug policies the foundation opposes. Nothing wrong with that, but the the Canadian government seems to have been duped into thinking this is actual science.

The Vancouver facility operates under a waiver that prevents the people who run it from being arrested as drug smugglers. Harper has said he may suspend the waiver in June. Canadians are less phobic of such “harm reduction” facilities than us Puritan Americans, but it remains to be seen whether Harper thinks he can win a few votes by shutting it down.

“[The facility] has had a number of benefits, but there are groups who’d rather maintain the status quo than try something new,” Dr. Evan Wood, an HIV epidemiologist at the University of British Columbia who conducts research at the center, told me. “The U.S. is the hotbed of this ‘enforcement first’ philosophy.”

Hendrik Hertzberg has an excellent column in the current New Yorker:

A few days before Senator Barack Obama swept the Democratic primaries in Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia, people across the country, picking up their favorite newspaper, were greeted with the following headline:

OLD FRIENDS SAY DRUGS PLAYED
BIG PART IN OBAMA’S YOUNG LIFE

In any event, that’s what some readers thought they read. On second glance, they realized their mistake. The headline actually said this:

OLD FRIENDS SAY DRUGS PLAYED
BIT PART IN OBAMA’S YOUNG LIFE

Maybe, though, the mistake wasn’t just the readers’, especially the bleary-eyed among them who hadn’t yet had their morning coffee. After all, it wasn’t exactly news that “drugs” had played a part (and only a “bit part” at that) in the adolescence of the junior senator from Illinois. That particular factoid had been on the public record for more than twelve years. And if it wasn’t news, what was it doing on the front page of the New York Times?

The big news, or bit news, about Obama and drugs had been broken by the future Presidential candidate himself, in “Dreams from My Father,” published in 1995, when he was thirty-three years old. In “Dreams,” Obama treats his teen-age chemical indulgences the way he treats pretty much everything else in his coming-of-age story: subtly, with impressive emotional acuity, against a richly drawn personal, cultural, and social background. Ripped from their context like the heart of an Aztec sacrifice, the facts Obama presents are these: He smoked pot during his last couple of years of high school, in Hawaii, and his first couple of years of college, at Occidental, in California. Once in a while, he treated himself to “a little blow.” After his sophomore year, he transferred east, to Columbia, where he took up running (three miles a day), stopped hanging out in bars, and started keeping a journal. Also, he writes, “I quit getting high.” That’s about all. Substance, apparently, became more interesting to him than substance abuse.

Read the rest of this entry »

Thoughtful:

Suppose another country had almost no drug problem. Suppose that country had less than a small fraction of one percent of our drug arrests. And suppose that country had almost no “drug-related crime” and suppose that their robbery rate was a tiny fraction of our robbery rate.

Do you think is might be wise to carefully observe that other country’s drug policy and that we should model their drug policy?

Well, there is such a country: The Czech Republic.

The Czech Republic is the only country in the world where adult citizens can legally use, possess and grow small quantities of marijuana. (In the Netherlands, marijuana is quasi-legal — not officially legal.)

The Czech overall drug arrest rate is 1 per 100,000 population. The United States’ overall drug arrest rate is 585 per 100,000 population.

The Czech robbery rate is 2 per 100,000 population. The United States’ robbery rate is 160.2 per 100,000 population, according to our FBI.

According to our drug war cheerleaders, tolerant marijuana laws cause people to use other, much more dangerous drugs, like methamphetamine and heroin. Obviously, this doesn’t happen in the Czech Republic.

Why not?

Could it be that when people can legally obtain marijuana at an affordable price, they tend not to use or desire any other recreational drugs?

Could it be that marijuana legalization actually creates a roadblock to hard drug use - not a gateway?

Could it be that the vast majority our so-called “drug-related crime” is caused by our marijuana prohibition policies?

Could it be that if we keep doing what we have been doing, we will probably get the same results? Should we throw another trillion dollars down the drug war rat hole? Or should we do something different — dramatically different?

Healthbolt is running a very useful series on marijuana, and this morning’s post is particularly helpful in collecting diseases for which cannabis might be helpful:

With any drug, it is important to determine whether or not the medical benefits outweigh the side effects.

This is something that really hasn’t happened with marijuana, especially in the United States. So focused is the federal government on highlighting and studying the negative implications of marijuana usage, they all but ignore the fact that marijuana also possess a number of medical uses. These medical uses, documented throughout history, include reducing nausea, pain, and severe discomfort.

In the 1980s and 1990s, the few studies around that did focus on the medicinal benefits of marijuana looked predominantly at its ability to alleviate disease symptoms such as the nausea caused by chemotherapy.

It is only more recently that studies have focused on marijuana as a drug that might have the potential to alter disease progression. As a result, there is an increasing body of published scientific literature looking at the therapeutic use of marijuana to treat the following diseases…

* Alzheimer’s disease
* Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
* Diabetes mellitus
* Dystonia
* Fibromyalgia
* Gastrointestinal disorders
* Gliomas
* Hepatitis C
* Human Immunodeficiency Virus
* Hypertension
* Incontinence
* Multiple sclerosis
* Osteoporosis
* Pruritis
* Rheumatoid arthritis
* Sleep apnea
* Tourette’s syndrome

Further Reading:

Medical Cannabis

Top 10 Pros and Cons on the Medical Marijuana Debate

Marijuana as medicine: Consider the pros and cons

Healthbolt has a very good post on the history of marijuana, including a 5-part YouTube video series:

“To the agriculturist, cannibis is a fibre crop; to the physician, it is an enigma; to the user, a euphoriant; to the police, a menace; to the trafficker, a source of profitable danger; to the convict or parolee and his family, a source of sorrow.”
- Marihuana in Medicine: Past, Present and Future by Tod H Mikuriva
(California Medicine, Vol 110, 1969: 30-40)

Without the hemp plant, one of the oldest psychoactive plants around, there would be no marijuana. Its dried leaves have been inhaled and ingested for centuries, changing the mood, perception, and consciousness of people throughout the world. And for most of its history, hemp and its by-products have been legal.

Here’s a few fascinating facts…

1. Its use as medicine was first recorded as far back as 2727 B.C. by the Chinese Emperor Shen Nung. He documented it’s medical effectiveness in treating rheumatism, gout, and even absent-mindedness.

2. Queen Victoria of England was prescribed cannabis for menstrual cramps by her personal physician Sir Russell Reynolds. He wrote in the first issue of The Lancet in 1890 that ‘when pure and administered carefully, cannabis is one of the most useful medicines we possess.’

3. America’s first marijuana law was not, as many might imagine, to ban the growing of the plant. It was just the opposite. Back in 1619, the farmers of the Jamestown Colony in Virginia were ‘ordered‘ to grow hemp crops. And this was the first of many such laws. Get this — between 1763 and 1767, not growing the hemp plant could get a farmer thrown in jail.

Of course, the reason that hemp growing was encouraged was so very different from the reasons that many people try to grow it today. Back the, the hemp plant had much more practical uses — once harvested, it was turned into clothing, sails, and rope.

4. Hemp was once considered legal tender in the United States, even accepted by the government as a payment for your taxes. Try that today and see where you end up!

5. Visitors to the 1876 American Centennial Exposition in Phillidelphia were invited to ‘toke up’ at the Turkish Hashish Exposition stand. Those who did had a much more enhanced ‘exposition’ experience.

6. In the 1890s, several women’s temperance societies actually recommended the use of hashish instead of alcohol. Their reasoning: liquor led to domestic violence, whereas hashish did not.

7. Up until the 1940s, it was easily obtained at the local general store or pharmacy. Used as a medicine, it was listed in the United States Pharmacopoeia as useful for medical conditions such as nausea, rheumatism, and labor pain. (It was subsequently removed from the pharmacopoeia in 1942 when it was decided that marijuana was a harmful and addictive drug, causing psychotic episodes.)

Read the rest of this entry »

The one weapon that the GOP loves to use is fear: make people afraid, and people stop thinking. Here the GOP goes to work on drug laws:

Speaking before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Drugs on Tuesday, U.S. Attorney Gretchen Shappert warned that shorter crack-cocaine sentences will cause a “loss of the public’s trust and confidence in our criminal justice system”—a possibility that is only slightly less troubling than Attorney General Michael Mukasey’s claim that reduced sentences will mean that “1,600 convicted crack dealers, many of them violent gang members, will be eligible for immediate release into communities nationwide.”

These statements are scare tactics aimed at reversing a decision by the U.S. Sentencing Commission, the agency responsible for setting sentencing rules in the federal courts, which has pegged March 3 as the first day federal prisoners doing time for crack offenses are eligible to petition for reduced sentences. This countdown comes just after the Commission’s introduction of less-harsh crack-sentencing standards in November, and the December announcement that this reduction will be applicable to inmates currently incarcerated as well as future offenders. The Justice Department, citing “public safety risks,” is trying to overturn the rule. But giving inmates the chance to obtain shorter sentences won’t spur a mass prison exodus: Judges will still decide which inmates deserve a reduction and which don’t. No one is guaranteed an early release.

As such, there’s little practical reason to be alarmed by the Commission’s decision. But what may be alarming—at least to the Bush administration—is that other crack-sentencing reforms are also possible. Senator Joe Biden (D-Del.) currently has a bill before Congress called the Drug Sentencing Reform and Cocaine Kingpin Trafficking Act, which would eliminate the longstanding disparity in crack-cocaine and cocaine powder sentences, increase funding for drug treatment, and get rid of the five-year mandatory minimum sentence for crack-cocaine possession. It would also increase the amount of crack needed to trigger other mandatory minimums.

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