Pubdate: Sun, 16 Jul 2000
Source: Santa Barbara News-Press (CA)
Copyright: 2000 Santa Barbara News-Press
Contact:  P.O. Box 1359, Santa Barbara, CA 93102
Website: http://www.newspress.com/
Author: David Bearman, M.D.
Related: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n845/a03.html

CANNABIS IS MEDICINE

I concur with Bruce Rittenhouse that all too often the media does not take 
the issue of medicinal cannabis seriously. Given the current issue before 
the Santa Barbara City Council ordinance committee, the issue is timely, 
educational and newsworthy.

By any definition, cannabis is a medication. This has been confirmed in 
numerous ways by the American public by the 56 percent of the California 
electorate that approved Proposition 215 in 1996, by the almost 70 percent 
of the citizens of the city of Santa Barbara that favored medicinal 
cannabis, and by 69 percent of Americans polled by ABC news in 1997 that 
favored legalizing the medical use of cannabis. Further support is 
demonstrated by the majority of voters in all eight states that voted for 
Prop. 215-like initiatives, as well as the District of Columbia, that have 
voted on this issue in the past few years; the 36 state legislatures that 
have endorsed medical cannabis since 1976; the 54 percent of oncologists 
that say they would or have recommended cannabis to their cancer patients; 
a majority of infectious disease doctors that treat AIDS; the U.S. 
government, that provides cannabis legally to eight patients; England, that 
has licensed Dr. Geoffrey Guy to produce several different chemical 
extracts of cannabis; and the FDA in the form of Marinol, a Schedule III 
drug, which is THC available in prescription pill form.

And lastly, over 4000 years of historical medicinal use of cannabis, 
including documented medicinal use in the United States since 1839.

Let's be clear, all medicine does not cure or improve all patients all of 
the time. Most effective medicines help some of the people some of the 
time, and a few medicines help some of the people all of the time. There 
may even be a rare drug that helps all of the people all of the time.

Further, all medicines have both therapeutic effects and side effects, and 
cannabis is no exception. That said, the medical experience with cannabis 
has been quite positive in relieving the symptoms and treating a wide 
variety of conditions, such as AIDS wasting syndrome, multiple sclerosis, 
side effects of cancer chemotherapy, chronic pain, PMS, migraine, 
depression, insomnia, poor appetite and arthritis. It's safety is attested 
to by the comments of FDA Administrative Law Judge Francis Young, who said 
in 1989 after a lengthy multi-year FDA hearing on rescheduling cannabis 
that cannabis was one of the safest drugs known to mankind.

Cannabis has a long history as a medicine, which continues up to the 
present day. It is included in the first pharmacopoeia developed by the 
Chinese, circa 1625 B.

C. In 1830, cannabis became a well-accepted part of American medicine for 
almost 100 years. In 1860, the Ohio State Medical Society lauded the 
medicinal properties of cannabis. It was used by Queen Victoria of England 
in the 1890s for menstrual cramps. Cannabis was also an important 
ingredient in patent medicines which enjoyed their heyday from 1875 to 1925.

Cannabis was in the U.S. Pharmacopoeia from the mid 1800s until 1941. In 
the early part of this century it was common for universities to grow their 
own cannabis for pharmacy students, and have them do an alcohol extract as 
a class assignment. My father and uncle, both pharmacists, were required to 
do this at the University of Minnesota School of Pharmacy in the late 1920s.

Last year, the distinguished New England Journal of Medicine strongly 
editorially supported doctors being allowed to prescribe marijuana for 
medical purposes, calling the threat of government sanctions "misguided, 
heavy-handed and inhumane."

In an editorial aimed at federal efforts to block California's 
implementation of Prop 215, the Journal's editor, Dr. Jerome P. Kassirer, 
wrote: "Whatever their reasons, federal officials are out of step with the 
public."

The journal is one of the world's most prestigious medical publications.

Dr. Kassirer continued, stating that marijuana is safer than drugs used 
legally for some of the same conditions, such as morphine. "If it relieves 
suffering, even from one patient, why not allow physicians to prescribe it?"

Even though more than a million more people voted for Prop. 215 than 
against it, the federal government has tried to intimidate physicians to 
dissuade them from recommending or approving medicinal marijuana. This is 
unfortunate, since tens of thousands of Californians benefit from the 
medicinal properties of cannabis.

When Prop. 215 passed in 1996, several doctors were interviewed by the 
News-Press, including Dr. Steve Hosea, a well-respected infectious disease 
specialist in the treatment of AIDS, and Dr. Fred Kass, a top local 
oncologist. Both attested to cannabis' benefit for some of their patients.

The American Medical Association opposed the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act. Dr. 
Woodward, the AMA's long-time spokesman, testified at the 1937 Marijuana 
Tax Act Hearings that cannabis was not a problem and that surely the 
government had better things to concentrate on. The comments at the 1937 
hearing by Harry Anslinger, then director of the Federal Bureau of 
Narcotics, show the racist underpinnings of that law. He stated that 
cannabis -- or marijuana, as he called it -- was only used by "Negroes, 
Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, jazz musicians, and other social undesirables."

William Randolph Hearst, in his newspapers, popularized the term 
"marijuana" starting in the second decade of this century. This was part of 
Hearst's anti-Spanish efforts. The inflammatory reporting by Hearst of the 
situation in Cuba in the late 1890s helped fan the flames to the Spanish 
American War. He demonized marijuana as part of his anti-Mexican immigrant 
efforts. Had he used the more familiar term cannabis, he would not have 
been nearly so effective in his propaganda, because the average American 
was familiar with cannabis and knew it to be harmless and found in numerous 
patent medicines, easily obtainable at the local grocery store or pharmacy.

There is also the matter of appropriate use of our tax dollars. The 
billions being used to seek out, arrest, adjudicate and jail the sick who 
medicate with cannabis could go a long way toward solving the crisis of the 
under-insured and uninsured, or paying down the national debt, saving 
Social Security, or building new schools instead of new prisons.

There is a better way, and Prop. 215 was a big step in that direction. The 
inaction of the state of California in developing guidelines has forced the 
implementation onto local government. Local governments throughout the 
state have been taking such implementation into their own hands -- Oakland, 
San Francisco, Alameda, Sonoma County and Santa Cruz, to name a few. Santa 
Barbara Mayor Harriet Miller was absolutely correct when she stated that it 
is the responsibility of state legislators to enact implementation of 
initiatives of the people into law. However, when state government fails, 
it is up to the local governments, these individuals that we are closest 
to, to answer the call. By voting yes on Prop. 215, almost 70 percent of 
the citizens in 1996 effectively gave their direction to the city of Santa 
Barbara.

If such diverse politicians as the late Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater, 
California Republican U.S. Senate candidate Tim Campbell, two-term 
Republican New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson, Independent party governor of 
Minnesota Jesse Ventura, former multi-term Democratic mayor of Baltimore, 
Kert Schmoke, conservative writer, pundit and 33-year host of PBS' "Firing 
Line" William F. Buckley, former Nixon Secretary of State George Schultz, 
conservative economist Milton Friedman; as well as the Cato Institute, 
Libertarian and Green Party can support a more sensible approach to dealing 
with cannabis, surely the City Council will be able to follow through on 
the excellent start it has made in developing a reasonable practical 
approach to the issue.

It is the right time and the right place for the City Council to act. It 
can help to relieve the symptoms of thousands of Santa Barbara's medical 
cannabis users that voted for Proposition 215. They have the opportunity to 
craft an ordinance that can be the model for all others.

Remember, cannabis is medicine -- history, research, patients, doctors and 
the voters all tell us this is so.

David Bearman, M., Goleta
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MAP posted-by: Jo-D