Despite Andrew Cuomo's Promises, the End Might Not Be Near A U.S. map that shows where pot is legal looks a lot like recent electoral college maps, except instead of blue, the liberal states are rendered in green: the entire West Coast (California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada), progressive mountain and Midwest states (Colorado, New Mexico; Michigan, Illinois), all of New England, plus New Jersey, Washington, D.C., and Hawaii. Twenty states and the District of Columbia have enacted laws legalizing medical marijuana; in two of them, recreational weed is all good, too. [continues 1404 words]
ALBANY (AP) - New York is inching toward legalizing some form of medical marijuana as support grows in the state Legislature and is likely to become one of a handful of issues taken up when lawmakers return later this month. But it remains unclear where the drug would come from for either Gov. Andrew Cuomo's limited research program or broader, legalized use under a proposed medical marijuana bill. Marijuana for clinical trials comes from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which has a contract with the University of Mississippi to grow marijuana for studies, a spokeswoman for the Food and Drug Administration said. [continues 427 words]
Albany, N. Y. (AP) - New York is inching toward legalizing some form of medical marijuana as support grows in the state Legislature and is likely to become one of a handful of issues taken up when lawmakers return later this month. But it remains unclear where the drug would come from for either Gov. Andrew Cuomo's limited research program or broader, legalized use under a proposed medical marijuana bill. Marijuana for clinical trials comes from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which has a contract with the University of Mississippi to grow marijuana for studies, a Food and Drug Administration spokeswoman said. [continues 144 words]
ATLANTA - Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal on Thursday announced two separate efforts to pursue clinical trials on a cannabis-based drug that has shown promise in helping children who suffer from seizure disorders. The first would pair a private pharmaceutical company with a Georgia Regents University professor and expand ongoing clinical trials of a product using cannabidiol, or CDB, a compound in marijuana that doesn't produce a high in users. The second model would create a new clinical trial led by the university, with cannabis obtained from the National Institute on Drug Abuse research farm at the University of Mississippi. A new trial likely would take longer to begin because it requires more steps for federal approval, Deal said. [continues 358 words]
Government Gives Research Money to Drug's Opponents, Say Some Critics WASHINGTON - As the nation's only truly legal supplier of marijuana, the federal government keeps tight control of its stash, grown in a 12-acre fenced garden on the campus of the University of Mississippi in Oxford. From there, part of the crop is shipped to RTI International in North Carolina, all at taxpayer expense. Though Congress has long banned marijuana, the operation is legitimate. It's run by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, part of the Department of Health and Human Services, which doles out the pot for federally approved research projects. [continues 1467 words]
Proposal to Test Treating Veterans for PTSD Took 3 Years to Get Approved. WASHINGTON - As the nation's only truly legal supplier of marijuana, the U. S. government keeps tight control of its stash, which is grown in a 12-acre fenced garden on the campus of the University of Mississippi in Oxford. From there, part of the crop is shipped to Research Triangle Institute in North Carolina, where it's rolled into cigarettes, all at taxpayer expense. Even though Congress has long banned marijuana, the operation is legitimate. It's run by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, part of the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services, which doles out the pot for federally approved research projects. [continues 904 words]
"Today's marijuana is 300 percent to 800 percent more potent than the pot of yesteryear." Heidi Heilman in an op-ed piece March 13 in The Providence (R.I.) Journal In the debate over whether marijuana should be legalized, one issue is the question of potency. Critics of legalization say the street drug now available for sale is not the marijuana that a lot of baby boomers and Generation Xers have used. One of them, Heidi Heilman, the director of New England field development for Smart Approaches to Marijuana and president of the Massachusetts Prevention Alliance, raised the issue March 13 in an op-ed in The Providence Journal in Rhode Island. [continues 742 words]
The euphoria surrounding legalizing pot for recreational use is clouding common sense when it comes to driving. Pot remains the drug of choice for teenagers and research shows that youth are extremely vulnerable to marijuana's ill effects. Young drivers who smoke pot are at particularly high risk for being involved in a vehicle crash, not only due to overall driver inexperience, but also to the increasing availability of pot products with high levels of THC (tetrahydrocannabinol). In a recent study of 23,500 drivers from six different states including California, drugged driving accounted for more than 28 percent of traffic deaths in 2010, up from more than 16 percent in 1999. Marijuana was the primary drug involved in the increase. It is important to note that five out of the six states surveyed have medical marijuana policies in place. [continues 313 words]
A Colorado Innovation to Treat Kids Spreads to Other States, but Some Marijuana Advocates Are Skeptical. A Colorado marijuana innovation is changing the way lawmakers in even the most conservative parts of the country talk about cannabis and is poised to create a rapid expansion in the number of states that have legalized marijuana in some way. But many marijuana advocates view the new political campaign with skepticism, fearing it could halt their movement's momentum. The invention is a non-psychoactive oil made from marijuana plants that is used to treat children with severe seizure disorders. The oil is rich in a chemical called cannabidiol, or CBD, but is low in THC, the main psychoactive ingredient in marijuana. [continues 811 words]
Millions of ordinary Americans are able to walk into a marijuana dispensary and purchase bags of pot on the spot for a variety of medical ailments. But if you're a researcher like Sue Sisley, a psychiatrist who studies posttraumatic stress disorder, getting access to the drug isn't nearly so easy. That's because the federal government has a virtual monopoly on growing and cultivating marijuana for scientific research, and getting access to the drug requires three separate levels of approval. [continues 1511 words]
WASHINGTON - As the nation's only truly legal supplier of marijuana, the U.S. government keeps tight control of its stash, which is grown in a 12-acre fenced garden on the campus of the University of Mississippi in Oxford. From there, part of the crop is shipped to Research Triangle Institute in North Carolina, where it's rolled into cigarettes, all at taxpayer expense. Even though Congress has long banned marijuana, the operation is legitimate. It's run by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which doles out the pot for federally approved research projects. [continues 1584 words]
If A New Leaf: The End of Cannabis Prohibition sometimes reads as if it were being written as history was unfolding, that's because it was. Journalists Alyson Martin and Nushin Rashidian began working on A New Leaf as the cannabis reform movement was gaining momentum. "I'm from upstate New York, and I traveled to California," Martin said during a recent interview. "I had never been to Venice Beach. I opened the car door and smelled marijuana and asked how they were able to have it. They said it was legal there. It was immediately the kind of federal-state clash that attracted me. It was illegal in most places and legal in California." [continues 789 words]
Georgia Children With Severe Seizure Disorder Are Closer to Treatment. The Georgia House on Monday gave overwhelming approval to a bill that would legalize a type of medical marijuana to treat certain seizure disorders. Rep. Allen Peake, R-Macon, the sponsor of House Bill 885, said it's an important step toward saving the lives of children who can suffer 100 or more seizures a day. The particular strain of marijuana, known as Charlotte's Web, has shown it can ease or eliminate symptoms of patients taking the cannabis oil derived from the plant. [continues 435 words]
Federal law makes it a crime to grow, sell or possess cannabis. New state laws in Colorado and Washington state permit those activities, and officials there are issuing licenses to local companies, which are still committing a crime under federal law. The U.S. Department of Justice announced in August that it would give a low priority to enforcement efforts against state-licensed growers and sellers in states with "strong and vigorous" regulations, except where they involve other activities such as violence or interstate sales. [continues 1079 words]
Publication Front and Center As Pot Movement Grows When staffers at the marijuana fan magazine High Times participated in an "Ask Me Anything" online forum at the website Reddit, they answered plenty of questions. But they danced around one that was the most frequently asked: Ever run into legal trouble? Founded in 1974 by renegade journalist and pot trafficker Tom Forcade, New York-based High Times is a cult publication with a loyal following and a steady base of advertisers who have always tinkered with the boundaries of legality and legitimacy. [continues 826 words]
Until about five weeks ago, state Rep. Allen Peake was like most politicians: He didn't want to go near any legislation that used the words "legalization" and "marijuana" in the same sentence. Then he met Haleigh Cox, a 4-year-old Forsyth girl who suffers dozens of seizures a day and who could be helped by a compound extracted from cannabis to control those seizures. "Meeting Haleigh and the Cox family was the turning point for me," Peake said. "Before that, I wouldn't have touched this issue with a 10-foot pole." [continues 1443 words]
Publication Front and Center As Pot Movement Grows When staffers at the marijuana fan magazine High Times participated in an "Ask Me Anything " online forum at the website Reddit, they answered plenty of questions. But they danced around one that was the most frequently asked: Ever run into legal trouble? Founded in 1974 by renegade journalist and pot trafficker Tom Forcade, New York-based High Times is a cult publication with a loyal following and a steady base of advertisers who have always tinkered with the boundaries of legality and legitimacy. [continues 971 words]
ATLANTA -- In front of a packed room at the Georgia Capitol, Monroe County mother Janea Cox pleaded for her daughter's life at the first hearing on a new medical marijuana proposal. "I'm going to lose my child if this drug is not approved," said Cox, whose daughter Haleigh is the inspiration and namesake for House Bill 885, by state Rep. Allen Peake, R-Macon. "We're going to break up my family," a tearful Cox said while her child was a few miles away at Children's Hospital of Atlanta at Egleston, where she has been for more than 50 days since a severe attack that caused her to stop breathing for several minutes. [continues 639 words]
Marijuana has long been known for its anti-nausea, appetite-stimulating effects, which in part has led 20 states to allow its medical use. In some chronic users, however, it can have an opposite effect and cause constant vomiting and abdominal pain, and the number of people affected appears to be growing in Augusta, says an emergency medicine physician at Georgia Regents University. States that have decriminalized it also have a much higher rate of accidental ingestion by children, who then get sick, a recent study found. [continues 858 words]
After President Barack Obama said marijuana is no more dangerous than alcohol - opening a broader conversation about legalizing or decriminalizing a drug that's on the federal government's most restrictive list, Schedule I - former Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., said the president needs to brush up. "I think the president needs to speak to his (National Institute of Health) director in charge of drug abuse," said Kennedy, who chairs Smart Approaches to Marijuana, which opposes legalization. The director "would tell the president that, in fact, today's modern, genetically modified marijuana (has) much higher THC levels, far surpass(ing) the marijuana that the president acknowledges smoking when he was a young person." [continues 370 words]
ALBANY - When Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced this month that he would allow medical marijuana in New York, the news was greeted with great enthusiasm by those who champion the drug for patients with cancer, AIDS and other serious illnesses. But the initial euphoria has abated, as those same supporters have questioned Mr. Cuomo's plan, with few answers so far. The administration has yet to detail the 20 hospitals statewide where medical marijuana would be available, in what forms it would be dispensed, or - perhaps most critically - where the state would get its supply. Nor has the governor made clear what the plan would cost, or who would pay for it. [continues 730 words]
Irvin Rosenfeld is Florida's only legal pot smoker. His marijuana provider? The federal government. Since 1982, as part of an experimental drug program, Rosenfeld has received a monthly tin with 300 fat joints- about nine ounces - grown by the feds on a farm at the University of Mississippi. Rosenfeld, 60, a Fort Lauderdale stockbroker with a painful chronic bone tumor disorder, carries a prescription bag with his marijuana cigarettes to work. When I visited him at his office last week, he took a hit off a smokeless vapor pipe, which he sometimes uses when the market gets hectic. But he prefers smoking, which he says is more beneficial in getting the plant's full medicinal effects. [continues 388 words]
Regarding a Nov. 23 column about medical marijuana "Republic's readers deserve truth about medical-pot program," Viewpoints): Dr. Gina Mecagni repeated an urban myth in the debate over marijuana - that the National Institute on Drug Abuse won't release marijuana "for research that does not specifically address drug abuse." A visit to NIDA's website, drug abuse.gov/marijuana-research-nida, should put this myth to bed forever. NIDA funds a wide range of research on marijuana, including "potential therapeutic uses of THC and other cannabinoids in treatment of pain, HIV and addiction." [continues 119 words]
As New York State considers legalizing medical marijuana, opponents have called it a scam, asking, If it's a medicine, why doesn't the federal government treat it like one? Well, I am here to tell you: It does. I know. The feds send me marijuana every month, and have for more than 30 years. I spent my youth like millions of other American boys, until I turned 10. I was playing shortstop and made the throw to first to end the game and seal our one-run victory. I was going to celebrate by tossing my glove in the air. Only, I couldn't: My entire arm was paralyzed. [continues 707 words]
States Legalizing Recreational Marijuana Wrestle With Best Way to Test Potency Under Colorado's new recreational-marijuana law, all retail pot products-from joints to laced brownies-will have to be labeled according to their potency starting next January. But pot growers are running into a hurdle: There are no state or industry standards to test marijuana for tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the substance mainly responsible for its high-inducing properties. The labels are intended to inform consumers on the nature of the product they are buying, not unlike alcohol-content labels on beer or wine. But current test results are haphazard, owners of medical-marijuana dispensaries complain, with the same marijuana receiving different marks depending on where it was analyzed. [continues 773 words]
I have lost all respect for Justin Trudeau. Until Thursday, I'd been rooting for him all the way. No more, though. Not since he announced that he thinks marijuana should be legalized. In advocating for legalization, Trudeau cited the futility of the war on drugs. But this is not about the war on drugs. This is about the impact on everyday life if marijuana were legal. One commenter on the Calgary Herald's website wondered whether Trudeau is aware of all the social ills that legalization would bring. Indeed. For one thing, if this ever comes to pass, we will add to the carnage caused by drunk drivers more carnage caused by drivers who are stoned. [continues 746 words]
I have lost all respect for Justin Trudeau. Until Thursday, I'd been rooting for him. No more, though. Not since he announced that he thinks marijuana should be legalized. In advocating for legalization, Trudeau cited the futility of the war on drugs. But this is not about the war on drugs. This is about the impact on everyday life if marijuana were legal. One commenter on the Herald's website wondered whether Trudeau is aware of all the social ills that legalization would bring. For one thing, if this ever comes to pass, we will add to the carnage caused by drunk drivers, more carnage caused by drivers who are stoned. [continues 713 words]
From the scientific point of view, the idea of treating medical symptoms by smoking marijuana is, in a word, interesting. That's both good and bad. "Cannabis is just a very - a very interesting plant. It's got all sort of compounds in it, and we frankly don't know a lot about it," said Dr. Alan Green, professor of pharmacology and toxicology, and chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth College. Any effects of cannabis are the result of compounds called cannabinoids, of which the best-known is THC, the compound that correlates with getting high. These are taken up by two sets of molecular receptors CB1, which is mostly in the brain, and CB2, which is mostly in other parts of the body and alter the way the body handles electric and chemical signals that we feel as pain, nausea and other symptoms. [continues 721 words]
SAN FRANCISCO - As more states embrace legalized marijuana, the drug's growing medicinal use has highlighted a disturbing fact for doctors: scant research exists to support marijuana's health benefits. Smoked, eaten or brewed as a tea, marijuana has been used as a medication for centuries, including in the United States, where Eli Lilly sold it until 1915. The drug was declared illegal in 1937, though its long history has provided ample anecdotal evidence of the plant's potential medicinal use. Still, modern scientific studies are lacking. [continues 773 words]
Stubborn Legal Questions Vex Patients' Search for Medicine When it comes to medical cannabis, there is a lot of attention paid to legal issues: Is it legal? Who can have it? Where can you have it? How much can you have? Can you buy it? Can you sell it? What's legal? What's not? There's a reason for this uncertainty: Cops keep busting people, and prosecutors keep trying to shut down their operations and put them in jail. It seems that folks in law enforcement can't change their thinking; this is a medical issue that's still being addressed with a drug-war mentality. [continues 1328 words]
Doctors wanted for Georgia's medical marijuana law State's cannabis law has sat on the shelf too long Today, more than 18 states across the country have passed legislation allowing the use of medical marijuana. Georgia, oddly enough, was among the first. Yet for the last 33 years, the state has done virtually nothing to enact the law that would give thousands of cancer and glaucoma patients legal access to the plant. In 1980, the Georgia General Assembly followed the lead of at least 16 other states and passed legislation allowing for the limited use of medical marijuana by people diagnosed with glaucoma and cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy and radiation. It was supported by then Lt. Gov. Zell Miller and signed into law by Gov. George Busbee. [continues 813 words]
OXFORD, Miss. - The only reason 73-year-old Elvy Musikka still has her sight, she says, is she's been smoking pot for 30 years. "In 1975, my doctor told me if I didn't start using marijuana, I'd go blind," said Musikka. "Shortly thereafter I found out that, indeed, it was the only thing that would help me with my glaucoma." Musikka is one of four people still enrolled in the federal government's Investigational New Drug program, which allows a small number of patients to use medical marijuana grown at the University of Mississippi. The program stopped accepting new participants in 1992. Those already in the program are allowed to continue receiving their prescriptions. At its peak, the program provided pot for 30 patients. [continues 709 words]
In the midst of rapid cultural and technological change, there isn't much that has stayed the same since the 1960s. Marijuana use among youth and the research practices to study its effects on the brain are no exception. Current methods to study the drug's influence on adolescents are allowing health professionals and researchers the ability to understand its impacts. Researchers at the University of California San Diego find that youth may be more susceptible than adults to marijuana's neurological effects because young people's brains are still developing. They discovered that among adolescents, marijuana use is associated with verbal learning disadvantages, attention problems, short-term memory loss, difficulty with problem-solving and trouble exercising inhibition. The studies also show that youth marijuana users require more brain-processing power to complete tasks than nonusers. The studies utilize functional magnetic resonance imaging that measures brain activity by detecting changes in blood flow, allowing researchers to study varying patterns in the brain when tests are given to those using marijuana and those who do not. [continues 556 words]
Fake Weed' Poses New Challenges for Law Enforcement With its widespread availability, marijuana is among the first drugs teenagers encounter, and more youngsters are lighting up these days than in years past. It's a trend that concerns experts and counselors who say teens grossly underestimate the risks of a psychoactive drug more potent than your father's marijuana. "Marijuana is back," said Sgt. Donald M. Bush, who coordinates the Columbus Police Department's Drug Abuse Resistance Education program. "You may have an older person say, 'When I was young, I smoked marijuana and it didn't do anything to me.' But now you've got a much higher percentage of THC, and it's a whole different game." [continues 742 words]
On November 6 the people of Massachusetts will have their say about medical marijuana. Silas "Sy" Bennett was a 28-year-old returning college student studying journalism at Keene State when he was diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer in the fall of 2007. Initially, Bennett thought the pain he was feeling was caused by a pinched nerve, an injury from a house painting job, said his mother, Lorraine Kerz of Greenfield. Then one day, the pain was so bad that he couldn't get out of bed. Bennett ended up at the emergency room, where an X-ray revealed the cancer, which had by then spread to his bones. Doctors needed to operate on his spine, to make sure his damaged vertebrae didn't collapse and paralyze him, before beginning him on a difficult course of chemotherapy. [continues 3603 words]
Experts, Politicians and Others Debate Measure 80, the Attempt to Legalize Cannabis in Oregon A measure before voters Nov. 6 would allow adults to buy marijuana legally from their neighborhood, state-run pot store. Supporters say Measure 80 would create a lucrative revenue stream for state coffers and reduce money spent on police, courts and jails to enforce existing marijuana laws. Opponents believe the act would increase abuse and illegal sales of the drug, especially out of state, and they criticize a provision that would require the state attorney general to not only "vigorously defend" the law but advocate for a federal act legalizing marijuana, as well. [continues 2020 words]
Study Will Be First of Its Kind Marijuana use, despite the legal implications, has been common in America for generations, and it's becoming even more widespread as some communities legalize it for medical purposes. But it wasn't until five years ago that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration looked into its prevalence behind the wheel and found that 16.3 percent of the weekend nighttime drivers surveyed at 300 locations across the United States were drug positive. Cannabis stood out as the most commonly detected drug, according to the survey. But what the survey didn't show - and what authorities don't know - is how often drivers are impaired by the drugs, specifically marijuana. [continues 945 words]
University of California medical researchers slipped an ingredient in chili peppers beneath the skin of marijuana smokers to see if pot could relieve acute pain. It could at certain doses. They monitored patients with AIDS and HIV as they toked on joints or placebos to determine whether marijuana could quell agonizing pain from nerve damage. It provided relief. They tested a "Volcano Vaporizer" to see whether inhaling smokeless pot delivered healthier, low-tar cannabis. It did. Over a dozen years, California's historic experiment in medical marijuana research brought new science to the debate on marijuana's place in medicine. State-funded studies costing $8.7 million found pot may offer broad benefits for pain from nerve damage from injuries, HIV, strokes and other conditions. [continues 1345 words]
Technological advancements have given today's teenagers access to a lot of things their parents could hardly envision at that age: The Internet. iPads. And marijuana many times more powerful than what people smoked in the 1970s. The rise in marijuana use among teens, as documented by recent national surveys, comes as particularly alarming to health advocates because marijuana is more potent than ever before, experts say. That means the pot youth are smoking today carries a greater risk of harm than what their parents might have experienced a generation ago. [continues 778 words]
This November, Massachusetts voters will decide whether to formally approve a medical marijuana initiative - "An act for the humanitarian medical use of marijuana." This means that supporters of the question must now collect 11,485 signatures by June 19 for the question to appear on the Nov. 6 ballot. You would be considering important legislation that would establish a "medical" marijuana program in Massachusetts. There have been many half-truths and misperceptions swirling around this controversial issue. It is important to set the record straight. [continues 698 words]
Rick Doblin, founder of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelics Studies, said the government and the National Institute on Drug Abuse has a "monopoly on marijuana research" at Suffolk University NORML's 2012 Cannabis Curriculum and Hemposium on Tuesday. "The only place in the country that has NIDA approval to grow marijuana for research is a government-run facility at the University of Mississippi," he said. "We have been in court for six years trying to get clearance." About 65 students and speakers gathered at Suffolk University for a forum that encouraged students to do research and projects on cannabis and its prohibition, in addition to providing a place for students to showcase their results. [continues 477 words]
A Mississippi legislator recently introduced a bill that would legalize the use of medical marijuana in the state. The bill was introduced by Democratic Senator Deborah Dawkins from Harrison County in January and has managed to stay afloat despite heavy opposition. Medical marijuana is currently prohibited by federal law, and it's classified as a schedule I drug. Despite this, the Drug Enforcement Administration, charged with enforcing federal drug laws, usually does not interfere with medical marijuana patients and their caregivers, according to Americans for Safe Access. [continues 539 words]
Medicinal marijuana may be coming to Egg Harbor Township later this year, as a nonprofit group is planning to open one of the first treatment facilities in the state more than two years after the treatment was signed into law. The proposed site would be in an 85,000-square-foot leased building in the Offshore Commercial Park, off Delilah Road, about a quarter-mile west of the Garden State Parkway. Leo B. Schoffer, an attorney, long-time developer and philanthropist who sits on the Richard Stockton College board of trustees, owns the building. [continues 715 words]
Unlike tobacco, smoking marijuana - even when done regularly - does not damage the performance of people's lungs, according to a recent study published by The Journal of the American Medical Association. The two-decade research, which followed 5,000 people who smoked an equivalent of one joint per day over the course of seven years, found out that despite their regular marijuana use, subjects were still able to push out a normal amount of air in one second after taking a deep breath. [continues 801 words]
Marijuana With Higher THC More Frequently Found On Shore SALISBURY -- High-grade marijuana use on the Eastern Shore is one the rise, according to local authorities. While marijuana is the most commonly used illicit drug in the country, marijuana with higher concentrations of THC, the psychoactive chemical in the drug, started cropping up on the Shore between 2004 and 2005. "The big one we started to see is B.C. (British Columbia) bud," said Sgt. Jason King of the Salisbury Police Department. [continues 666 words]
When Motown stars the Temptations recorded "Cloud Nine" back in the 1960s, chilled out users had no idea how powerful the drug would become for future generations. Marijuana potency has increased to its highest level in more than 30 years, according to an analysis conducted by the University of Mississippi's Potency Monitoring Project, and released by the White House in 2008. The study tracked the average amount of THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, via samples seized by law enforcement agencies between 1975 and 2007. It found that the average amount of THC reached 9.6 percent in 2007, compared to 8.75 percent the previous year. [continues 295 words]
EUGENE, Ore. -- Sometime after midnight on a moonlit rural Oregon highway, a state trooper checking a car he had just pulled over found pot on a passenger. The discovery was not surprising in a marijuana-friendly state like Oregon, but the 72-year-old woman's defense was: She insisted the weed was legal and given to her by the federal government. A series of phone calls from a dubious trooper and his supervisor to federal authorities determined that the glaucoma patient was not joking: The U.S. government does grow and provide pot to a select few people across the United States. [continues 285 words]
Allow Research on Endocannabinoid System The American Academy of Cannabinoid Medicine rejects the failed U.S. drug war and the Feds' refusal to recognize the medicinal value of cannabis and cannabinoids. Forty years ago this year, Richard Nixon declared a war on drugs (WOD). The WOD is now the longest running "war" in American history and a great failure. After four decades years of government waste, anti-science rhetoric, millions of shattered lives, and the expenditure of hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars, it is time to recognize, as more than 70 percent of Americans do, that the WOD has failed. The WOD has turned out to be a war on minorities and the U.S. Constitution. [continues 744 words]
AMHERST - One local professor's attempt to obtain federal permission to grow marijuana for research into its potential medical benefits has been rejected by the federal Drug Enforcement Administration. The DEA has previously said that permitting anyone other than the government to grow marijuana would lead to greater illegal use of the drug. Lyle Craker, a UMass professor of plant, soil and insect sciences in Amherst, has been trying to obtain a license since 2001 to further potentially life-saving research. [continues 530 words]
