DENVER - For years now, some veterans groups and marijuana advocates have argued that the therapeutic benefits of the drug can help soothe the psychological wounds of battle. But with only anecdotal evidence as support, their claims have yet to gain widespread acceptance in medical circles. Now, however, researchers are seeking federal approval for what is believed to be the first study to examine the effects of marijuana on veterans with chronic post-traumatic stress disorder. The proposal, from the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies in Santa Cruz, Calif., and a researcher at the University of Arizona College of Medicine, would look at the potential benefits of cannabis by examining 50 combat veterans who suffer from the condition and have not responded to other treatment. [continues 724 words]
As a local business owner, voter, mother and politically active member of our community, I find the recent raids of Montana cannabis growers a violent and inequitable way of pressing a point that the FBI and DEA have no business making. Four patients in the U.S. are currently supplied all of their medicine by the National Institute on Drug Abuse from the federal cannabis farm at the University of Mississippi. At this level of hypocrisy, how will Americans have any trust or faith in our own government? [continues 152 words]
These are the facts of medical marijuana. Medical marijuana already existed. It's the pharmaceutical called Marinol. It was FDA approved in 1985. It is found to relieve nausea, vomiting, loss of appetite associated with cancer and AIDS patients. Studies done by the Institute of Medicines and the National Academy of Sciences shows the active ingredient in Marinol, THC, has potential in treating Alzheimer's, neuropathic pain and damage in MS, Parkinson's, and reducing tics in Tourette syndrome. The University of Mississippi is the nation's only federally approved marijuana plantation. Researchers there do rigorous scientific testing, so far, there is no evidence that marijuana use provides any benefits over current FDA-approved therapies. [continues 205 words]
But Your Dime Bag Would Still Send You to Jail We Should Be Very Wary About the DEA Allowing Regulation and Marketing of Pharmaceutical Products Containing Plant-Derived THC. "[M]arijuana has no scientifically proven medical value." So stated the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) on page six of a July 2010 agency white paper, titled "DEA Position on Marijuana." Yet only four months after the agency committed its "no medical pot" stance to print, it announced its intent to allow for the regulation and marketing of pharmaceutical products containing plant-derived THC - -- the primary psychoactive ingredient in cannabis. [continues 1280 words]
For Three Decades, a Federal Agency Has Supplied Irvin Rosenfeld With Marijuana to Control a Rare Disease. He Tells About It in a New Book. On a recent chilly morning, Fort Lauderdale stockbroker Irvin Rosenfeld interrupted his client calls for a quick marijuana cigarette in the company parking lot. Then he went back to work. The cigarette - perfectly legal for him - was one of about 120,000 the federal government has provided to him at taxpayer expense for the past 29 years. He's one of only four people who remain in a now-closed "compassionate" drug program that at its peak provided 13 patients across the country with daily doses of pot to help manage medical conditions. [continues 1293 words]
In a recent column ("Should parents drug test their teens?" Nov. 28), Lauren Forcella casually states that "pot is 10-25 times stronger today" than it was in "the '60s, '70s and '80s." By doing so, she joins the legions of lazy reporters and columnists who routinely repeat the potency falsehood that has become the cornerstone of the government's claims about the dangers of marijuana. In a recent study, the University of Mississippi's Potency Monitoring Project determined that the average THC in domestically grown marijuana -- which comprises the bulk of the U.S. market -- is less than 5 percent, a figure that's remained unchanged for decades. [continues 61 words]
TAMPA - On the fourth floor of a hivelike, 1970s-vintage lab building on the University of South Florida's medical campus, Thomas Klein has spent 25 years studying marijuana's effects on the immune systems of mice, blowfish and human beings. If anyone should be able to answer the question that has surrounded pot for decades -- How bad is it for you? -- it should be Klein. Klein, 66, a tall, courtly professor of immunology and molecular medicine, can tell you he is very close to solving a few puzzles about the connection between cannabinoids -- the active compounds in marijuana -- and common allergies. But like other researchers in the field, Klein says marijuana's health effects remain a daunting mystery. [continues 1719 words]
Medical-marijuana Backers Call N.J.'s Draft Regulations Too Strict. The State Says It Just Wants To Be Careful. The wait for access to medical marijuana has been excruciating for Jennifer Lande. Long-untreated Lyme disease paired with genetic complications cause Lande chronic pain. Her muscles are wasting, and her digestive system doesn't work properly. On good days, the 28-year-old Medford woman, who once enjoyed camping and hiking, walks with a cane. On bad days, she's bedridden. Marijuana, she said, could ease the suffering and slow her weight loss. [continues 1211 words]
Medical grower hopes to impact the market - and make some cash On a recent afternoon in Kensington, Michael Sautman was talking on one phone with a reporter when another phone started ringing with a call from Israel, where his company is competing to grow medical marijuana on behalf of the government. Sautman is the American CEO of Bedrocan International, one of the first transnational marijuana enterprises, and its arrival in the East Bay this year demonstrates just how important the local cannabis economy has become on a global scale. As Oakland and Berkeley gear up to offer commercial pot cultivation permits, Sautman and his colleagues aim to position themselves in the rapidly expanding marketplace of "cannabusinesses," make money and help professionalize the industry. Ultimately, Sautman's vision is to use the American pharmaceutical drug-approval process to legalize marijuana nationwide. [continues 452 words]
STOP BLOWING smoke. It's time to inhale. Cancer patients, people with AIDS, victims of Lou Gehrig's disease and others have waited long enough. They were supposed to be allowed to smoke medical marijuana starting in October. Thirteen other states already allow it, and New Jersey became the 14th back in January, when the Legislature passed the nation's strictest law and then-Gov. Jon Corzine signed it. But then Governor Christie pushed back the start date to January 2011, in a move befitting a prosecutor, because he wanted "to do it the right way," his spokesman said. [continues 313 words]
After more than four hours, the Loveland City Council ended discussion about medical marijuana dispensaries in the city with a 7-2 vote early Wednesday morning to suspend the licensing of such businesses, unless Loveland voters decide otherwise this November. A slew of passionate residents spoke to the council Tuesday night in defense of legal, licensed marijuana dispensaries. Many claimed to be card-carrying patients; others were business owners. Some admitted purchasing marijuana illegally before it was available as a legal medical treatment. [continues 957 words]
Rickey Yuhre didn't need an $8.7 million California medical marijuana study to tell him that pot eased his suffering. The 53-year-old former diesel truck mechanic and welder has pulmonary fibrosis, a chronic and debilitating disease of the lungs. He has fused vertebrae in his neck due to severe nerve damage. Pain meds and relaxants - Oxycontin, Vicodin, Neurontin, Valium - only turned his insides out with nausea. And so he started using a special "vapor box" to medicate with marijuana without smoking. [continues 1356 words]
A Historic Day Has Been Taken Over by Stoners and Others in the Pro-Hemp Camp Ah yes: This Day in History. April 20 is notoriously Adolf Hitler's birthday, the anniversary of the 1776 siege of Boston, of successful pasteurization in 1864, and of the horrible massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado. It is also America's fastest-growing holiday, known as 4/20. Call it National Stoners' Day. It started, of course, in California, almost four decades ago, when a group of teenagers at San Rafael High School supposedly congregated at 4:20 p.m. every day to smoke weed next to a statue of Louis Pasteur. (In my line of work, we call this a story too good to check.) 4/20 observances gradually spread to college campuses and have even been coopted by Hollywood. Two years ago, the memorably awful movie "Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay" opened on 4/20. [continues 572 words]
The Customers: An Inside Look At London's Marijuana Trade Exported to the U.S., to rave customer reviews, the huge pot crop secretly grown in London homes fuels crime and trade in harder drugs back home, Randy Richmond reports. Police are left to close the dangerous loop on the 'vicious circle.' The smoker and the drug cop see the different sides of London marijuana. The smoker offers this critique on a website, at marijuanareviews.com. "Beautiful . . . simply beautiful. Very intense rich coverage and covered in multi-shade orange hairs," writes the reviewer. [continues 771 words]
Pain can saturate one's entire being. This hit home recently when my mother endured bouts of chemotherapy for stomach cancer. Drugs to relieve her relentless nausea offered little benefit. As with countless other patients, her medicine made matters worse. For patients in intractable pain, time is not on their side. Therefore, for supporters, New York's pending legalization of the medical provision and use of marijuana is timely. Meanwhile, the debate continues. Good ethics requires good facts, as in accurate, relevant and evidence-based. Clearly, cannabis' history of illegal use and association with lethal drugs has overshadowed its supposed therapeutic value in alleviating chemotherapy-induced nausea, reducing glaucoma's intraocular pressure, mitigating AIDS symptoms and relieving chronic pain. Furthermore, its psychoactive component spawns fears of dependency and abuse, although authorized stimulants, antidepressants and analgesics also produce highs and lows. [continues 505 words]
Since the early 1990s, Jean Marlowe has smoked marijuana. She's been arrested four times and spent time in federal prison. It's something she doesn't mind people knowing. Marlowe, executive director of the North Carolina Cannabis Patients Network, a licensed nonprofit organization based in Mill Spring, advocates for legislation to allow people to use marijuana for medical purposes. The organization's goal is to educate the public about medical marijuana legislation in North Carolina. Marlowe spoke about the issue Thursday at a Civitan Club of Salisbury meeting. Along with Marlowe, club members also heard from Perry Parks, the veterans outreach director for the Network. [continues 473 words]
Cleaning up meth labs in the state last year cost millions of dollars, the head of the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics said. In Mississippi, it costs from $2,500 to $7,000 to clean up a meth lab, said director Marshall Fisher. In 2009, more than 620 meth labs were seized in the state, which translates to a cost of between $1.5 million and $4.3 million. But the overall cost of cleaning up everything about meth use is virtually immeasurable, experts say. [continues 462 words]
The first U.S. clinical trials in more than 20 years on the medical efficacy of marijuana found that pot helps relieve pain and muscle spasms associated with multiple sclerosis and certain neurological conditions, according to a report released Wednesday by a UC research center. The results of five state-funded scientific clinical trials came 14 years after California voters passed a law approving marijuana for medical use and more than 10 years after the state Legislature passed a law that created the Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research at UC San Diego, which conducted the studies. [continues 563 words]
Cannabis Grown for Research Through Contract With Federal Government OXFORD -- It's the smell - pungent and slightly citrusy-that first greets visitors to Mahmoud ElSohly's office on the University of Mississippi campus. Next are pictures lining the hallways of the bright green plants ElSohly has researched for 35 years as chief cultivator in the nation's only legal marijuana farm. The University of Mississippi Marijuana Project provides marijuana by the bale to licensed researchers throughout the nation. They study the drug through a federal contract with the National Institute on Drug Abuse. [continues 798 words]