cannabisnews.com: Wonder Drug Cover-Up Wonder Drug Cover-Up Posted by CN Staff on October 31, 2002 at 09:30:16 PT By Dennis Myers Source: Reno News & Review We've heard it repeatedly. It's the mantra of prosecutors, police officers and federal drug officials: There's no scientific evidence that marijuana is medicine. In D. Brian Burghart's News & Review article on ballot Question 9, Burghart reported that number one on law enforcement's list of reasons for opposing marijuana use was, "No one, not the American Medical Association or the courts, has scientifically proven pot has medicinal benefits. " The distinguished physician Dr. Richard Gammick, Washoe County's district attorney, once said, "They would have to prove this is a medically necessary drug ... " Well, no, they wouldn't. They already have. Not once, not twice, not a hundred times, but thousands of times. That's how many studies of medical marijuana are available. Marijuana is not a new medicine--"marijuana was being used therapeutically by mankind 2,000 years before the birth of Christ," Drug Enforcement Administration judge Francis Young ruled in 1988--so it's been studied for almost that long. Migraine, cholera, tetanus, grand mal seizures, muscle spasm, even rabies--if there's a malady, there's probably a scientific study of marijuana's use in treating it. That's why migraine specialist Ethan Russo says, "Cannabis is the most useful plant on earth." And the no-scientific-evidence canard has been discredited so often we must assume those who still use it now know it's false. Don't believe me. Here's a handy-dandy guide for checking it yourself. There's a medical library at the University of Nevada, Reno. Drive north on Virginia Street. Two streets past the planetarium turn right on 17th Street. Drive past KNPB and stop at the Pennington Building. Walk inside to the medical library. Ask to see the Journal of the American Medical Association for Oct. 20, 1975. On page 306, you'll find a study of the value of marijuana in controlling epileptic convulsions. If you don't trust just one source, look at the end of the article and you'll find 11 footnotes listing other studies of the plant's use in maladies from cholera to epilepsy. You can find many of the footnoted studies in the medical library and each study will have still more footnotes to still more studies. After you've read the JAMA article, you might then ask for the Journal of Neurology, Volume 236. On page 120, you'll find a 1989 study, "Effect of Cannabinoids on Spasticity and Ataxia in Multiple Sclerosis." It footnotes 21 additional studies. Then ask for two issues of the New England Journal of Medicine--Sept. 7, 1995, and Jan. 17, 1980. On page 135 of the 1980 issue, you'll find "Antiemetics in patients receiving chemotherapy for cancer." It has 12 footnotes to other studies. On pages 670 and 671 of the 1995 issue, you'll find two letters from physicians describing the benefits of marijuana as an appetite remedy for wasting disease and describing the opposition of law enforcement even to the study of medical marijuana. Then, the next time you hear Dr. Gammick or one of his colleagues say there is no scientific proof of the medical benefits of marijuana, give them a call and ask them why they're saying it. Source: Reno News & Review (NV)Author: Dennis Myers Published: October 31, 2002 Copyright: 2002 Chico Community Publishing, Inc.Contact: renoletters newsreview.comWebsite: http://www.newsreview.com/issues/reno/Related Articles & Web Sites:University of Nevadahttp://www.unr.edu/Hemp for Headacheshttp://freedomtoexhale.com/hh.pdfChronic Cannabis Usehttp://freedomtoexhale.com/ccu.pdfCannabinoids in Pain Management http://freedomtoexhale.com/drr.htmNo Risk in Voting 'Yes' on 9 http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread14481.shtmlPublic Officials Slam Marijuana Ballot Measure http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread13496.shtml Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help Comment #10 posted by idbsne1 on October 31, 2002 at 13:47:27 PT Sammy!!! My favorite group!!!! Good call....Wow! After so many years of listening to Rush, I still didn't know those lyrics fully....thanks Sam!Now for the article....I like this guy....it's about time that someone in the media called it!!!idbsne1 [ Post Comment ] Comment #9 posted by Thomas on October 31, 2002 at 12:23:18 PT Constipation cure? They could use barrels of that in Washington! [ Post Comment ] Comment #8 posted by Ethan Russo MD on October 31, 2002 at 11:51:35 PT: Volcano The Volcano WWW site has pictures:http://vapormed.de/It's in German, but if you plug in the URL at altavista.com on their translation page, you'll get the idea. The machines are just receiving European and American patents. We will have feature interview with the inventor, Markus Storz in Journal of Cannabis Therapeutics in January.My pictures are not online. I show those in my slide shows! [ Post Comment ] Comment #7 posted by Dankhank on October 31, 2002 at 11:35:46 PT: Where is It? Doctor Russo ...How are you? You seem to be in fine fettle ...A question for you, if I may presume ...In you office during our conversation I believe you went to a webpage containing a photo of a "Volcano."Can you direct me/us to the site?Many thanks for lending your expertise to us, which let's me quote or reference a well-known Cannabis researcher that I have met and spoken with ... after figuring out the heinous Missoula city streets. :_) Hemp N Stuff [ Post Comment ] Comment #6 posted by DdC on October 31, 2002 at 11:29:51 PT Just Hold the D.E.A.th Liars Accountable... Cure the D.E.A.th Cage the Cowards!More doses of reality, if the Newt gets it what else is there to say? While medicinal use is mainly thought of as being in the ganja buds, which it is. The hemp seed and buds are also medicinal, nutritional and most of the cannabis eradications to give pompus piggies higher statistics. If a cop can't keep from repeating political lies about cannabis then remove them. No one with such a condition should be trusted to carry a weapon. Or molest a kids mind with hogwash so easily disproven. Wake up America, your sons and your daughters are victims of the D.E.A.th wishes. Profiting on misery and maintaining dysfunction. Enough of this nonsense...Fire the Liars!Peace, Love and Liberty or the D.E.A.th's Fiction!Newt Gingrich's Support for Medical MarijuanaThe following letter by Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-Ga, now Speaker of the House) in support of medical access to marijuana originally appeared in the March 19, 1982 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).To the Editor,The American Medical Association's Council on Scientific Affairs should be commended for its report, "Marijuana: Its Health Hazards and Therapeutic Potential" (1981;246:1823). Not only does the report outline evidence of marijuana's potential harms, but it distinguishes this concern from the legitimate issue of marijuana's important medical benefits. All too often the hysteria that attends public debate over marijuana's social abuse compromises a clear appreciation for this critical distinction. Since 1978, 32 states have abandoned the federal prohibition to recognize legislatively marijuana's important medical properties. Federal law, however, continues to define marijuana as a drug "with no accepted medical use," and federal agencies continue to prohibit physician-patient access to marijuana. This outdated federal prohibition is corrupting the intent of the state laws and depriving thousands of glaucoma and cancer patients of the medical care promised them by their state legislatures.On September 16, 1981, Representatives Stewart McKinney and I introduced legislation designed to end bureaucratic interference in the use of marijuana as a medicant. We believe licensed physicians are competent to enploy marijuana, and patients have a right to obtain marijuana legally, under medical supervision, from a regulated source. The medical prohibition does not prevent seriously ill patients from employing marijuana; it simply deprives them of medical supervision and denies them access to a regulated medical substance. Physicians are often forced to choose between their ethical responsibilities to the patient and their legal liabilities to federal bureaucrats.Representative McKinney and I hope the Council will take a close and careful look at this issue. Federal policies do not reflect a factual or balanced assessment of marijuana's use as a medicant. The Council, by thoroughly investigating the available materials, might well discover that its own assessment of marijuana's therapeutic value has, in the past, been more than slightly shaded by federal policies that are less than neutral.Newt Gingrich House of Representatives Washington, DCCannabidiol: The Wonder Drug of the 21st Century? http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/hemp/medical/cannabid.htmThe International Cannabinoid Research Society http://CannabinoidSociety.org/Alliance for Cannabis Therapeutics http://www.marijuana-as-medicine.org/alliance.htmSchaffer Library Hemp/Marijuana Medical Information http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/hemp/medical/medical.htmANTIBIOTIC CBD DISINFECTANTS http://www.jackherer.com/book/ch07.htmlYoung un-budded hemp plants provide extractions of CBDs (cannabidiolic acids). There are many antibiotic uses of the cannabidiols, including treatment for gonorrhea. A 1990 Florida study indicated its use in treating herpes. The acid side of tetrahydrocannabinol, cannabidiols occur inversely to the amount of the plant's THC and is therefore more acceptable to prohibitionists because "it won't get you high." For virtually any disease or infection that can be treated with terramycin, cannabis derivatives did better in Czechoslovakian studies, 1952-1955. The Czechs in 1997 still published farm crop reports on strategies to grow cannabidiol rich hemp. (Also see Cohen & Stillman, Therapeutic Potential of Marijuana; Mikuriya, Tod H., M.D., Marijuana Medical Papers; Roffman, Marijuana as Medicine, 1982; International Farm Crop abstracts.) Marijuana: Medical Papers http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/hemp/medical/medpaper.htmAnalgesia, anticonvulsant action, appetite stimulation, ataraxia, antibiotic properties and low toxicity were described throughout medical literature, beginning in 1839, when O'Shaughnessy introduced cannabis into the Western pharmacopoeia. CIBA Foundation Study Group, "Hashish--Its Chemistry and Pharmacology," 1964, pp. 45, 49.MEDICINAL USES OF CANNABIS http://www.ccguide.org.uk/medical.htmlWilliam Brooke O'Shaughnessy http://nepenthes.lycaeum.org/Ludlow/People/wbos.htmlThe 'Rajbulubha,' a Sanscrit treatise of rather later date, alludes to the use of Hemp in gonorrhoea, and repeats the statements of the 'Rajniguntu.' In the Hindu Tantra, or a religious treatise, teaching peculiar and mystical formulae and rites for the worship of the deities, it is said moreover, that sidhee is more intoxicating that wine. Rumphius adds, that the Mahomedans in his neighborhood frequently sought for the male plant from his garden to be given to persons afflicted with virulent gonorrhoea, and with asthma, or the infection, what is popularly called, 'stitches in the side.Tod H. Mikuriya, M.D. http://www.mikuriya.comRx Marijuana http://www.rxmarihuana.comThe DEA no longer releases figures for ditchweed seizures, but in his book, "Marijuana in the Third World: Appalachia, USA," University of Kentucky sociologist Richard Clayton crunched official numbers from the late 1980s and early 1990s. "It is important to examine carefully how much of the marijuana eradicated in the US is essentially worthless ditchweed," wrote Clayton. "The answer is 95%." Clayton's research is not the only to pan the DEA's eradication efforts, nor the most damning. A 1998 report by the Vermont State Auditor placed the proportion of ditchweed in DEA's marijuana eradication program even higher, at 99.28% http://www.drcnet.org/wol/041.html#ditchweed"Arbitrary and capricious" is legal language that was used by DEA Administrative Law Judge Francis Young in 1988 to conclude that DEA was obligated under the Controlled Substances Act to reschedule marijuana as a prescription medicine. DEA Chief Administrator Robert Bonner proceeded to arbitrarily and capriciously disregard Judge Young's well researched and reasoned decision, which the Act allowed him to do." Cannabis is Medicine...Get Over It! [ Post Comment ] Comment #5 posted by Ethan Russo MD on October 31, 2002 at 10:34:27 PT: Korean Cure Oriental Rhubarb = Rheum officinale, purgativeElecampane = Inula helenium, mostly for bronchitis, but also aids digestionCannabis sativa = antispasmodic in the gut, would counteract the rhubarb if too strong, allay nausea or associated problems, stimulate mood and appetiteIt makes sense. I hope that they are not hospitalizing too many people with constipation! [ Post Comment ] Comment #4 posted by Sam Adams on October 31, 2002 at 10:28:39 PT Found it! ...allow me to indulge......."The massive grey walls of the Temples rise from the heart of every Federation city. I have always been awed by them, to think that every single facet of every life is regulated and directed from within! Our books, our music, our work and play are all looked after by the benevolent wisdom of the priests..."We've taken care of everything The words you hear the songs you sing The pictures that give pleasure to your eyes It's one for all and all for oneWe work together common sons Never need to wonder how or why We are the Priests of the Temples of Syrinx Our great computers fill the hallowed hallsWe are the Priests of the Temples of Syrinx All the gifts of life are held within our wallsLook around this world we made Equality our stock in trade Come and join the Brotherhood of Man Oh what a nice contented worldLet the banners be unfurled Hold the Red Star proudly high in hand We are the Priests of the Temples of Syrinx Our great computers fill the hallowed halls.We are the Priests of the Temples of Syrinx All the gifts of life are held within our walls. [ Post Comment ] Comment #3 posted by Sam Adams on October 31, 2002 at 10:25:26 PT Thank you Dennis and Dr. Russo! More truth! The antis "no medical evidence" refrain has always been particularly disturbing to me as a long-time med-mj patient. There's almost a book-burning, 1984ish tone to the mantra; trying to program people's minds to directly ignore the journals and dozens of peer-reviewed clinical studies in hundreds of libraries around the world. DON'T set foot into that library! It's HERESY! The Inquisitors are watching!Did anyone ever read the book "Anthem" by Ayn Rand? It's the story that inspired Rush's "2112", a work with similar themes of seeking forbidden knowledge to break the cycle of control and exploitation. Just substitute John Aschroft, Asa, and John Walters for the "Priests of the Temples of Syrinx" and you're off and running.... [ Post Comment ] Comment #2 posted by FoM on October 31, 2002 at 10:16:30 PT Dan and Everyone CNN Headline News had this article from Korea scroll under their news page. [ Post Comment ] Comment #1 posted by Dan B on October 31, 2002 at 09:36:57 PT: What He Said Go, Dennis. And might I also point out this little tidbit from Iwon:High Honors to Cannabis Constipation Cure Oct 31, 9:06 am ET SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea has awarded high honors to a herbal medicine for constipation with marijuana as an active ingredient, the communist state's official news agency said on Thursday.The concoction of rhubarb, cannabis sativa (marijuana) and elecampane "gives no harmful effect to internal organs but activates their functions and promotes digestion by dissolving bile well," the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.KCNA said the government had awarded a top science prize this year to the medicine made by Pyongyang Hospital of Koryo Medicine after it "completely cured" 97 percent of the thousands of constipated patients who tried it. Dan B [ Post Comment ] Post Comment