Soldiers, if you carried a rifle in the sand, you deserve a joint in your hand

Marijuana can be used to treat post-traumatic stress disorder very effectively, at least that is what the anecdotal evidence suggests. Some of the science of that treatment was explained in research involving rats working to remember where a platform was in a cloudy tank of water. But, US researchers have not been able to do any clinical research due to the bureaucratic hurdles of studying cannabis for any medical condition.

For years, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies have been working at the University of Arizona College of Medicine to try and get approval for the first clinical examinations of the benefits of cannabis for veterans suffering from the debilitating effects of PTSD. They are hoping to do a three-month-long study of combat veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan who are experiencing difficulties due to PTSD. The researchers are now just one bureaucratic hoop away from gaining final approval of the study. They are waiting for the National Institute on Drug Abuse and Public health Service to agree to sell the researchers the marijuana they need for the study, or agree to let them import it legally through the agency.

The University study calls for a triple-blind study that would include a placebo to treat 50 veterans whose PTSD symptoms have not been alleviated from any of the current medical treatments. The research method would be tightly controlled, with participants smoking or vaporizing 1.8 grams a day – the equivalent of two joints. The research may be petitioned from the neighboring state of New Mexico, where the qualifying conditions to obtain a medical marijuana card include PTSD. It happens to be the number one diagnosis for a medical marijuana card there, and 27 percent of the total patients in the New Mexico program have PTSD listed as their only qualification.

But so far, the health benefits of cannabis for PTSD are only anecdotal and they are looking for a way to provide evidence that cannabis might be another tool to help returning soldiers from war. Drugs like Zoloft and Paxil have proven inadequate to help with PTSD for soldiers in particular. Colorado tried to add PTSD as a qualifying condition for Colorado’s large veteran populations, but that effort failed.

The federal government seems divided on the issue, with Government Agencies like the Veterans Administration that have expressed interest in learning more about medical marijuana for vets, but with other governmental agencies like the DEA and NIDA blocking any research. There are current studies of cannabis on PTSD sufferers in Israel,   and in Germany, Switzerland and Spain they are currently researching the benefits of MDMA, or ecstacy on PTSD sufferers.

External Links:

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/01/the-case-for-treating-ptsd-in-veterans-with-medical-marijuana/251466/

A study out on Tuesday suggests that smoking cannabis may not be harmful to your lungs. The decades-long study from researchers at the University of California San Francisco and the University of Alabama was published in the Journal of he American Medical Association.

The study is one of the largest and longest studies of the effects of marijuana on health. It seems that cannabis does not do the kind of harm that smoking tobacco does, even though the act of inhaling burning materials into your lungs is relatively the same. The findings came from the analyzed data from participants in a 20-year federally-funded health study in young adults that began in 1985. Their analysis was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

They looked at 5,115 men and women from the ages of 18 to 30 in four cities, Birmingham, Chicago, Oakland and Minneapolis. Both White and Black populations were equally represented. Overall, about 37% of the participants were reported occasional marijuana use.

Researchers did several lung function tests throughout the 20 year study. On average, most of the marijuana users were also cigarette smokers, 17 percent of the participants were smokers, but not marijuana users. Although, the typical smoker smokes about 9 cigarettes a day, the typical marijuana smoker in the the study only smoke joints a few times a month. With all of the data, the study authors were able to calculate the effects of tobacco and marijuana separately, both in people who used only one or the other, and in people who used both. They also considered other factors that could influence lung function, including air pollution in cities studied.

The analyses showed that cannabis smoking did not appear to harm lung function, but cigarettes did. The cigarette smokers’ test scores worsened steadily during the study. Smoking marijuana as often as one joint daily for seven years, or one joint weekly for 20 years was not linked with worse scores.

The researchers caution that the results may not be applied to heavy user of marijuana, since there were too few of them among the participants, those that smoked at least two joints daily. Just like cigarettes, those that smoke cannabis can develop throat irritation and coughs, although the study didn’t look at those, or examine lung cancer rates among the participants. Other studies haven’t found any definitive link between marijuana use and cancer.

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2012/01/11/marijuana-doesnt-appear-to-harm-lung-function-study-finds/

(Hat tips to Drug Policy Alliance for the headline, which was their 2nd subhead, and California NORML for some of the list of grievances…)

"If you inhaled in New York City, today you might be Barry the Drug Criminal"

When originally asked as a candidate his stand on the issue of medical marijuana, President Obama had pledged not to be “using Justice Department resources to try to circumvent state laws on this issue”.

Today, four US Attorneys from the Obama Administration’s Department of Justice announced plans to “outline actions targeting the sale, distribution and cultivation of marijuana.”  Sixteen dispensary owners in California have received letters giving them 45 days to shut down before the federal government shuts them down and seizes their assets

The Obama Administration’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has openly declared that the mere act of registering to use medical marijuana in accordance with state law is reason to suspend a citizen’s Second Amendment rights.

Additionally, President Obama has been using the resources of other federal departments to circumvent state laws on medical marijuana.

The Obama Administration’s Internal Revenue Service has ruled that medical marijuana dispensaries cannot deduct common business expenses, a move that cripples the ability of any business to remain viable.

The Obama Administration’s Department of Treasury has pressured banks to no longer hold accounts for medical marijuana businesses that are heavily regulated, taxed, and surveilled by the state of Colorado.

President Obama had pledged that “science and the scientific process must inform and guide decisions of my Administration on a wide range of issues, including improvement of public health”.

Yet the Obama Administration’s Drug Enforcement Administration has blocked legitimate requests from researchers to study marijuana’s medicinal effect.

The Obama Administration’s Department of Health and Human Services has rejected a Food and Drug Administration approved study of medical marijuana for treatment of post traumatic stress disorder.

President Obama has appointed the heads of all these departments.  In fact, he even appointed to the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration Michele Leonhart, the acting administrator who had been appointed by President Bush.

It is by these measures that President Obama may be judged as more aggressively battling medical marijuana than the previous two administrations in the medical marijuana era.  However, there is one critical difference between President Obama’s War on Medical Marijuana compared to President Bush:  George W. Bush never bothered to ask us what we thought about it.

President Obama has asked the American People on nine separate occasions for suggestions on public policy.  In every instance, the subject of marijuana legalization and medical marijuana support have been the top concerns cited by Americans.

President Bush never openly mocked us on the issue.  Of course, if President Bush had bothered to address our medical marijuana questions, it couldn’t have been any more incoherent than President Obama’s recent response.

Full disclosure: I voted for, campaigned, fund-raised, phone-banked, and publicly spoke on behalf of the Obama Campaign in 2008 when I was still a progressive talk radio host on satellite radio.  It won’t happen again.  Some tell me we’re more likely to see legalization under a Democratic administration; I see two Republicans running for president espousing marijuana regulation.  I see arrest graphs showing greater rise in marijuana arrests under Clinton than any president but Nixon. At this point in my childless life, I must take Keith Stroup’s words to heart and “never again vote for any politician who would treat you like a criminal”.

Of course THAT marijuana is bad for you... in what Kansas ditch did that schwag grow?

LIVESTRONG, as most people know, is the foundation set up by cancer survivor and 7-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong. It boasts “Dare to Change Your Life”, but based on their article The Health Risks of Smoking Pot, it seems like they’re just recycling old material from D.A.R.E. (the program that brings cops into schools to introduce kids to drugs and encourage them to turn in their pot growing parents.)

The short-term health risks from smoking marijuana are well established. According to both the National Institute on DrugAbuse.com and DiscoveryHealth.com, short-term risks include memory loss, coordination problems, learning and problem solving difficulties, accelerated heart rate, anxiety, paranoia and panic attacks.

Memory “loss” is a bit much – it’s more that you have difficulty with short-term recall, learning, and problem-solving while high.  However, afterwards you suffer no ill-effects to memory and cognition, even with long-term, heavy use.  There are numerous studies backing this up.

When it comes to mood altering recreational substances, Lance endorses the one that CAUSES cancer.

You can become uncoordinated while high, which is why we don’t suggest driving or complicated physical tasks while high.  A minority of those who use cannabis experience anxiety, paranoia, and panic, which is why we suggest that marijuana may not be for everyone.  (Some people can die from exposure to peanut dust, but nobody advocates locking people up over a Snickers bar.  If marijuana makes you paranoid, don’t smoke it.)

An accelerated heart rate, which can last for up to three hours, may increase the risk of heart attack, although the evidence is inconclusive.

That accelerated heart rate is about equal to how much climbing a flight of stairs might cause your heart rate to increase.  The evidence that pot causes heart attacks is inconclusive because it isn’t there.

There is some evidence of a connection between pot and schizophrenia. The NIDA believes high doses of marijuana can produce acute psychotic reactions to trigger schizophrenia in vulnerable individuals.

The pot = schizophrenia claim is being debunked more and more every month.  A ten-year look at mental hospitals in the UK found no increase in schizophrenia and psychosis even as cannabis use skyrocketed.  Another study shows that schizophrenics who use cannabis have better cognitive functioning.  These supposed causal relationships between pot and schizophrenia are difficult to interpret, as you can’t tell whether pot caused the schizophrenia, or the schizophrenia caused someone to seek out pot to self-medicate.

Pot smoke contains carcinogens and irritates the lungs.

Stomach cancer +67%, rectal cancer +53%, lung cancer +46%... let's have another beer!

But does it cause cancer?  No, in fact, long-term pot smokers have lower incidence of head, neck, and lung cancers than non-smokers.  Previous preclinical studies assessing the anticancer properties of cannabinoids have shown that they inhibit the proliferation of a wide range of cancers, including brain cancer, prostate cancer, oral cancers, lung cancer, skin cancer,pancreatic cancer, biliary tract cancers, and lymphoma.

This is something a cancer survivor like Armstrong and his LIVESTRONG foundation should be promoting.  You know, instead of Michelob beer, use of which the Los Angeles Times reports causes cancer:

Compared with people who had less than one drink per week, those who drank daily were nearly three times as likely to get esophageal cancer. Moderate drinkers (who consumed between one and six drinks per week) were 67% more likely to get stomach cancer, according to results published in the new issue of Cancer Epidemiology.

Heavy beer drinkers had a 53% increased risk of developing rectal cancer and were 46% times more likely to get lung cancer. People who imbibed spirits daily had more than three times the risk of liver cancer, more than twice the risk of pancreatic cancer, and a 66% increased risk of rectal cancer. Despite mounting evidence of the benefits of drinking wine, moderate wine drinkers had elevated odds of rectal and bladder cancer.

Most tellingly, the researchers also found a dose-response relationship – that is, the heaviest drinkers were most at risk. Among people who consumed the most drinks for the most years, the risk of liver cancer was nearly eight times higher, and the risk of esophageal cancer was more than seven times as high. The biggest drinkers also had more than double the risk of pancreatic and rectal cancer and a more than 80% increased risk of prostate and colon cancer.

The LIVESTRONG website links to many other sets of mythology about marijuana.  Reasons to Stop Smoking Pot tells us that “Those who smoke pot daily operate at subpar levels at all times”.  (Wow, imagine how many more stories, podcasts, live shows, presentations, websites, and gigs I could produce if only I weren’t operating at a subpar level!  Imagine how much better the Cosmos series would have been if Carl Sagan hadn’t been operating at a subpar level at all times!)

What Are the Side Effects of Pot? warns us that “disruption in career, social and family functioning occurs because of a loss of interest in daily activities” and “reproductive problems may occur, including lower sperm count for men.”  (I’d tell that to Willie Nelson, but his career in country music, touring at age 77, and doting on his seven children and many grandchildren, makes contacting him difficult.)

What Are the Effects of Smoking Pot? tells us “it is possible to become physically dependent on marijuana.”  It’s so darn physically addicting that if you quit cold turkey, you “may experience cravings, insomnia and anxiety.”

Effects from Smoking Pot warns that “high doses of marijuana can lead to paranoia, image distortion or psychosis. Such effects may last several days or weeks….”  Where do I find me some of that pot?

Now it seems these articles are submitted to LIVESTRONG and perhaps not well-edited by their staff.  But Lance Armstrong endorsing alcohol is not an accident.  If he is going to endorse a recreational substance, shouldn’t he endorse one that doesn’t cause – and might even cure – cancer?

Our own Paul Armentano’s latest article at the Huffington Post:

It’s the “catch-22″ that has plagued medical marijuana advocates and patients for decades. Lawmakers and health regulators demand clinical studies on the safety and efficacy of medical cannabis, but the federal agency in charge of such research bars these investigations from ever taking place.

Under federal law, NIDA (along with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration) must approve all clinical and preclinical research involving marijuana. NIDA strictly controls which investigators are allowed access to the federal government’s lone research supply of pot – which is authorized via a NIDA contract and cultivated and stored at the University of Mississippi.

Speaking to The New York Times in a January 19, 2010 article entitled, “Researchers Find Medical Study of Marijuana Discouraged,” NIDA spokeswoman Shirley Simson said: “As the National Institute on Drug Abuse, our focus is primarily on the negative consequences of marijuana use. We generally do not fund research focused on the potential beneficial medical effects of marijuana.”

Read the entire article at The Huffington Post.

But it's medical! "No, it's not, it's bad." But we can prove it! "But it's bad." Just give us some to study and we'll prove it! "Can't do that." Why? "Because it's bad."

(New York Times) Despite the Obama administration’s tacit support of more liberal state medical marijuana laws, the federal government still discourages research into the medicinal uses of smoked marijuana. That may be one reason that — even though some patients swear by it — there is no good scientific evidence that legalizing marijuana’s use provides any benefits over current therapies.

Marijuana is the only major drug for which the federal government controls the only legal research supply and for which the government requires a special scientific review.

Researchers investigating LSD, Ecstasy and other illegal drugs can use any of a number of suppliers licensed by the Drug Enforcement Administration, [according to Dr. Rick Doblin of MAPS]. And if a researcher wants to use a variety of marijuana that the University of Mississippi does not grow — and there are many with differing medicinal properties — they are out of luck, Dr. Doblin said.

The University of Mississippi has the nation’s only federally approved marijuana plantation. If they wish to investigate marijuana, researchers must apply to the National Institute on Drug Abuse to use the Mississippi marijuana and must get approvals from a special Public Health Service panel, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Food and Drug Administration.

“As the National Institute on Drug Abuse, our focus is primarily on the negative consequences of marijuana use,” said Shirley Simson, a spokeswoman for the drug abuse institute, known as NIDA. “We generally do not fund research focused on the potential beneficial medical effects of marijuana.”

A high school student today has better access to quality marijuana than a doctor or a researcher in this country.

We’ve known since the 1974 that cannabinoids show promise in the treatment of cancer.  But we haven’t had much follow-up on that promise because scientists working in a lab have to ask the National Institutes on Drug Abuse for permission they won’t grant.

Even under a 36-year repression of free inquiry and respect for science when it comes to cannabis sativa L., we’ve seen over 17,000 published, peer-reviewed studies on the medicinal use of cannabis and found it to be a wonderful treatment for the symptoms of Alzheimer’s Disease, ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease), Chronic Pain, Diabetes Mellitus, Dystonia, Fibromyalgia, GI Disorders, Gliomas, Hepatitis C, HIV, Hypertension, Incontinence, MRSA, Multiple Sclerosis, Osteoporosis, Pruritus, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Sleep Apnea, and Tourette’s Syndrome.

The article makes mention of how people “swear by” medical marijuana, along with the usual notion from naysayers that the plural of ‘anecdote’ is not ‘evidence’.  There are other legal drugs that provide the same or better results, they’ll tell you.  So what?  Why do we deny people the choice of a non-toxic herbal remedy?  Does “better results” mean that in studies, the majority of patients had better outcomes or that all patients had better outcomes?  What if you’re in the minority, like, for example, my wife, who is allergic to just about any opioid pain killer you can give her for migraine, and cannabis is a superior remedy?

Many of these “same or better” legal drugs are also hepatoxic (liver killing) and have a list of nasty potential side-effects and drug interaction warnings.  Even if cannabis only works half as well as acetaminophen (big if, it’s better), but I can’t possibly overdose on it, why wouldn’t I choose cannabis?  Even if cannabis only works a tenth as well as morphine, but I can go through my day with a light euphoria and a bit of dry mouth instead of a nasty addiction, constipation, and inability to work in my drugged-out stupor, why wouldn’t I choose cannabis?

Marijuana’s addiction potential may be no big deal, but it’s certainly big business.

According to a widely publicized 1999 Institute of Medicine report, fewer than 10 percent of those who try cannabis ever meet the clinical criteria for a diagnosis of “drug dependence” (based on DSM-III-R criteria). By contrast, 32 percent of tobacco users and 15 percent of alcohol users meet the criteria for “drug dependence.”

Nevertheless, it is pot — not booze or cigarettes — that has the federal government seeing red and clinical investigators seeing green. As I reported for AlterNet last year, the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), which overseas more than 85 percent of the world’s research on controlled substances, recently appropriated some $4 million in taxpayers’ dollars to establish the nation’s first-ever Center for Cannabis Addiction. Its mission: to “develop novel approaches to the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of marijuana addiction.”

…[I]t is not marijuana use per se that is driving treatment admission rates; it is cannabis prohibition and the increased emphasis on pot arrests that are primarily responsible. Yet you’d never know this by listening to NIDA. And that’s just the way the agency wants it.

[Read Paul's full analysis over at Alternet.org.]

Every April 20, marijuana smokers around the country light up for an unofficial holiday celebrating pot that stems from the smoker slang “420.” This year, as the drug war rages in Mexico, the festivities fall against an increasingly violent backdrop.

Some antidrug advocates are using the occasion to jump-start a movement against marijuana not just for health and legal reasons, but on moral grounds. American pot smokers, they say, are unwittingly supporting drug cartels in Mexico.

Aaron Byzak, president of the North Coastal Prevention Coalition, an antidrug group in north San Diego County, says he’ll focus on the Mexican drug war when he addresses 1,000 seventh- to 10th-graders at the group’s annual antidrug festival, also held on April 20, at an amusement park in Vista, Calif. Mr. Byzak will urge the kids to think of Mexico’s drug lords if they’re offered a puff.

“This is a prime opportunity for us to educate them about how every bit of marijuana someone smokes here is giving more power and more money to the drug cartels in Mexico,” he says.

via The Wall Street Journal “The Antidrug Campaign Tries a New Message“

I’m unsure how this works out as a new message. It’s the same message used right after 9-11 that said every bit of marijuana bought directly funded terrorism. Surprisingly, that message and other propaganda from the ONDCP between 1998 and 2004 was ineffective:

In February 2005, Westat, a research company hired by NIDA and funded by The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, reported on its five-year study of the government ad campaigns aimed at dissuading teens from using marijuana, campaigns that cost more than $1 billion between 1998 and 2004. The study found that the ads did not work: “greater exposure to the campaign was associated with weaker anti-drug norms and increases in the perceptions that others use marijuana.” NIDA leaders and the White House drug office did not release the Westat report for a year and a half. NIDA dated Westat’s report as “delivered” in June 2006. In fact, it was delivered in February 2005, according to the Government Accountability Office, the federal watchdog agency charged with reviewing the study.

via Wikipedia “National Institute on Drug Abuse: Effectiveness of anti-marijuana ad campaigns“

Let’s repeat that for clarity: not only were the results proven ineffective but were so distressing to the ONDCP and NIDA that they delayed releasing the report for a year and a half. And you’re trying to push this on kids again? How stupid do you think they are?

[If there's any message to be taken from the "pot funds Mexican drug gangs" and the "pot funds 9/11 terrorists" propaganda, it's "Buy American!"  Or maybe, "Friends don't let friends smoke Mexican schwag." -- "R"R]

The ASNet specifically:

(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.

via Position Statement on Medical Marijuana.

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.

[Lede:] Teenagers who smoke pot regularly may slightly increase their risk of developing the most aggressive type of testicular cancer compared with nonsmokers, according to a new study.

The study does not prove that smoking marijuana causes cancer, and relied on self-reports of marijuana use.

Even if further research also points to an association, the risk would be small, said Dr. David Bell, a urologist with Capital Health in Halifax.

“This is a very rare malignancy, seen in about one per 100,000 men per year,” said Bell. “One has to really question the significance of this.”

The researchers did not find a link between marijuana and the more common form of testicular cancer.

The research was funded by the National Cancer Institute, the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the Hutchinson Center.

What, NIDA funded a study to find out something bad about pot?  Where’s Paul’s number, he’s never gonna believe this!…