cannabisnews.com: The Role of Cannabis - Politics Ahead of Science





The Role of Cannabis - Politics Ahead of Science
Posted by FoM on May 20, 2001 at 07:56:22 PT
By Mike Nevin
Source: San Francisco Chronicle 
All the time I've thought about the possibilities of marijuana as medicine, I have had one person in mind. I keep seeing the face of Joni Commons, a friend who was deputy director of San Mateo County Health Services and battled breast cancer with great courage and grace. I remember Joni with a classy scarf wrapped around her head after her hair had fallen out. She told me marijuana was the only thing that gave her relief from the constant nausea. No legal medication did anything for her, none of the "worthy" drugs that the U.S. Supreme Court heard testimony about before it ruled - agreeing with Congress - that "marijuana has no medical benefits worthy of an exception." 
But cannabis did help Joni - I saw it with my own eyes - and I believe it helps lots of other people. And I believe the Supreme Court and Congress made their decisions without the benefit, so far, of science or research into the potential medicinal value of marijuana for treatment for all kinds of debilitating symptoms of AIDS, cancer and chronic pain. I know because San Mateo County has decided to do the science - an approved clinical trial - that the federal government chose not to do. It's a first-of- its-kind study on the feasibility of using self-administered marijuana to determine if the drug can be effective in controlling pain associated with AIDS.It's been a long haul. Almost three years ago, I asked county health officials if marijuana confiscated by police could be transferred to the county hospital for dispensing as a treatment for pain. Having spent 27 years in law enforcement, I was no fan, and still am not, of legalizing marijuana - it sends the wrong message to kids. But I remembered all that marijuana in the San Francisco Police Department's Property Room. Why not, I wondered, measure it, photograph it and then give it to doctors to dispense, on a prescription basis, as a drug for people who need it? Last November, we finally got the last six federal and state agencies to sign off on the study. For the next year, using the government's own marijuana, a control group of AIDS patients suffering from pain and numbness in their limbs will keep a diary detailing their reactions to the prescribed doses of marijuana. What is most important in the medical marijuana debate right now is to find the proof, one way or the other. Now, marijuana remains mixed up in everyone's minds with the fringe elements of society - the beatniks, the hippies, the anti-war movement. Congress in 1970 passed the Controlled Substance Act with marijuana classified as a Schedule 1 drug - absurdly, right up there with opium. (Morphine, classified as a Schedule 2 drug, is considered less dangerous than marijuana.) Thirty years later, the so-called "cannabis clubs" have taken an "in-your- face" attitude, resurrecting all those drug culture images that most of us thought were dead and buried. Proposition 215, the basis for medical marijuana in California, was a horribly written piece of law. It didn't address the issues of cultivation or distribution of cannabis for medical purposes, leaving law enforcement searching desperately for direction. Prop. 215 measured the will of Californians on just one issue: whether medical marijuana should be legally available to the desperately ill. But it didn't tell us how to do that, and the Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative didn't do us any favors by forcing a Supreme Court decision. The court didn't do us any favors either by coming down with lots of hard rhetoric about what qualifies as a "worthy" drug before science has had a chance to find out. San Mateo County will go on with its study. If the results indicate marijuana has beneficial effects for the seriously ill, perhaps then politicians will be ready to enact laws on the basis of real science instead of decades-old emotions. Mike Nevin is president of the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors. A former mayor of Daly City, he was also a San Francisco police inspector. Note: By ruling against doobies as legal pain relievers, the U.S. Supreme Court lit up debate over its no-exceptions interpretation of the federal Controlled Substance Act. Complete Title: The Role of Cannabis - Snuffing Out Medical Marijuana - The Politics Got Ahead of The Science Source: San Francisco Chronicle (CA)Author: Mike NevinPublished: Sunday, May 20, 2001 Copyright: 2001 San Francisco Chronicle Page C - 8 Contact: letters sfchronicle.comWebsite: http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/Related Articles & Web Site:O.C.B.C. Versus The U.S. Government News http://www.freedomtoexhale.com/mj.htmThe Role of Cannabis - Real Agenda Nipped in Budhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread9801.shtmlThe Role of Cannabis - Snuffing Out Marijuanahttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread9800.shtmlNerves Need Marijuana-Like Substance http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread9799.shtml
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