Pubdate: Thu, 23 Aug 2007
Source: Sacramento News & Review (CA)
Copyright: 2007 Chico Community Publishing, Inc.
Contact:  http://newsreview.com/sacto/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/540
Author: Geoff Johnson
Cited: California NORML http://www.canorml.org
Cited: Marijuana Polcy Project http://www.mpp.org
Referenced: Marijuana Use by Young People: The Impact of State 
Medical Marijuana Laws 
http://www.mpp.org/atf/cf/%7BFC4E88DF-6ACE-4AA6-851C-0688A929D3C5%7D/2005TeenUseReport.pdf
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/Proposition+215
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/SB+420
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Marijuana - Medicinal)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?232 (Chronic Pain)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/vaporizer (vaporizer)

Rx WARS

The Nether World of Fed-State Bureaucracy Makes Access to Marijuana 
No Easy Feat

"Patients are under attack," argued Nathan Sands, a patients-rights 
advocate at Compassionate Coalition who's fed up with the feds going 
after medicinal-marijuana users in California. "There's a lot of 
collusion between state and federal governments. States have no more 
power," and as a result patients with multiple sclerosis, AIDS, 
cancer, glaucoma and arthritis are being arrested.

More than 100 federal charges against medicinal-marijuana patients 
have been documented since 2001 by the California branch of the 
National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. When the 
federal government arrests a patient or cannabis-dispensary owner, 
local, state and county governments either assist in the arrest or 
concede to the fed's higher power. The problem, according to Sands, 
is that state governments receive funding from the Drug Enforcement 
Administration, earmarked for the War on Drugs. Budgets are tight and 
cities and counties are strapped for cash as is, so they cooperate 
with the federal government--to the detriment of patients.

The state Legislature passed Senate Bill 420 in 2003 to create the 
option for counties to institute ID cards to protect cannabis 
patients from arrest--though, as a compromise, the law limits the 
amount of marijuana patients can have on hand to eight dried ounces, 
in addition to six mature or 12 immature plants. The California state 
Board of Equalization collects taxes on cannabis dispensaries, but 
because of a ruling this past April, the state does not require 
dispensaries to declare the source of their income. Still, patients 
like 35-year-old Sacramentan Ryan Landers face myriad hardships--and 
legal consequences.

Landers, state director of the American Alliance for Medical 
Cannabis, has long used medicinal marijuana to combat nausea and 
appetite loss brought about by AIDS, as well as to alleviate the side 
effects of the prescription drugs he uses. In 1997, however, Landers 
was charged with smoking in public in downtown Sacramento and for 
carrying a scant .04 grams of marijuana--not much, considering that 
possession of up to an ounce is punishable by a maximum $100 fine.

Landers, a state-approved medicinal-marijuana patient, had to go to 
court to defend himself. "The head of a major narcotics office 
actually had already sent a letter [dismissing my case] to my 
attorney," Landers explained of his day in court. "We were at city 
hall discussing dispensaries, and the entire time [the official] 
never mentioned the fact that he had sent a letter to my attorney 
dropping the charges."

But this was just the beginning for Landers.

Specifically, Landers is frustrated with the federal government's 
policy on marijuana research. He cites, for example, a prescription 
drug called Marinol, which is a synthetic form of THC (the active 
ingredient in marijuana). Marinol, which didn't work for Landers or 
his friends, is intended to induce the same nausea- and pain-abating 
effects as marijuana the herb, but the very existence of Marinol, 
Landers said, opens a bag of worms.

"If marijuana has no medicinal value whatsoever, why would you have 
Marinol be a prescription?" he argued, citing the obvious fact that 
if the feds don't recognize the natural form of THC in marijuana the 
plant, how can they justify the medicinal use of its synthetic counterpart.

Landers' frustrations with research were echoed by Dale Gieringer of 
the California branch of the NORML. Gieringer, who holds a Ph.D. in 
engineering economic systems, discovered that smoking out of a 
vaporizer--a device that burns the THC off marijuana without burning 
the plant matter itself--produced no detectable carcinogens. The 
presence of lung-damaging carcinogens was one reason the DEA frowned 
on medicinal marijuana, he said.

"We looked at literally hundreds of components in marijuana smoke and 
the vaporizer delivered pretty much 95 percent THC," Gieringer said. 
"Rather than getting hundreds of junk compounds, you just get 
medically active ones," as with the use of Marinol.

Further studies, however, have met an impasse. Gieringer said his 
research was only possible because of legal loopholes that have since 
been blocked by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and the DEA has 
turned down his requests to import marijuana from the Netherlands. 
"They complain that smoking marijuana is inappropriate for medicine, 
yet block vaporizer research," Gieringer said. "Basically when it 
comes to marijuana, there's no such thing as freedom of research in 
the United States. Marijuana research is in the dark ages."

Part of the federal government's reluctance to legalize medical 
marijuana may stem from the fear that cannabis dispensaries serve as 
an additional source for recreational marijuana. But marijuana use 
among teenagers actually has dropped since the implementation of 
Proposition 215, Landers said, citing a 2006 study conducted by the 
Marijuana Policy Project and Mitch Earleywine, a professor at the 
State University of New York. The study showed that teenage marijuana 
use had gone down by as much as 50 percent in states that had 
legalized medicinal marijuana. California, for its part, saw a 47 
percent reduction in marijuana use among ninth graders.

"Kids don't want to smoke their grandma's medicine," Landers offered.

This is not to say that younger individuals won't use marijuana for 
medicinal purposes. Consider Nadine (who asked that her real name not 
be used), who began feeling pain in her joints in high school. When 
the pain worsened, she saw her doctor, who told her she could choose 
between rowing and playing the piano. She chose rowing--and the pain 
grew so bad that she found herself using crutches at 16. It turned 
out Nadine suffered from fibromyalgia, a chronic condition known for 
pain it causes in tendons, ligaments and muscles.

Nadine moved from her native Berkeley and enrolled at UC Davis to 
study neurobiology and psychology. She no longer needed crutches, but 
the pain wasn't going away and prescription medicines brought about 
their own problems. While in Holland in 2003, Nadine smoked 
marijuana, she said, and found that it assuaged the symptoms.

"A lot of the stuff that my doctor was prescribing me was making me 
feel pretty fuzzy-headed," she said. She spoke to a friend, who in 
turn put her in touch with a cannabis dispensary. She underwent a 
background check of her medical history and was granted an ID. After 
three months of medicinal-marijuana use, the pain abated to manageable levels.

Nadine hasn't experienced any trouble with law enforcement ... yet. 
She'd rather purchase marijuana at a cannabis dispensary; she trusts 
them. "With the establishment I went to, it was really clear they had 
the needs of the patient in mind," she said. "I felt like it was a 
lot safer and a lot more cost-effective in terms of the quality." As 
a result of her treatment, Nadine said she's active in ways she could 
not be on her prescribed medication.

"I wish people would realize it's not just something people do 
recreationally. It has value and it has merit. It keeps it so that I 
can stay productive for my life. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake