Posted on 08/26/2005 9:10:15 PM PDT by neverdem
When the Supreme Court ruled in June that states could not legalize marijuana for medical uses, Justice Stephen Breyer voted with the majority. But during oral arguments, he suggested an alternative way for patients to get it: let the federal Food and Drug Administration decide if marijuana should be a prescription drug.
"Medicine by regulation is better than medicine by referendum," he said. In theory, that sounds reasonable. But what if the officials doing the regulation are afflicted with a bad case of Reefer Madness?
If you doubt this possibility, you should have been at a hearing that began this week at the Drug Enforcement Administration's headquarters. Lyle Craker, a professor of plant and soil sciences at the University of Massachusetts, asked an administrative judge to overrule the agency so he could grow marijuana for F.D.A.-approved research projects by other scientists.
Dr. Craker is a well-regarded agronomist who's being supported by the American Civil Liberties Union and both of his senators, Edward Kennedy and John Kerry. But for four years he's been stymied by the D.E.A., which first stalled and then finally denied his request for a permit.
There are precedents for his re quest, because researchers already get supplies of other drugs - like heroin, LSD and Ecstasy - from independent laboratories licensed to make them. But researchers who want marijuana have only one legal source: a crop grown in Mississippi and dispensed by the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
Scientists say they need an alternative partly because the government's marijuana is of such poor quality - too many seeds and stems - and partly because the federal officials are so loath to give it out for research into its medical benefits.
Discovering benefits, after all, would undermine the great anti-marijuana campaign that has taken hold in Washington. Marijuana...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Better: Medicine with neither.
We tried unregulated medicines. Want to to buy some capsules guaranteed to make you lose weight? They used to be sold -- and their active ingredient was tapeworm eggs...
FWIW, I've never tried it, but I've never understood why THC is automatically disqualified as a controlled, (for purity, strength, etc.) prescription pharmaceutical ingredient.
Because, unlike, for example, asperin and turkey eggs, it's never been clinically demonstrated to do much significant harm at all to anyone. As per the DEA, after an extensive year long judicial review of the scientific evidence, back in 1988.
Sounds like a case of poisoning to me. Prosecute and sue. End of tapeworm-via-capsules.
No need for the prior restraint of government regulation.
Wonderful... the USA now might reach the heights of Amsterdam society.
By studying it for medicinal value when we know that there are cannabinoid receptors?
The body has nicotine receptors too. And ones that mimic nerve gas receptors as well.
Because it cut into the profits of timber makers, that's why.
Granted, there will be some abuses, but isn't that the case with every other prescription drug on the market today?
The feds are so paranoid about marijuana they won't even allow the growth of commercial hemp, which has absolutely NO value as a drug, recreational, medicinal, or otherwise..
As the saying goes, "wouldn't get a fly high"..
Marijuana drug "enforcement" is all about confiscation and the money it provides to Law Enforcement agencies..
Just take that money away from DEA and Local Law Enforcment..
Put all earnings from drug related confiscations into the general funds of the federal or state legislature instead..
Take away the financial benefits, and it will no longer be a priority for the DEA or anyone else..
The first are usually called nicotinic receptors.
I wouldn't describe the irreversible inhibition of an enzyme, acetylcholine esterase, as a nerve gas receptor, but to each his own. Receptors are usually complex proteins on cellular or nuclear membranes that control what enters or a cell or nucleus, respectively.
There are also separate opioid and benzodiazapine receptors that are the targets of two classes of controlled drugs. I'm not sure what your point is, unless you think this part of the war on drugs is more important than helping the sick.
If drug policy was left to localities as it should be, certain cities might choose to become Amsterdams (and quite possibly enjoy Amsterdam's low incidence of hard-drug use) while others would not. Would it be such an unbearable thing if somebody somewhere in the United States was legally committing non-rights-violating acts you don't approve of?
Thanks for the pic. Unfortunately, I can't determine whether you support studying the medicinal worth of cannabis or not.
Since my exposure to it as a child in the 50s, I have read a great deal about it and have met and known many people in all walks of life who used it recreationally as well as medicinally, and have noted no significant drawbacks to socialization or career. I can't say that every claim on this decal is true, I don't know, but I have seen significant easing of dying when adding the use of pot.
From the Seal --- 'epilepsy'.
I don't know about that - marijuana gives certain posters fits around here!
LOL The Big Dumb Government can't even grow POT right! Even illiterate, shirtless trailer park guys know how to grow good pot. It ain't rocket science.
They should take something for it.
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