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US Ignoring Marijuana Research
Sun News ^ | 14 September 2002 | Bruce Mirken

Posted on 09/15/2002 8:38:29 AM PDT by JediGirl

Early in the morning of Sept. 5, dozens of armed men stormed a respected medical facility where nearly 300 people desperately ill from cancer, AIDS and other illnesses got their medicine. Brandishing semiautomatic weapons in the faces of terrified patients, including a woman paralyzed from childhood polio, they destroyed all of the medicine and took prisoner the facility's operators.

The work of Osama bin Laden? Hamas? Some other international terrorists?

No. This particular terrorist raid was carried out by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

The facility they attacked was the Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana ( WAMM ) in Santa Cruz, Calif. A co-op run entirely by and for seriously ill people - 80 percent of whom have terminal diagnoses - WAMM sold nothing. All of the medical marijuana grown was given to members without charge.

The facility was supported by the community and worked closely with local officials. According to County Supervisor Mardi Wormhoudt, WAMM operated in an "exemplary" fashion. After the raid - which had been planned and executed with no warning to the local government - Wormhoudt told reporters she was "appalled" by the DEA's action.

The patients WAMM served are desperately ill. For many with AIDS or cancer, marijuana is the only thing that allows them to tolerate the horrendous side effects of the harsh treatments that keep them alive. Others endure excruciating pain that conventional medicines have failed to relieve, but which marijuana helps.

Because of this raid, many of these people will die prematurely - agonizing, horrible deaths - because the only medicine that helped them has been taken away.

What could possibly motivate such cruelty?

Desperation.

All around the world, governments and scientific experts are coming to believe that marijuana shouldn't be illegal - that it is simply not dangerous enough to warrant arresting and jailing even social or recreational users, much less people using it to relieve symptoms of cancer or AIDS. The British government has already moved to make marijuana possession a nonarrestable offense.

On Sept. 4, Canada's Senate Special Committee on Illegal Drugs released the most exhaustive investigation of marijuana data and policy options ever conducted by any government. The 650-page report declared that criminalizing marijuana amounted to "throwing taxpayers' money down the drain in a crusade that is not warranted by the danger posed by the substance."

But marijuana - which accounts for the vast majority of illegal drug use and arrests - is the engine that drives the war on drugs and keeps massive drug-control budgets pumped up.

So even as DEA agents were shoving machine guns in the faces of sick people, White House drug czar John Walters and Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson stood in front of a Washington, D.C., press conference, spouting long-discredited myths as if they were proven facts.

Marijuana, said Thompson, is "a clear and present danger to the health and well-being of all its users" - a statement contradicted by reams of scientific research.

Indeed, in 1995, the prestigious medical journal The Lancet stated flatly, "The smoking of cannabis, even long term, is not harmful to health." This year, the British government's Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs and the Canadian Senate committee came to similar conclusions after extensive study.

But our government's drug war ideologues don't care about science. And they don't care how many sick people they literally torture to death in their desperate effort to pump up a collapsing policy.


TOPICS: Heated Discussion
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1 posted on 09/15/2002 8:38:29 AM PDT by JediGirl
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To: Wolfie; vin-one; WindMinstrel; headsonpikes; philman_36; Beach_Babe; jenny65; AUgrad; Xenalyte; ...
ping

If you'd like to be added or taken off of this ping list FReepmail me

2 posted on 09/15/2002 8:38:54 AM PDT by JediGirl
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To: JediGirl
Hey JediGirl...Please add me to the list. Thanks!
3 posted on 09/15/2002 8:42:12 AM PDT by WyldKard
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To: JediGirl
Cultural conservatives love this sort of big government. Cultural conservatives are all about imposing THEIR view. They only pay limited lip service to the concept of liberty. Liberty to them is the liberty to be just like them -- or else.
4 posted on 09/15/2002 8:44:10 AM PDT by jlogajan
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To: JediGirl
It's a good thing that people can't get high on bread mold or penicillan would be illegal. Of course though LSD is made from wheat ergot.
5 posted on 09/15/2002 8:45:01 AM PDT by clamper1797
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To: WyldKard
added :P
6 posted on 09/15/2002 8:45:53 AM PDT by JediGirl
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To: JediGirl
Ffffffffffffffffft......cough........cool.

Can't wait until they isolate the agent in marijuana that is therapeutic so it can be administered without the high. We'll see how many of these 'needy' make the switch.

Oh, yeah............legalize hemp man, you can make so many things out of it, man. We can revolutionize the paper and rope industry, man. Sustainable, low cost and fast growth, man.

7 posted on 09/15/2002 8:55:55 AM PDT by Northpaw
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To: JediGirl
It's amazing the hemp heads ignore what drugs has done to Columbia today.
8 posted on 09/15/2002 9:00:34 AM PDT by ChadGore
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To: Northpaw
Can't wait until they isolate the agent in marijuana that is therapeutic so it can be administered without the high. We'll see how many of these 'needy' make the switch.

Heheheh. Very good.

9 posted on 09/15/2002 9:00:45 AM PDT by DaughterOfAnIwoJimaVet
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To: clamper1797
Of course though LSD is made from wheat ergot.

I thought it was rye....

But anyway ... you can indeed be sent to jail for producing/distributing penicillin.

10 posted on 09/15/2002 9:03:00 AM PDT by Yeti
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To: JediGirl
Dude! It's not like we're ignoring the reports man; it's just that we can't remember what they say. Hey, you got anything to eat?
11 posted on 09/15/2002 9:03:53 AM PDT by Mr. Lucky
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To: JediGirl
I own my body and what I ingest is my own business. If other humans claim the right to use violence to prohibit me from ingesting any substance, they claim the right to enslave me. This includes the so-called regulated pharmacopia, which should also be deregulated. There is no provision in the U.S. Constitution for the FDA. I have the natural right to ingest both asthma medicine and heroine.

Prohibitionists are tyrants.
12 posted on 09/15/2002 9:05:30 AM PDT by society-by-contract
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To: Yeti
Can you get arrested for simple possesion of penicillan ????
13 posted on 09/15/2002 9:07:21 AM PDT by clamper1797
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To: Yeti
Might be rye ... thought it was wheat ... BUT nonetheless there is rye bread too.
14 posted on 09/15/2002 9:08:12 AM PDT by clamper1797
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To: clamper1797
I was going to try acid in the 60's ... but I couldn't get it out of the battery
15 posted on 09/15/2002 9:09:28 AM PDT by clamper1797
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To: Northpaw
It's called Marinol. Prescription drug, with nearly identical pain killing results as suburban marijuana. (I.E. sometimes it works, sometimes not)

The bad news is that for the "average" chemo patient, Marinol costs about the same as buying a new Lexus every year.

kg

16 posted on 09/15/2002 9:09:40 AM PDT by AzJP
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To: Northpaw
I disagree with the illegal labels on hemp. I know too many manufacturers, ranchers, exporters, who had nothing but a legitimate need and trade with the product, simply to produce rope and later confiscated ala heinous finger nail clippers on airplanes.

The tell-tale phrase in this article was the accusation that the removal of this facility would cause "Premature" agonizing deaths in the patients. I can understand the intoxicating element of marijuana, but now alluding and stating its removal with cause death tips the apologists' hand. Without more evidence, I would side with authorities and suspect the entire affair was a bust on a major syndicate farm which uses 'medication' as a loop hole for intentional illicit activity. I side with the government on this one.

17 posted on 09/15/2002 9:10:55 AM PDT by Cvengr
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To: society-by-contract
I have the natural right to ingest both asthma medicine and heroine.

What if the heroine objects? Is it her constitutional right to defend herself?

18 posted on 09/15/2002 9:11:24 AM PDT by DaughterOfAnIwoJimaVet
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To: JediGirl
Marijuana isn't medicine for AIDS or cancer.

These are hardcore antiAmerican leftist groups you are propagandizing for -- not legitimate use of marijuana in a medical setting.

19 posted on 09/15/2002 9:11:44 AM PDT by tallhappy
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To: AzJP
My wife ... who is a Pharmicist says Marinol ( I just asked her) is a C2 drug and CAN and DOES get one high
20 posted on 09/15/2002 9:12:17 AM PDT by clamper1797
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