Stop hand wringing and 're-legalize' medical marijuana

[Crunchy]

Stop hand wringing and 're-legalize' medical marijuana

 

Tribune health columnist Dr. Dan Gold got the title right in his recent piece "Medical marijuana debate is politics more than science," but I'm not so sure about the rest.

 

Marijuana-as-medicine may not be approved by the Food and Drug Administration yet, but the National Institutes of Health has acknowledged its medical efficacy, the Department of Health and Human Services owns a patent (6630507) on its medical benefits, and in fact the federal government produces and delivers 300 marijuana cigarettes (eight ounces) for a handful of patients every single month — and has done so since the 1980s.

 

What's the reason for the disconnect? Politics, indeed, as Gold suggests.

 

Let's start 70 years ago, when marijuana was first removed from the pharmacy (having been an ingredient in many medicines previously) and made illegal. The reason? Because it was a "weed with roots in hell" that was alleged to turn certain ethnic minorities into murderous curs who coveted white women and listened to "devil music" (jazz).

 

Fast forward to the early 1970s, when the marijuana activities of the hippie counterculture and returning veterans from the Vietnam war gave President Richard Nixon a serious case of marijuana heartburn: Nixon blamed Jews, Communists and homosexuals for pushing marijuana legalization, and he convened a blue ribbon panel of experts to prove the harms to society inherent in the plant.

 

Chaired by former Pennsylvania Gov. Raymond P. Shafer, the so-called Schafer Commission named its report "Marihuana, a Signal of Misunderstanding", and recommended marijuana be decriminalized.

 

Nixon ignored the report and launched what we now know as the "War on Drugs," which is primarily a war on people who use marijuana.

 

In the 1980s, the Drug Enforcement Administration took up the question of whether marijuana might be a safe medicine.

 

Its conclusion, written by Judge Francis Young, noted, "In strict medical terms marijuana is far safer than many foods we commonly consume. ... Marijuana, in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man. By any measure of rational analysis marijuana can be safely used within a supervised routine of medical care."

 

That conclusion was likewise ignored and the "War on Drugs" escalated. In 1990, 326,850 people were arrested for marijuana. By 2008, that number had ballooned to 847,864 people arrested for marijuana in America, slightly down from the record high of 872,721 in 2007. Eighty-nine percent of cases are solely for possession, mostly in small amounts.

 

Today, despite the utter failure of our prohibitionist tactics, and despite the fact that, while no panacea, marijuana has been shown to be effective at treating the symptoms of a wide range of maladies with minimal side effects, the political mainstream continues to cling to antiquated prejudices about marijuana with little basis in reality. That's politics, I suppose.

 

People worldwide have used this natural plant medically, spiritually, and socially for thousands of years, without a single overdose death. Rather than wring our hands, as Gold does, it's time instead to "re-legalize it."

 

John Masterson is the director of Montana's National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws and can be reached at norml@montananorml.org, 406-542-8696, or by mail at P.O. Box 8411, Missoula, MT 59807.

[Crunchy]

I should note i like this article cos it goes over the facts of prohibition, which never hurt to be repeated or reread

[malbuzz]

my old man used to say . ive told you once ive told you a thousand times .

i can see what he means .

I myself Crunchy will never tire of reading this kind of literature . its all positive and some people need to read more of it .

Edited March 25, 2010 by malbuzz