cannabisnews.com: Medicinal Marijuana a Mine Field





Medicinal Marijuana a Mine Field
Posted by FoM on March 28, 2001 at 06:48:28 PT
South Florida Sun-Sentinel Editorial Board
Source: Sun-Sentinel
The U.S. Supreme Court hears oral arguments today on a volatile, extremely important question: Should marijuana be legalized as medicine? Mark this debate "handle with care."Specifically, the justices are being asked to decide whether a state law authorizing medical use of marijuana can override a federal anti-drug law saying pot has no medical benefits and can't be prescribed for patients.
The case involves a California law, Proposition 215, approved by state voters in 1996. It permits pot possession, sale, purchase and use for medical purposes under a doctor's prescription. The federal government sued a pot buyers' cooperative to get it to stop distributing marijuana. A U.S. appeals court ruled last year that "medical necessity" is a valid defense against federal laws banning marijuana possession, sale, purchase or use.Voters in six other states later approved similar measures. Two petition drives in Florida, one to legalize medical marijuana and the other to legalize it for all uses, have stalled.Among legalization backers is Irvin Rosenfeld of Broward County, one of eight Americans legally allowed to smoke pot under a doctor's prescription. He claims marijuana is the only medicine that relieves chronic pain from bone tumors.While various studies of pot's medical benefits are under way, the drive to legalize marijuana is based almost entirely on anecdotal testimony of sick people. Supporters claim pot smoke can stimulate lost appetite and reduce nausea caused by chemotherapy drugs used to treat cancer and AIDS patients. They also say it can reduce glaucoma, arthritis, chronic pain, headaches, muscle spasms and other ailments.It is legitimate to investigate and consider the potential medical benefits of any drug, even mind-altering illegal ones. For example, morphine is a proven pain-killer commonly used in hospitals and nursing homes.But medical-marijuana backers see it only as a compassionate way to fight pain and illness, ignoring many legitimate objections:No other prescription drug is delivered to patients by smoking it. Doing so prevents supplying measured, controlled, properly timed doses or providing stringent quality control to avoid toxic pollutants. Marijuana smoke contains about 2,000 separate chemicals, in an unpredictable, unmeasured and unstable mix. The active ingredient in marijuana, THC, is already available by prescription in pill form.Much current marijuana is far more potent, mind-altering and harmful than before. The side effects can outweigh the benefits. Tests show pot smoking can damage the heart, lungs, brain, reproductive organs and the immune system. It can be especially dangerous to those who seek it the most, suffering chronic, intractable illnesses.For many of the conditions supposedly helped by marijuana, including pain management, there are numerous adequately tested and proven, safer and more effective medicines already available, without marijuana's harmful side effects.Studies have documented the similarity in marijuana addiction, and difficulty of withdrawal, to that of heroin or cocaine. Drug experts consider marijuana a "gateway" drug that opens the door to experimentation with more harmful illegal drugs.Legalizing pot could hurt sick people by encouraging them to use a psychoactive (mind-altering) drug instead of something else that is more helpful.Finally, experts in drug policy believe this so-called "weedotherapy" campaign is a thinly veiled, well-financed effort to eventually legalize pot and other now-illegal drugs for purely recreational use.So far, the negatives of legalization of medical marijuana far outweigh the positives. State laws, no matter how compassionate the motivation, cannot be allowed to override federal laws. Source: Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel (FL) Published: March 28 2001 Copyright: 2001 Sun-Sentinel Company Contact: letters sun-sentinel.com Website: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/ Feedback: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/services/letters_editor.htm Related Articles & Web Sites:Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Co-ophttp://www.rxcbc.org/USA V. OCBC & Jeffrey Joneshttp://www.druglibrary.org/ocbc/U.S. High Court Tackles Thorny Topic of Marijuanahttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread9182.shtmlCannabisNews Medical Marijuana Archiveshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/list/medical.shtml
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Comment #7 posted by The GCW on March 29, 2001 at 06:48:03 PT:
From The Holy Spirit of Truth.
In plant form, Cannabis is God.
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Comment #6 posted by The GCW on March 29, 2001 at 06:09:18 PT:
From the Holy Spirit of Truth!
With cannabis you don’t need leaders. The 2%ers know full well that an end to the cannabis prohibition hampers them from every single direction. While the 90% today in the polls show the non-oppressive understanding, there will not be allowed the option of cannabis for it divides their wealth, which is nonconforming to their desire of greed. When we look at all plant implications, we see that there is what we do not know. What we do know is enlightening enough to help become aware of what we did not know. Example: We know our understanding of our relationship w/plants under the context of taste and eat: that is we know what is best to taste and eating and that includes what is the worst, what will kill you if you eat it. We know our understanding of our relationship w/plants under the context of touch and its implications including what plants we touch that heal, and heal best along with what plants irritate us and cause rash implicating wicked. What about the plant for smell implications? We are told by God and we know from the Holy Spirit of Truth that the smell implication of cannabis / kaneh bosm, is amongst good and Love. We know that you can not smell too much where other plants that we know are good to smell do not allow the full spectrum of smell to be had because they are not the best smells and may be one of the smells that kill. Cannabis is the Greatest smell our Lord gave us. Cannabis is the greatest taste and food given us. Cannabis is the greatest thing that you touch to your body. Cannabis likewise will show true to other similar applications. So are you of the crowd that consists of the 2% that represents greed. Greed is the mark of wicked evil. Truth is the mark of the God Awesome!
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Comment #5 posted by Colin Husson on March 28, 2001 at 10:52:01 PT:
Reporting health effects of alcohol, not marijuana
"Tests show pot smoking can damage the heart, lungs, brain, reproductive organs and the immune system. "What tests?? Another claim on the ill effects of marijuana with no basis in fact. You sure those tests you were talking about weren't reporting the effects of alcohol and tobacco use?People aren't buying this misinformation anymore, LEGALIZE!
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Comment #4 posted by Tjaden De`Periculo on March 28, 2001 at 10:16:25 PT:
More Info
if you get more information on why cannbis should be legal please send it to me, also tell me the good and bad side effects on using it, i have to write a paper on this so any information on it would be helpfulThank youTjaden
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Comment #3 posted by observer on March 28, 2001 at 09:11:54 PT
''Thinly Veiled''
Yes Dr Russo, pure propaganda. Finally, experts in drug policy believe this so-called "weedotherapy" campaign is a thinly veiled, well-financed effort to eventually legalize pot and other now-illegal drugs for purely recreational use. South Florida Sun-Sentinel Editorial Board's "experts in drug policy"= Barry McCaffrey, Big Drug and Booze Companies (Partnership for a Drug-Free America), and any other rabid prohibitionist you can name.South Florida Sun-Sentinel:``a thinly veiled, well-financed effort to eventually legalize pot and other now-illegal drugs for purely recreational use.''What, do the propagandists have a little book that tell them to use certain emotional hot-button phrases over and over? ``According to Sabet, SSDP is nothing more than a thinly veiled legalization campaign''http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1505/a04.html``Proposition 36 mandates treatment instead of jail or prison . . . It was viewed by hard-line prosecutors and others as a thinly veiled attempt to open the door to decriminalization of drugs in California. Drug treatment court judges, who already send thousands of offenders to treatment instead of incarceration, also opposed the measure. http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1677/a06.html``Opponents shouted, 'I told you so!' charging that the measure is another thinly veiled step toward decriminalization of not just marijuana, but all drugs. ''http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/3/thread3274.shtml``participants in the ONDCP meeting believed that the medical marijuana effort veiled a broader movement that sought gradual full-scale legalization''http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread6533.shtml``"The propositions (to legalize medicinal marijuana) are thinly veiled attempts to legalize marijuana for general use," McCaffrey said. "Marijuana advocates have mounted a well-financed, sophisticated public relations campaign to persuade Americans to their point of view.''http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/5/thread54.shtml"The majority of the taxpayers who provide these dollars are opposed to efforts to legalize mind-altering drugs," Barr said. "This is nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to legalize a frequently abused [ drug ] ."http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/4/thread49.shtmletc. Enough "thinly veiled" there to fully stock a Victoria's Secret showroom. Sure sounds like they are all reading the same US government propaganda briefing, doesn't it? I suppose that's what "on message" means. 
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Comment #2 posted by FoM on March 28, 2001 at 07:59:21 PT
Interesting article from the New York Observer
That 70’s Legacy: Young Assemblyman Was Mr. MarijuanaBy Greg SargentWatching City Comptroller Alan Hevesi go about his business as the sober, wonkish, white-haired, bespectacled keeper of the city’s books, it’s hard to imagine that in a younger, wilder moment, he tried to legalize pot for New Yorkers over 18 years of age.But he did.http://www.observer.com/pages/frontpage1.asp
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Comment #1 posted by Ethan Russo, MD on March 28, 2001 at 07:18:15 PT:
More Propaganda
Reefer Madness Lives and his Name is Anonymous!
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