American College of Physicians calls on Federal Government to Reschedule Marijuana for Medicinal Uses
The nation’s largest organization of doctors of internal medicine, the American College of Physicians has issued a 13-page paper calling on the government to remove marijuana from the Schedule I classification which declares the herb to have no medicinal value.The ACP position paper urges the use of non-smoked forms of cannabis as well as further research to identify the illnesses best treated with cannabis and the proper dosages for specific conditions.
It called for further research into cannabis as a pain reliever for conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis and as an aid in treatment of neurological and movement disorders such as spasticity, pain and tremor in patients with multiple sclerosis, spinal-cord injuries and other trauma.
The declaration could put new pressure on Washington lawmakers and government regulators who for decades have rejected attempts to reclassify marijuana.
Bruce Mirken, a San Francisco spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project, said the ACP position is “an earthquake that’s going to rattle the whole medical-marijuana debate.”
The group, he said, “pulverized the government’s two favorite myths about medical marijuana — that it’s not supported by the medical community and that science hasn’t shown marijuana to have medical value.”
But officials at the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy said calls for legalizing medical marijuana were misguided.
“What this would do is drag us back to 14th century medicine,” said Bertha Madras, the agency’s deputy director for demand reduction. “It’s so arcane.”
No, what this would do is push us forward from the draconian, anti-scientific propaganda from the 20th century prohibitionists. If marijuana had never been heard of, if it carried no societal baggage and was suddenly discovered growing in some remote rainforest, scientists and doctors would be hailing it as the new wonder drug. Humans have used cannabis as medicine for our entire recorded history and the 70+ years of its prohibition are a historical anomaly.
