cannabisnews.com: Bush's Painful Obsession With Medical Pot





Bush's Painful Obsession With Medical Pot
Posted by CN Staff on October 26, 2003 at 12:25:41 PT
By Kate Scannell
Source: Oakland Tribune 
I have known too many patients who have lived miserably or died painfully to have patience with the Bush administration's intrusive attempts to bar them from discussing medical marijuana with their doctors. I've seen one too many old men spend their final hours nauseated and vomiting while their distressed and helpless families watched. One too many women with cancer who linger, bone-thin and languid, as their loved ones beg for "something" to make them feel better.
And I, like so many doctors, have witnessed the therapeutic relief that many such patients experience after using marijuana. Their illnesses become less miserable, their difficult deaths are made more tolerable. And those reasons explain precisely why the federal government's relentless attempts to bar patients from access to medical marijuana constitute both cruel and unusual crimes against us all. They are wrong-headed and politically driven obsessions, not compassionate advisements intended to relieve human suffering. As a patient, when I'm feeling ill, I don't want John Ashcroft's opinion about the best medical treatment for my condition. When someone I love visits a medical clinic because she is sick to death, I hope that she will be met by a doctor who will give her truthful advice born of experience and a focused dedication to her well being. I pray that she is not met by a federal agent with no clinical skills whose primary allegiance is to a political agenda. As a doctor, I am stunned by the intensity of the Bush administration's obsession with medical marijuana. It boggles my mind to think that our government officials are spending so much time and money to obstruct the use of a medication that might actually help cancer patients tolerate their chemotherapy, AIDS patients gain a little weight, glaucoma patients suffer less. We have yet to see any data from the Feds that explains why medicinal marijuana should be excluded from pharmacy shelves that already contain morphine and codeine -- as well as a host of other drugs for conditions like heart disease or seizures that have longer potential side effect profiles. I wish the administration would channel some of that energy towards, say, improving pain control in our debilitated nursing home patients. Or facilitating clinical research trials with medical marijuana so that credible science could replace emotional rhetoric about the drug's efficacy. IT was heartening that on Oct. 14, the U.S. Supreme Court decided not to entertain the Bush administration's latest attempt to silence discussions about medical marijuana between doctors and patients. Specifically, the high court declined to re-examine last year's ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco that said doctors could speak freely with patients about the potential benefits of medical marijuana. But had the Bush administration gotten its way this time, the federal government would have acquired the authority to punish a doctor who simply advised patients that medical marijuana might relieve their pain and suffering. The Bush administration would have gained the right to slap a federal offense on that doctor, revoke her ability to write prescriptions, and subject her to criminal prosecution. And in the meantime, while that doctor's prosecution might have given cause for some deluded Washington administrators to raise their glasses in a rabid toast to the war on drugs, a doctor who had tried to serve her ailing patients with honesty and compassion is sidelined, and her patients are stranded. We do have a drug problem in this country, but if it's to be solved, reason and clear vision must guide us. The Feds' relentless attacks on physicians who discuss medical marijuana as a potential means of alleviating their patients' suffering smacks of cheap theatrics in a desperate effort to stage some semblance of a victory in the real war on drugs.Kate Scannell is an East Bay physician and writer. Source: Oakland Tribune (CA)Author: Kate ScannellPublished:  Sunday, October 26, 2003Copyright: 2003 MediaNews Group, Inc. Contact: triblet angnewspapers.com Website: http://www.oaklandtribune.com/Related Articles & Web Sites:Americans For Safe Accesshttp://www.safeaccessnow.org/Medical Marijuana Information Linkshttp://freedomtoexhale.com/medical.htmPhysicians Can Now Talk Freelyhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread17668.shtmlBackers of Medical Marijuana Hail Rulinghttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread17566.shtml
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Comment #6 posted by Richard Paul Zuckerm on October 27, 2003 at 10:51:00 PT:
UNDUE INFLUENCE OF DRUG COMPANIES
According to a recent report issued by Minnesota Attorney General Mike Hatch, entitled "Follow the Money. The Pharmaceutical Industry: The Other Drug Cartel," the drug companies have had undue influence over the legislative process at both the State and Federal levels. Please download and read his report from www.ag.state.mn.us/?
This may be the reason that natural substances such as Cannabis and Ibogaine, www.cure-not-wars.org, are not permitted to be used in medical treatment.Richard Paul Zuckerman, Box 159, Metuchen, New Jersey, 08840-0159, (Cell telephone number)(908) 403-6990, richardzuckerman2002 yahoo.com.
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Comment #5 posted by The GCW on October 26, 2003 at 17:16:44 PT
"Soil toil" 
Since slaves were so generally employed by the earlier agriculturists, the farmer was formerly looked down on by both the hunter and the herder. For ages it was considered menial to till the soil; wherefore the idea that soil toil is a curse, whereas it is the greatest of all blessings. Even in the days of Cain and Abel the sacrifices of the pastoral life were held in greater esteem than the offerings of agriculture.Urantia page 900 http://www.urantia.org/papers/paper81.htmlCannabis prohibition is the devil law. Johnny PEEE and Ashcroft and Bush / the sequel, IS THE TOIL. & You don't want to be Biblically considered the toil.
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Comment #4 posted by pokesmotter on October 26, 2003 at 16:08:09 PT:
very nice
a year from now i am going to go out and vote against bush as i think a lot of people are. no hope for medical weed till he is gone.
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Comment #3 posted by goneposthole on October 26, 2003 at 15:43:42 PT
Reason and Clear Vision? Hardly
You can't expect any of that from the Bush Administration. Rockets are being fired at them in Baghdad. Reaon and clear vision have sailed past Uranus and onto Pluto. Reason and clear vision have never entered the picture with the crew that illegaly inhabits the Executive Branch of the US gov. They're squatters that haven't a leg to stand on.Reason and clear vision haven't even entered into the picture.They haven't the wisdom to know the difference. The war racked neocons have had it. Say sayonara 
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Comment #2 posted by global_warming on October 26, 2003 at 13:25:50 PT
I Bow To Kate
"I've seen one too many old men spend their final hours nauseated and vomiting while their distressed and helpless families watched."There is no answer from God, the Night has no answer,
Our footpathes through this confusion
Difficult as they may be are hindered
By the greedy and ignorantThis war on drug users is not a real war
It is a an attitude that is driven by ignorance
Our differences are not about justice or science
It is about class and racial hatredRemember that "old man", He will be you;
We will all take this mysterious trip,
Beyond this world, beyond our minds understandings,These biases in our cultural differences
Are minor campared to our need for justice
Mercy is truly strained in our times,
I hope the little and young ones
Find grace and Life
As some offer such destructive solutions
Not capable of living within a complex scociety or world,We dont have to love each other
We have to live
This world
This life
Is miracle and cannot be dismissed
Light and Dark
Black and White
We are all gifts in Gods realmGod bless all the lifes in this world,gw
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Comment #1 posted by kaptinemo on October 26, 2003 at 13:20:42 PT:
A shot across the bow...
right in front of the USS DrugWar. By a doctor, no less. Who puts aside all the highfaluting gobbledygook and cuts to the chase and points the finger of culpability right where it belongs.Okay Crisco Johnny and Johnny Pee and all you antis...it's raise or call. And this is too important for us to engage in bluffing. We're serious as a heart attack.
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