Turn back effort to disguise an illegal drug as medicine
Monday, May 12th, 2008 at 8:49 am | By: Radical Russ
Postbulletin.com: Turn back effort to disguise an illegal drug as medicine – Mon, May 12, 2008
The organizations that represent Minnesota’s police chiefs, sheriffs, county attorneys, police officers and narcotics investigators are united in opposition to legislation that would authorize the use of marijuana for medical purposes.The adoption of this legislation will pose numerous problems for Minnesota’s law enforcement officials and will endanger the public’s safety.
Translation: We won’t be able to just rip up every plant we see and jail every stoner we catch. We might have to investigate and do paperwork.
In its raw form, marijuana is a dangerous drug and is not a medicine.
Dangerous, in that it has never killed anyone? Not a medicine, because millions of people over 5,000 years of history have used it to treat nausea, pain, spasticity, cramps, anxiety, depression, glaucoma, seizures, wasting syndromes, post-traumatic stress, and more?
While the pro-marijuana lobby will vigorously refute this fact, citing selective bits of information from inconclusive research, they fail to mention that many professional medical organizations, including those representing the patients proponents say need it the most (the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, the American Academy of Ophthalmology, and the American Cancer Society) do not support the medical use of marijuana.
And many do, such as the American College of Physicians and others.
Currently, medical researchers and scientists are conducting studies to determine if certain properties of marijuana may be suitable for medical treatment of illnesses or ailments, which can be refined for safe pharmaceutical distribution. One such drug, Marinol, is currently available in pill form.
Strange, isn’t it, how the free plant with 14% THC is a “dangerous drug”, but a 100% THC pill costing $20 a pop and making profit for a pharmaceutical company is “suitable for medical treatment of illnesses or ailments.” Turns out that the pill isn’t as useful as the raw plant as well, as the pill lacks cannabidiol, flavinoids, and terpenoids.
A 1999 landmark study of the Institute of Medicine found there is only anecdotal information on the medical benefits of smoked marijuana for some ailments, such as muscle spasticity.
For other ailments, such as epilepsy and glaucoma, the study found no evidence of medical value and did not endorse further research.
Then you’re not looking at the scores of studies that have shown evidence of medical value.
This study concluded that there is little future in smoked marijuana as a medically approved medication because of the dangers of smoking a substance that contains many harmful substances.
Dangers which don’t exist when cannabis is vaporized, or eaten, or given sublingually as a tincture.
Marijuana is also an addictive drug. According to the Minnesota Department of Human Services, 7,784 people who reported marijuana as their primary substance of abuse received addiction treatment in 2007. That was 16 percent of all treatment admissions in our state last year.
Because close to 7,784 people were sentenced by a court to drug treatment when caught with cannabis. Only 7.3% of people who personally seek drug treatment (as opposed to being forced into it) are there for cannabis use. Of all the people in treatment for cannabis, only 16.6% put themselves there.
We are not the bad guys. Our goal is to protect, not exploit our citizens. We are united in our belief that passage of this legislation will have negative consequences on our communities, our youth and all our citizens. We are out in front telling you that this legislation is bad public policy. If you don’t believe us, then just ask our colleagues in California or Oregon about the problems “medical marijuana” has caused for them. They will be glad to tell you.
In both CA and OR, teen use of marijuana has declined since medical marijuana passed in the 1990s. CA has reaped an estimated $100 million per year in sales tax from dispensaries. Thousands of dollars and police hours have been spared by not busting medical users of marijuana. Drug dealers’ profit from marijuana has dropped as patients prefer to get cannabis legally from their own grower or a dispensary. OR helped balance their human services budget by taking $920,000 from the self-funded medical marijuana program.
Law enforcement needs to look beyond their years of inculcation to the cult of reefer madness to realize that we have all been lied to about marijuana and its users for over seventy years now. Legalization for all users, healthy and sick, is the only rational public policy. Bushman’s belief essentially boils down to, “Sorry, cancer and AIDS patients should suffer because some healthy person might try to get high.” Well, I mean, high from the wrong drug, of course; I doubt Bushman has a problem with Minnesotans who drink vodka and wishes to return to alcohol prohibition.
