Posted on 11/11/2015 11:22:02 AM PST by ConservingFreedom
Another day, another controversy. Medical marijuana activists are rightly upset over comments DEA head, Chuck Rosenberg, made to reporters last week.
During a Q&A, he talked about his stance on medical marijuana.
"What really bothers me is the notion that marijuana is also medicinal because it's not. We can have an intellectually honest debate about whether we should legalize something that is bad and dangerous, but don't call it medicine -- that is a joke."
Right, so you want to have an intellectual debate prefaced with medical marijuana is a joke. Want to clarify that bit a more?
"There are pieces of marijuana -- extracts or constituents or component parts -- that have great promise," he said. "But if you talk about smoking the leaf of marijuana -- which is what people are talking about when they talk about medicinal marijuana -- it has never been shown to be safe or effective as a medicine."
I'm with the activists who point to study after study showing it helps with chronic pain, muscle spasms and other ailments. In fact, here's an analysis of 79 studies from JAMA pointing to "moderate-quality evidence to support the use of cannabinoids for the treatment of chronic pain and spasticity."
Damn, here he is making a blanket statement and along comes science...
No. I get the frustrations of medical marijuana activists. They have turned to change.org demanding his resignation. As of today, the petition has gathered nearly 16,000 signatures.
Nothing wrong with voicing frustration at the DEA head, but it's empty. The DEA works like every other agency in the executive branch. It enforces the law. Well, sometimes...
23 states and DC have passed some form of marijuana legalization. Specific medicinal uses all the way to recreational. One problem, none of the state laws trump federal law.
And yes, the DEA is a federal agency. Chuck Rosenberg isn't a fan of marijuana. Even if he was on the side of legalizing it for everyone, he can't do anything. His job is to enforce the law as directed by the President.
Notice the raids have quieted down on dispensaries across the 23 states? Rosenberg may think it's a joke, but the latitude given to the states is telling. Politicians make bombastic statements, but state after state is flipping green.
The FDA is moving to give researchers more room to study the drug. The JAMA study above? 79 studies. That's it. In 2013, 16,000 people overdosed from opioid painkillers. How many died from overdosing on marijuana? Oh right... Zero.
Other studies have shown a decrease in painkiller overdose deaths when medical marijuana was accessible.
It isn't just pain where marijuana plays a significant role. Seizure disorders have been treated with various strains. Who knows what researchers could unlock in the future?
Is it time to open the doors and make it legal? For medicinal use? Definitely. Recreational? Soon, but it needs tight regulation to prevent a wild west of potent strains and no oversight. In Colorado and Washington, the results are still early, but you cannot call it a failure.
Is it a joke? Maybe to Chuck Rosenberg and others. Should he resign or be fired? Of course not.
To the people medical marijuana helps? They aren't laughing. And it's a shame they get targeted. But, the tide is turning. The American people are with them. State governments are increasingly with them. The Federal government? One day you'll wake up to a simple voice vote that finally ends the debate.
Far as I know, the FDA already regulates THC tablets etc...
All they need to do is to add the smokable form.
It’s the only way that I know to end this constant bickering and rogue states because a republican admin is not likely going to tolerate it.
And to add to that, I really don’t want to see anymore young people going to prison over a weed.
No, the way to end this is to either let the States take care of it, or draft and ratify and amendment enumerating a power of the national government to do it. What we have now is built on nothing more than creative semantics that cannot hold up to the standard of original intent.
It’s just a weed....but advocates played a little game in order to make it legal..(which was the intent of medical MJ)
Well now they have layed the foundation for legalization with regulation, by the FDA.
Personally I would not put it in the same class as synthetic opioids like Oxy codone..I would put it in the lesser restricted class as tramadol. (a much less problematic pain drug)
I think the real point here is exactly what is the drug for..
Recreation or medicine.
If it is a medicine it can be made legal but regulated and that regulation needs to be consistent across state lines. FDA does that.
If it’s a recreational drug, then it can’t be legal and we will continue this nonsense until someone with balls ends it.
You can’t have it both ways..It can’t work that way..But it seems to me that “both ways” is exactly what users want, and it’s not going to happen. It will be fraught with constant issues, interferences, and legal cases.
If it’s a recreational drug, then it can’t be legal and we will continue this nonsense until someone with balls ends it.
False dichotomy. It doesn't have to be an "either/or" question, and the fallacy is easily demonstrated. Alcohol is used both recreationally and medicinally.
So you side with fedgov at the expense of the 10th Amendment.
[Note: I took out the contractions in quoting your post to avoid the funny symbols]
Ummmmm.....Alchohol is a lousy comparison as it’s used more as a chemical to put drug preparations into suspension, and also as a disinfectant but that’s a different alcohol. But I don’t want to go there anyway. Any other use of alcohol medicinally is what we can self medication and it’s not a good thing. if fact many drugs have been developed to replace the need to self medicate.
In reality the alcohol argument is old, stale and useless. You might just as well use the utterly meaningless phrase, which you tried to avoid by saying alcohol is a drug too.
I believe I said those same words in 1969.
What I told you in my opinion is the way I see the reality. Two generations have been trying to redefine marijuana and a third is beginning to do the same..
In effect, nothing has happened and everything has been tried. All you have accomplished is to create a mess.
It’s just my opinion based on 45+ years of observation and living. I have no idea what others have as positions. from what I can tell, the current fed Gov, is doing nothing.
I also don’t believe that widely used substances or contraband in this case, is a federalism matter. This is why we have federal law enforcement.
What Colorado is doing, and California has done is to challenge that long held institution because it can. because Obama is not engaged in it.
If you want that to continue, then vote democrat. Because they use that constituency to win elections, they buy it off with a unofficial wink and nod.
That has never been the case in a republican admin but there is always a first time. I think the country is on it’s last legs anyway.
Have you anything to say about the 10th Amendment?
Not today....
Besides, IIRC in my last post I said that this matter of contraband drugs is not a matter for federalism. It’s of national concern. It requires national resources, which is why we have the DEA.
So as I see it, it’s entirely the choice of the MJ advocates to decide a rather simple question.
Which federal agency would you prefer to deal with?
The FDA?
The DEA?
That’s the choice, and that’s the reality.
Perhaps one day, maybe soon when chaos is in charge, you can do it any way you want.
The reality is that states will continue to set their own MJ policies and tell fedgov to get stuffed. MJ prohibition is dead in America and it will not be coming back to life.
That is the reality.
Well......you could be right..
I used essentially the same logic when I formulated my position on gay marriage. I said that I would accept civil unions but not marriage or sanctified matrimony.
As you can see, I gave them a inch and they took a mile.
Same thing here probably...I really don’t seriously give a damn. I already have said in my posts on this topic that the country has already gone off the deep end. It just has not hit the bottom yet.
But it will, because it must.
I just buy more ammo when I get pissed.
You got it entirely backwards. Fedgov has told states that MJ must be illegal, and that gay marriage must be legal. Both actions violate the Tenth Amendment.
States already told fedgov to get stuffed with respect to MJ, and there is beginning to be some pushback on the gay marriage front, as there should be.
So are you ready to discuss the Tenth Amendment aspects of MJ, or do you have that Amendment on permanent avoidance?
Yes: it's total BS to call a SWAT team out for either a regular cigarette OR a joint.
And whether marijuana has any medicinal value to YOU is irrelevant. There are plenty of Free Americans who think that it has medicinal value, but even if it was purely recreational, there is no validity to its criminalization.
The hysterical Prohibitionist mind is a wonder to behold with its ludicrous rationalizations for oppressing others.
And Prohibition Law, of course, necessarily requires big government in order to enforce it, with the attendant disregard for the Fourth Amendment via no-knock warrants, searches without probable cause, asset forfeiture, etc.
Prohibitionists simply don't believe in minimal government, and are deluding themselves if they think they do.
Threatening an adult with prison for possessing the wrong plant, medicine, or liquid spirits is ludicrous, and about as anti-Liberty as it gets.
Right wing authoritarians and left wing authoritarians would have the rest of us choose between their competing versions of Tyranny, and settle for whichever seems more palatable.
No thanks. I'll take NEITHER of those phony options. An individual's pursuit of happiness is not subject to the statist dogma of nanny-state authoritarians.
There is Authority, and there is Liberty.
Arbitrary Law is Illegitimate, whether fomented by a group of leaders or a mob.
I prefer actual Freedom, with all of its "scary" hazards and challenges.
And all the authoritarians can continue trying to outdo each other with their self-righteous, "well-meaning" non-freedom.
Education, not legislation.
If everything has been tried and nothing has happened, then there is absolutely no point in even discussing it. There is not an will never be any solution.
The only purpose that argument can possibly serve is to preserve the status quo and prevent any further discussion.
You post to a thread I started, and I'm the stalker? LMAO! Moron.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2pXxHW1DHs
Were they suffering from chronic conditions such as pain or AIDS wasting?
Which can be effectively done only with a legal product.
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