cannabisnews.com: Smoking Pot Is Never Sound Medicine Maginnis Says
Smoking Pot Is Never Sound Medicine Maginnis Says
Posted by FoM on January 12, 2001 at 09:20:32 PT
Press Release
Source: PRNewswire
"The medical marijuana lobby is nothing more than a front for the drug legalization movement," Family Research Council's Vice President of National Security and Foreign Affairs Robert Maginnis said Friday. "Smoking pot is never sound medicine. Medicalization of marijuana would result in many negative consequences the federal drug laws are designed to prevent."
On Thursday, FRC filed an amicus brief in U.S. v. Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative, a case pending before the U.S. Supreme Court in which some pot smokers claim a "medical necessity" exemption from federal drug laws. FRC filed one of only two friend-of-the-court briefs supporting the federal government's position."Although certain active ingredients in marijuana have been found to have therapeutic effects, no reputable doctor would recommend smoking the drug to receive the benefits," Maginnis said. "The negative effects of smoking marijuana would outweigh the therapeutic components of the drug. Marijuana's principal active ingredient (THC) is available in a prescribable pill called Marinol; it is also available as a suppository, and soon as an inhaler. Crude marijuana, however, is a mind-altering and dangerous substance that affects cognition, memory, pain perception and motor coordination."Medicalization of marijuana is a pretense used by many advocates of legalization," Maginnis said. "An April 1999 article in Proceedings of the Association of American Physicians states, 'Most supporters of smoked marijuana are hostile to the use (of purified THC), insisting that only smoked marijuana leaves be used as 'medicine', revealing clearly that their motivation is not scientific medicine but the back door legalization of marijuana.'"The Supreme Court should heed drug czar Barry McCaffrey's words and see the smoke and mirrors of a 'carefully camouflaged, well-funded, tightly knit core of people whose goal is to legalize drug use in the United States,'" Maginnis said.Complete Title: FRC Files Amicus Brief in Medical Marijuana Case; 'Smoking Pot Is Never Sound Medicine,' FRC's Maginnis Says Family Research CouncilWeb Site: http://www.frc.orgSource: PRNewswirePublished: January 12, 2001Copyright: 1996-2001 PR NewswireWeb Site: http://www.prnewswire.com/Related Articles & Web Site:Oakland Cannabis Buyer's Cooperativehttp://www.rxcbc.org/IGDP and DFA Join Supreme Court Briefhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread8286.shtmlHigh Court To Hear Medical Marijuana Case http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread7791.shtmlSupreme Court To Decide Medical Marijuana Case http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread7784.shtml
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Comment #20 posted by green jim on August 15, 2001 at 18:11:02 PT
surrounded by ignorance?
It is scary to see how many ignorant people there really are on this planet. LEGALIZE IT ALREADY! I can't understand why alcohol is legal and marijuana is not! Alcohol is so much worse for you. Wake up! This is not a free country! Too many rules.
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Comment #19 posted by Dan B on January 14, 2001 at 17:13:53 PT:
Thanks, Freedom Fighter!
I am glad you had a chance to read the article and comments. It appears that he has now pulled the article, which may be a sign that he is at least thinking about what I have said. Of course, that could also mean he got sick of reading my comments. At any rate, he heard the truth at least once--what he does with it now is up to him.Thank you very much for the reassurance. I tend to worry excessively about such things, so I am glad you took the time to read everything (including extremely fine print) and got back to me here. Thanks, too, to those who sent e-mail to me.Take care.Dan B
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Comment #18 posted by freedom fighter on January 13, 2001 at 01:09:31 PT
Dan B,
I read the article and all..Dang, the comment section were like in fine print..:))Dan, I happend to think that people who decided to be a "brother's keeper" is a wolf dressed in a sheep clothes.There is probably no point arguing with such a person like this. Whenever someone says because it is immoral because it is illegal even with the fact that millions of millions users are using, how can one discuss or debate or even rationally be able to talk about it? Such a person have religion fervor that he/she would think that a person who smoke a dobbie caused someone to die. I remembered Nancy very well, when she said that anyone who smoked a j caused all the killings, the killings had gone up. It is a moral responisblity to change the bad law. I think Martin L. King that!You did well my friend Dan B.\/
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Comment #17 posted by Dan B on January 12, 2001 at 20:04:50 PT:
Thanks, FoM!
I appreciate that you removed the message for me. Thanks.Sincerely,Dan B
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Comment #16 posted by Ethan Russo, MD on January 12, 2001 at 15:37:53 PT:
Lies
"it is also available as a suppository"Where, in his imagination? Suppositories are still in the research stage, and are not available even by prescription.I am glad that some of you are concerned about my impugned reputation, but there is no need to respond to ignorance, or people speaking out of the wrong end of their alimentary tract.You notice how none of these clowns ever has anything to say about vaporizers or cannabis tinctures. Interesting, very interesting. How about Canada? Their courts say the cannabis laws are unconstitutional, and I'll be jiggered, but they are based on the same concepts as ours! How about England? They are allowing real cannabis (extracts) to be used in people in clinical trials. Perhaps those Brits are a different species than us Yanks, with a distinct physiology that prevents the evil weed from turning them instantly into slobbering socialist sociopaths.Sooner or later, we will win. This is 2001. The level of repression necessary to perpetuate the lies and propaganda cannot be sustained much longer.
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Comment #15 posted by Dan B on January 12, 2001 at 14:55:41 PT:
Please Read This
Fom, please delete the previous comment I posted as it contains a link to the wrong site where anyone can post a comment in my name. Sorry about the inconvenience.Here is my original post:I need a little help (perhaps just a little reassurance) regarding comments I have made in response to an article posted on the Themestream site. The article basically places the blame for atrocities occurring in Latin American countries on drug users, rather than on the irrational policies of an oppressive government. I have about argued myself out, and I am feeling nauseous at the responses I have been getting from the author who claims to have wanted "constructive criticism." I can only assume that he defines "constructive criticism" as "any comments telling me I am correct." Anyway, if some of you would read the article and the comments that follow, then come back here and let me know what you think (or e-mail me), I would really be grateful.Thanks,Dan BHere's the link:
Drugs and torture in a quiet Mountain Pima village
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Comment #13 posted by sm247 on January 12, 2001 at 14:00:18 PT
So what
So what if people want it legal doesn't seem to be a problem the rest of the populaton runs out to the bar every night and slam their money in cherry master games . Why don't people like this just mind their own bisiness. I remember being fired from a job just because i failed a urine test it sure didn't matter the plant super had at least a double martini for lunch i could still smell the alcohol on his breath. I think the Oakland case could turn into another riot like the Rodney King incident.
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Comment #12 posted by TroutMask on January 12, 2001 at 13:38:07 PT
...but
...but jailing sick people is sound medicine!The antis are in trouble with stupid stuff like this!-TM
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Comment #11 posted by kaptinemo on January 12, 2001 at 13:03:15 PT:
God, how dumb can you get?
There's a story told that once, one of Lenin's cronies had bemoaned the fact that there were too many capitalists and that the Bolsheviks didn't have enough rope to hang them all with. Lenin was supposedly to have said that the capitalists would fight amongst themselves to sell the Bolsheviks all the rope they needed to do the job. Not to compare ourselves with Bolsheviks, but the parallels between what these lamebrains have just done is rather obvious. One thing you can always count on from antis is the tendency towards exaggeration and sweeping generalities:"Although certain active ingredients in marijuana have been found to have therapeutic effects, no reputable doctor would recommend smoking the drug to receive the benefits..."They must have had McCaffrey drilling them, grinder style: Opennnnn mouth! Inserrrrt foot!They have just tried to 'tar' every reputable clinician and researcher engaged in medicinal cannabis research. They tried this before, immediately after the passage of props 200 and 215; remember the press conference in which McCaffrey, Shalala and Reno were threatening doctors in the respective States where these referendums passed that they would lose their licenses for recommending cannabis? The doctors mounted a successful First Amenedment challenge to this gross overstepping of Federal suzerainity, and the Federal goons backed off so fast that they left scorch marks on their carpets. As I said, they never seem to learn.By publicly impugning the reputations of good and honest women and men, they have indeed opened themselves to the very kind of counter-attack that could so severely damage their credibility thay could be caused to fold. I used to think that judging from their pronouncements, the antis had reached the absolute nadir of human intelligence. But this latest gaffe of theirs shows they haven't yet reached the bottom.Such statements, in the hands of a skillful lawyer, might as well be a hangman's noose made of hemp rope. And the antis have just very obligingly draped it around their own necks.
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Comment #10 posted by DdC on January 12, 2001 at 10:51:16 PT
The FRC are Babykillers!
Why Promoting Prohibition is Babykilling Ignorance is no excuse for breaking the laws of man or the Universe. And obeying bad laws is unAmerican and a treasonable offence.http://www.cannabinoid.com/wwwboard/politics/binaries/27/27185.gifHemp grows wild and is eradicated as marijuana even though it is nonpsychoactive. Therefore proving it grows without chemicals. Those chemicals used on flax and polyfibers, dry cleaning, soy, tree paper and in petrochemical herbicides, pesticides and fertlizers not required with hemp. Cause misscarriages and pulminary problems in babies. So promoting prohibition for the sole purpose of greed is killing babies. The one million dead babies in Iraq from the Gulf War and embargo was to protect the crude oil corporate interest. Crude oil that was proven to be a pollution. Causing acid rains. The coal kills miners lungs and their babies go without fathers. Eco systems are devistated to find these cancerous fossil fuels. These babies died when hemp replaced the crude with biomass in the 30's by Henry Ford. The strip mined ores also kill babies and hurt the asthmatic children by killing trees that remove the CO2 and produce oxygen and fresh water. Trees less in strength for wood and paper using more deadly chemicals that run off into mothers milk. Killing more babies. The war in Colombia is killing babies and its to protect the 200 million barrels the same as the Ukranian oil reserves in the Baltics. Crude oil in the artics is now the target while the hemp car tours American and Canada. And the spills and leaks kill human babies, besides the animal and bird babies. In the underground aquafer no filter removes it. Another million babies dieing or dead from the Chernoble nuclear disaster, not worthy of US media. Hemp biomass would also fuel the boilers that power the turbines to turn the generators. Hemp is now growing there to absorb the nuclear waste as it could in chemical facilities. Saving more babies but for the red herring war.Prohibition has the cops using kids to inform on their parents and neighbors. They are not cops and they do die when in over their heads out of the false pride. They die with cheap lab. garbage when cannabis has never killed. They die from laced hemp from ignorance. They die when cops shoot them or when they shoot cops. Or witnesses or those stumbling on the $400.00 an ounce crop. All like the AIDs babies dieing from mommas usng dirty needles that can be eliminated with clean ones.DUH! Dead babies from the deterrants of using the nondeadly cananbis. 5000 rapes in juvi prison. Deterrant prozak and other ziner nerve destroyers killing kids or making them veggies. All caused by WoD promoting. Wether it is from a profit stance or misguided by the same government that brought us this last election. Or just the mispreception from the reality of drugs and the abuse. But it is not the drugs it is the prohibition. The drugs are used safely and the hazard is the law. Proper doses don't overdose. Proper quality assurance doesn't kill with garbage fillers. If the doctors handled addictions instead of the cops. More babykilling! The malnutrition forced on American momma's also contribute to dead babies, deformed babies. Chemicals from the corporate farming stays in the seeds and is passed onto the babies. Preservatives, antibiotics injected into the foods all unnecessary using hempseed the most nutritionally complete food on the planet. Now sched#1 drug and target for the DEAth. Forcing Micky D fat and cholestriol over nutrition. Nutritional facts undesputed since they are done by machines and lab equipment. Silly to debate it yet it is not taught in the Universities? It is the first cultivated crop known and not taught in History? It made this countrys flag, sails, rope, clothing, linen and bandages, dynamite and it could replace all the baby killing deadly wordly possessions and adulterations. Except the bogeyman over rules common sense, truth, liberty and justice. Now you know. Are you still a babykiller?Peace or WoDLiberty or D.E.A.thDdC
Why cannabis is illegal
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Comment #9 posted by Robbie on January 12, 2001 at 10:40:45 PT:
Slightly off-subject
I was just noting that this is a press release.I was listening to a news-talk show yesterday, and the person, discussing media practices, talked about how *much* of the actual print copy you see in newspapers (also, video footage for most local TV stations and national networks) are developed by individual organizations and businesses.They hire firms to dress up the grammar as much as possible, but it's never about "reporting" or "releasing to the press" or "information exchange." These items are released specifically by these organizations as nothing but propaganda. They wish you (the public in general) to know what they want you to hear.I've seen several posts here wondering why there's no author for a given article. Don't be surprised if these are direct press releases from, say, prohib organizations which newspapers, either in fear of retribution or in collusion, publish these "independent news stories" or "editorials" quite freely.It's hard to trust any newspaper or large-scale media organization, whose hands are quite corporately dipped in the cookie jar. And reading something coming directly from someone with a vested interest in the drug war, we might as well be in a history lesson looking at WWII Nazi propaganda.
A must read: zero tolerance?
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Comment #8 posted by observer on January 12, 2001 at 10:34:19 PT
The ``No Medicine Is Smoked'' Canard
``In the 1920s, marijuana cigarettes were sold legally in drug stores as a treatment for such ailments as asthma, migraine headaches and to ease the pain of childbirth.''http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v99/n030/a09.html ``The debate about legalising cannabis for medical use was reignited in 1998 when the House of Lords science and technology committee acknowledged that part of the cannabis plant seemed to alleviate asthma as effectively as conventional treatments. ''http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1576/a01.html
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Comment #7 posted by DdC on January 12, 2001 at 10:18:25 PT
The FRC Is Never Sound Medicine
The FRC Is Never Sound Medicine http://www.cannabinoid.com/wwwboard/politics/binaries/27/27582.gif What hogwash! The FRC version of the PAFADAFA version of DARE version of Hitlers Youth and Brownshirts. The lies just keep on coming folk's. From the civilian sector of the D.E.A.th. First of all smoking ganja buds is the only accepted medicinal use, not leaves or hemp schwagg buds either. Second the comparison is made to tobacco products. Tobacco is not sold in America. Tobacco products are sold. Filled with over 649 chemicals to retard burning of the paper, or to change the smoke color, flavorings and preservatives. All conveniently left out of the Congressional investigation and even from the Surgeon General. And you know how the tobacco companies co-operated. Well these chemical companies make the tobacco boys look like boyscouts. Cannabis is also an expectorant, which makes you cough. Tobacco smokers are found to be better if they use cannabis. Cannabis is the only known substance to stop a full blown asthma attack and is used for treating asthma. The smoking may be an irratant but it is ony one method of ingestion. Cananbis is safer than tobacco and aspirin and this hogwash is only for the purpose of the FRC's sponsors, the alcohol and pharmaceutical corporations. This is why cannabis is dangerous. Related Feds need one million joints (Feds supply joints to smoke btw) http://pub3.ezboard.com/fendingcannabisprohibitionwhyitstimetolegalize.showMessage?topicID=181.topic Tobacco vs cannabis http://pub3.ezboard.com/fendingcannabisprohibitionwhyitstimetolegalize.showMessage?topicID=124.topic Cannabis vs aspirin http://pub3.ezboard.com/fendingcannabisprohibitionwhyitstimetolegalize.showMessage?topicID=174.topic Tobacco radioactive-Pot safer http://pub3.ezboard.com/fendingcannabisprohibitionwhyitstimetolegalize.showMessage?topicID=216.topic Investigations of long term cannabis users http://pub3.ezboard.com/fendingcannabisprohibitionwhyitstimetolegalize.showMessage?topicID=210.topic High hopes for cough treatment http://pub3.ezboard.com/fendingcannabisprohibitionwhyitstimetolegalize.showMessage?topicID=195.topic Prenatal marijuana exposure http://pub3.ezboard.com/fendingcannabisprohibitionwhyitstimetolegalize.showMessage?topicID=197.topic cannabis prevents brain damage http://pub3.ezboard.com/fendingcannabisprohibitionwhyitstimetolegalize.showMessage?topicID=24.topic And its already legal http://pub3.ezboard.com/fendingcannabisprohibitionwhyitstimetolegalize.showMessage?topicID=65.topic
Medical Uses
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Comment #6 posted by Dave in Florida on January 12, 2001 at 10:02:09 PT
Slander..
>"Although certain active ingredients in marijuana have been found to have therapeutic effects, no reputable doctor would recommend smoking the drug to receive the benefits," Maginnis said. "The negative effects of smoking marijuana would outweigh the therapeutic components of the drug.Hey Ethan Russo, MD, looks like you have a slander suit..> FRC filed one of only two friend-of-the-court briefs supporting the federal government's position.Does anyone know how many "friend-of-the-court" briefs has our side submitted.
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Comment #5 posted by observer on January 12, 2001 at 09:54:29 PT
Free Stuff From FRC!
This article:http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1135/a05.htmlSays,``An excellent 14-page booklet entitled "What Your Teen Wants to Know About Smoking Pot" can be obtained from the Family Research Council. ( You can contact the Council by calling, toll free, 1-800-225-4008 ). Hmmmm... I bet that "booklet" would be chock full o' whoppers. Might be amusing. Nice of FRC to send it out, free too. Considerate of them to give us their number too. That was thoughtful.
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Comment #4 posted by observer on January 12, 2001 at 09:47:42 PT
The Issue Is Prison
It is also odd (well, not really) that these folks should omit mentioning jail.Jail. Prison.The issue is not one of the relative effectiveness of medications, the issue is the jailing of people who use a traditional plant remedy, regardless of how effective it is. The "medicine isn't smoked" mantra isn't the issue. Jail is.These propagandaists here forgot also to mention that cannabis can and is made into edible forms. The issue isn't "smoking", it is "jailing."Funny how propagandists like AM Rosenthal can argue out of one side of their prohibitionist mouth http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread8290.shtml that only "33" people are in jail for marijuana use, where here, propagandists like Maginnis scream bloody murder if it is suggested that we don't throw the sick and dying in jail for using cannabis. Do you detect a little inconsistency there?
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Comment #3 posted by r.earing on January 12, 2001 at 09:39:07 PT:
who's a front for whom?
Family research council? What else do they "research"? Who gives them money to do this "research"? A euphemism is going to court with a brief alledging that there is "a conspiracy by a front for legalizers"? What kinda banana republic are you all living in? So,for real, the supreme court allows lawyers paid for by FRC to submit an amicus brief to alledge a conspiracy and the judges don't look into who or what the FRC is? peel back the FRC logo and you'll see P+G,PDFA,phillip-morris,ondcp and the dea.
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Comment #2 posted by Random activist on January 12, 2001 at 09:38:54 PT
Maginnis is a hack culture warrior
So crude marijuana is a mind-altering and dangerous substance that affects cognition, memory, pain perception and motor coordination, but suppositories that presumably have the exact same effects are A-OK. No wonder these people won't debate. Should newspapers stoop low enough to carry this story, the potential for compelling LTEs is tremendous.
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Comment #1 posted by Duzt on January 12, 2001 at 09:36:32 PT
We need change........
It's funny to me how all of these "experts", who know so much about drugs and how we should control them, don't even know what part of the plant is used ("insisting that only smoked marijuana leaves be used"). These are the same people who are making policy decisions that affect us all. How can this person say, "Crude marijuana, however, is a mind-altering and dangerous substance" when we know this to not be true. How dangerous is a substance that has never killed a single person nor done any serious harm? Mis-information and flat out lying are much more dangerous and harmful than marijuana could ever be.
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