cannabisnews.com: Luebke Wants Medical Pot Study 





Luebke Wants Medical Pot Study 
Posted by CN Staff on April 12, 2003 at 08:37:00 PT
By C.D. Kirkpatrick, The Herald-Sun
Source: Herald-Sun
Durham -- As several states experiment with medical marijuana laws, state Rep. Paul Luebke wants Tar Heel legislators to consider the issue. For the second time, Luebke has introduced legislation to form a medical marijuana study commission. If approved, the study group of lawmakers might bring a recommendation to the General Assembly next year and would submit a final report by 2005. "I am not endorsing medical marijuana use; I am saying the General Assembly should study it," Luebke said. 
"It seems clear to me there are people who believe it has a use in pain reduction." Doctors have prescribed medical marijuana to treat glaucoma, pain from terminal disease and nausea from chemotherapy, among other ailments. Nine states -— Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Nevada, Oregon and Washington —- permit the medical use and cultivation of the drug. Maryland’s General Assembly passed a bill last month, which the governor is expected to sign this month. All but Hawaii and Maryland used ballot initiatives, grass-roots petition drives that allow for statewide votes on certain issues. North Carolina state law doesn’t allow for ballot initiatives. Durham resident Deborah Christie has lobbied Luebke and other state and federal lawmakers for years over the issue. Luebke’s first bill fizzled in 2001 because there wasn’t enough time between sessions for lawmakers to study the topic because of the extended session, he said. Christie used to work for the National Democratic Committee and is a member of the Marijuana Policy Project, which lobbies Congress to legalize the drug for medical uses. "I’m certainly not a user and never have been. I learned about medical marijuana, and to my astonishment, I discovered the medical uses. I had no notion of it before that. I was very impressed by several speakers I heard in Washington," she said. Christie heard National Review editor Richard Brookhiser, a conservative, speak about his cancer and reliance on marijuana to treat the side effects of therapy. Other drugs did not work for him, he said. "All drugs should be legal and regulated. Our current distinction between legal and illegal is unsound; it does not make medical sense," she said. The state laws have set up clashes with federal law and authorities. In response, a group of U.S. representatives introduced a bill in Congress on Thursday that would add a "medical use" defense to federal law. The move would rectify the legal contradictions and allow federal juries to decide if someone really was breaking the law. "The bill was inspired primarily by the case of Ed Rosenthal. He was growing and distributing marijuana at the request of Oakland when he was arrested," said Bruce Mirkin, director of communications for the Marijuana Policy Project. The federal judge in the trial would not allow Rosenthal’s lawyer to tell the jury that he was operating legally in his own state or that the city of Oakland requested the services of him. "After learning this, members of the jury held a press conference to repudiate their own verdict, and one flew to Washington to testify this week," Mirkin said. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2001 that "medical necessity" is not a valid defense. And federal anti-drug officials have been consistently opposed to the state laws. But there is not a consistent ideological theme to either side of the issue. John Hood, president of the Locke Foundation, a watchdog of state government policy, said the issue has proven the strange bedfellows axiom of politics. Among the medical marijuana advocates is former Duke University Law School Dean Paul Carrington. He believes marijuana should be legalized, though he wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. Source: Herald-Sun, The (Durham, NC)Author: C.D. Kirkpatrick, The Herald-SunPublished: April 11, 2003Copyright: 2003 The Herald-SunContact: letters herald-sun.comWebsite: http://www.herald-sun.comRelatd Articles & Web Sites:Marijuana Policy Projecthttp://www.mpp.org/Ed Rosenthal's Pictures & Articleshttp://freedomtoexhale.com/trialpics.htmHouse Speaker Won't Back Pot Growers http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread15939.shtml Bill Would Allow Medical Defense in Trials http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread15937.shtml
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Comment #3 posted by FoM on April 12, 2003 at 11:37:24 PT
AlvinCool 
How can we get a flag or can we?
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Comment #2 posted by AlvinCool on April 12, 2003 at 10:35:47 PT
Can they never get it right?
"It seems clear to me there are people who believe it has a use in pain reduction." Will they EVER get it right. It isn't pain reduction it's pain MANAGEMENT. How can they expect to study something when they don't have a clue what to look at??And on another subject I never received a reply on the purchase of the Russian flag.
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Comment #1 posted by Virgil on April 12, 2003 at 10:03:10 PT
Rip Van Winkle State
In the late 1890's North Carolina was so backwards it was laughed at as the Rip Van Winkle state. Now they like to boast of all the great Universities like Duke and Wake Forest and UNC and others. But Duke and Wake Forest want to lead the medical industries so that Durham and Winston-Salem might benefit from being regional providers of medical services. It just seems like the old days of snoring in regards to cannabis research and it would be more apparent to my fellow citizens how backwards it all is if they had mentioned GWP and the Netherlands and use Canada as an example at corporate power through puppet politicians in preventing national laws from being implemented.We have educational channels that run on UNC-TV but they never address the blind spot that can tell us of the power of money to influence science, politicians, and the media. What is sad is that there is a film school at the School of the Arts in Winston-Salem and media training at Chapel Hill that want a big reputation. Cannabis is one story they do not succeed at and the untold story or the blind spot is still waiting.The cannabis perspective is more valuable than ever in this time of We The People being substituted by We the Few in legal institutions that used to be under the umbrella of the Constitution. We don't have leadership from our legislature or governor. We don't have needed expression from our universities, with the North Carolina School of the Arts being a major disappointment. The UNC-tv public television has utterly failed. The medical schools should have at least taken a position on this even if the federal government has blockaded research.Then there are the citizens that let conversational currency to be taken over by sports trivia and entertainment/celebrity trivia. The big transformation awaiting us is to educate adults instead of all the baloney about the children. Politics and the human condition and news from the countries of the world need to replace the mindless chatter of sports and celebrity to a large degree with the people that have the currency. I have learned my personal lesson with regards to NASCAR nuts that are so predominate in my immediate area of North Carolina. Their currency is pennies and they are penny wise and dollar foolish.North Carolina slept for a hundred years. It is no time to sleep now.
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