Police say some of the dumbest things about marijuana, but this official “Fact Sheet” on cannabis from the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics & Dangerous Drugs Control (the dreaded OBNDDC – could you have a clumsier name?) wins the award for Exceptional Lies, Ignorance, and Propaganda in Service of Prohibition (“Exceptional LIP Service” – see, cool acronyms are easy!):
Cannabis Sativa L. is a species of tall annual woody shrub with male or female flowers borne on separate plants. [Good so far...] Cannabis grows wild in most of the temperate and tropic regions of the world. [Still OK...] Hemp, as marijuana was earlier known, was grown in the News England colonies and used in making cloth and cordage. [Hear that, my News England friends?]
The cannabis sativa plant material, marijuana, has been used as a drug for centuries. [Uh, if the plant material is the drug "marijuana", what is all that hemp, an animal or a mineral?] It originally was used for the treatment of various mental and physical ailments. But after close examination, the Food and Drug Administration in 1937 declared it to be without medical utility and removed it from the market place. [Not even close; Congress prohibited marijuana in 1937 with the Marihuana Tax Act, over the objections of the AMA, who knew its medical utility. The FDA had never regulated cannabis and had nothing to do with its prohibition.]
The new marijuana in the market place is not the 1 percent to 2 percent THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), which is the psychoactive ingredient that produces the “high”. [Right, because 1%-2% THC marijuana is called "hemp" and smoking it will only give you a headache.] Today’s new cultivation methods are producing a drug with up to 30 percent THC, or 3,000 percent higher than the old 1960′s-1980′s available marijuana. [Wow. That's my first "Super Pot is 30x stronger than Woodstock Weed" reference. But at least the math is correct: if you compare 1% industrial hemp that nobody smoked in the 1960s to the 30% THC hash oil that makes up a tiny sub-percentage of the cannabis seized, then 3000% is correct. It's also as meaningful as noting that Pabst Blue Ribbon beer is 3000% more potent than O'Doul's "near-beer".]
Some people argue marijuana should be legalized for both medical and recreational use. But medical studies show how dangerous this idea would be. New data has shown that marijuana smoke has a higher concentration of carcinogenic substances than tobacco smoke. [This is somehwat true, but ignores that THC mitigates these carcinogens with an anti-tumoral effect.] It is linked as a cause of lung problems such as bronchitis [Yes, but not if you vaporize it] and emphysema [no, not true], and studies confirm damage to brain cells [not true, and may actually protect alcoholic's brains and may be a treatment for brain cancer], nerve cells [no, and may actually stimulate nerve cell growth in the brain] and reproductive organs which have lead to still births and birth defects [not at all true, and don't you think we'd see more hippie kids with birth defects if it were true?]. In addition, acute memory loss [no long term memory problems and only short term memory problems while high] and lowered immune systems [right, that's why doctors give medical marijuana to HIV/AIDS patients] also have been traced to marijuana smoking.
Plus, surveys indicate that about 33 percent of all patients in emergency rooms test positive for either alcohol or marijuana in their systems. [Which just means the ones who tested for marijuana had used some in the past few days, and not that marijuana caused the visit.]
Contact your elected representatives and urge them to 'Stop Arresting Marijuana Smokers'. 
Very good rebuttal. However, you spelled “somehwat” incorrectly. Please try to spell check articles in the future.
[...] yes, the OBNDD, the people who brought you the marijuana “fact sheet” that claims pot today is 30 times stronger than Woodstock Weed and it damages brain cells and [...]
[...] & Dangerous Drugs Control publishes a “fact sheet” on marijuana that states: “Today’s new cultivation methods are producing a drug with up to 30 percent THC, or 3,000 pe… This is in direct contradiction to the DEA’s own figures on marijuana potency which find that [...]
I think in the end the rule is, if it’s
marijuana the answer is no, if it’s
anything else the answer is maybe.
Sounds like the alternative is to “change the mandate”. Who does that? Congress? Obama?
That’s right. It’s kinda like the Olsen decision where we can’t allow religious users of cannabis to have their sacrament, because there are so many marijuana users who’d claim it was religious that it would be impossible to enforce anti-marijuana laws. The Indians who use illicit ayahuasca are exempted because there are so few of them and ayahuasca use so rare that their use wouldn’t affect anti-drug efforts.
Got that? If your personal religious belief in creation and the meaning of life is uncommonly rare, you can take drugs religiously, but if your religious views are shared by too many others, you can’t. Sorry, your religion’s too popular; too many people agree with you.
Exactly correct. The ONDCP is mandated by law to lie. Always remember that cops and feds are allowed to lie in the pursuit of fighting crime, but if you lie back to them, it is “obstruction of justice” or “perjury”.
Ron Paul tried to call out the ONDCP for the lies they tell. In ’03 he wrote to the general accounting office and was basically told that they would do nothing because lying could be considered to fall within the ONDCP’s mandate of “taking such actions as necessary to oppose any attempt to legalize the use” of marijuana.
http://tr.im/pCUz
I guess the same logic would apply to shooting each of us in the face.
Russ, didn’t the 5 federal judge @ Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals say that the law was unenforceable? The decision was 3-2.
Typical governmental BS. You can’t call the government on “lies” even if you can prove that they are because then every one would want to “call them” on every little thing.
:thdown:
Are these judges left over from the dark ages?
Great post Russ. Im with Jillian, lets sue!!!!
We’ve been trying. ASA is using the Data Quality Act in a suit against the Feds’ lies on cannabis.
http://tr.im/pBCK
why aren’t we allowed to sue organizations who lie to us? ..even just initiating the process would make the news
is there a way to force these people to retract the lies and publish objective results……
Na…..what was i thinking…. it’s a self serving industry…..