US Ignoring Marijuana Research

Sun News ^ | 14 September 2002 | Bruce Mirken

[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.

[CtBigPat]

I have been studying the legalization movement for the past couple months because my wife came down with MS last December (she's doing OK-for now) and because while I tried it a few times in high school and didn't care for it I could go for trying it again. So far as I can tell there is no logical reason for spending billions to ban what has been called the safest intoxicant known to mankind.The Canadian Senate just released a major study and came to the same conclusion. Some argue the pot is illegal. So is owning a gun here where I have been exiled to the Peoples Republic of Taxachussetts. Does that mean I have no right to own a gun, or that there is a really stupid and unconstitutional law on the books? Pot not "modern medicine"? Well neither are leeches but they are invaluable for things like finger reattachment surgery. IMHO pot should be made fully legal and drugs like heroin and coke should warrent a several hundred doller fine with the proceeds used for drug treatment.

[Dakmar]

Probably best that we call for an ambulance, we wouldn't want anyone driving while impaired, would we? Now that I think about it, we probably shouldn't let the average layperson drive at all, automobiles are tremendously complicated machines. If we need to go somewhere, we can call in the experts, once our necessity for travel has been approved by all the proper authorities.

[A Navy Vet]

This is a damn outrage and I'm getting pretty sick of the the fedgov tactics on domestic law enforcement. I'd like to know what intel they had to suspect a violent resistance to justify such a raid. On the surface, this one is indefensible.

I also don't get why morphine is a legally prescribed drug and THC is not. Why are we denying terminally ill people a medicine that eases their last days? This is nonsense. Put me into whatever ideological category you want, it's just plain wrong-headed.

[AntiGuv]

That is false. Socialists believe in collective justice and collective judgment whereas Libertarians believe in individual regulation and individual control. There is no similarity whatsoever in the a priori principles of the two ideologies regardless of whether they converge on the occasional similar end results. Aside from that fact, your statement is false on its face. Socialist thinking has led to, for example, calls to ban even tobacco because of the communalist effects (i.e. insurance premiums, managed health care costs) whereas libertarians would never countenance such coercive government surveillance of individual lives.

[Yeti]

Don't become like me, kids! aahahhhhhg! :)

I've been there, bro, was married to one for years ...

I have taken a solemn oath never to ingest another redhead (unless she goes first).

[Roscoe]

Aspirin isn't an illicit drug.

[gcruse]

Why are we denying terminally ill people a medicine
that eases their last days?

Another problem is the mindset it creates.
My 80 year-old mother won't take her
prescribed pain pills at the prescribed
frequency, because she is afraid of becoming
addicted.  I tell her, "So what?" but she
would rather walk around in pain until
it is too bad to ignore.

[Roscoe]

Well, that's what is usually done to treat cancer patients

False.

[Cultural Jihad]

For the record, you are posting a public agreement with an individual who apparently alleges that fraud and corruption exist at the 'highest levels' of FreeRepublic.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/backroom/750638/posts?page=43#43

[WyldKard]

Can we add fatty foods to your list? I just got back from breakfast, and I'm tellin' ya, the loads at Bob Evans shouldn't have been allowed anywhere near the breakfast specials.

Certainly. We can't go around expecting YOU to be smart enough to make your OWN decisions and take reponsibility for your OWN actions and their consequences. I will immediately ban fatty foods so that you can protected from your own weakness. Tada!

[gcruse]

I've been married and divorced from two redheads.
And I am still a sucker for them. It's in the genes,
I think.

[Cultural Jihad]

Socialists and Libertarians are both foreign ideologies, and laud the eventual 'withering away of the state.'

[sawsalimb]

Now that I think about it, we probably shouldn't let the average layperson drive at all, automobiles are tremendously complicated machines. If we need to go somewhere, we can call in the experts, once our necessity for travel has been approved by all the proper authorities.

That,or we could go back to traveling on mules. Not horses,which are notoriously flighty animals. Mules. A good stout mule will never go faster than necessary. We could start this as soon as OSHA can redesign a saddle with a seatbelt and an airbag.

[Libloather]

Libertarians believe in individual regulation and individual control.

Nah. The Liberteens want Big Gubmint controlling the sale and distribution of pot. That way, it gets taxed.

Liberteens are a pretty mixed up bunch - no?

[Tony Niar Brain]

>>Well, that's what is usually done to treat cancer patients
False.

Can't argue with that.
Are you going to answer my question, or am I to be eternally on the defense about these sort of tangents? How are these people that the DEA raided contributing to robberies?

[WyldKard]

Socialists and Libertarians are both foreign ideologies, and laud the eventual 'withering away of the state.'

False.

(Excuse me Roscoe, for stealling your schtick.)

[Yeti]

Socialists ... laud the eventual 'withering away of the state.'

Please.

Check your zipper, jihad -- your ignorance is showing.

[Roscoe]

Can't argue with that.

AMA rejects medical pot

Standard antiemetic therapy doesn't employ pot.

[Libloather]

It's in the genes, I think.

I've seen 'em in jeans. Yeah, you're right...

[AntiGuv]

Socialism lauds the eventual 'withering away of the state' in nothing more than the ephemeral facade, which they favor being replaced by a similar collective control under another name. Libertarianism lauds the eventual 'withering away of the state' in favor of individual self-empowerment and would not displace the state only to replace it by the same institution under another name. Libertarians epitomize the 'frontier spirit' of the American West, and that's probably why the Libertarian Party was founded in the good ole American state of Colorado. Socialits advocate the values of 19th Century European liberalization, and very much represents a foreign creed.

Your statements persist in fallacy and distortion that hardly advance your position considering that they amount to little more than outright lies - whether conscious or unintended.