Addiction Science Network’s Position Statement on Medical Marijuana
Monday, March 9th, 2009 at 8:48 am | By: Radical Russ
(1.) endorses the medicinal use of marijuana for compassionate use including non-terminal but chronic illnesses such as multiple sclerosis, fibromyalgia, and other conditions involving neuropathic pain unresponsiveness to conventional medications,
(2.) firmly disagrees with the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and other government agencies that purport marijuana to be a highly addictive substance similar to cocaine and heroin (in fact, we consider this assertion to be particularly irresponsible and call upon these government agencies to soften their rhetoric regarding marijuana and to recognize its actual status as a ‘soft drug’),
(3.) supports the decriminalization of marijuana and applauds progressive state legislative bodies such as that seen in our home state of New York who have already de facto decriminalized marijuana, and
(4.) while not advocating the recreational use of marijuana presently withholds opinion on this popular activity.
It’s always amazed me that anyone who works in addiction could possibly put cannabis in the same club as heroin. Marijuana is about as addictive as coffee and only about 9% of marijuana smokers ever develop a clinical dependence.
Or let me put it this way – as a twelve year old, I watched my dad kick alcohol and speed cold turkey, sweating and puking and twitching and hallucinating in a single wide trailer over the span of three horrendous weeks… I’ve smoked a lot of pot in my life, but lack of bud never put me through anything remotely close to that.
