Conflicting statements

[Guest weekprik]

Conflict Highlights -

Most Conflicting Statements

 

 

The pro/con statements below indicate the great

depth of disparity in the medical marijuana debate.

Pro medical marijuana Con medical marijuana

1. "The AMPA urges the Administration and Congress to move expeditiously to make cannabis available as a legal medicine where shown to be safe and effective and to immediately allow access to therapeutic cannabis through the Investigational New Drug Program."

 

 

-- American Public Health Association, 1/95

"This organization urges Congress and the President to enact legislation to reschedule marijuana to allow doctors to prescribe smokable marijuana to patients in need..."

 

 

-- Lymphoma Foundation of America, 1/20/97 "Not one American health association accepts marijuana as medicine."

 

 

-- U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Website, February 2003.

2. "RECOMMENDATION: Short-term use of smoked marijuana (less than six months) for patients with debilitating symptoms (such as intractable pain or vomiting) must meet the following conditions [4 requirements listed].

 

 

-- 1999 U.S. Institute of Medicine Report, Page 179 "The [1999] U.S. Institute of Medicine study concluded that smoking marijuana is not recommended for the treatment of any disease condition."

 

 

-- U.S. DEA letter to MedMJProCon,

January, 2002.

3. "Marijuana is the safest therapeutically active substance known to man. . . safer than many foods we commonly consume."

 

 

-- DEA Administrative Law Judge, Francis L. Young, September 1988 "Smoked marijuana damages the brain, heart, lungs, and immune system. It impairs learning and interferes with memory, perception, and judgment. Smoked marijuana contains cancer-causing compounds and has been implicated in a high percetage of automobile crashes and workplace accidents."

 

 

-- John Walters, White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, March 2002

4.

"Out of 1,035 clinical oncologists surveyed, 44% of oncologists said they had ever recommended smoked marijuana to one or more of their patients."

 

 

-- Rick Doblin, Ph.D., 1991 "Most credible oncologists do not support using crude marijuana. According to our 1995 study, only 12% of oncologists ever recommended [marijuana] to their patients ..."

 

 

-- Drs. Voth and Schwartz on their two surveys [in 1994 and 1995]

5.

"Just 9% of those who have used the drug [marijuana] develop dependence. By comparison, 15% of drinkers become dependent on alcohol, 23% of heroin users get hooked, and a third of tobacco smokers [33 1/3%] become slaves to cigarettes."

 

 

-- Time Magazine, November 4, 2002 "Marijuana is an addictive drug with significant health consequences to its users and others. Users can become dependent on marijuana to the point they must seek treatment to stop abusing it."

 

 

-- U.S. DEA website, February 2003

6.

"Among physicians specializing in AIDS/HIV, there is a widespread acknowledgement that marijuana represents a significant treatment component for those who have advanced-state HIV symptoms, as well as for those with symptoms caused by the multiple-drug therapies used to control HIV."

 

 

-- New York AIDS Coalition, 12/13/02 "Surely the right to speak in support of any idea, however outrageous, carries the obligation not to lie about it. Despite the battery of television spots in which office-seekers splattered each other with negative ads, false accusations and slanderous innuendos, the Anything Goes Emmy for Political Hoodwink in 1996 does not go to a candidate. It belongs to the campaigns in Arizona and California to pass pro-drug legalization propositions, sold to voters as getting tough on violent criminals and offering compassionate care for the dying."

 

 

-- Joseph A. Califano, Jr., LL.B., President of The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University (CASA) - 12/4/96

7.

"Unfortunately, the only legal substitute [to marijuana] available now -- a prescription pill containing synthetic THC [Marinol], marijuana's main psychoactive component -- is not EFFECTIVE enough for many patients. I hear regularly from patients that the pill [Marinol] does not work as well as the natural herb, and causes much greater intoxication."

 

 

-- Andrew Weil, M.D.,

San Francisco Chronicle, 6/6/02 "Marinol differs from the crude plant marijuana because it consists of one pure, well-studied, FDA-approved pharmaceutical in stable known dosages. Marijuana is an unstable mixture of over 400 chemicals including many toxic psychoactive chemicals which are largely unstudied and appear in uncontrolled strengths."

 

 

-- California Narcotics Officers Association, in their policy statement "The Use of Marijuana as a Medicine", published on their website (as of 5/22/02)

8.

"Consumer Reports Magazine believes that, for patients with advanced AIDS and terminal cancer, the apparent benefits some derive from smoking marijuana outweigh any substantiated or even suspected risks."

 

 

-- Consumer Reports Magazine, May, 1997 "There is no legitimate medical use whatsoever for marijuana. This [marijuana] is not medicine. This is bogus witchcraft. It has no place in medicine, no place in pain relief, and it has no place around our children."

 

 

-- Former Congressman Bob Barr (R-GA), in his debate with radio talk show host Neil Boortz - May 14, 2002

9.

"It is established that marijuana does ease the pain of cancer and the nausea of cancer chemotherapy. So, to directly address your question: It is a medically sound treatment."

 

 

-- Continuing Medical Education, Inc., January 2000 "When you go to a pharmacy, you do not get leaves to burn; you haven't for 100 years. To do so is unscientific."

 

 

-- Robert L. DuPont, M.D., President, Institute For Behavior - 10/30/01

10.

"Until such time as rapid-onset cannabinoid [marijuana] formulations are clinically available, our AMA affirms the appropriateness of compassionate use of marijuana and related cannabinoids in carefully controlled programs designed to provide symptomatic relief of nausea, vomiting, cachexia, anorexia, spasticity, acute or chronic pain, or other palliative effects."

 

 

-- American Medical Association (AMA) Council on Scientific Affairs report to the AMA House of Delegates, June 2001 "(1) The AMA calls for further adequate and well-controlled studies of marijuana and related cannabinoids in patients who have serious conditions for which preclinical, anecdotal, or controlled evidence suggests possible efficacy and the application of such results to the understanding and treatment of disease.

 

(2) the AMA recommends that marijuana be retained in Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act pending the outcome of such studies.

 

(3) The AMA urges the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to implement administrative procedures to facilitate grant applications and the conduct of well-designed clinical research into the medical utility of marijuana. This effort should include:

 

disseminating specific information for researchers on the development of safeguards for marijuana, clinical research protocols and the development of a model for informed consent on marijuana for institutional review board evaluation;

 

 

sufficient funding to support such clinical research and access for qualified investigators to adequate supplies of marijuana for clinical research purposes;

 

 

confirming that marijuana of various and consistent strengths and/or placebo will be supplied by the National Institute on Drug Abuse to investigators registered with the Drug Enforcement Agency who are conducting bona fide clinical research studies that receive Food and Drug Administration approval, regardless of whether or not the NIH is the primary source of grant support.

 

(4) The AMA believes that the NIH should use its resources and influence to support the development of a smoke-free inhaled delivery system for marijuana or delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) to reduce the health hazards associated with the combustion and inhalation of marijuana.

 

(5) The AMA believes that effective patient care requires the free and unfettered exchange of information on treatment alternatives and that discussion of these alternatives between physicians and patients should not subject either party to criminal sanctions."

 

 

-- The American Medical Association (AMA) - June 2001