The Office of National Drug Control Policy recently began a five-year $2 billion anti-drug ad campaign aimed at ages 9-19. The ads, public service announcements produced by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America, are fixated on marijuana use. One of the PSAs points out, correctly, that most kids don't use marijuana. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, only about one in five 10th graders report they are current marijuana users (that is, used marijuana within the past month.) Less than one in four high school seniors is a current marijuana user. [continues 327 words]
Recently, Michigan State University student Bradley McCue, who was celebrating his 21st birthday, died from acute alcohol poisoning after drinking 24 shots of liquor in less than two hours. Bradley McCue may have been poisoned by alcohol, but it was ignorance that killed him. Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey acknowledges that "alcohol is ,,, responsible for more damage in our society than any other drug on the street," But, the Office of National Drug Control Policy prefers to demonize adult marijuana use, while ignoring teenage boozers. [continues 170 words]
Recently there was in The Star an article by Jeremy Boyer about experts debating pot legalization. The debaters were a NORML guy, Allen St. Pierre, and former DEA administrator Peter Bensinger. Part of Bensinger's argument was that the medicinal benefits of cannabis are unproven. Actually the historical record of hemp as medicine begins with its listing as an herbal during the reign of Chinese emperor Chen Nung 5,000 years ago. It was recommended for "absentmindedness" and "female disorders." The first Westerner to observe cannabis used as medicine was W.B. O'Shaughnessy who studied its use in India while teaching at the Medical College of Calcutta. After doing animal studies to determine its safety he used it on patients suffering from tetanus, rabies, rheumatism and epilepsy. He found it effective as an analgesic and as a muscle relaxant. In 1842 O'Shaughnessy returned to England and in 1854 cannabis was listed in the United States Dispensatory. [continues 155 words]
The first Westerner to observe cannabis used as medicine was W.B. O'Shaughnessy who studied its use in India while teaching at the Medical College of Calcutta. After doing animal studies to determine its safety he used it on patients suffering from tetanus, rabies, rheumatism and epilepsy. He found it effective as an analgesic and as a muscle relaxant. In 1842 O'Shaughnessy returned to England and in 1854 cannabis was listed in the United States Dispensatory. It was reported to the Ohio State Medical Society in 1860 to be useful in the treatment of "tetanus neuralgia, dysmenorrhea (painful menstruation), convulsions, the pain of rheumatism and childbirth, asthma, post-partum psychosis, gonorrhea, and chronic bronchitis." It was noted to stimulate appetite. H.A. Hare said it relieved anxiety and distracted a patient's mind in terminal illness. Others found it effective with migraine. [continues 85 words]
