(DEA) Exposing the Myth of Smoked Medical Marijuana
Q. Does marijuana have any medical value?
…The American Medical Association recommends that marijuana remain a Schedule I controlled substance.
And now today when you go to that same link…
Q. Does marijuana have any medical value?
And the AMA reference is gone. Congrats to the folks at LEAP who spearheaded the campaign to harass the DEA about it. (Though if you want to believe it was the fast response of the loyal frontline battle grunts in the War on (Certain American Citizens Using Non-Pharmaceutical, Non-Alcoholic, Tobacco-Free) Drugs™ known as “Stashers” that provided the “bump” that put the DEA over the edge, well, I’m not going to disabuse you of that notion. Whatever keeps you writing to your government is fine with me.)
But the rest of the document needs some serious fixing, too…
Tuesday, November 10th, 2009 at 6:27 pm | By: Radical Russ
(Buffalo News) Bianca Hervey, a 20-year-old college student, was returning home to her apartment in Attica when a village police officer drove up behind her, put on his flashing lights and pulled her over.
Hervey’s driver’s license, Officer Christopher Graham told her, had been suspended for failing to pay traffic tickets. He arrested her.
Graham handcuffed her, put her in the back of the police cruiser and took her to police headquarters. Her car was impounded and towed away.
At the police station, Graham handcuffed Hervey to a bench and told her she would probably spend the night in jail, Hervey said.
But then Graham offered her a way out of her problems.
Become a confidential informant for the Wyoming County Drug Task Force, he told her, and he could make the charges disappear.
Police departments throughout the country use people arrested on drug charges to inform on others. In return, their charges are reduced or dismissed.
But Hervey said she doesn’t use drugs and, having just moved from Batavia to the tiny village of Attica, doesn’t know anyone in Attica who does.
That didn’t stop her recruitment as a confidential informant.
Neither Wyoming County Sheriff Ferris Heimann, nor District Attorney Gerald Stout has a problem with how Smith’s department handled the case.
Asked about recruiting someone who said she is not part of the drug trade, Stout responded to The News: “But she agreed to do it.”
Nothing more aptly demonstrates the idiocy of prohibition than a system of law enforcement and justice that uses young people as bait. Surely nobody in the close-knit group of drug users in the tiny town of Attica, NY, is going to think twice about the new girl in town who is so desperate to buy a large amount of cocaine or pills or weed, but doesn’t seem to know which end of a joint to light.
This is even more shameful than the Rachel Hoffman case. At least Rachel was someone who hung around with a cannabis and ecstasy-using crowd. This Bianca Hervey sounds the majority of young people who, believe it or not, don’t do any drugs! When police infiltrate criminal organizations, they’ve had months of training, so why do they think they can take a young lady who doesn’t pay traffic tickets and turn her into supercop?
Monday, November 9th, 2009 at 8:10 pm | By: Radical Russ
I get the most incredible emails, and I mean “incredible” as in “it strains credibility” to believe this really happens in America.
My name is [Bob]. I’m 23 years old and I’m from … Mississippi. Until this year I had never been convicted of a crime. I had never even had a speeding ticket. I was on my way home from work and I was pulled over. I got caught with a stem on my floorboard. Which probably wouldn’t even register as .01 [grams] on a scale. The officer searched my vehicle 4 times before he even found it. I was arrested and taken to [jail.] My vehicle was impounded. I lost my job and eventually my home. I bonded out and received my court date later in the mail. When I went to court I received an 1100 dollar fine and my license was suspended for 6 months. The funny thing was a repeat offender 2 cases before me only received a 600 dollar fine for simple assault. He also received a set number of hours in an anger management class. His charge was for beating his pregnant girlfriend. I have lost faith in America and our leaders. Marijuana is a wonderful herb and I enjoy the way it makes me feel. Sometimes I suffer with horrible depression and marijuana makes me feel soooooo much better. I’m a musician as well and marijuana stimulates my mind in ways that I never could naturally. … Anyways I figured I would share this with you so you could see how bad we have it down here in Mississippi.
Monday, November 9th, 2009 at 7:33 pm | By: Radical Russ
We all know Judge Jim Gray is a powerful advocate for ending marijuana prohibition. We all know David Evans is a rabid prohibitionist. Let’s just skip to the fun parts and give you the bullet points from David Evans’ reefer madness:
(CBS News) David Evans: We cannot legalize marijuana because…
…it serves as an entry point for the use of other illegal drugs. This is known as the “gateway effect.”… [There is no "gateway effect", Institute of Medicine debunked that a decade ago and every serious study since has agreed.]
Higher potency marijuana may be contributing to a substantial increase in the number of American teenagers in treatment for marijuana dependence…. [No, that's because of drug courts that sentence marijuana users to rehab.]
Drug legalization advocates claim that marijuana is less dangerous than drugs like alcohol, cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine. However, studies … show that marijuana is not harmless but that it is toxic and addictive. [Marijuana is notably non-toxic to healthy cells and organs and is not even as addictive as coffee.]
The legalizers claim that as legalized drugs become less expensive, people will no longer need to commit crimes in order to pay for their drug use. The problem with this claim is that some drugs are already inexpensive. Marijuana, the most abused and addictive drug for young people, is very inexpensive…. [Really, you consider $10-$15/gram inexpensive for a young person?]
Even supporters of drug legalization admit that “low prices would encourage use.” A good example of this is [crack] cocaine. … Higher levels of drug use cause increased crime, especially property crime to pay for the drugs. [Wasn't this a discussion about marijuana? So, then, you're saying the people who'd rob someone for money for that $400 ounce now will rob more people for that $40 ounce in the future?]
Drug users, many of whom are unable to hold jobs, commit robberies and other crimes not only to obtain drugs, but also to purchase food, shelter, clothing and other goods and services. Even if drugs were legalized, addicts will still need to pay the rent and may resort to crime to do so. [Uh, if marijuana is legal, marijuana users can keep their jobs or find new ones without being discriminated against for the metabolites in their urine.]
…most violent drug related crime is committed because people are under the influence of drugs. The use of drugs changes behavior and causes criminal activity because people will do things they wouldn’t do if they were rational and free of the drug’s influence…. Cocaine-related paranoia is an example. [Again with the cocaine! Please, what crimes are being committed by people under the influence of marijuana, except for noodling too long on a guitar solo or not sharing the bag of Doritos?]
If legalizing drugs will increase drug use, then drugged driving will also likely increase. Many studies show a clear correlation between drug use and motor vehicle accidents, trauma, and dangerous driving…. [If legalizing marijuana causes more people to choose it instead of alcohol, we'll have less dangerous driving!]
Your comment that increased pot use will not lead to more addiction is preposterous…. This argument does not work when we consider that drugs such as cocaine, heroin, and marijuana are dangerous and highly addictive. [Cocaine and heroin are dangerous and highly addictive. Can we please stick to talking about pot?]
[Prohibition] keeps potential drug users from using drugs by virtue of the fear of arrest and the embarrassment of being caught. [Right, all 22 million of us who will smoke this year are terrified, but it's not stopping us from using cannabis.]
[Prohibition] helps drug users/addicts into treatment through the use of laws and drug courts that offer treatment as an alternative to incarceration. [Helps drug rehabs, you mean, by providing them unaddicted people forced into rehab by courts. Over one third of those attending marijuana rehab haven't even used cannabis in the past thirty days!]
Some other points to notice from Mr. Evans’ rants:
He insists on calling us “legalizers”. I call Evans a “prohibitionist” because he supports continuing the status quo of prohibition. But to say that we support “legalization” of drugs is not semantically correct. A “legalized” drug, as Judge Gray points out, would be something like aspirin, a substance that has no restrictions on marketing, age of use, sales, manufacture, and purchase. We don’t call for that, we call for sensible regulations on marijuana not unlike alcohol and tobacco. It would be more accurate to call us “regulators”.
He must always bring drugs into the discussion – cocaine, heroin, and meth – because a discussion of the dangers of marijuana use alone doesn’t scare people anymore.
He continues to harp on the negative consequences of drug use while ignoring the demonstrable consequences of drug money, which include corruption, violence, and terrorism.
There will be a part two to this debate on CBS News website tomorrow.
Thursday, November 5th, 2009 at 12:42 pm | By: Radical Russ
Thanks to a tip from our friends at LEAP, I reported on Tuesday about Iowa Senator Charles Grassley offering an amendment to Senator Jim Webb’s prison reform bill that forbids the commission from recommending the legalization of marijuana or even studying what effect legalization might have on society. Well, thanks once again to the Tom Angell, blogging for Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, we now have audio of Senator Grassley defending this censorship of science, even as he talks about putting “all options on the table.” (Catch the audio on tonight’s Stash.)
QUESTION: I hear there was an amendment to a bill tomorrow that would legally prevent some of the government’s top advisers from — according to some of the memos we’ve seen — even discussing the idea of legalizing or decriminalizing drugs.
Can you talk a little bit about that? I understand that you pulled that amendment, but, nonetheless, I wanted to ask you what your intent is with that.
GRASSLEY: Well, my intent on that amendment isn’t any different than any other amendments that are coming up. The Congress is setting up a commission to study certain things. And the commission is a — is an arm of Congress, because Congress doesn’t have time to review some of these laws.
And — and — and the point is, for them to do what we tell them to do. And one of the things that I was anticipating telling them not to do is to — to recommend or study the legalization of drugs.
Their — their program would be what we tell it it is. …
Senator Webb wants to understand why we have 5% of the world’s population but 25% of the world’s imprisoned. Sen. Webb understands that the War on (Certain American Citizens Using Non-Pharmaceutical, Non-Alcoholic, Tobacco-Free) Drugs™ has a lot to do with it. Sen. Webb understands that discussion of marijuana legalization must be on the table. I’m not sure which concept is more misunderstood by Senator Grassley: science, democracy, free speech, or justice. Wait, maybe it’s compassion:
QUESTION: Would your amendment have even stopped the discussion of legalized marijuana for medical purposes?
GRASSLEY: I think that would not — let’s see. Yes, the extent to which it would be decriminalization, the answer is yes.
Monday, November 2nd, 2009 at 11:35 am | By: Chris Goldstein
10/30/2009 by Chris Goldstein
On October 19th the Ocean County College in Tom’s River, NJ hosted a debate on medical marijuana. A professor of Social Science, Brad Young, moderated. The opposition was Terrence Farley, a former county prosecutor and the now head of the NJ Narcotics Task Force Commanders Assn. Farley is a vehement prohibitionist and we’ve sparred over this topic on television programs before.
Neither of us saw the questions prior to the debate and this question was particularly interesting. As an added bonus you get to see me address some of the reefer madness we encounter locally.
Essentially, “Should medical marijuana be covered by health insurance.”
Friday, October 30th, 2009 at 5:39 pm | By: Radical Russ
(ONDCP) Marijuana legalization, for any purpose, remains a non-starter in the Obama Administration. It is not something that the President and I discuss; it isn’t even on the agenda. Attorney General Holder issued very clear guidelines to U.S. Attorneys about the appropriate use of Federal resources. He did not open the door to legalization.
Regarding state ballot initiatives concerning “medical” marijuana. I believe that medical questions are best decided not by popular vote, but by science. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which studies and approves all medicines in the United States, has made very clear that the raw marijuana plant is not medicine, and any state considering medical marijuana should look very carefully at what has happened in California.
Legalization is being sold as being a cure to ending violence in Mexico, as a cure to state budget problems, as a cure to health problems. The American public should be skeptical of anyone
selling one solution as a cure for every single problem. Legalized, regulated drugs are not a panacea—pharmaceutical drugs in this country are tightly regulated and government controlled.
yet we know they cause untold damage to those who abuse them.
To test the idea of legalizing and taxing marijuana, we only need to look at already legal drugs — alcohol and tobacco. We know that the taxes collected on these substances pale in comparison to the social and health care costs related to their widespread use.
You know, for someone who says he doesn’t discuss marijuana legalization, it seems he sure has a lot of things to say about marijuana legalization.
Just one of the victims of an FDA "studied and approved" drug.
We’re all for the FDA studying the medical efficacy of marijuana, but every time we try to make that happen, NIDA and the DEA block those efforts. “Marijuana’s not medical,” they say. We say,”Hey, we’ve got hundreds of thousands of people who say they’re getting medical relief. Can we at least study that?” They say, “No.” “Why not?” we ask? “Because marijuana’s not medical.” “But we’ve got all these studies…” “Nah nah nah nah, we can’t hear you, marijuana’s not medical, nah nah nah!” Besides, the FDA studied and approved thalidomide, Phen-Fen, and Vioxx, so excuse us if we don’t put a ton of credibility into that agency telling us how horrible marijuana is.
Should the people in a democracy be allowed to vote on what substances they are allowed to use as medicine? Why not? The acts in the early 20th century that were passed to regulate the “snake oil salesmen” occurred in a time when we didn’t have widespread communications like now. If someone tried to sell an ineffective or dangerous tonic these days, he’d be out of business faster than you can say “Twitter”. It’s not like we see a widespread call for votes on medical cocaine or medical methamphetamine… oh, wait, I forgot, those drugs are medical and any doctor in the US can prescribe them, but not a non-toxic herb. Besides, if a company like “Extenze” can sell a pill claiming to make my penis bigger, so long as they put “These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease,” I can’t for the life of me figure out why we need FDA approval for a plant.
Furthermore, most people don’t realize that a large proportion of the drugs the FDA does study aren’t approved for the way they are being prescribed:
Off-label use is the practice of prescribing pharmaceuticals for an unapproved indication. Off-label use of medications is very common. Up to one-fifth of all drugs are prescribed off-label and amongst psychiatric drugs, off-label use rises to 31% (Radley, et al. 2006). New drugs are often not tested for safety and efficacy specifically in children. Therefore, it is believed that 50-75% of all medications prescribed by pediatricians in the U.S. are for off-label applications.
Thursday, October 29th, 2009 at 2:06 pm | By: Radical Russ
(San Jose Mercury News) OKLAHOMA CITY—In a case highlighted by advocates seeking to reform Oklahoma’s drug laws, the state on Wednesday sought to revoke the parole of a man sentenced to decades in prison for growing marijuana that he says was used to treat his arthritis pain.
William Joseph Foster, 51, initially was sentenced in Tulsa County to 93 years in prison after authorities uncovered a pot growing operation in the basement of his Tulsa home in 1995. A state appeals court later reduced that term to 20 years in prison, and he was released on parole in 2001.
During Wednesday’s parole revocation hearing, the Department of Corrections argued before an administrative law judge that Foster violated the terms of his parole while living in California by using and growing marijuana in that state and failing to follow his parole officer’s directions.
Foster maintains he was released from supervision by a parole officer in California overseeing his case, and he claims he refused to sign the paperwork on the advice of an attorney because it would have extended his parole by four years.
“We’re spending all this time, effort and money on one man when our prisons are already full,” said Norma Sapp, director of the Oklahoma chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. “I bet we could send six kids to college on what we’ve spent to keep Will in prison.”
Let’s see if I can follow the logic here:
Oklahoma catches Will Foster growing medical marijuana for his arthritis and sentences him to 93 years, so they can keep fellow Oklahomans safe from, uh, er, a guy smoking a joint to ease his pain.
Oklahoma paroles the guy and allows him to leave the state and serve his parole in California, where he can legally smoke a joint to ease his pain.
California looks at the guy and says, “This is no criminal,” and ends his parole, allowing the guy to live his life and legally smoke a joint to ease his pain.
Oklahoma gets very upset at California, because if he’d stayed in Oklahoma, he’d still be on parole and be unable to smoke a joint to ease his pain.
Oklahoma fights to extradite him, put him in a cell, and are now working to revoke his parole so he can serve the rest of his 20-year-sentence, so they can protect Oklahomans from a guy smoking a joint to ease his pain 1,500 miles away in a place where medical marijuana is legal.
Marijuana: the drug so deadly powerful that its private legal medical use can endanger people from two time zones away.
Thursday, October 22nd, 2009 at 7:41 pm | By: Radical Russ
(Minneapolis Star-Tribune) Bong water can count as a controlled substance, the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled Thursday in a decision that raises the threat of longer sentences for drug smokers who fail to dump the water out of their pipes.
In a 4-3 decision Thursday, the state’s highest court said a person can be prosecuted for a first-degree drug crime for 25 grams or more of bong water that tests positive for a controlled substance.
The statute defines a drug “mixture” as “a preparation, compound, mixture, or substance containing a controlled substance, regardless of purity.” When the language of a statute is unambiguous, the high court said, precedents prohibit courts from disregarding the letter of the law under the pretext of pursuing the letter of the law.
“Regardless of purity” means that even a fleck of an ash that registers a molecule of THC floating in your bong water makes all that water weight a controlled substance. 25 grams of water equals 25 milliliters, which equals a little over five teaspoons of water. Five teaspoons of water in your bong makes you a first degree criminal. An ounce and a half of bong water makes you a felon.
Wednesday, October 21st, 2009 at 9:43 pm | By: Radical Russ
It’s fun to watch prohibitionist ideologues thrash about as the polls show ever-increasing support for cannabis re-legalization. This recent memo by the Obama Administration declaring a hands-off policy for state-compliant medical marijuana operations has whipped up Clinton Admin Drug Policy Spokesman Bob Weiner.
“Be careful about the new lax enforcement policy for medical marijuana,” former White House Drug Policy Spokesman Bob Weiner is telling the Department of Justice and the Obama Administration. “Prescription marijuana use may explode for healthy people.”
Unfortunately, as many as 90% of purchases at clinical distribution centers are “false defenses”, some law enforcement agents report – “which means individuals are not really sick but simply want the pot,” Weiner asserts.
Again with the supercops who can discern someone’s relative health on sight alone.
“Medical marijuana is not as effective as other healing mechanisms for many illnesses such as glaucoma, pain, or nausea that users try it for because of false hype leading to false hope. Just as laetrile was legalized in the 1970’s in 27 states to cure cancer but was found to be useless apricot pits, leading Senator Kennedy in a Senate hearing to decry the ‘false hope’ delaying true treatment, ‘medical’ marijuana today could be a placebo delaying far better treatments,” according to Weiner.
Unfortunately, there was no hope for that run-on sentence which perished in a tragic head-on collision with a false analogy. The difference between laetrile and medical marijuana is that 850,000 people a year don’t get their lives permanently affected by an arrest for laetrile. Medical marijuana is far more popular and effective as judged by the millions who use it, some of whom are only alive today, like Cathy Jordan, because of medical marijuana. Laetrile was indeed a false hope, thus few people seek it out anymore, even though it is an unscheduled substance. Marijuana is the third most popular substance behind alcohol and tobacco because lots of people continue to seek it out even after a century of prohibition.
“Many medical marijuana advocates press its use for pain killing and appetite enhancement,” Weiner asserted, “but you might feel just as good after a shot of gin. Science, not politics, must drive what is determined to be safe and effective medicine in America. The medical marijuana advocates never mention the potentially better applications of THC in marijuana from suppositories, jells, aerosols, or the already approved pill Marinol — they just want the high from the smoked version.
You might feel good after a shot of gin. But you’d find yourself feeling worse later and find the alcohol exacerbating your problems, unlike cannabis. And Bob Weiner has obviously never tried Marinol, which got me higher than any marijuana I’ve ever tried, or heard us drone on for years now about vaporization, tinctures, and edibles.
“There is a real danger that if marijuana is made essentially a prescription drug, its abuse and usage explosion could parallel other prescription drugs over the last decade, such as OxyContin, which have tripled nationally and quintupled in many locations because of the ease of availability.”
A real danger, perhaps, if marijuana were as addictive and deadly as OxyContin. Using Weiner logic, I could say there is a real danger that if badminton is made into a televised sport, its ratings could match the NFL.
“No one wants to deny a dying cancer patient a hit of grass, if that’s what he or she wants.”
Well, unless he or she fools the supercop into thinking he or she looks too young and healthy. Why is it OK for the dying cancer patient to enjoy “the high from the smoked version” but not the “healthy people”? Is the notion here that pot’s going to scramble your brains, corrupt your morals, and destroy your body, but, eh, fuck it, you’ll be dead soon anyway, so what? At least the cancer patient got a little slice of joy amidst all his or her suffering. But you healthy person… no joy for you!
I really think that is part of the prohibitionist’s mindset. Alcohol is OK because even though it gives you joy, it kicks your ass with a hangover the next day and it slowly kills you if you keep it up. Cigarettes are OK because even though they give you joy (or at least relieve a craving) you’re punished by standing outside in the cold and it slowly kills you if you keep it up. But cannabis gives you joy, and then the next day, week, month, year, and decade, you feel fine and still get joy from it. There’s little downside to pot use, except for the illegality. There’s no payback of misery in exchange for your joy.
mr reuben: Russ is MPP that much bigger then norml?
Radical Russ: Whoo hoo! After two weeks of being hella-busy between DPA & Café, I'm finally caught up! That means STASH at 6PM! Hooray! (Apologies to Jack the [...]
Radical Russ: WakeUpDead, the answer to your question is money.
Missippi Hippy: recommend copy/paste that email addy to your own service... too much info using theirs... stuff I couldn't answer... same with the Prez
Missippi Hippy: 'ts been a good day for blowing off steam.
Missippi Hippy: Then, in my own words asked them to make changes.
Missippi Hippy: Here is the email addy for the doj
AskDOJ@usdoj.gov
I sent them a letter starting with this statement...The American Medical Association (AMA), our largest medical professional organization, voted on Nov [...]
Adam: Italian prosecutor "Or perhaps after smoking hash, they decide to include Meredith in an extreme sexual game" Hash smoking blamed in Amanda Knox murder trial.
Missippi Hippy: Aaah 1987... my third year in Hawaii. No schwaggie stuff for me... it was da kine Maui Wowie n Kona bud for this whiskey swillin, beer guzzlin', doobie puffin', ho [...]
WakeUpDead: 1987, wow flashback, think that was a huge Acid Summer, well alot were between 85-90, Um "The Dead" were still around and life was alot simpler. Dirt weed was abounding [...]
MrSpof: Off topic but there's no way any geek wouldn't want to build this http://tinyurl.com/yhj6h6a , get , and mow the damned grass
WakeUpDead: Wow when did Thrus 19th stash post? Missed it all day, never looked. Oh well I get to have two new stashes tonight + CCS on Ustream too. Happy 420!
MrSpof: Time for another weekend funny story? Scooch up and listen: A long time ago in an apartment far, far away, my roomie and I scored some absolute crap weed in [...]
WakeUpDead: Im still wondering why Cheech and Chong went with MPP to do their new tour. Im kinda peeved, why didnt they invite all reform groups be represented? I dont understand?
Adam: I wish I had a job
lost my a year ago...
MrSpof: The 3B high: accept no substitutes. If this had been an actual emergency, would have been served.
Missippi Hippy: Yes... work is That is why I retired at 48, or should I say... I fired my bosses and replaced them with myself.
mr reuben: oh wait now it works. hah
mr reuben: using mozilla and it didn't seem to work
RevRayGreen: mr reuben.....we would tell you but we would have too...just kidding are you using Mozilla or Exporer?
MrSpof: Thank god, the pain of another week is history. Work =
mr reuben: Thanks sameoldwine
sameoldwine: And on that cheery note, I bid you all a good weekend! Adios
Marijuana-Related Health Costs Minimal Compared To Those Of Alcohol, Tobacco; California Medical Association Says Pot Prohibition Is A "Failed Public Health Policy"; Oregon: State NORML Affiliate Opens First 'Cannabis Café'. […]
American Medical Association Calls For Scientific Review Of Marijuana's Prohibitive Status; Dutch Marijuana Use Lower Than European Average, Study Says […]
"Truth In Trials Act" Reintroduced In Congress; Maine: Voters Approve Medical Marijuana Dispensaries Measure; Colorado: Breckenridge Voters Overwhelmingly Decide To End Pot Penalties. […]
Some of the nation’s top athletes discuss why today's pros are turning to cannabis — and away from alcohol and painkillers — off the field, and question why pro sports leagues are continuing to sanction those who do. Moderator: Steve Bloom, Author, Pot Culture; editor, celebstoner.com * Toby Grear, MMA fighter * Sean Neumann, Documentary Filmm […]
Cannabis Law Reform's Missing Link: Law Enforcement Former Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper; LEAP and NORML Advisory Board; Author of Breaking Rank Putting the Mexican Cartels Out of Business Mexican drug cartels now employ over 100,000 soldiers and are responsible for nearly ten thousand deaths per year. Their largest source of income is marijuana. […]
DEA revises anti-medical marijuana web page, removes AMA reference
wouldn't want to build this 
, and mow the damned grass 
lost my a year ago...
would have been served.
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; is she incognito like me 
, or can...
