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.
And the prohibition of marijuana has been just as successful as the prohibition of alcohol in the 1920s -- if by "successful" you mean driving up prices and sending the profits to organized crime instead of regulated and taxed American businesses.
Now you fancy yourself a "victim" of not only your neighbor, but the thundering whorde of "Flatlanders" who wanna rob you of your 69 year-old birthright of smokin that dope to your heart's content! Hey! It's ok with me if you give yourself a cognitive impairment for life with that stuff. I could care less!!!
It just surprises and stuns me that anyone your age could engage in such self-deluding sophistry to the point that it has embittered you so toward your fellow Californians.
Now me, I've got reason to be bitter toward somebody like Schwartzenegger who slapped that crappy additional layer of government over both of us called the Sierra-Nevada CONservancy!!!
Oh! No, I don't drink, smoke, or do any drugs stronger than asprin! It doesn't make any difference if I did, or if I didn't. You were just lookin for a little moral equivalance, right? (grin) (I'm only 5 years behind ya so git a grip)
Doooode, what are YOU smoking?
See ya later. When you grow up.
Lest you forget, your argument was that people would quit drinking alcohol and switch to marijuana if marijuana was legalized. You cited nothing to support that.
If that was true, marijuana would be a Schedule III prescription drug right alongside Marinol. It's not. It's a Schedule I drug, which means that the government (and every major medical organization) is claiming that smoked marijuana has no medical use.
For the third time. "Cultures of the marijuana revealed Aspergillus fumigatus ..."
"these hospital infections kill more people each year"
Ah, I see. First, deny that a fungus in marijuana can kill susceptible patients and then, when proven wrong, attempt to minimize it.
Repeat after me, "I did not ... have sex ... with that woman ...".
As usual for drug warriors, you are once again "mistaken", otherwise, you could point to where I made such an argument, which of course, you can't, because I did not, for, like most drug warrior arguments, your's is based on a negligent acquaintence with easily ascertained facts, insult, bluster and bluff, and the ability to dance fast when you bluff is called.
Boiling down this argument: "It's illegal, therefore, it should be illegal". Where adults argue, this is called post hoc, ergo propter hoc: assuming what is to be proved. Since you are, as you say, intimate with the DEA's Young Commission finding, you know that the Judge-Advocate of the DEA ordered the re-scheduling of Marijuana, and that since 1988, the DEA has been, basically, in violation of its own mandated procedures in maintaining marijuana at schedule III. The DEA operates in this questionably legal manner because it is addicted to the civil seizure income from marijuana busts.
Pretty amusing, by the way, that Marinol, which does actually have a clinical track record for killing people due to it's pharmacological properties, is sched. I, while marijuana, which has virtually no clinical record of having ever harmed anyone, is sched III. This is perhaps the most egregeous monument to the blind, illogical stupidity that the drug war produces. On the available scientific evidence, there is insufficient reason to make Marijuana even a schedule I "drug", unless, of course, you count venal, dishonest political gain, and a license to pillage thru civil forfiture.
Sure. You said, "In every historical case known, sea changes in the law cause sea changes in usage. And we have contemporary statistics to draw from in Switzerland, Jamaica, and Denmark, amongst others. The safety factor alone would be plenty enough reason for a rational user to substitute marijuana from alcohol."
Now what are you saying -- you didn't mean it? What have we been discussing the last dozen posts? What "contemporary statistics" were you referring to? What were your reports in post #61 supporting?
People are not going to switch from alcohol to marijuana if marijuana is legalized.
There's your proof. Exactly what you asked for. Medical marijuana can kill immunosuppressed patients.
From the Mayo clinic:
http://www.mayoclinicproceedings.com/inside.asp?AID=522&UID=6388
The use of pacemakers and implantable cardioverter-defibrillators continues to increase for the management of cardiac dysrhythmias and, more recently, heart failure. Long-term complications associated with their use include infection, lead failure, and spurious shocks. Although the risk of infection with intracardiac devices is well known, the clinical presentation of this complication can be insidious, delayed in onset, and difficult to diagnose. We report a case of Aspergillus fumigatus infection of an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator with right-sided endocarditis in a 55-year-old man. The infection presented as persistent pulmonary infiltrates (due to recurrent septic pulmonary embolism) and anemia more than 2 years after implantation of the device. Clinicians should be aware of the variable manifestations resulting from infection of intracardiac devices.
There you go, obvious proof that pacemakers can kill people, and therefore, should be outlawed.
No. It was the disease caused by Aspergillus fumigatus.
What makes more sense to you -- "Despite aggressive antifungal therapy, the patient died with disseminated disease caused by the fungus." or "Despite aggressive antifungal therapy, the patient died of leukemia."?
You have a 1/2 point, and I 1/2 apologize, however, I did not intend for these two sentences to be as intimately connected thru statistics as you seem to think. The statistically verifable safety record for legalizing marijuana, for example, in Holland, is available thru the Dutch public health agency, and has been widely disseminated, including in several of the reports I have cited. This is not signifcantly related to transferrence from alcohol to marijuana. It is more related to such things, as, just to choose a random example, making it possible to legally and enforcably mandate screening marijuana for fungal contamination.
My second sentence was speculative, and did not, by my intention, draw upon the available evidence the first sentence drew on. Hence my assumption, which I am not convinced was wrong, that we were arguing about the existence of the discussion, not the existence of the statistics. I apologize for not being sufficiently clear--not for making claims about statistical evidence related to transferrence, which a careful reading will tell you I did not make.
Of course some people will. What a silly claim. Most people prefer to obey the law, if the law hasn't fallen into the hands of lunatics and zealots. People with addictive personalities won't, because marijuana isn't significantly addictive, but sensible people who enjoy a beer in the evening to relax, will easily discover that a toke in the evening serves much the same function, at less cost and risk.
It was not a judge advocate. It was an Administrative Law Judge, Francis Young. They used to be called "Hearing Examiners" -- federal lawyers who preside over a formal hearing on the record.
Administrative Law Judges have no authority to order squat. As a result of this hearing, this ALG made a recommendation to the head of the DEA. By ignoring the recommendation, the DEA violated nothing.
Marijuana may indeed contain chemicals that are medically beneficial. Smoked marijuana, however, has no accepted medical use in the U.S.
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