Rick Simpson has been providing people with Hemp Oil medicines, at no cost, for about years. The results have been nothing short of amazing. Watch the documentary Run From The Cure to understand more about using cannabis as a cure for cancer and other medical problems!
Only fourteen researchers in the United States are legally permitted to conduct research assessing the effect of inhaled cannabis in human subjects, according to data included in the White House’s 2011 National Drug Control Strategy, released last week.
In a section of the report entitled ‘Medical Marijuana,’ the administration states, “In the United States, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has approved 109 researchers to perform bona fide research with marijuana, marijuana extracts, and marijuana derivatives such as cannabidiol and cannabinol.” However, it later clarifies that of these 109 scientists, only fourteen “are approved to conduct research with smoked marijuana on human subjects.”
Among those scientists licensed to work with either cannabis or its constituents — primarily in animal models — most are involved in research to assess the drug’s “abuse potential, physical/psychological effects, [and] adverse effects,” the report stated.
In 2010, a spokesperson for the US National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) — the federal agency that must approve any US clinical trial involving marijuana – told the New York Times: “[O]ur focus is primarily on the negative consequences of marijuana use. We generally do not fund research focused on the potential beneficial medical effects of marijuana.”
Earlier this month, DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart denied a nine-year-old petition seeking to initiate hearings regarding the federal classification of cannabis as a schedule I substance, stating in part, “[T]here are no adequate and well-controlled studies proving efficacy.”
Commenting on the report, NORML Deputy Director Paul Armentano said: “Only in an environment of absolute criminal prohibition would this or any administration purport to the public that it is acceptable to allow no more than fourteen researchers to clinically study a substance consumed by tens of millions of Americans for therapeutic or recreational purposes. This acknowledgement illustrates once again the administration’s supposed commitment to ‘scientific integrity’ does not apply to cannabis.”
For more information, please contact Allen St. Pierre, NORML Executive Director, at (202) 483-5500 or Paul Armentano, NORML Deputy Director at: paul@norml.org.
Mendocino County Sheriff Tom Allman (left) visits a marijuana farm run by Matt Cohen (right), as featured in “The Pot Republic,” airing July 26 and 29 on PBS.
Frontline is presenting “The Pot Republic,” a report on the effort to legalize marijuana in California, this month on PBS.
While the bulk of cannabis used in the United States used to come across the border from Mexico, Colombia, Canada and elsewhere, more than half of it is now believed to be domestically grown, much of it in California, “where an enormous black market has emerged under the cover of the state’s medical marijuana law,” at least if PBS is to be believed.
With more than a third of the U.S. now experimenting with some form of legalization and decriminalization — and several California counties attempting to openly regulate cannabis production — Frontline and the Center for Investigative Reporting teamed up to take a look at the country’s oldest, largest and most wide-open marijuana market.
Recently, the U.S. Department of Justice fired a shot across the bow to states which have legalized, and are regulating, the growing and distribution of medicinal cannabis.
Marijuana is still illegal for any purpose under federal law, and the DOJ can even prosecute “those who knowingly facilitate such activities,” including state and local officials. (This hasn’t happened anywhere yet, but both U.S. Attorneys for the State of Washington have openly threatened to do exactly that.)
Can the federal government put the ganja genie back in the bottle? And why on earth would they want to? Stay tuned…
Frontline: The Pot Republic airs on PBS affiliates (and will be available online) Tuesday night, July 26 and will repeat Friday night, July 29. Check your local listings for airtimes, which will be 9 p.m. or 10 p.m. in most markets.
Marijuana lollipops for sale on Lakers parade route
June 21, 2010 | 10:52 am
Lakers’ fans cheered Monday during the victory parade in downtown… (Vogel/AP)
In addition to the sales of Lakers paraphernalia and water, some surprising entrepreneurs took to the parade route to sell their wares.
Among them was a mobile truck, Weed World Candies.com, selling marijuana lollipops in hues of orange and blue. (The truck itself is green with a photo mural of young women in bikinis sorting marijuana leaves.)
The assortment included brands of marijuana such as OG Kush and Grand Daddy Perp. The truck’s owner, Bilal Muhammad, said he was recently forced to shut down his store in West Hollywood and had taken his business on the road.
Customers approaching his truck were asked if they had a prescription card allowing them to purchase marijuana and then were handed a free lollipop.
“It’s been working out very well,” he said of business before driving away as police became visible in the distance.
So far, Muhammad was able to work without interruption from police.
– Gale Holland http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/06/marijuana-lollipops-for-sale-on-lakers-parade-route.html
CO- In his Coloradoan July 2 Soapbox, Ray Martinez made many disparaging claims about medical marijuana centers in order to bolster his attempt to ban MMCs from Fort Collins. Too bad that none of his assertions are supported by facts.
Acting police Chief Jerry Schiager reported no medical marijuana business “surge in crime,” and no increase in 911 calls (1). The ordinance regulating MMCs, passed by Fort Collins’ City Council, is stricter than the state requires (2) In fact, state regulators track every gram of medicine produced by MMCs “from seed to sale” preventing any diversion to “the new black market” (3) as Martinez claims.
Proponents of the ban would also like us to believe, based on anecdotal “evidence,” that marijuana use is up among teens and MMCs are the cause.
Wrong again.
Two studies released this week show the opposite. The National Center for Addiction and Substance Abuse reports that from 1999 to 2010, teen marijuana use dropped 22 percent (4). And a separate nationwide study shows that there is no causal relationship between medical marijuana and an increase in teen marijuana use (5).
MMCs are clearly not the boogey man that Martinez and company would have us believe.
Instead of fear-mongering and fantasy, we need a discussion based on reality.
The people of this state voted to make medical marijuana legal in 2000. Lacking any regulatory framework, Colorado’s state Legislature passed HB1284 in 2010. As a result, Colorado’s licensed MMCs are the most heavily regulated and taxed among all 16 states that allow for medical marijuana use.
Criminals are out. Standards are in place. Taxes are collected. And law enforcement keeps a 24/7 watch to ensure compliance. While this is tedious and expensive for center owners, we know that our customers and community members feel more secure because of the tight restrictions and security.
Reality check:
More than 8,500 people hold valid licenses to purchase medical marijuana in Larimer County. That averages out to more than 16,000 transactions a month, or 200,000 every year.
Let’s imagine for a moment that Martinez gets his way and MMCs disappear. What then?
Patients will lose out. Treatment protocols will be interrupted when the products, services and specialists patients rely upon and trust disappear. This will result in negative health outcomes for patients.
Our economy will suffer. One half-million dollars in sales taxes will go uncollected every year. More than 200 people will lose their jobs. Dozens of commercial leases will be abandoned. Millions of dollars in business investments will be lost. Bankruptcies will soar.
Our neighborhoods will become less safe. Currently, medical marijuana businesses are licensed, regulated, secured, and taxed. If we ban these businesses, medical marijuana sales will be pushed into our neighborhoods where they will be unlicensed, unregulated, unsecured, and untaxed, and increase the risk of illegal sales, fires, and home invasions.
Assuming home growers follow the rules and serve only five patients each, 1,500 homes are needed to serve Larimer County’s 8,500 registered patients. That’s 200,000 sales taking place in 1,500 private homes! Home invasions, electrical fires and chemicals dumped unmonitored into our sewers will become common.
This will be a disaster.
medical marijuana centers are the safest way to ensure that legal patients have access while protecting our community.
Please act to keep MMCs legal in Fort Collins.
Steve Ackerman is a longtime Fort Collins resident and business owner. He is president of the Fort Collins Medical Cannabis Association (FCMCA) and owner of Organic Alternatives. He may be reached at 214-1152. Sources: 1: Schiager, Jerry. Statement to Council. City Council Adjourned Meeting & Work Session, Feb. 22. 2: Agenda Item Summary Feb. 22, Item 3. (n.d.). Agenda Item Summary, Issues Relating to Medical marijuana Businesses, (p. 2). Fort Collins.Fort Collins; 3: (2011). Colorado Medical Marijuana Enforcement Division Rules. Denver: State of Colorado Department of Revenue; 4: National Center for Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, (June 29, 2011). Adolescent Substance Use: America’s #1 Public Health Problem (pg. 28). New York: CASA Columbia; 5: O’Keefe, K. E. a. (June 2011). Marijuana Use by Young People: The Impact of State Laws. Washington D.C.: Marijuana Policy Project.
Retail Market Is $1.5 Billion To $4.5 Billion Per Year
There are now more than 750,000 medical marijuana patients in California, representing two percent of the population according to the most recent data, estimates California NORML. At the high end, an estimate of more than 1,125,000 patients, or three percent of the population, is consistent with the data.
This represents a substantial increase from Cal NORML‘s earlier estimates of 300,000 in 2007, 150,000 in 2005, and 75,000 in 2004, but is in line with registration rates in other comparable states that enjoy similar wide access to medical cannabis clinics and dispensaries.
The exact number of patients in California is uncertain, because patients aren’t required to register in the Golden State. Under Prop 215, California’s medical marijuana law, patients need only a physician’s recommendation to be legal.
Just a tiny fraction of the California’s medical marijuana population is enlisted in the state’s voluntary ID card program, which issued just 12,659 cards in 2009-2010. Therefore, California’s patient numbers must be estimated from other sources.
Among the most salient sources of data are medical marijuana registries in Colorado and Montana, which report patient rates of 2.5 percent and 3.0 percent, respectively.
Because California’s law is older and has more liberal inclusion criteria than in other states, usage there is likely to be higher, according to Cal NORML.
Dale Gieringer, Cal NORML: “The data show that medical marijuana users are becoming an increasingly important constituency”
Despite this, there is no evidence that liberal access to medical marijuana has spurred overall marijuana use in California. According to U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) data, the total number of cannabis users in the state, including non-medical ones, amounts to 6.7 percent of the population (2.5 million) within the past month, or 11.3 percent (4.1 million) within the past year.
This places California only slightly above the national average in marijuana use (6.0 percent monthly and 10.4 percent yearly), and below several states with tougher marijuana laws.
Use of cannabis by California school youth has declined since Proposition 215 passed, according to data from the Attorney General’s Survey of Student Drug Use in California. The increase in medical marijuana use therefore appears to reflect a tendency for existing users to “go medical,” rather than the enlistment of new users.
The total retail value of medical marijuana consumed in California can be estimated at between $1.5 billion and $4.5 billion per year, assuming a market of 2 percent to 3 percent of the population, with average use of 0.5 to 1 gram per day, and an average cost of $320 per ounce.
“Marijuana’s popularity can be explained by its low toxicity, pleasant effects, and remarkably wide range of therapeutic uses, over 250 of which have been reported,” Cal NORML said in a press release.
By far the leading application is chronic pain, which accounts for the majority of all recommendations. Studies by California’s Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research have shown that marijuana is particularly effective for neuropathic pain, an otherwise difficult to treat condition that afflicts up to 7 to 8 percent of the population.
Patients who use marijuana for pain commonly report significant reductions in their use of other medications, in particular prescription opiates.
“The data show that medical marijuana users are becoming an increasingly important constituency,” said California NORML Director Dale Gieringer. “It is time for the federal government to stop ignoring the facts and recognize their right to medicine.”
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Earlier this month, DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart denied a nine-year-old petition seeking to initiate hearings regarding the federal classification of cannabis as a schedule I substance, stating in part, “[T]here are no adequate and well-controlled studies proving efficacy.”
