WASHINGTON - The Obama administration handed backers of medical marijuana a significant victory Friday, opening the way for a University of Arizona researcher to examine whether pot can help veterans cope with post-traumatic stress, a move that could lead to broader studies into potential benefits of the drug. For years, scientists who have wanted to study how marijuana might be used to treat illness say they have been stymied by resistance from federal drug officials. The Arizona study had long ago been sanctioned by the Food and Drug Administration, but under federal rules, such experiments can use marijuana only from a single, government-run farm in Mississippi. Researchers say the agency that oversees the farm, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, has long been hostile to proposals aimed at examining the drug's possible benefits. [continues 403 words]
Arizona Researcher Would Examine Use in PTSD Treatment WASHINGTON - The Obama administration has handed backers of medical marijuana a significant victory, opening the way for a University of Arizona researcher to examine whether pot can help veterans cope with post-traumatic stress, a move that could lead to broader studies into potential benefits of the drug. For years, scientists who have wanted to study how marijuana might be used to treat illness say they have been stymied by resistance from federal drug officials. [continues 664 words]
WASHINGTON - The Obama administration handed backers of medical marijuana a significant victory Friday, opening the way for a University of Arizona researcher to examine whether pot can help veterans cope with posttraumatic stress, a move that could lead to broader studies into potential benefits of the drug. For years, scientists who have wanted to study how marijuana might be used to treat illness say they have been stymied by resistance from federal drug officials. The Arizona study had long ago been sanctioned by the Food and Drug Administration, but under federal rules, such experiments can use marijuana only from a single, governmentrun farm in Mississippi. Researchers say that the agency which oversees the farm, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, has long been hostile to proposals aimed at examining possible benefits of the drug. [continues 814 words]
The Move May Signal a Turning Point Toward Wider Research on Medical Marijuana WASHINGTON - The Obama administration handed backers of medical marijuana a significant victory Friday, opening the way for a University of Arizona researcher to examine whether pot can help veterans cope with post-traumatic stress, a move that could lead to broader studies into potential benefits of the drug. For years, scientists who have wanted to study how marijuana might be used to treat illness say they have been stymied by resistance from federal drug officials. [continues 891 words]
The War on Drugs has dragged on longer than the war in Afghanistan and nearly as long as the War on Poverty. And with the same debatable - and costly - results. President Nixon was first to declare war - a "global war," he said. Elvis Presley enlisted as a celebrity volunteer. The King of Rock 'n' Roll himself later succumbed to drugs. With increasing military, law enforcement and prison costs, the war raged on through succeeding presidencies down to this day. In 1982, President Reagan said there would be a "Drug-Free America" by 1995. [continues 328 words]
Cuomo Putting Needs of Patients First in Allowing Medical Use of Marijuana Any loosening of laws governing marijuana use remains a politically charged subject, but a new proposal by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo is creative, narrowly scaled and compassionate to New Yorkers who are suffering from debilitating conditions that some version of marijuana could help to alleviate. It's the right move. Cuomo's plan is to make use of the Antonio G. Olivieri Controlled Substance Therapeutic Research Program, an obscure 1980 law that allows for the use of controlled substances for "cancer patients, glaucoma patients and patients afflicted with other diseases as such diseases are approved by the commissioner." With that, Cuomo is able to circumvent the need for legislative approval. Measures to allow the medical use of marijuana have passed in the Assembly in recent years, but always stalled in the Senate. [continues 427 words]
Dr. Jack Fishman helped create naloxone, a treatment that was more powerful and had fewer side effects than its predecessors. Dr. Jack Fishman, who helped develop naloxone, a powerful medication that has saved countless people from fatal overdoses of heroin and other narcotics, died on Dec. 7 at his home in Remsenburg, N.Y. He was 83. His death was confirmed by his son Howard. No cause was given. Finding drugs to counter the addictive and potentially fatal use of heroin, morphine and other narcotics was an area of increasing research in the late 1950s and early 1960s. While some solutions were found to be somewhat effective, they had strong and even dangerous side effects and could be addictive themselves. [continues 604 words]
Arkansas would be the first state in the South . . . . WHO KNEW the election concerning "medical" marijuana two years ago would be so close? And in Arkansas, too. What a small, wonderfully idiosyncratic state. The same state that re-elected a Republican, Winthrop Rockefeller, as governor in 1968 also voted for a feisty little demagogue playing the race card in presidential politics that strange year- George Wallace. For good measure, Arkansas re-elected a Democrat-J. William Fulbright-as U.S. senator. Can we split our votes or what? [continues 551 words]
Peter B. Lewis, the brash, iconoclastic and philanthropically generous chairman of Progressive Corp. died Saturday at his home in Coconut Grove, Fla. Jennifer Frutchy, Lewis's philanthropic adviser, said Lewis died between 3 and 4 p.m., apparently of natural causes. He was 80. During a career that lasted more than half a century, Lewis grew Mayfield-based Progressive Corp. from a tiny 100-person firm to the fourth-largest auto insurance company in the U.S., with $17 billion in premiums and 26,000 employees nationwide. [continues 2437 words]
'Medical' Marijuana Back in the News "The people of Arkansas gave medical marijuana a thumbs down. But just barely. The measure got 49 percent of the vote. The state might have dodged that bullet, but there's no telling when medical marijuana will be back on the ballot in this sometimes all too Natural State." - Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, March 12, 2013 WHO COULD have known that what supporters call "medical" marijuana would have come so close to being available in Arkansas? Back in the fall of 2012, a measure to make medical marijuana legal in this state got 49 percent of the vote. [continues 621 words]
I thought I'd never live to see the day. But now it's happened. An attorney general of the United States has finally said he is ready to blow the whistle on America's ill-fated, racially tinged and cruelly applied "war on drugs." Eric Holder signaled the shift in a speech Monday to the American Bar Association. He admitted that the drug war, which his department has spearheaded, has wrought grim unintended consequences including decimating communities of color - part of "a vicious cycle of poverty, criminality and incarceration that traps too many Americans and weakens too many communities." [continues 723 words]
I thought I'd never live to see the day. But now it's happened. An attorney general of the United States has finally said he is ready to blow the whistle on America's ill-fated, racially tinged and cruelly applied "war on drugs." Eric Holder signaled the shift in a speech Monday to the American Bar Association. He admitted that the drug war, which his department has spearheaded, has wrought grim unintended consequences including decimating communities of color - part of "a vicious cycle of poverty, criminality and incarceration [that] traps too many Americans and weakens too many communities." [continues 719 words]
(In which we ponder the nanny state and harm done.) Minnesota legislators seem poised to follow the lead of 18 other states by legalizing medicinal marijuana in the next legislative session. While the effort is primarily a Democratic one, there is Republican support as well. Nevertheless, lawmakers are up against the same obstacle medical marijuana faced in 2009 - a reluctant governor. Mark Dayton remains adamant, as was Tim Pawlenty before him, about deferring to a powerful state interest whose support most politicians covet: law enforcement. Indeed, the governor's spokesperson declared in the waning days of the 2013 session that Dayton won't support any legislation on the issue so long as groups like the Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association oppose it. [continues 1271 words]
Peter B. Lewis, the brash, iconoclastic and philanthropically generous chairman of Progressive Corp. died Saturday at his home in Coconut Grove, Fla. Jennifer Frutchy, Lewis's philanthropic adviser, said Lewis died between 3 and 4 p.m., apparently of natural causes. He was 80. During a career that lasted more than half a century, Lewis grew Mayfield-based Progressive Corp. from a tiny 100-person firm to the fourth-largest auto insurance company in the U.S., with $17 billion in premiums and 26,000 employees nationwide. [continues 2424 words]
I've enjoyed debating about public policy for nearly half as long as I've been alive. During that time, I've had impassioned and engaging arguments about almost every conceivable political issue. The War on Drugs, however, is an exception. Frankly, the topic is kind of boring. Nearly everyone in America learned about the prohibition of alcohol during their middle school history class and/or from watching mob films. We all know it was a calamitous failure that made the problem enormously worse at everyone's expense. As John D. Rockefeller Jr. wrote in 1932, "a vast army of lawbreakers has been recruited and financed on a colossal scale." [continues 538 words]
The legalization of same-sex marriage and Washington's okay to marijuana throws light on a permeable wall. There are human rights, and there are civil liberties. Because a human being is not inherently entitled to ganja (cannabis use isn't the same as freedom from slavery or cruel or unusual punishment) smoking dope is a question of civil liberties and where, how and if we impose restrictions. Marriage equality transcends the boundary, a human right - all people are born free and equal in dignity and rights - and a civil liberty. [continues 402 words]
In a July 2011 editorial, we called the war on drugs a failure, and said it was time to talk about legalization, especially of marijuana. Back then, this seemed like a radical idea. But just a year later, voters in two states, Colorado and Washington, have gone beyond talk, approving ballot measures to legalize pot in Tuesday's election. Rather than crack down, as it has in states such as California and Montana that have legalized medical use of marijuana, the U. S. government should stay away, treating this as an experiment to see whether legalization works in the ways its proponents say it will. [continues 286 words]
On Nov. 6, Arkansas voters will decide the fate of the Arkansas Medical Marijuana Act. They will base their decisions on faces more than facts. Here are the facts: Passage would allow certain Arkansas patients to obtain a doctor's written certification for up to 2.5 ounces of useable marijuana every 15 days. The act lists 17 medical conditions making a person eligible to use the drug. The Arkansas Department of Health can approve more. Patients will be able to obtain the marijuana at dispensaries operated by nonprofits. Those who live more than five miles from a dispensary can grow up to six plants in an enclosed, locked facility. The patient can designate a caregiver to obtain the marijuana and grow the plants for them. [continues 778 words]
A former editor of High Times, a magazine that advocates marijuana culture, who once did federal prison time at Ray Brook has planted the seeds for a run at New York state's highest office. Richard Stratton has filed initial paperwork with the state Board of Elections to run for governor in 2014. In a phone interview with the Enterprise on Monday, he said he "plans to mount a campaign and run" against Gov. Andrew Cuomo. He said he wants to run as a Republican and will soon begin meeting with GOP county committees around the state. [continues 1296 words]
LITTLE ROCK - The Arkansas Supreme Court decision to keep medical marijuana's legalization on the ballot introduces some unpredictability to the November election and shifts attention to an issue that might not be easily defined by party labels. That's no small feat for an Arkansas election dominated by predictability when it comes to national politics and partisan bickering when it comes to the state level. With Republicans aiming to win control of the state Legislature for the first time since Reconstruction, this may be one of the few issues where Arkansas voters won't hew to traditional party lines. [continues 716 words]
