Posted on 06/26/2006 8:22:44 AM PDT by bassmaner
If ever a piece of legislation should pass readily through the U.S. House of Representatives, it is a measure sponsored by Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y., and Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., that would prevent the Department of Justice from using tax dollars to prosecute medical-marijuana patients in states that have legalized medical marijuana. Because it is a good bill, expect it to fail.
Polls show that some three out of four Americans support allowing doctors to prescribe medical marijuana for patients who need it. Members must know that constituents within their districts use marijuana to control pain and nausea -- their families would like to live without the fear of prosecution. As Time Magazine reported last year, research shows that the drug has salutary "analgesic and anti-inflammatory effects."
Republicans should be drawn to the states' rights angle of the bill, while Democrats should go for the personal stories of constituents who have found relief, thanks to medical marijuana.
Yet when the House last voted on the measure in 2005, it tanked in a 264-162 vote. As the House is scheduled to consider the measure this week, few expect the measure to pass. "I wish I could tell you it's going to pass," Marijuana Policy Project spokesman Bruce Mirken conceded by phone last week. "I can't realistically expect that."
Over the last decade, two big hurdles existed: Republicans and Democrats. Last year, a mere 15 Repubs voted for the measure -- down from 19 GOP members who supported it in 2004. On the other side of the aisle, Democrats are moving toward the light. In 1998, the Clinton Justice Department filed suit against California medical-marijuana clubs. Last year, however, an impressive 145 Dems voted for Hinchey-Rohrabacher.
Martin Chilcutt of Kalamazoo, Mich., has written to his local GOP congressman, Rep. Fred Upton. A veteran who believes he got cancer because of his military service, Chilcutt told me that his Veterans Administration hospital doctors supported his use of medical marijuana when he had cancer.
Upton's office told me that Upton believes Marinol, the legal synthetic drug that includes the active ingredient in marijuana, should do the trick.
I asked Chilcutt if he had tried the drug. "I don't like Marinol at all," Chilcutt replied. It takes too long to work, it is hard to calibrate the dose you need, and "it made me feel weird." He prefers marijuana because it works instantly -- "You can control the amount you're using, and you get instant feedback."
Upton also fears sending the wrong message to kids about marijuana. But federal law has long allowed the sick access to needed pain control with drugs more powerful than marijuana. Only bad politics can account for the fact that marijuana is a Schedule 1 drug under the Controlled Substances Act, and thus deemed more harmful than cocaine and morphine -- drugs that can kill users who overdose.
Alex Holstein, a former GOP operative and conservative activist, is lobbying Republicans on behalf of the Marijuana Policy Project. He believes that regardless of their position on medical marijuana, Repubs in the California delegation should support Hinchey-Rohrabacher because state voters approved Proposition 215 -- and Republicans should stand up for states' rights and the will of California voters.
As it is, President Bush should direct the Justice Department to lay off medical-marijuana users -- because it is the right thing to do for sick people.
It's not as if the administration doesn't know how to sit on its hands and not enforce existing law. Last week, The Washington Post reported that under Bush, the number of employers prosecuted for hiring illegal aliens plummeted from 182 in 1999 to four in 2003.
If the Bushies can look the other way when well-heeled employers break the law, they can look the other way when sick people try to relieve unnecessary pain.
Medical marijuana, today, is totally unregulated. I say the doctors should stop recommending smoked medical marijuana to immunosuppressed patients until controls by the states are in place.
Check out Canada's medical marijuana program and get back to me once you know what you're talking about.
The federal government is in the way.
John Lawn rejected (not reversed) Francis Young's recommendation (not ruling) on the grounds that there had been no extensive large-scale controlled studies to demonstrate the effectiveness of medical marijuana.
"If these hearings weren't intended by the congress to carry some sort of weight, why do we bother with them?"
These were not Congressional hearings. It was ALJ Francis Young presiding over a hearing attended by a group of 9 people representing various interests presenting their data to the U.S. DOJ/DEA.
The ALJ received this data in the hearing, typed it up, and submitted a 69-page report, along with his recommendation, to the DEA. The DEA looked it over and rejected it.
I bet this happens all over Washington 100 times a day by various interest groups petitioning various government agencies.
And at the end of the day the bureaucrats and regulators at those agencies will do whatever is in their best interest.
Which has butkus to do which what the price of marijuana would be if it was legalized, in the same sense that cigarettes and booze are. Or even regulated stupidly, but for ordinary consumption, like the state of oregon does with booze. Which ain't selling at 200 bucks an ounce.
Ooooh, that's a mighty big "if".
Not really ... how many tobacco smokers contract these fungal diseases?
So, until it's made legal, let's agree that the way medical marijuana is currently being "recommended" is dangerous and should be stopped.
It should be replaced with rcommendations that include instructions for avoiding fungi. (Vaporization, perhaps?)
There's no such thing as medical marijuana. Medical marijuana is a wedge issue being used by leftists in an attempt to get illegal drugs legalized. They've managed to dupe libertarians and some conservatives by co-opting conservative buzzwords like "states rights", "freedom", and "liberty".
Nonsense. The Institute of Medicine has thoroughly documented the medical benefits of marijuana.
They've managed to dupe libertarians and some conservatives by co-opting conservative buzzwords like "states rights", "freedom", and "liberty".
How do these concepts not apply to marijuana? (Do they also not apply to the deadly, addictive, violence-inducing drug alcohol? Do you support a return to Prohibition?)
And this is where you continue to propagandize for leftists. You know perfectly well that leftists define "medical" marijuana as smoked marijuana. They do not distinguish between smoking marijuana and any drugs derived from the marijuana plant. The Institute of Medicine, from the abstract of their own book, hardly endorses smoked marijuana as medicine, as you seem to imply:
This book, based on the 1999 IOM report Marijuana and Medicine: Assessing the Science Base, is a lay version which is faithful to the original report, but also has an additional chapter on marijuana and the law. Symptoms, if not diseases, can be relieved by marijuana, but for most patients there are more effective approved medicines. On the other hand, the basic science suggests potential benefit from certain cannabinoids, delivered without the hazards of smoking, in combination with other drugs. Continued research to elaborate that potential and epidemiological studies to define risks such as lung cancer from smoking marijuana are recommended.
Hardly a ringing endorsement for smoking marijuana. Are you for or against legalizing smoked marijuana for "medical" purposes?
How do these concepts not apply to marijuana? (Do they also not apply to the deadly, addictive, violence-inducing drug alcohol? Do you support a return to Prohibition?)
These concepts do not apply because they're not true. Pot is illegal because it's potential to harm our society is greater than legalized alcohol is. Pot demotivates people. It makes them non-ambitious. Content to stay in one station in life. It's effects on a wide scale tend to stagnate and rot society and culture, especially a culture built upon hard work and free enterprise, like American culture. For whatever reason, alcohol doesn't do this. That's why leftists regularly try to get pot legalized...they want capitalism to rot and stagnate. They want people to become docile, content, and stupid so they continue to implement leftists programs.
For it, as well as nonsmoked means like vaporization, since balancing benefits and risks of medicines should be left up to doctors and their patients, not government.
How do these concepts not apply to marijuana? (Do they also not apply to the deadly, addictive, violence-inducing drug alcohol? Do you support a return to Prohibition?)
These concepts do not apply because they're not true.
"States rights", "freedom", and "liberty" are not true?!
Pot is illegal because it's potential to harm our society is greater than legalized alcohol is.
Laughable nonsense; alcohol has sent many lives into noonproductive oblivion ... and triggered far more violence than marijuana. And if we're criminalizing "potential to harm our society" where do we stop? Ban junk food? Enforce bedtimes for adults?
Well I guess that's it then. If a doctor wants to prescribe LSD because he and the patient believe it infers a medical benefit, then so be it. If a doctor wants to prescribe heroin to a patient because they both "believe" it infers a medical benefit, then go for it. Belief trumps empirical evidence and rule of law.
These concepts do not apply because they're not true. "States rights", "freedom", and "liberty" are not true?!
I guess that depends on what subject you're defining with them. Conservatives wouldn't define having men having sex with 16 year old boys as "freedom", "liberty" or "states rights". Liberals would. Conservatives wouldn't define letting hookers run around neighborhoods unimpeded as liberty, liberals would. Conservatives wouldn't define killing unborn babies as liberty, liberals would. And conservatives wouldn't define smoking pot as an issue of liberty, while liberal would.
Laughable nonsense; alcohol has sent many lives into noonproductive oblivion ... and triggered far more violence than marijuana. And if we're criminalizing "potential to harm our society" where do we stop? Ban junk food? Enforce bedtimes for adults?
Abusing alcohol makes the user die much faster than abusing pot. Pot makes its users docile, stupid and susceptible to liberal propaganda. Since they can remain in this docile and stupid state for decades they make the perfect voting bloc for liberal propaganda.
Infinitely faster, in fact, since virtually no one dies of pot.
Pot makes its users docile, stupid and susceptible to liberal propaganda.
No scientific data backs up this non-fact, and that's not for lack of looking.
Since they can remain in this docile and stupid state for decades they make the perfect voting bloc for liberal propaganda.
As opposed to knee jerk drug warriors, who make the perfect mindless voting block to be manipulated by hysterical appeals to phony drug crises.
That's absurd--by orders of magnetude. Alcohol destroys 10s of thousands of lives every year. Nothing that can be scientifically attributed to marijuana, either when it was legal, or now, remotely matches the distructive track record of alcohol.
Pot demotivates people. It makes them non-ambitious. Content to stay in one station in life. It's effects on a wide scale tend to stagnate and rot society and culture,
You mean like the United States was demotivated, between the civil war, and WWI, when marijuana was legal, and the US became the economic engine of the world? I'll be darned.
especially a culture built upon hard work and free enterprise, like American culture. For whatever reason, alcohol doesn't do this
Alcohol doesn't demotivate people, eh? Fascinating. What hallucinatory, chicken-hearted balderdash. The Republic is not at risk from marijuana. What do you think the founding fathers, some of whom grew marijuana, would think of this incredible, cowardly fear of an herb?
George Washington, who grew marijuana, would be astonished to hear that the freedom he fought for, turned out to be the right of federal authorities to tell everyone what they can put in their mouths. You have a lot of nerve to be trying to claim the american culture/free enterprise high ground for communist ideas like controlling what people can put in their bodies, for the good of the state.
I questioned the "if marijuana was regulated" not the "might be even less". (I concede it would be less.)
English not your first language?
"It should be replaced with rcommendations that include instructions for avoiding fungi. (Vaporization, perhaps?)"
I honestly don't know. It could be that just handling the tainted drug releases the spores to be inhaled. Personally, if I was on chemo, I wouldn't want to be in the same room.
There are other drugs for nausea, you know. And they work quite well.
But that's not what we're discussing. We're discussing the legalization of marijuana for medical use only. That's the subject of the above article. Miss that?
They're doing this in Canada today. Look it up and see what they're paying for junk.
The 1st amendment guarantees your right to petition the government for a redress of grievences -- it doesn't guarantee they will be redressed.
Baloney. They documented the claims. That's all.
Well, he grew hemp, but whatever. George Washington also owned slaves. What's your point?
A situation the beltway bureaucracies fine rather too convenient, IMHO. I find it telling that the some of the most vocal and virulent critics of "states rights" efforts are current or former long term federal employees.
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