cannabisnews.com: Court To Decide What You Can Say About Marijuana





Court To Decide What You Can Say About Marijuana
Posted by CN Staff on May 20, 2002 at 08:46:26 PT
By Tanya Albert, AMNews Staff
Source: American Medical News 
San Francisco HIV/AIDS specialist Marcus Conant, MD, says he wants to close his office door and talk to patients about the pros and cons of medical marijuana without fear of the government cracking down on him. "It's an issue of freedom of speech," Dr. Conant said. "I am not advocating doctors should hand out marijuana. But if a patient comes in and says 'My mother is throwing up from chemotherapy and I've heard that it does help,' I can't say, 'Yes, I've seen it help' or 'Here are the side effects.' " 
Whether physicians can recommend medical marijuana to patients without federal government repercussions is now in the hands of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. A three-judge panel heard arguments last month and is expected to rule later this year. Doctors in Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon and Washington will be watching the decision closely as well. Each of those states have medical marijuana laws and are in the 9th Circuit's jurisdiction. The decision could also affect physicians in Maine and Colorado, where medical marijuana laws have also been passed. "How can we in this country tell a physician they can't recommend something?" questions Santa Cruz, Calif., family physician Arnold Leff, MD, who treats AIDS and chemotherapy patients. What California Law ProtectsIn 1996, California voters gave Drs. Conant and Leff and other California physicians the power to recommend medical marijuana to patients. But marijuana is still an illegal schedule I drug at the federal level and government officials said they would criminally prosecute doctors who recommend marijuana as a therapy. They also said they would take away physicians' DEA numbers and their Medicare and Medicaid status. 9 states allow medical marijuana, but the federal government does not. With the help of the American Civil Liberties Union, Drs. Conant and Leff, several other physicians, several patients and advocacy groups in 1997 sued the director of National Drug Control Policy, the Drug Enforcement Administration administrator, the U.S. Attorney General and the Health and Human Services secretary. Dr. Conant and the others said federal government officials didn't have the power to issue a gag order on physicians who recommend medical marijuana because it violates their freedom of speech. "A physician's evaluation about the risk and benefits of medical marijuana constitutes protected speech under the First Amendment," said Graham Boyd, the American Civil Liberty Union's Drug Policy Litigation Project director who argued the case before the 9th Circuit panel. "The Supreme Court has said that the government may not bar physicians from discussing contraception or abortion, both controversial topics in their day." The government -- first the Clinton administration and now the Bush administration -- argues that recommending medical marijuana threatens the public's health and safety. While most, if not all, physicians say more studies need to be done, some say there is at least enough research to support discussing pros and cons of using medical marijuana as a treatment for AIDS wasting syndrome or to stimulate appetites in patients who are nauseous from chemotherapy. They also say there is enough research to support making recommendations to patients. And it's the definition of "discussion" and "recommendation" that is one of the key questions before the court. Physicians and patients question how a statutory line can be drawn between discussion of pros and cons -- a situation where the government has said it wouldn't prosecute physicians -- versus recommendations, which the government has said it would prosecute. The federal government lets doctors "discuss" medical marijuana but not "recommend" it. The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California -- the last court to rule on this case -- said that's a difficult distinction to make. "The government itself would allow physicians to 'discuss' the pros and cons of marijuana therapy with their patients," the court said. "In some cases, however, it will be the professional opinion of doctors that marijuana is the best therapy or at least should be tried. If such recommendations could not be communicated, then the physician-patient relationship would be seriously impaired. Patients need to know their doctors' recommendations." While the outcome of this case will have a direct effect on at least seven states with medical marijuana laws, several organized medicine groups say the case isn't about physicians prescribing, growing or distributing marijuana. Instead, it is about physicians' ability to fully interact with their patients. "This censorship of physician speech jeopardizes patient care," said the California Medical Assn., Global Lawyers and Physicians, the American Academy of Pain Medicine, the Society of General Internal Medicine and others in a friend-of-the-court brief. "The government's disagreement about what is generally safe and effective treatment cannot control a physicians' assessment based on knowledge and experience of an individual patient's needs," the groups said in their brief. "It is contrary to established principles of medical ethics, under which a physician must counsel, advise and recommend optimal treatment options that the physician, in the reasonable exercise of his medical judgment, believes may alleviate a patient's condition. The government's policy thus puts the physician in the untenable and constitutionally unacceptable position of having to choose between the discussion and recommendation required by the physician-patient relationship and the self-censorship required by federal law." Drs. Leff and Conant agree. "If in fact I were prohibited from discussing medical marijuana, a number of patients will suffer," Dr. Leff said. "It's ridiculous." "Let's draw the line here," Dr. Conant said. "Science should decide medicine, not the government."  ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:  Case at a glance:Dr. Marcus Conant et al. v. John P. Walters (formerly Barry R. McCaffrey), as Director, U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy et al. Venue: 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.  At issue:  Whether the government can revoke physicians' DEA numbers if they recommend a patient use medical marijuana or whether the government can investigate a physician because he or she recommended the substance.  Potential impact:  The government says without the authority, their war on drugs is jeopardized. Physicians say if the government is allowed to penalize them, their First Amendment right to freely talk to patients will be violated. Note: Marijuana is at issue in the case now before a federal court, but doctors say the bigger issue is an uninhibited physician-patient relationship.Complete Title: Court To Decide What You Can Say About Medical MarijuanaSource: American Medical News (US)Author: Tanya Albert, AMNews StaffPublished: May 27, 2002Copyright: 2002 American Medical AssociationWebsite: http://www.amednews.com/Contact: http://www.ama-assn.org/public/journals/amnews/edlet.htmRelated Articles & Web Sites:ACLUhttp://www.aclu.org/Chronic Cannabis Use in PDF Formathttp://freedomtoexhale.com/ccu.pdfMedical Marijuana Information Linkshttp://freedomtoexhale.com/medical.htmRecommending Pot Sounds OK To 9th Circuit http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread12474.shtmlSmoky Battleground Renewed in Federal Courthttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread6684.shtml
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Comment #35 posted by Zero_G on May 21, 2002 at 07:38:10 PT
Science (community) modeling society?
The science community accepts a man to head the American Association for the Advancement of Science who openly believes that federal law is sufficient in and of itself to determine that marijuana is medically useless.And the American public at large accepts without question a president who won the election by -500,000 votes. Is this not a case of a sub-set (science community) mirroring the model of the set-at-large?It strikes me that there are reporters who've been in the mainstream, that try to be honest in their stories. Most of them are are now overseas or looking for work, or writing books, because news outlets won't hire them. Among them, but not limited to: Gary Webb, Greg Palast, Seymour Hersh, etc.Looking forward to reading:Into the Buzzsaw
Leading Journalists Expose 
the Myth of a Free Press
Edited by Kristina Borjesson
Foreword by Gore VidalContributors include Columbia DuPont Award-winning broadcast journalist Karl Idsvoog; Helen Malmgren, producer for Ed Bradley at CBS News; Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Gary Webb, who wrote the San Jose Mercury News “Dark Alliance” series about the CIA’s connection to the crack epidemic in Los Angeles; independent investigative producer John Kelly, author with Phillip Wearne of the Pulitzer Prize-nominated Tainting Evidence: Inside the Scandals at the FBI Crime Lab; and many more.
-from the blurb...
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Comment #34 posted by E_Johnson on May 20, 2002 at 21:23:40 PT
And the Sokal affair was over butter too
The whole Sokal affair really began, as his compadre told me personally, when they found out that a math postdoc they were pushing could not get a good academic position, and one of the Social Text crowd was able to get his students hired with no problem.That was how they got the righteous bug up their behind to perpetrate deliberate intellectaul fraud in a power grab for science in the American intellectual world. They felt science everywhere was being threatened because their handpicked guy couldn't get the handpicked job they wanted for him.This was all from the start about not tasting enough butter on their bread.They went to enormous trouble to plant a fake article purporting to be a PoMo analysis of the hermeneutics of quantum gravity.Because the purity and sanctity of science was being assaulted by the humanities people at Social Text.So where is all of this enormous righteous subversive anger when it comes to medical marijuana?What do they do?The science community accepts a man to head the American Association for the Advancement of Science who openly believes that federal law is sufficient in and of itself to determine that marijuana is medically useless.
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Comment #33 posted by E_Johnson on May 20, 2002 at 21:14:43 PT
I'm been shot at on that front myself okay?
I'll agree that science makes the claim to be a search for the TRUTH with a capital T, however, applied science very much influences, and is influenced by, the world at large. That is the intention of my meaning.
The American science community just spent the last decade making angry well-funded war against anyone with sincere questions about their representation of Truth.I sat at a dinner with Allen Sokal's co-conspirator and we fought mano a mano then and there over that.His wife looked at me with admiration, oddly enough.I want to see how many NSF grants he's PI'd.
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Comment #32 posted by Zero_G on May 20, 2002 at 21:06:31 PT
Science alone...
Science stands alone in its pretensions to be about truth not power.Are pretensions reality? Wouldn't the Vatican make the same claim, which is not to say I'd buy it.I'll agree that science makes the claim to be a search for the TRUTH with a capital T, however, applied science very much influences, and is influenced by, the world at large. That is the intention of my meaning. 
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Comment #31 posted by E_Johnson on May 20, 2002 at 20:28:58 PT
Heidi's book
Pandering by Heidi Fleiss -- Coming out August 2002http://shop.store.yahoo.com/heidifleiss/book.html
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Comment #30 posted by E_Johnson on May 20, 2002 at 20:23:01 PT
Read Heidi Fleiss on who the real whores are
Her "what I thought about in prison" book coming out sometime in the near future is going to be called "Pandering" and it is reportedly about politics and American society, not the illegal sex business per se.
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Comment #29 posted by dddd on May 20, 2002 at 20:13:10 PT
...EJ,,You're the Best!.......
....I really liked ;
     " I'll call Al Gore a big fat ho right here.      And I so sincerely apologize to any honest whores out there who may feel degraded by being compared to a
      Democrat."
....... sardonicly delicious!.........dddd
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Comment #28 posted by E_Johnson on May 20, 2002 at 19:33:38 PT
Zero_G, Science is alone
Science stands alone in its pretensions to be about truth not power.The nineties saw several very bitter and strident attacks by the American science community against any intellectual or social movements seen as being "anti-science" including poor astrologers, I mean Kepler was an astrologer, hey let's attack Kepler as being anti-science why don't we?The American science community climbed way high up on a gigantic secular moral high horse during the nineties as the only force in society capable of bearing truth in its pure unpolluted unprostituted form.So yes I believe they ARE alone in this level of guilt, very much alone, because no other group in America claims the level of being above it all that American scientists so vocally and publicly claim.
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Comment #27 posted by The GCW on May 20, 2002 at 19:08:53 PT
One of Neuvo Mexican posts...=Moon owns Wash Post.
* Perhaps this Rev. Moon quote from August 4th 1996 may give us a little more "insight"... From: The Unholy Alliance - Christianity & The NWO http://www.rense.com/general20/unholy.htm 
 
"Americans who continue to maintain their privacy and extreme individualism are foolish people... The world will reject Americans who continue to be so foolish. Once you have this great power of love, which is big enough to swallow entire America, there may be some individuals who complain inside your stomach. However, they will be digested." 
 E-J, But why haven't journalists covered this story? Because the evil owns the media. But then You already know that better...Could this be the 'falling away' of the Church so often preached by these same evangelicals? The great 'apostasy' which will, in the last days render much of the Christian Church faithless to their original calling and subject to the manipulation, will and prophesied plans of the 'Antichrist'? (this is at the end of the article...) Moon seems to own, media, politicians, clergy and all evil...
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Comment #26 posted by E_Johnson on May 20, 2002 at 18:41:06 PT
But why haven't journalists covered this story?
The mass prostitution of American science to the persecution mania of the Drug Reich -- why hasn't any reporter covered this story yet?Because science journalists are even more prostituted to the Drug Reich then the scientists they cover.So the idea that maybe it is not proper to ask a scientist to become a professional narc as an add-on to his or her role as a professional scientist just doesn't enter the common discourse anywhere.And now that Science magazine is being run by Dr. Alan Leshner formerly of NIDA -- we're not about to see the Drug Free Workplace questioned in that venue of professional discourse in science.
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Comment #25 posted by E_Johnson on May 20, 2002 at 18:30:02 PT
Aha but they have in a way
I agree with Richard Miller ( Drug Warriors and Their Prey) and many on this board that much can be learned about our predicament from the Third Reich and am puzzled that American Jewish organizations have not volubly protested the war on drugs and made the obvious comparisons.In some parts of America, the ACLU is considered to be a Jewish oprganization.And Nixon I guess believed that NORML was a conspiracy run by those Jewish psychiatrist bastards.The drug reform battle is now benefiting greatly from the liberal intellectual tradition of the American Jewish left that started with labor organizing in the twenties and helped empower the Civil Rights movement in the sixties.Ethan Nadelman, Ira Glasser...
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Comment #24 posted by Zero_G on May 20, 2002 at 17:58:58 PT
Lehder
The propensity to persecute would seem to have much more to do with humans and their butter than with any particular political circumstance or historical period, and it is prudent to study the phenomenon generally and try to make some conclusions on how to terminate ours and to foil others sure to arise. I totally agree with this, I'm attempting to avoid always equating the legitimate struggle for economic justice with the propensity for totalitarianism. Totalitarianism arises from both left and right.Thanks Lehder for weighing in.
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Comment #23 posted by Zero_G on May 20, 2002 at 17:46:54 PT
Science is not alone.
Scientists are choosing to treat their employees very shamefully, and they are choosing to pretend they are unaware that they have chosen to do that and they are choosing not to discuss it or even consider it an issue in science.As are many employers in general, and feudal lords, slave-masters, commissars and corporate bosses alike, before them.
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Comment #22 posted by Lehder on May 20, 2002 at 17:34:50 PT
politically correct
   I think it is more prudent to talk about the global realities as they are now, rather than as
   they were in the Soviet Union.... Political reality in the US today is only an attenuated version of the terror under Stalin. I agree with EJ that much insight into our present reality can be gained by examining the Soviet System.I agree with Richard Miller ( Drug Warriors and Their Prey) and many on this board that much can be learned about our predicament from the Third Reich and am puzzled that American Jewish organizations have not volubly protested the war on drugs and made the obvious comparisons. For all their books, films, museums and vows of 'never again,' Jewish organizations, as organizations, have been, so far as I know, sadly silent. The propensity to persecute would seem to have much more to do with humans and their butter than with any particular political circumstance or historical period, and it is prudent to study the phenomenon generally and try to make some conclusions on how to terminate ours and to foil others sure to arise. Politically controlled science was undesirable even when the resulting science still worked; today much of what passes as science is nonsense. 
keeping a political rein on scientists
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Comment #21 posted by E_Johnson on May 20, 2002 at 16:50:39 PT
I never said that
I never said that anything you do is bad.What I mean is people choose how to treat other people.Scientists are choosing to treat their employees very shamefully, and they are choosing to pretend they are unaware that they have chosen to do that and they are choosing not to discuss it or even consider it an issue in science.This is bad. This is irretrievably bad, it is equivalently bad to what scientists did in the Nazi context and in the Soviet Socialist context.Their choice is the bad choice that people make.And because people make these bad choices -- bad systems are empowered to do bad things.Sending Sakharov to forced exile in Gorky -- that was bad. The system that did that was empowered by the willingness of his scientific colleagues to denounce him as a traitor.They used their free will as humans badly, just as some German scientists did in WWII and people who sign the Drug Free Workplace certification for an NSF grant are doing now.The badness of these actions exist outside of the different political contexts in which they occurred.But they empower the badness in each context.
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Comment #20 posted by paul peterson on May 20, 2002 at 16:48:14 PT:
THIS IS THE BATTLE ROYALE-
Everybody please hold your hats-this case will change the entire course of this battle-Just remember, of course, that just last month in Oregon, a Federal District Court Judge effectively told John Ashcroft to get on a plane and go home, regarding the Oregon assisted suicide law-federal intervention would be an unwarranted intrusion in the physician-patient relationship, which is within the purview of the states' "welfare" rights-did I get that right?Of course, that case smacked of the same issues inherent here-first amendment rights to discuss and help patients, state sovereignty, and the only difference between that and this is that "commerce" clause thingy, about how the drug war involves "commerce" (sale-distribution of a product), and which, even if it is intrastate, still "arguably" affects interstate commerce.Just remember that the US Supreme Court, last 5/15/01(?) did not address the issue of whether states could legalize medical marijuana, only as to whether a state could allow the "sales, distribution" of same. The media, reliably, overstated and overquoted (like that Florida election thingy, you know). Wasn't it Justice Thomas, who, in his dissent(?) stated that "candidate BUSH" noted that the "states should decide?" about medical marijuana?, in other words, at least the supremes will remember when that pivotal decision hits the proverbial fan just what needs to be done, and where the case needs to go.One further note, there is a really good case on point as to the medical efficacy of marijuana, from NWULR (93:547- 1999), set the way back to 1996, first circuit court of appeals-US. V. CARVELL.(74 F. 3d 8). A guy used pot to avoid suicide. Two doctors told him it helped with depression. After his last bust, he found another medication that worked finally, so he no longer "needed" pot. The district court judge figured he could not give him a "downward departure" on the sentence, and the appellate court disagreed, ie: even though the use of it was no longer "necessary", at the time it was "apparently" necessary, they gave him 10 months off (his 70 month sentence). That was for 67 pounds (since there were 467 plants, it was "imputed" at 468 kilos. This was a pivotal underpinning for the Maine initiative, I believe. Now, I'm thinking with the Oregon case, the recent DC Federal Judge invalidating the "content based censureship" precluding the new referendum, we have two really good recent indicators of a change in the wind.The US Supreme Court has already given us good hints about their real intent when the Conant case gets out east. That new Nevada Supreme Court case (limiting search and seizure for true "evidence", not mere innuendos) gives good hope for the new URINE case in the Supremes now-there has got to be something other than just innuendo to support an invasion of privacy (not that I would take bets on that school choir case going our way, of course).Either way, Conant is a big case-I'm itching for the decision, as I won't even ask a local doctor to go to bat for my local test cases (Illinois), until there is a little shade from the DEA-then we at least have a window of opportunity to get another state on line before either the Supreme Court showdown (or Barney's debates in DC), or the election to increase some "resistance" to these war mongers (no names, no names). PAUL
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Comment #19 posted by Zero_G on May 20, 2002 at 16:30:19 PT
Do unto others...
You choose to do your brotherman bad, it's a bad on you no matter what system you claim made you do it.And arguing for economic justice is doing your brotherman wrong somehow?
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Comment #18 posted by E_Johnson on May 20, 2002 at 16:17:54 PT
Free will!
Science and scientists do not exist in a vacuum.
I counter this assertion with:Free will exists outside of all context.You choose to do your brotherman bad, it's a bad on you no matter what system you claim made you do it.Stalin would be a footnote in history if people weren't willing to rat each other for a little more butter on their bread.And it is truly shocking just how little butter some of them needed to do it.
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Comment #17 posted by Zero_G on May 20, 2002 at 16:02:12 PT
E_J Your words have meaning.
My words are not licensed for that useAre you attempting to say that one cannot comment upon your words. Or is this, potentially, a multi-directional exchange of ideas.Your comments remain your own. My observations and replies are mine, and I hope you recognize my right to express them.I think it is more prudent to talk about the global realities as they are now, rather than as they were in the Soviet Union - for example, the commodification and patenting of biological dna, the oil and gas pipelines that underlie so much of US foreign policy, etc. Science and scientists do not exist in a vacuum.You turn over the name and employee number to the feds of someone convicted of a drug crime -- and you are doing almost the same thing as giving up the name of a Jewish colleague during Nazi Germany.I agree.Thanks for the exchange. 
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Comment #16 posted by E_Johnson on May 20, 2002 at 15:48:18 PT
Oops correction 
And every single scientist and science educator in this country
 I meant to add "who is PI on an NSF grant"
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Comment #15 posted by E_Johnson on May 20, 2002 at 15:43:20 PT
American science is in a VERY BAD situation
I don't think people are really understanding just how bad things have gotten here.Who is the current head of the American Association for the Advancement of Science? Dr. Alan Leshner, the former head of NIDA, the man who exhibited no shame when he said, "We don't need to do any research into the medical use of marijuana, because the federal law says that it is medically useless and that's all we need to know."This man is now the prime mover and leader of the most major organization in the country meant to lead and advance American science.And every single scientist and science educator in this country has of his or her own free will with complete knowledge signed an agreement to hand over the names of their employees who are convicted of drug crimes to the Gestapo of the Drug Reich.Why has the Institute of Medicine report not been politically relevant?Why have we never heard the authors of this report stand up in public to refute Bush or Gore or anyone else who claims that the "science community agrees there is no evidence for the medical use of marijuana"?Why?Because things are so bad now, nothing that is supposed to work about science is working any more.Just like it stopped working in the Soviet Union.And in the Third reich.
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Comment #14 posted by E_Johnson on May 20, 2002 at 15:27:15 PT
Zero_G look at how Soviet scientists behaved
There was no globalization pressure during the Cold War in the USSR.Soviet scientrists ratted out their colleagues all the time for privileges like the ability to travel to foreign countries to present scientifc papers.The biggest recipient of this collegial largesse was Andre Sakharov, who was denounced bitterly by his peers many times over, so they could get their bread buttered at his expense.The Soviet Academy of Sciences voted overwhelmingly to brand Andre Sakharov as a traitor to his country for becoming a leader in the Soviet human rights movement.And they did it for more socialist butter on their tasty socialist bread.American scientists puff up big and huge over any perceived threats to their cultural authority.The Postmodenists! The Christians! The animal rights people! Horrible threats to the virginal purity of science so absolutely necessary to the future progress of human society!Then they all sit down and sign an agreement with their federal masters in the DrugReich to be WILLING COG IN THE CRUSHING BRUTAL WHEEL that turns the most minor marijuana conviction into a nightmare of lifelong marginalization for any American citizen no matter how skilled or productive.You turn over the name and employee number to the feds of someone convicted of a drug crime -- and you are doing almost the same thing as giving up the name of a Jewish colleague during Nazi Germany.
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Comment #13 posted by E_Johnson on May 20, 2002 at 15:10:37 PT
My words are not licensed for that use
American scientists want to sell the truth and keep it sacred at the same time.One of the profound contradictions apparent in the realities of the globalist economic system, I fear.
I meant what I said to stand on its own not to be harnessed to your personal political ideology.This is happening because people have free will and continually make bad choices that hurt other people and then try to invent ideologies that forgive them their trespasses against their fellow human beings.
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Comment #12 posted by Zero_G on May 20, 2002 at 14:17:47 PT
E_J, Nice to dialogue...
And in fact, I agree that political correctness is part of the problem. I do have a penchant for language, words call up inferences to me which often are not part of the intention involved in communication, but are, in fact, part of the source and history of the word itself. Symbols, after all, mean different things to different people.I won't argue with the intent of your characterization of Al Gore. But in human life we can choose what to sell and what to keep sacred.Some have far greater choices than others. I certainly respect and admire the choices you have made in the practice of your profession. American scientists want to sell the truth and keep it sacred at the same time.One of the profound contradictions apparent in the realities of the globalist economic system, I fear.Yours,
Zero G.
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Comment #11 posted by E_Johnson on May 20, 2002 at 13:26:59 PT
And I am walking the walk believe me Zero_G
I could apply for all kinds of NSF grants and be very well supported myself if I were willing to sign my name to the Drug Free Workplace agreement and promise to propagandize and INFORM ON my employees.I won't do that. There's a big difference between selling your body and selling your soul.But everyone around me in science has done exactly that.So how should American graduate students in science feel about the fact that all of their professors have signed legally binding agreements with the federal government promising to turn over their names and grant employee numbers to the feds if they are caught violating drug laws?They should realize that not only have their professors sold themselves to the Drug War, they have also chosen to sell everyone who works for them in all of science to the Drug War.The fact that I am willing to go without any butter on my own bread gives me the right to call them whores for what they do to get their butter.
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Comment #10 posted by E_Johnson on May 20, 2002 at 13:19:50 PT
Zero_G: Personal responsibility and science
It's a concept missing in science. Everything happens because some unstoppable force of Nature makes it happen.But in human life we can choose what to sell and what to keep sacred.American scientists want to sell the truth and keep it sacred at the same time.It's a choice! Not something that has to happen because of the unstoppable forces of Nature.People who only sell their bodies have nothing on American science as far as whoredom goes.
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Comment #9 posted by E_Johnson on May 20, 2002 at 13:10:04 PT
Political correctness is the problem not the solut
Not the solution!I'll call Al Gore a big fat ho right here.And I so sincerely apologize to any honest whores out there who may feel degraded by being compared to a Democrat.
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Comment #8 posted by el_toonces on May 20, 2002 at 13:07:09 PT:
why strange?
doc - justwondering why you think it strange to say you fancy being a plaintiff in a case that seeks to establish and/or protect the rights od physiciand and patients to speak openly about these kinds of issues? After all, IMHO, it is precisely your ability to do speak that way with patients -- and your encouraging them to speak with you frankly and openly -- that makes you far and away the most valuable doctor on my 'medical team' even though I am not a formal patient of yours...........
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Comment #7 posted by E_Johnson on May 20, 2002 at 13:03:45 PT
Dr. Russo
It was an AIDS activist who asked the question, he could verify what happened but I'm not sure if he's still around. He was Dr. Ho's patient in fact. One of the very first recipients of the new drugs. His name was Richard Wright, I think. Caltech is VERY careful with their public image -- I know many former female grad students who are currently living under confidentiality agreements to prove it -- so I don't think they'd be leaving something like that in any record they may have kept about the event.
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Comment #6 posted by Zero_G on May 20, 2002 at 13:03:20 PT
Say it's a living, we all got to eat...
We all need our bread buttered but we don't all choose to ho ourselves for butter.Which is why I argue that economic rights are part of human rights, as expressed in the UN Charter. I also find the word "ho" to be personally distasteful. There are those, admittedly, who will "prostitute" themselves for survival, or simply profit. However, I even dislike using that word, in as much as I'm not about disparaging sex-trade workers.Peace
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Comment #5 posted by E_Johnson on May 20, 2002 at 12:29:32 PT
That's why the word ho was invented
Regretablly, it is a practice with considerable history. After all, scientists need funding, and they know which side of the bread is buttered.
We all need our bread buttered but we don't all choose to ho ourselves for butter.
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Comment #4 posted by Zero_G on May 20, 2002 at 12:04:34 PT
E_J, That's NOT Science...
But rather, it is the practitioners of science playing politics.Regretablly, it is a practice with considerable history. After all, scientists need funding, and they know which side of the bread is buttered.
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Comment #3 posted by Ethan Russo MD on May 20, 2002 at 11:56:20 PT:
Transcript
EJ, if there is a transcript or other independent verification of your fascinating story, I'd love to see it.
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Comment #2 posted by E_Johnson on May 20, 2002 at 11:24:23 PT
Dr. Conant does NOT understand science
Science should decide, not government? Oi that would nice if only we had a science establishment that was actually independent of government.But sorry, science is as dependent on the kindness of government as Blanche Dubois was on the kindness of strangers.Someone should tell Dr. Conant about the AIDS forum at Caltech where the top scientists in the country gathered to hear Dr. David Ho talk about the new antiviral and protease inhibiting medications he helped discover.A rep from the Clintonm administration was there. A question from the audience emerged about the side effects of the new medicines. It was agreed that those unable to tolerate these side effects were likely to die of AIDS.Another question emerged about how effective marijuana was in combatting these side effects thus saving the lives of HIV positive people who could not tolerate these new medications.Dr. Ho got up to give his answer but before he could speak the Clinton admin rep said she had to leave before he spoke.She said, "I can't hear this, hold on."And it was made very obvious she had to leave the room that moment because she had to maintain plausible deniability for that despicable lying piece of scum Bill Clinton that there was no science whatsoever supporting the medical use of marijuana.And the scientists all waited politely for her to leave the room so that one of the most brilliant and heroic scientists in the country -- TIME magazine Man of the Year -- could tell a simple truth about his own experience treating patients who used marijuana.Yes it is effectiver at relieving the side effects.Then when he was finished, the Clinton rep came back into the room and everyone proceeded politely as if a grave insult against democracy and imprtant other values that are supposed to underlie both this country AND science had not just taken place.It was all so disgustingly polite while the lives of HIV positive people were being thrown away into the garbage can.And this is how science works and this is why science has had so little influence in this matter.Because these people are like Blanche Dubois, but without the human ability to feel shame or guilt towards their own actions.
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Comment #1 posted by Ethan Russo MD on May 20, 2002 at 10:52:58 PT:
Battle Royale
This is about as basic as it gets, folks. Should there be an adverse ruling, a tremendous backlash is likely. This is very strange to say, but I wish that I were a plaintiff in this case. 
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