LOL!!!!
(I'd leave determinations of medical utility up to physicians and scientists... not the DOJ. Bureaucrats with a vested interest in protecting their own bureaucratic turf, their jobs and power, are hardly objective observers.) :)
Re: "The DEA supports research into the safety and efficacy...."
HaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(I'm SURE that EXPLAINS why they have stonewalled and blackballed most every research proposal ever put before them... including those endorsed by the American Academy of Sciences and the FDA.....)
A finer example of lying propaganda would be difficult to find.
Re: "...concluded that smoking marijuana is not recommended...."
Of course. I've already agreed with the point that SMOKING of any substance is not likely a good medical option --- but that begs the question, because *smoking* marijuana is not necessary. The active ingredients are easily soluble in oils (such as butter, olive or corn oils, etc.), and alcohols... a technique used to produce the extracts used in medicine recently approved in Great Britain, and vaporizers would also be viable --- that is if the DEA didn't keep arresting the manufacturers. :)
All drugs have potential negative (& hopefully positive) effects. I notice that you mentioned a few claims for negative effects that are fairly narrowly focused (but without linking to any of the source material.
However you fail to consider the weight of positive medical indications that is also available... nor the fact that ALL drugs have negative effects. Tylenol, for examle can be life-threatening at just a few multiples of the common dose, if combined with alcohol, or even without. Aspirin kills thousands of Americans yearly. Statin drugs (cholesterol lowering), the most profitable class of drugs sold in the world today, have a list of negative side effects (liver damage or failure, kidney damage, irreversable muscle loss, sexual side effects, etc., etc.) that would curl your hair to read them all.
(Of course, marijuana, being a natural plant, is NOT PATENTABLE, unlike the Statins, for example --- although they were first identified in a common and ancient chinese 'herbal' medicine. I'll leave it to your imagination to consider if profit motives play into this debate at all. :)
So, it is important to consider the RELATIVE risks and benefits of any substance.
In that regard, marijuana would have to be considered a high potential target: in wide spread use throughout all human history (the ancient Mycenians and Greeks used it, it was in use at Troy, Egypt, mentioned in the Bible, the American founding fathers thought that there should be laws REQUIRING the cultivation of hemp, that it was a patriotic duty... I could go on and on, but that would be beating a dead horse.) It's risks would appear modest if compared to most anything you might commonly find in your medicine cabinet today....
There has been significant medical research (a landmark American study in the early 1970s, and a recent very large Portugal study that showed strong anti-cancer properties for the main active ingredient in marijuana --- the Portugal results produced significant remissions in brain tumors).
It is currently being investigated in several trials for remediation of *pain*, as a suitable replacement for addictive or otherwise problematic pain medicines, and as an earlier poster noted:
On September 6, 1988, the Drug Enforcement Administration's
Chief Administrative Law Judge, Francis L. Young, ruled: "Marijuana, in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known. ...[T]he provisions of the [Controlled Substances] Act permit and require the transfer of marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule II. It would be unreasonable, arbitrary and capricious for the DEA to continue to stand between those sufferers and the benefits of this substance."
Source: US Department of Justice, Drug Enforcement Agency, "In
the Matter of Marijuana Rescheduling Petition," [Docket #86-22]
(September 6, 1988), p. 57.
The DEA's Administrative Law Judge, Francis Young concluded:
"In strict medical terms marijuana is far safer than many foods
we commonly consume. For example, eating 10 raw potatoes can
result in a toxic response. By comparison, it is physically impossible to eat enough marijuana to induce death. Marijuana in its natural form is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man. By any measure of rational analysis marijuana can be safely used within the supervised routine of medical care."
Source: US Department of Justice, Drug Enforcement Agency, "In
the Matter of Marijuana Rescheduling Petition," [Docket #86-22], (September 6, 1988), p. 57.
Organizations that have endorsed medical access to marijuana
include: the Institute of Medicine, the American Academy of Family Physicians; American Bar Association; American Public Health Association; American Society of Addiction Medicine; AIDS Action Council; British Medical Association; California Academy of Family Physicians; California Legislative Council for Older Americans; California Medical Association; California Nurses Association; California Pharmacists Association; California Society of Addiction Medicine; California-Pacific Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church; Colorado Nurses Association; Consumer Reports Magazine; Kaiser Permanente; Lymphoma Foundation of America; Multiple Sclerosis California Action Network; National Association of Attorneys General; National Association of People with AIDS; National Nurses Society on Addictions; New Mexico Nurses Association;
New York State Nurses Association; New England Journal of Medicine; and Virginia Nurses Association.
Organizations favoring research on medical marijuana include: The Institute of Medicine, The American Cancer Society; American Medical Association; Australian Commonwealth Department of Human Services and Health; California Medical Association; Federation of American Scientists; Florida Medical Association; and the National Academy of Sciences.
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