Drug Czar's Explanation on Medicinal Marijuana Not Enough
Last month, Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske came under fire for his statement, reported in the Fresno Bee, that marijuana “has no medicinal value.” Giving him the chance to clear up any confusion on the matter, KOMO-TV aired a follow-up interview today with Kerlikowske. The Drug Czar had this to say:
Sometimes you make a mistake and you work very hard to correct it. That happens. I should’ve clearly said ’smoked’ marijuana and then gone on to say that this is clearly a question that should be answered by the medical community.
Kerlikowske also said:
[T]he FDA has not determined that smoked marijuana has a (medical) value…
Although it’s nice to see a correction to his previous statement, and leaving it to the medical community is favorable to harmful and unnecessary law enforcement actions, the Drug Czar’s position is still problematic.
Just because the FDA does not recognize the medical efficacy of smoked marijuana, it doesn’t mean that such a position is factual. Americans for Safe Access currently has a pending case before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which argues against this assertion and uses a mountain of evidence to illustrate marijuana’s medical efficacy.
Even the 1999 White House-commissioned Institute of Medicine report concluded that, “there are some limited circumstances in which we recommend smoking marijuana for medical uses.” Admittedly, smoking marijuana may not be absent of medical consequences, but as the Lancet Neurology reported in 2003 in an article entitled “The therapeutic potential of cannabis,” smoked marijuana “delivers a more rapid ‘hit’ and allows more accurate dose-titration.”
In addition, Dr. Donald Tashkin, one of the world’s leading scientists on pulmonary research, stated that there was “no association” between smoked marijuana and lung cancer “and even a suggestion of some protective effect.” Dr. Tashkin concluded in May 2006 that:
[E]ven those who smoked more than 20,000 joints in their life did not have an increased risk of lung cancer.
Perhaps more to the point is that the medical community has not offered any substantive alternatives. The government touts the Marinol (synthetic THC) pill as the solution for hundreds of thousands of medical marijuana patients that benefit from smoked marijuana in the U.S. Unfortunately, Marinol does not provide an adequate delivery system for people with nausea, takes too long to take effect, is difficult to regulate dosages, and offers inferior efficacy to smoked marijuana for most patients that use it.
Ironically, in the same KOMO interview, Kerlikowske rails against prescription drug abuse, citing the yet-to-be-released toxicology report in the death of Michael Jackson. If the Drug Czar were to put two-and-two together, he’d find that many patients who use medical marijuana do so in order to scale down or completely eliminate the use of toxic pharmaceutical medication.
It is important for the government, including the Drug Czar, to provide sick Americans with as many health care options as possible. As Kerlikowske implies, pharmaceuticals are not the panacea. If the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) can conclude as far back as 1988 that marijuana is “one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man,” why can’t we see fit to recognize its medical benefits and allow patients in need to make use of it?
Read more on OpposingViews.com: Drug Czar Lies About Medical Marijuana
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In my opinion, people who are addicts get addicted to anything. So to say that marijuana is addicting is WRONG. I and my friend of many years have smoked marijuana for a long time. We are upstanding citizens that if you were to meet us in public you would have no idea. The benefits for those who are not in critical pain or suffering, is a calming state. It does not hinder my day, my communication, my relationships in business. And I am not addicted nor is my friend.
Just a little FYI - smoking is the immediate effect, injesting or drinking it takes a lot longer to feel and is stronger and lasts longer. To get the benefits, you do not have to smoke the equivalent of a cigarette. It only takes one puff. And you typically do not smoke as often as people smoke cigarettes . So to compare the smoking aspect with cigarettes is also WRONG. The components of marijuana are totally different than tabacco. And there are no chemicals .
What I find really really wrong about the Drug Czars statement is that they are already talking about another pharmaceutical drug. That means chemicals that harm your organs. Why should they go to all that expense to isolate a part of marijuana, that in the end does not have the same benefit. If you take a pill you will not have the same effect as smoking. I do not agree with taking this natural plant to that level. Right now I can get pure organic herb, that has no side effects.
There are many reports out of Europe that show how marijuana benefits. I have even read one article (actually a scientific white paper out of a research lab in Holland) that found by smoking marijuana, it helped to reduce lung cancer because of a certain compound found in marijuana.
As far as cancer is concerned, it is an epidemic. The environment , food additives, microwaves, and poor eating habits cause cancer. And what helps those people? MARIJUANA!!!
Whenever the prohibitionists come at me with arguments about "smoked" marijuana being a health "problem", I tell them not to worry about it. The "problem" has already been solved.
Vaporizers work by heating marijuana with air warmed to just the right temperature to vaporize the cannabinoids in marijuana without setting it on fire. You get all of the benefits of smoked marijuana without any of the supposed health problems stemming from smoking something.
Vaporizers provide the same rapid onset of effects as smoking. The patient gets the same mix of all the natural cannabinoids in the weed. The patient retains the ability to titrate dosage so he doesn't get too much or too little. The patient completely avoids the tars and other unhealthy byproducts of incomplete combustion.
Yes, it might be hair-splitting, but it would be hard for the AMA, FDA, DEA, etc. to EVER endorse smoked anything. They have been spending millions and working for decades trying to convince us NOT to smoke ( cigarettes ); that smoking was BAD. It is.
Easy-as-pie to develop new delivery systems. Extractions and processes are numerous. Once extracted, it can be reduced, vaporized, and put in nasal sprays, inhalers, and trans-dermal patches.
Then there's oily gel caps, like vitamin E. Or dried pill form. Or boiled oil . Or cooked, edible products.
Easy-as-pie, and CHEAP. Hurry, make these changes and make the extract available to doctors and pharmacies.
Give all the 'government contracts' (social medicine ??) to make the extracts to big pharma-giants. Let them have sole responsibility to make it pure, and keep it cheap, so all who need it can get it. Begin controlled studies with new extracted gel caps, etc.
Let science decide, and prove it's efficacy..
I wonder why people spend time trying to tell other people how to treat their medical conditions when it is nobody's business whether a person smokes marijuana , takes Vicodin or eats marijuana cookies to relieve their symptoms. I am so tired of the high and mighty in this country assuming that they know what is best for other people. My fiance has a kidney disease. When she developed a sleep disorder (her brain stopped producing melatonin at age 19) they put her on sleep drugs that were damaging her kidneys. She was able to get off the sleep drugs completely by taking marijuana concentrated in butter and then chocolate . It has been over 6 months now with nothing but success from this therapy. Her doctor because of political/funding issues with her clinic put down that she did not think she was a good candidate for cannabis , yet put "continue with current treatment" for her sleep disorder. There is so many lies and misinformation about cannabis. Personally, I wonder if those who are against use of marijuana would tolerate people writing in and telling others that they should not use a topical analgesic because it has been found to be less effective than a pill for the same condition? Give up the morality and get with reality. People should be able to use what works for them.
The IOM report said there is no medical future in smoked marijuana . It advocating smoking it in limited cases until an alternative is developed. Abuse of prescription medicine is surely a problem, but medical marijuana abuse is a problem as well. In California a large % of medical marijuana "patients" are young healthy people, not very sick people. Tashkin also says that smoked marijuana causes lung damage, and it has been linked to cancers in some studies. Smoked marijuana contains more tars and carcinogens than cigarettes , and a recent Canadiana study determined that it caused damage to DNA. Smoking is not good for the health , and if you are going to claim that it is, you will not be seen as credible.
Tashkin said there was no direct link from smoking marijuana and
cancer and that smoking marijuana alone increased lung function.
He also said that statistics showed that marijuana might have cancer blocking agents,but that further testing was needed.
Unfortunately,the DEA won't allow that to happen.
What does that mean? Jogging isn't good for your health . Eating eggs isn't good for your health. Most of the prescription drugs everyone takes aren't good for your health. In some places, breathing the air isn't good for your health. Everything we do is a matter of risk management. I've read 30 conflicting studies throughout my life as to whether coffee is bad for me (and how bad). There's no such thing as a life limited to "harmless" (and thank God for that!)
Marijuana could be the most dangerous drug in the world (it isn't), and it still wouldn't excuse the behavior of a bureaucrat deciding whether a doctor should prescribe it for their patient.
Yes, a few doctors recommend smoking marijuana --but this is a controversial practice as most doctors and the medical establishment agree that smoking is detrimental to the lungs, a vital organ. To compare smoking marijuana to jogging or eating an egg or drinking a cup of coffee is to suggest that marijuana is as harmless or even beneficial as these, which is evidently not the case. Even supposing marijuana has medical benefits, those would be for people who had a serious medical problem, not a healthy person. Tashkin recently stated that he does not believe that smoked marijuana will ever be approved as medicine by the FDA because it contains carcinogens. The FDA/government does decide what doctors can legally prescribe their patients through scientific process and smoked marijuana is not on that list, so I see nothing exceptional about the
bureaucrat's statement. It would have been highly irresponsible for him to endorse marijuana or its legalization.
I've known quite a few people who died from jogging. None who died from marijuana . Marijuana has lots of benefits -- some of which are even greater than some of the benefits from jogging. Nothing is harmless, and to say we should outlaw something because it isn't harmless is ridiculous.
Does your last sentence mean that you agree marijuana is harmful? I haven't known anyone who has died from jogging, but I've had three close family members who have become addicted to marijuana, one whose life was pretty much ruined and another who may be headed down that path. The other is functioning but chemically dependent; he needs marijuana daily as life is so stressful. Why does a person with no financial worries, an intact family and an easy, secure job feel so much stress? People don't have to die from marijuana for it to be harmful (and I do believe from my research that is has been contributory to many deaths ). So let's just make everything legal -- cocaine , heroin, and give out prescription drugs on demand if harm is not a determinant of legality. The reason marijuana is currently illegal is that it is felt that the harm outweighs any benefits (which are?). (Please don't cite any conspiracy theories).