Ending long dispute, advocates, law enforcement agree on limit of 3 pounds per year per patient Medical marijuana advocates and law enforcement leaders struck an accord on Sonoma County's first guidelines for how much marijuana an eligible patient may grow. The new rules allow patients with doctor approval to grow enough plants -- up to 99 -- to produce a maximum of three pounds of processed marijuana a year. Most other California counties that specify an allowable quantity of marijuana limit production to smaller amounts. [continues 769 words]
UTRECHT, Netherlands, May 16 - Methadone, the drug that is widely used in drug treatment centers to treat heroin addicts, stimulates HIV infection of human immune cells studied in cell cultures, according to immunology researchers from The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. The researchers proposed that HIV-infected patients receiving methadone to treat drug abuse should have their blood and immune status closely monitored for possible adverse effects of the treatment. They reported their results today at an international conference of the PsychoNeuroImmunology Research Society, meeting in Utrecht. [continues 426 words]
I AM appalled and infuriated by the truly awful decision of the United States Supreme Court effectively limiting the rights of Californians (and all Americans) to obtain and utilize upon advice of their personal physicians, marijuana to assist in prolonging life by making food more palatable, alleviating pain and assisting in their effective treatment. What a shame! This decision is: Contrary to science. Contrary to the will of the people of California and several other states where voters have passed initiatives legalizing the medical use of marijuana. [continues 369 words]
(U-WIRE) EVANSTON, Ill. -- I've been hearing a lot of talk about the provision of the 1998 Higher Education Act that delays or denies federal financial aid to any student with any drug offense. The attention is warranted -- the law is blatantly discriminatory because it only applies to students not wealthy enough to pay for their education out of their own pocket and makes no effort to solve abuse problems or aid treatment programs. I'm glad this issue has catalyzed action at Northwestern. Drug laws are a focus of the new American Civil Liberties Union chapter at NU, and soon we will have a chapter of Students for a Sensible Drug Policy. Many schools have passed student government resolutions denouncing the HEA provision, including Associated Student Government, which passed a bill last January. [continues 452 words]
The president claims treatment is the best way to lower the demand for drugs. So why is his new drug czar so obsessed with punishment and prisons? When George W. Bush introduced John Walters as his new drug czar last week, it was the strangest example of being of two minds since Ray Milland and Rosey Grier shared the same torso in "The Thing With Two Heads." Talk about your mixed messages. There was the president, making a huge shift in national drug policy by pledging to close the nation's massive "treatment gap" while announcing the appointment of a man who is on record deriding the idea that "we need to embrace treatment." Silly me, I always thought presidents were supposed to appoint people to their Cabinet who, at least roughly, agree with them. [continues 840 words]
Doctor's Story of Hope, Humor and Deadly Cancer In May 1987, Dan Shapiro, then a 20-year-old junior at Vassar College, discovered he had Hodgkin's disease. After seven months of treatment with four chemotherapy drugs and radiation, he seemed healthy again. In 1988, in his first year of graduate school in clinical psychology, he counseled a young girl named Jodi who was not doing well after a bone marrow transplant for the same cancer and who soon died. Six months later, he learned that his own cancer had returned and that his only hope was a bone marrow transplant. His survival chances were 40 percent. Sixteen months after the transplant, in July 1991, he had a second relapse, and few options remained. [continues 1617 words]
Justices Say Federal Law Bars Distribution; Prop. 215 Still Stands The U.S. Supreme Court dealt a setback to advocates of medical marijuana yesterday, but let Proposition 215, California's groundbreaking cannabis law, stand. The court ruled 8-0 that federal drug laws, which ban the use and distribution of marijuana, do not exempt patients suffering from cancer, AIDS or other painful diseases. But by leaving ballot initiatives in eight states, including California, in place, the ruling was more of a political than legal blow to supporters of medicinal marijuana. [continues 757 words]
TAMPA - Apart From His Celebrity Status, Darryl Strawberry Is a Common Example of a Drug Addict Facing a Justice System A stellar career. An addiction to drugs. A terrible tumble from grace. What has happened to former baseball star Darryl Strawberry isn't unusual, say those who work in the trenches trying to help addicts reclaim their lives. ``It goes on more often than we know. Darryl has just been very `media present,' '' says Gabe Sanchez, admissions counselor at Fairwinds Treatment Center in Clearwater. [continues 457 words]
