Marijuana and its derivatives can be effective medicines for treating pain, nausea, vomiting, muscle spasms and other conditions, but cannabis is not harmless, and more research is needed, the nation's top scientists concluded in a landmark review of research released Thursday. The nonprofit National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine issued their report, "The Health Effects of Cannabis and Cannabinoids," summarizing the current state of evidence for the efficacy of medical marijuana and recommending new studies. The 395-page report will stand as the most official medical review of the botanical drug, which an estimated 8 percent of Americans used in the last month. [continues 1174 words]
I can't imagine the state of California being more hypocritical as I read Thursday morning about Gov. Jerry Brown signing sweeping anti-smoking bills, while at the same time reading about the latest attempt to legalize adult recreational use of marijuana. I was amused by the comment of Rep. Dan Rohrabacher who says he "can't think of a bigger waste of government money than to try to use it to control the private lives of adults." Dr. Donald Abrams asserts the war on drugs is "much more" detrimental to the health of our country and our people than cannabis. Perhaps most hypocritical is the pot initiative placing a 15 percent tax on pot sales, then dedicating most of that money to youth drug prevention and treatment. Here's a simple thought. If you don't like the idea of youth drug use, then don't make drug use legal for the adults whom the youth look up to as their leaders and role models. Dave Kress Saratoga [end]
The big names and deep pockets behind California's effort to legalize marijuana have paid off with a voter initiative that's almost certain to qualify for the November ballot. Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, joined by leaders in law enforcement, public health and social justice, said Wednesday in San Francisco that enough signatures had been collected to put recreational pot up for a vote in this year's presidential election. The broad array of marijuana proponents, marking the official launch of their statewide campaign, overcame the hurdles of competing priorities and scant funding, on top of general unease about the drug. They coalesced support behind the Adult Use of Marijuana Act - a consensus that past efforts to legalize cannibas have not enjoyed. [continues 628 words]
Nov. 8 Initiative Would Authorize 15 % Tax on Retail Sales Ofmarijuana in California SAN FRANCISCO - California voters will decide again this November whether to decriminalize the recreational use of marijuana by adults, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Wednesday, calling the looming vote a "pivotal moment" in the national debate around pot legalization and the 45-year-old war on drugs. Newsom and other leaders of a coalition behind the Adult Use of Marijuana Act announced they have collected enough signatures to place on the Nov. 8 ballot a measure that would make it legal for adults 21 and older to possess, sell or transport up to an ounce of pot. California voters rejected a similar measure in 2010. [continues 782 words]
Vice Media Creates a Buzz With "Weediquette" Show Krishna Andavolu tackles a controversial issue in the first episode of his new show Weediquette: Parents who turn to concentrated cannabis oil to fight cancer. Weediquette, which airs weekly on the Vice Media's new channel Viceland, launched a TV segment where Andavolu called his mom to share some good news. "I got the new show," Andavolu told her. "It is about weed." "Oh no," she replied. "Don't smoke it on camera." [continues 473 words]
Doctors, advocates at conference say cannabis is a safe, effective drug that should be widely available. WEST PALM BEACH - Pro-pot activists and physicians offer a simple prescription for cannabis: Make it an easy-to-buy, over-the-counter drug. "Marijuana should be available like aspirin," weed activist Jon Gettman said Friday during an event at the Palm Beach County Convention Center. "It is safe, it is effective.Cannabis needs to be cheap and widely available." Gettman, a professor of criminal justice at Shenandoah University in Virginia, was one of the pot researchers who traveled to West Palm Beach for a medical marijuana conference hosted by the nonprofit Patients Out of Time. [continues 295 words]
Voters Decide Tuesday If Medical Marijuana Will Be Legal in Florida. In study after study, scientists have scrutinized medical marijuana and found promising - if inconclusive - results. Smoking pot helped patients with AIDS and Parkinson's disease, according to studies in California and Israel. In a separate experiment nearly a decade ago, Scripps Research Institute scientists found THC might halt the progress of Alzheimer's disease. Those are among the studies by reputable researchers that have played up pot's potential. But because cannabis is an illegal drug, the research has yet to reach the level of rigor required for many doctors to fully endorse weed as a pharmaceutical-grade therapy. [continues 991 words]
Painkiller Overdoses Fell in States With Legal Marijuana, Study Finds Could medical marijuana be an antidote for the nation's scourge of fatal overdoses caused by prescription pain medication? A new study suggests the answer is yes, and it's set off a flurry of medical debate over the risks and benefits of making cannabis more widely available to patients. The new research, published Monday in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine, finds that deaths associated with the use of opiate drugs fell in 13 states after they legalized medical marijuana. Compared to states with no formal access to marijuana, those that allowed certain patients legal access to cannabis saw a steady drop in opiate-related overdoses that reached 33 percent, on average, six years after the states' medical marijuana laws took effect. [continues 901 words]
Prescription Drug Deaths Drop in States That Allow Medical Cannabis, Study Finds. Could medical marijuana be an antidote for the nation's scourge of fatal overdoses caused by prescription pain medication? A new study suggests the answer is yes, and it's set off a flurry of medical debate over the risks and benefits of making cannabis more widely available to patients. The new research, published Monday in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine, finds that deaths associated with the use of opiate drugs fell in 13 states after they legalized medical marijuana. Compared with states with no formal access to marijuana, those that allowed certain patients legal access to cannabis saw a steady drop in opiate-related overdoses that reached 33%, on average, six years after the states' medical marijuana laws took effect. [continues 891 words]
A new study suggests medical marijuana could be an antidote for the nation's scourge of painkiller overdose deaths and it has set off a flurry of medical debate over the risks and benefits of making cannabis more widely available to patients. The new research, published Monday in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine, finds that deaths associated with the use of opiate drugs fell in 13 states after they legalized medical marijuana. Compared to states with no formal access to marijuana, those that allowed certain patients legal access to cannabis saw a steady drop in opiate-related overdoses that reached 33 percent, on average, six years after the states' medical marijuana laws took effect. [continues 373 words]
The health condition isn't specified in Minnesota's new law, but it could be added in the future. A group of University of Minnesota researchers is testing to see if medical marijuana can help treat chronic pain caused by sickle cell disease, but state law is putting a hitch in their study. As researchers continue with the study's next step - conducting human trials - they're heading to California, as Minnesota doesn't allow testing cannabis on people. The state's recently passed medical marijuana law also doesn't include sickle cell disease as a qualifying medical condition, but the University's current research could play a role in how that law changes in the future. [continues 660 words]
Readers ask questions about skeptical moms with cancer, no-high arthritis remedies, and summer travel. My mom is a doctor who has colon cancer. I know cannabis can help with nausea caused by chemo, and it can help her regain her appetite, relieve her pain, and help her sleep. There's also evidence it has anti-tumor properties. I recommended she look into it, but she's older and says that "pot is for stupid people." What can I say to her to make her reconsider? [continues 854 words]
MINNEAPOLIS A year ago, University of Minnesota researchers received a $9.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to study pain in patients with sickle cell disease. Normally, such an award would quickly launch a study, but lead researcher Kalpna Gupta is still waiting on a critical part of the research and moved the work to California to speed the process. Gupta wants to see whether medical marijuana can treat pain. Completing such a study involves so much red tape that Gupta has decided to collaborate with researchers in San Francisco who have experience threading the bureaucratic needle. [continues 1038 words]
California medical cannabis patients are increasingly being forced to hide behind closed doors as bans on dispensaries and home cultivation sweep through the East Bay. The pain started for Randy Barrett when he was thirteen years old. He was whipping a three-wheeled motorcycle around the hills of Martinez. Back then, riding ATVs was "just part of life," he said. "This was the Seventies and Eighties. We had dirt bikes; we had three-wheelers - - the ones with a big old front rubber tire. I was driving around in the dirt and hit a patch of concrete in the road that caught the front tire and shot me forward." [continues 4451 words]
A Federal Court Hears a Case That Could Lead to Marijuana Being Classified As Having Medical Value The lawyers are at it again, shoving legal briefs and filings and arguments down each other's throats and generally trying to rip new assholes in each other for the benefit of all mankind. This time, I am referring to a federal case brought by Americans for Safe Access, a medical-marijuana-advocacy group that has been fighting for more than 10 years to get cannabis removed from Schedule I under the Controlled Substances Act. The lawyers at ASA think the Drug Enforcement Administration made a mistake last year when it rejected a bid to reschedule cannabis. [continues 528 words]
The therapeutic uses of cannabis have long been a focus of research for Dr. Donald Abrams, UCSF professor and chief of the hematologyoncology division at San Francisco General Hospital. Abrams wrote a study last year on the combination of cannabinoids - the main ingredient in cannabis or medical marijuana - and pain drugs. Abrams talks about the preclinical work by the California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute and other research on cancer and cannabis, 16 years after California became the first state to legalize medical marijuana. [continues 491 words]
University of California medical researchers slipped an ingredient in chili peppers beneath the skin of marijuana smokers to see if pot could relieve acute pain. It could at certain doses. They monitored patients with AIDS and HIV as they toked on joints or placebos to determine whether marijuana could quell agonizing pain from nerve damage. It provided relief. They tested a "Volcano Vaporizer" to see whether inhaling smokeless pot delivered healthier, low-tar cannabis. It did. Over a dozen years, California's historic experiment in medical marijuana research brought new science to the debate on marijuana's place in medicine. State-funded studies costing $8.7 million found pot may offer broad benefits for pain from nerve damage from injuries, HIV, strokes and other conditions. [continues 1345 words]
Combination of Opiates, Marijuana Provides Effective Pain Relief A University of California, San Francisco study has concluded that the combination of opiates and marijuana is a more effective means of pain relief than opiates alone. Despite a small sample size of 21 chronic pain patients, the study's participants reported more pain relief when they introduced vaporized cannabis in addition to their regular doses of oxycodone or morphine, according to a UCSF press release. The study, which was published earlier this month in Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics, is the first of its kind to examine the interaction between cannabinoids and opiates in humans. While the original goal was to determine whether marijuana would alter opiate levels in the bloodstream, researchers were surprised with the results. [continues 51 words]
State Governors Unite and the Closing of Big Daddy's Punishes Patients Newt Gingrich is flying high in the polls for the Republican presidential nomination. So what does the erstwhile speaker of the House have to say about marijuana? As Gingrich seems to have an opinion about everything, it's not hard to find his pontifications on pot. Just a few weeks ago, he said that medical marijuana is a "joke" and that government should pursue the War on Drugs more aggressively. He also supports the death penalty for "high level" dealers. [continues 1123 words]
Inhaled marijuana appears to be a safe and effective treatment for chronic pain when used in addition to narcotics like morphine and oxycodone, according to a small UCSF study that is the first to look at the combined effects of the two classes of drugs in humans. The study, published in this month's edition of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, was designed primarily to look at whether taking marijuana with narcotics is safe, and researchers reported that there were no negative side effects from combining the drugs. [continues 729 words]
Gina Akeo doesn't need a bunch of randomized clinical trials to convince her that marijuana can ease pain and alleviate nausea. For several years after a 2004 pancreatic surgery gone bad, the 41-year-old Pueblo resident was taking 14 prescription drugs to combat the lingering symptoms of an ordeal that put her in the hospital for three months. She managed to survive septic shock and the removal of part of her intestines, but the pain, nausea and harsh side effects from the medications were too debilitating for her to live with a capital "l." [continues 1647 words]
SAN ANDREAS - Several dozen medical marijuana patients and caregivers gathered on a recent week night for a two-hour seminar at Forgotten Knowledge Collective in Valley Springs. After giving them an overview of the biology and science behind medical pot, biochemist Samantha Miller turned to one of the biggest questions facing the medical marijuana movement: to smoke or not to smoke. Miller urges medical marijuana patients to cast off their butane lighters. "When you are smoking, you are losing some of your active ingredient to combustion," Miller said. [continues 465 words]
So Much for the American Medical Association's Demand for Clinical Cannabis Research. It was nearly two years ago that the Obama White House issued its "Scientific Integrity" memorandum stating, "Science and the scientific process must inform and guide decisions of my Administration." Those of us involved in marijuana law reform welcomed the memo -- which came just months after the American Medical Association called for "facilitating ... clinical research and [the] development of cannabinoid-based medicines" -- and we hoped that it would stimulate the commencement of long-overdue human studies into the safety and efficacy of medical cannabis. [continues 515 words]
A Review of the NIH Website Shows That U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse's Kibosh on Medical Marijuana Trials Continues Unabated. It was nearly two years ago when the Obama White House issued it's 'Scientific Integrity' memorandum stating, "Science and the scientific process must inform and guide decisions of my Administration." Those of us involved in marijuana law reform welcomed the memo - which came just months after the American Medical Association called for "facilitating ... clinical research and [the] development of cannabinoid-based medicines" - and we hoped that it would stimulate the commencement of long-overdue human studies into the safety and efficacy of medical cannabis. [continues 507 words]
California Voters Will Decide Nov. 2 Whether to Legalize Recreational Use of Drug The marijuana cigarette, with its pungent smell, became a symbol of the 1960s. Bill Clinton tried it, but didn't inhale. Comedians joked about burned-out dopers with brains altered by a variety of drugs, including pot. College students and young professionals passed around joints at parties and wondered: Why all the fuss? Now, four decades later, Californians will decide Nov. 2 whether to legalize recreational use of the drug. Proposition 19 would allow people 21 or older to possess up to an ounce of marijuana and to grow it in spaces of 25 square feet or less. [continues 1583 words]
Rickey Yuhre didn't need an $8.7 million California medical marijuana study to tell him that pot eased his suffering. The 53-year-old former diesel truck mechanic and welder has pulmonary fibrosis, a chronic and debilitating disease of the lungs. He has fused vertebrae in his neck due to severe nerve damage. Pain meds and relaxants - Oxycontin, Vicodin, Neurontin, Valium - only turned his insides out with nausea. And so he started using a special "vapor box" to medicate with marijuana without smoking. [continues 1356 words]
There was a time when I despised the smell of marijuana; inconveniently, it coincided with my college years. So it would probably surprise those who knew me then as a violin-playing, straight-A student to discover that today, at 33, I cruise the streets of Los Angeles with a pot prescription. Then again, maybe it wouldn't. But it surprises me. As the child of pianists who took trips to Carnegie Hall while others tripped out to The Doors, I always thought of marijuana as a "gateway drug", a bad weed that could only lead to suicide or, worse, failure in the arts. When I gave it more of a chance in my late twenties, it wasn't to boost "creativity". In fact, I don't even know if I like cannabis yet, given all of its strains and forms. [continues 2812 words]
OAKLAND -- The mere existence of the Steep Hill Lab presents a pointed question: How safe is the marijuana provided to hundreds of thousands of medical pot users in California? How safe is the marijuana provided to hundreds of thousands of medical pot users in California? The Oakland laboratory, started in 2008 by two former growers, has tested 12,000 pot samples to assure marijuana businesses that their product isn't tainted by dangerous toxic molds or pesticides. Nearly 50 medical marijuana dispensaries and pot-growing networks contract with the lab, California's most renowned cannabis testing location. [continues 791 words]
Charlene DeGidio never smoked marijuana in the 1960s, or afterward. But a year ago, after medications failed to relieve the pain in her legs and feet, a doctor suggested that the Adna, Wash., retiree try the drug. Ms. DeGidio, 69 years old, bought candy with marijuana mixed in. It worked in easing her neuropathic pain, for which doctors haven't been able to pinpoint a cause, she says. Now, Ms. DeGidio, who had previously tried without success other drugs including Neurontin and lidocaine patches, nibbles marijuana-laced peppermint bars before sleep, and keeps a bag in her refrigerator that she's warned her grandchildren to avoid. [continues 1354 words]
Since the Controlled Substances Act of 1970, cannabis, also known as marijuana, has been federally classified as a Schedule I drug, meaning that it has no legally accepted medical use and has the same classification as, for example, heroin. Over the last couple of decades, however, that classification has started to be challenged, especially at the state level. Currently, 13 states have passed some form of legislation allowing the use of medical marijuana. California was the first, passing the Compassionate Use Act in 1996 that legalized medical marijuana and ostensibly set regulations for the production and distribution of the drug. In recent months, New Mexico has begun "breathing life," to quote an Associated Press report, into its own 2007 legislation that legalized medical marijuana. That New Mexico has taken so long to formalize the systemization of medical marijuana is indicative of a larger national resistance to the notion of legal weed in the United States. [continues 871 words]
In Mississippi, where Dr. David Allen worked as a heart surgeon, authorities seized his home and ranch this year after finding $800 worth of marijuana and $1,000 in hashish. A grand jury is to consider a cultivation charge that could net him 30 years in prison under Mississippi's drug laws. In Sacramento, where he now lives, Allen is a legal, licensed member of a community of physicians that enables hundreds of thousands of Californians to lawfully consume or grow marijuana for personal use. [continues 1401 words]
Marijuana opponents in the federal government are up against the wall and the wall is crumbling. The feds have fought marijuana use for decades, disregarding its medicinal applications, in a senseless war against the herb. The demonized killer weed is turning out to be anything but that. As myths about this ancient herb are dispelled, scientists are using it to treat everything from chemotherapy-induced nausea to different cancers. In August, The British Journal of Cancer published the results of a study that found THC (the main active component in marijuana) is effective in fighting prostate cancer. Reportedly, pot attacks prostate cancer cell types that do not respond to the usual hormone treatments. [continues 610 words]
Interim police chief Michael Harden is entitled to his opinions regarding medical marijuana, but not his own facts. The 1999 Institute of Medicine report Harden cites, which I'm guessing he has never read, is a careful, nuanced document. But its conclusion regarding whether or not marijuana has medical value is clear: "Nausea, appetite loss, pain, and anxiety ... all can be mitigated by marijuana." During the press conference releasing the report, lead author Dr. John Benson said, "[W]e concluded that there are some limited circumstances in which we recommend smoking marijuana for medical uses." [continues 105 words]
Sue was dying of cancer. She was thin, her skin was gray, and she hadn't eaten much in several days. Offered a medication to relieve some of her symptoms, she reluctantly accepted. Within five minutes of taking this medication, she again had color in her cheeks, was laughing with friends and asking for a fruit smoothie. It was the first of several she would request that day and her grateful husband was only too glad to oblige. What was this miracle drug? [continues 713 words]
The Pros And Cons Of Medical Marijuana Marcy Duda, a former home health aide with four children and two granddaughters, never dreamed she'd be publicly touting the medical benefits of "pot.'' But marijuana, says the 48-year-old Ware resident, is the only thing that even begins to control the migraine headaches that plague her nine days a month, which she describes as feeling like "hot, hot ice picks in the left side of my head.'' Duda has always had migraines. But they got much worse 10 years ago after two operations to remove life-threatening aneurysms, weak areas in the blood vessels in her brain. None of the standard drugs her doctors prescribe help much with her post-surgical symptoms, which include nausea, vomiting, loss of appetite, and pain on her left side "as if my body were cut in half.'' [continues 1193 words]
SACRAMENTO, CALIF. -- Sparked anew by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's call for the state to study the legalization of marijuana, both sides in the smoldering pot debate point to research to bolster their positions. Such recitation of conflicting marijuana studies can be manipulated and selected buffet-style to serve whatever political and health agenda is being touted. Even governmental findings can be contradictory. In 1999, for instance, the Office of National Drug Control Policy asked the Institute of Medicine to review evidence. The institute found that, "except for the harms associated with smoking, the adverse effects of marijuana use are within the range of effects tolerated for other medications." [continues 935 words]
Physicians Find Research Used to Support, Attack Long-Term Effects of Pot SACRAMENTO -- Sparked anew by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's call for the state to study the legalization of marijuana, both sides in the smoldering pot debate point to research to bolster their positions. Such recitation of conflicting marijuana studies can be manipulated and selected buffet-style to serve whatever political and health agenda is being touted. Even governmental findings can be contradictory. In 1999, for instance, the Office of National Drug Control Policy asked the Institute of Medicine to review evidence. The institute found that, "except for the harms associated with smoking, the adverse effects of marijuana use are within the range of effects tolerated for other medications." [continues 1093 words]
SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Sparked anew by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's call for the state to study the legalization of marijuana, both sides in the smoldering debate point to research to bolster their positions. Such recitation of conflicting marijuana studies can be manipulated and selected buffet-style to serve whatever political and health agenda is being touted. Even governmental findings can be contradictory. In 1999, for instance, the Office of National Drug Control Policy asked the Institute of Medicine to review evidence. The institute found that, "except for the harms associated with smoking, the adverse effects of marijuana use are within the range of effects tolerated for other medications." Yet in 2006, the Food and Drug Administration ruled that marijuana has no health benefits and has known and proven harms. It is classified a Schedule 1 drug -- the highest risk of addiction - -- in the Controlled Substances Act. [continues 781 words]
Recently, long-overdue research by Dr. Donald Abrams was published in the medical publication, Neurology, which indicates that smoked marijuana effectively reduces chronic neuropathic pain, as well as acute pain for people living with HIV/AIDS. This study validates the experience of patients and their doctors. Years ago, the federal government issued a gold-standard report from the Institute of Medicine recommending that more research be conducted to review the appropriate therapeutic use of cannabis. Despite these recommendations, federal agencies often discourage medical cannabis research. Congress should immediately hold oversight hearings to investigate why federal agencies have resisted full implementation of the Institute of Medicine's 1999 recommendations. Lisa Duffy El Sobrante [end]
Sparked anew by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's call for the state to study the legalization of marijuana, both sides in the smoldering pot debate point to research to bolster their positions. Such recitation of conflicting marijuana studies can be manipulated and selected buffet-style to serve whatever political and health agenda is being touted. Even governmental findings can be contradictory. In 1999, for instance, the Office of National Drug Control Policy asked the Institute of Medicine to review evidence. The institute found that, "except for the harms associated with smoking, the adverse effects of marijuana use are within the range of effects tolerated for other medications." [continues 1101 words]
Growing Pot for Research Guns blazing as they head for the exit, the Bush gang has blasted the hopes of Lyle Craker, a UMass Amherst botany professor who applied in June, 2001 for a DEA license to grow marijuana for FDA-approved medical research. On Jan. 12 Craker got a formal letter of denial from DEA Administrator Michele Leonhartt. Mahmoud ElSohly of the University of Mississippi remains America's only legal grower, as far as the feds are concerned. Some of the destructive regulations promulgated by Bush in recent months may be reversible, but the DEA's rejection of Craker appears to be final. Lawyers are exploring the appeal options, according to Rick Doblin, who organized legal and political support for Craker. Doblin didn't sound optimistic on the phone Jan. 13. [continues 2212 words]
THE BATTLE OVER CA PROP 5 Special Interests Overwhelming the Public Interest By Arianna Huffington http://drugsense.org/url/cy9MhXAD BC's illegal marijuana trade industry has evolved into a business giant, dubbed by some involved as 'The Union', Commanding upwards of $7 billion Canadian annually. http://blip.tv/file/1356143/ PROP 5 California Has A Chance To Treat Young People Struggling With Drug Problems The Right Way The NORA initiative would invest $65 million annually into developing drug treatment programs for at-risk California youth under 18. [continues 442 words]
A Look at the Pros and Cons of Medical Marijuana Use, a Topic That Inspires Strong Opinions on Both Sides. DEPENDING ON whom you ask, marijuana is a dangerous drug that should be kept illegal alongside heroin and PCP, or it's a miracle herb with a trove of medical benefits that the government is seeking to deny the public -- or something in between: a plant with medical uses and drawbacks, worth exploring. As the political debates over medical marijuana drag on, a small cadre of researchers continues to test inhaled marijuana for the treatment of pain, nausea and muscle spasms. [continues 274 words]
Smoking anything is perceived as bad these days, says Dr. Donald Abrams, chief of hematology and oncology at San Francisco General Hospital and professor of clinical medicine at UC San Francisco. So he devised a pilot study to evaluate a novel inhalation method conducted in 18 otherwise-healthy subjects. "We used a device that heated cannabis below the point of combustion -- basically, a heating element and a fan. The fan filled up a balloon from which the patients could inhale," he says. [continues 90 words]
Whenever I read an anti-marijuana opinion, especially about medical use, my blood pressure goes up. So when I read the piece by David Taylor and Jeanette McDougal, "Medical' Marijuana Is Snake Oil Remedy," in a recent News Tribune, I had to grit my teeth. Cannabis (marijuana) has been a medicine used by humans for as long as we have been recording history - more than 5,000 years. From Chinese emperors to British queens, the medical legacy of cannabis is well documented. Until the bigoted xenophobic anti-drug hysteria of the early 20th century became official policy, cannabis was available on the shelves of U.S. pharmacies. [continues 645 words]
Tortuga Bi LIBERTY writes, "All smoke is bad for your lungs, so cannabis should be eaten, never smoked" (Letters, APRIL 17). This is only partly correct. Yes, all smoke is unhealthful to the lungs and can increase one's chances of cough, bronchitis, and other lung problems, though the data suggest that occasional smokers of marijuana run relatively little risk. And, unlike tobacco, marijuana smoking has not been shown to increase one's risk of lung cancer. Eating marijuana, however, may not be a viable alternative for everyone: Because of how it's processed by the body, cannabis that's eaten tends to act much more slowly, while the psychoactive effect is generally stronger than with smoking and lasts a great deal longer. Depending on circumstances, this may be either good or bad, but it's certainly a different experience than smoking. [continues 76 words]
Patients Have Few Options to Find Pain-Relieving Drug New Mexico could have been the first state in the nation to build a centralized production and distribution system for medical marijuana, but the Health Department doesn't want to take the risk of butting up against federal law. Upon advice from Attorney General Gary King, Health Secretary Dr. Alfredo Vigil said the second phase of the new state law that would have made that happen won't be pursued. [continues 1088 words]
Thanks for the recent story "1 joint equals up to 5 cigarettes." It's interesting to note that smoking marijuana does not increase emphysema, but does increase respiratory symptoms like coughing and wheezing. Fortunately, these symptoms can be sidestepped with the vaporizer, a new gizmo that heats cannabis until active components are released in a fine mist. The cannabis never ignites. No fire means no gaseous toxins or noxious tars. Dr. Donald Abrams at San Francisco General Hospital recently published research showing that vaporizer users are not exposed to toxic gases. Data from my laboratory in Albany revealed that users who vaporize are significantly less likely to report respiratory symptoms of any kind. As the call for legal access to medical marijuana becomes louder and louder in New York, it's nice to know that this medicine can be available to the sickest of the sick without endangering their lungs. MITCH EARLEYWINE, Ph.D. Associate Professor Psychology Unive [end]
MANY states nationwide are considering legislation to legalize the medical use of marijuana. Last week, one such bill cleared both houses in Connecticut (but at press time had not yet been signed by the governor), New York appears likely to follow suit and New Jersey has two bills with bipartisan support. Indeed, a number of states have had similar measures in play over the last year, in addition to the 12 that have already passed such laws. The picture is very different at the federal level, where marijuana is branded as an illegal drug. An amendment to a recent drug safety bill would require all purveyors of state-authorized medical marijuana to be subject to Food and Drug Administration regulation. The senator who introduced this amendment said that making any drug available without F.D.A. review or proof of safety and effectiveness would set a dangerous precedent that would threaten patient safety. Marijuana advocates have opposed the bill, because it would close medical marijuana cooperatives and create barriers to the use of the drug. [continues 731 words]
Editor's note: Connecticut may become the 13th state in the country to permit the use of marijuana for medical purposes. After legislation was passed in the state legislature this month, it is now up to Gov. M. Jodi Rell. What follows is a letter of support from Montel Williams. Dear Governor Rell, I'm writing you today to ask for your support for HB 6715, the Compassionate Use Act. This is an important piece of legislation that should become law. [continues 798 words]
