A Brief History of Medical Marijuana

By Patrick Stack, with Claire Suddath Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2009

On Oct. 19, the U.S. Justice Department announced that federal prosecutors would not pursue medical-marijuana users and distributors who comply with state laws, formalizing a policy at which the Obama Administration hinted earlier this year. Currently, 13 states allow doctors to prescribe medical marijuana to patients suffering from ailments ranging from AIDS to glaucoma, and in Maryland a prescription can soften punishment if a user faces prosecution. But until now those laws didn't provide any protection from federal authorities. (Read "Can Marijuana Help Rescue California's Economy?")

Should Professors Cheech and Chong ever receive university tenure teaching the medical history of their favorite subject, the course pack would be surprisingly thick. As early as 2737 B.C., the mystical Emperor Shen Neng of China was prescribing marijuana tea for the treatment of gout, rheumatism, malaria and, oddly enough, poor memory. The drug's popularity as a medicine spread throughout Asia, the Middle East and down the eastern coast of Africa, and certain Hindu sects in India used marijuana for religious purposes and stress relief. Ancient physicians prescribed marijuana for everything from pain relief to earache to childbirth. Doctors also warned against overuse of marijuana, believing that too much consumption caused impotence, blindness and "seeing devils."

By the late 18th century, early editions of American medical journals recommend hemp seeds and roots for the treatment of inflamed skin, incontinence and venereal disease. Irish doctor William O'Shaughnessy first popularized marijuana's medical use in England and America. As a physician with the British East India Company, he found marijuana eased the pain of rheumatism and was helpful against discomfort and nausea in cases of rabies, cholera and tetanus.

The sea change in American attitudes toward pot came at the end of the 19th century, when between 2% and 5% of the U.S. population was unknowingly addicted to morphine, a popular secret ingredient in patent medicines with colorful names like "The People's Healing Liniment for Man or Beast" and "Dr. Fenner's Golden Relief." To prevent more of the country from being washed over with a morphine-induced golden relief, the government introduced the Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906, creating the Food and Drug Administration. While it didn't apply to marijuana and merely brought the distribution of opium and morphine under doctors' control, the regulation of chemical substances was a major shift in American drug policy. (See pictures of cannabis culture.)

(continued at TIME…)

U.S. Support for Legalizing Marijuana Reaches New High

 

Majority in the West favors taxing marijuana sales to boost state revenues

by Lydia Saad

PRINCETON, NJ -- Gallup's October Crime poll finds 44% of Americans in favor of making marijuana legal and 54% opposed. U.S. public support for legalizing marijuana was fixed in the 25% range from the late 1970s to the mid-1990s, but acceptance jumped to 31% in 2000 and has continued to grow throughout this decade.

"The highest level of support for decriminalizing the use of marijuana today is seen with self-described liberals, among whom 78% are in favor."

Public opinion is virtually the same on a question that relates to a public policy debate brewing in California -- whether marijuana should be legalized and taxed as a way of raising revenue for state governments. Just over 4 in 10 Americans (42%) say they would favor this in their own state; 56% are opposed. Support is markedly higher among residents of the West -- where an outright majority favor the proposal -- than in the South and Midwest. The views of Eastern residents fall about in the middle.

The new findings come as the U.S. Justice Department has reportedly decided to loosen its enforcement of federal anti-marijuana laws by not pursuing individuals who buy or sell small amounts of the drug in conformity with their own states' medical marijuana laws. This seems likely to meet with U.S. public approval, as previous Gallup polling has found Americans generally sympathetic to legalizing marijuana for medical purposes. In 2003, 75% of Americans favored allowing doctors to legally prescribe marijuana to patients in order to reduce pain and suffering.

Basic Support for Legalization Highest Among Liberals

The highest level of support for decriminalizing the use of marijuana today is seen with self-described liberals, among whom 78% are in favor. In contrast, 72% of conservatives are opposed. Moderates are about evenly divided on whether the use of marijuana should be legal, although they tilt against it (51% vs. 46%).

Somewhat milder differences are seen according to political party, mainly because of the tempered support of Democrats relative to that of liberals. However, a solid 70% of Republicans -- similar to the rate seen among conservatives -- are opposed.

Gallup also finds a generational rift on the issue, as 50% of those under 50 and 45% of those 50 to 64 say it should be legal, compared with 28% of seniors.

(continued…)

U.S. Support for Legalizing Marijuana Reaches New High

U.S. to end war on medical marijuana in legal states

 

By James Vicini and Dan Whitcomb

WASHINGTON/LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - In a sharp policy shift, the Obama administration told federal attorneys not to prosecute patients who use marijuana for medical reasons or dispensaries in states where it has been legalized.

A Justice Department official said the formal guidelines were issued Monday to reflect President Barack Obama's views. The Bush administration had said it could enforce the federal law against marijuana and that it trumped state laws.

The decision was praised by activists in California, the first state to legalize medical marijuana in 1996. But concern remains among some medical and law enforcement authorities about hundreds of clinics said to be selling pot under the protection of state law and without regard to health.

A spokesman for California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger issued a brief statement in which Schwarzenegger appeared to support the policy change:

"The governor believes it is appropriate for the federal government to focus their resources on criminal activity and securing the border," the statement said.

As a candidate during his presidential bid last year, Obama said he intended to halt raids of medical marijuana facilities operating legally under state laws.

After he took office in January, a Drug Enforcement Administration raid on a dispensary in Lake Tahoe, California, raised questions about whether he would follow that pledge.

A White House spokesman repeated Obama's view that "federal resources should not be used to circumvent state laws."

Stephen Gutwillig, California head of the Drug Policy Alliance, called the move a good first step.

"There is a fundamental need of patients to access marijuana as medicine right now," he said. "While it's great to see the Obama administration radically de-escalate the Bush and Clinton administrations' war on medical marijuana patients, more needs to be done to protect sick people and their caregivers."

(continued…)

U.S. to end war on medical marijuana in legal states | U.S. | Reuters

Medical Cannabis PSA - PTSD

Video found at: MySpace.com Blogs - Medical Mary Jane MySpace Blog

A public service announcement about the benefits of marijuana for those of us that suffer from PTSD.



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MA: Next week's Town Meetings and City Council Meeting on local marijuana laws

Pertinent NORML meetings in Massachusetts on local marijuana laws.  The meetings are to stop the state from raising penalties form $100 to $300 for using marijuana. 

If you live and Massachusetts and can attend any of these meetings please do and stand up for smokers rights!

Dear NORML Supporters in MA,

Town meeting season is heating up.

Next week there are eight town meetings and one city council meeting involving local bylaws/ordinances that increase the penalties for using up to $300.

-Do you live in one of these communities?

-Do you live near these communities?

-Do you know people in these communities?

Please spread the word, it is our turn to JUST SAY NO!

Canton (Open) ATM, Monday, April 27 (Fin. Comm. informed that Article was being withdrawn p. 86 .) Concord (Open) ATM , Monday, April 27 (no motion expect )

Hingham (Open) ATM, Monday, April 27 (passage is recommended by Finance & Advisory)

Reading (Representative), ATM , Monday, April 27 (Fin. Com. no report, By-Law Com. recommends passage!)

Wareham (Open) ATM , Monday, April 27

Truro (Open) ATM , Tuesday, April 28 (Selectmen by a vote of 2 - 3 refused to recommend its passage)

Braintree City Council, April 28, Pot Patriots please attend .

Wenham (Open), Saturday, May 2 (Selectmen saved it a place )

Wilmington (Open), ATM, Saturday, May 2

There will be eighteen town meetings the week of May 3 - 10 and eight more that we know about before the end of May. City council agenda's are set with less advance notice.

Being vocal is having an effect. In the cities of Everett, Quincy and Revere it has been placed on the back burner, if not forgotten. We have identified 65 towns, who have held or are holding Town Meetings without the issue being on the warrant and as you will note above in both Canton and Concord no motion is expected.

Worcester and West Newbury REJECTED such proposals.

Auburn, Topsfield and Walpole decided NOT to put it on the ATM Warrant.

Although Plymouth's police chief mentioned it in January Plymouth selectmen the selectmen didn't discuss it at all nor did they put it on the warrants for April 4 Special and Annual Town Meetings.

Wellesley Town Meeting 4/7 NO MOTION!

Provincetown Town Meeting 4/6 Motion failed to carry!

Manchester Town Meeting 4/6 amended to place it before voters at town election and to refer it to Board of Health .

For more details visit: http://www.masscann.org/legal-reform/60-politics/176-cities-and-towns-considering-their-own-laws-updated-42209-at-626-am

Attorney Steven S. Epstein Treasurer and Database Manager 978-352-3300

Massachusetts Cannabis Reform Coalition\NORML A State Affiliate of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws

Proud Sponsor of Freedom Rally XX, Sept. 19, 2009 on the Boston Common P.O. Box 0266, Georgetown, MA 01833-0366 781-944-2266 -http://www.masscann.org/

Technorati Tags: marijuana,Massachusetts,marijuana laws,activism,actions,town meetings,marijuana decriminalization,decriminalization,NORML,Massachusetts Cannabis Reform Coalition,Freedom Rally XX,cannabis

For Marijuana Advocates, Not-So-Secret Holiday Hints @Change

By JESSE McKINLEY

SAN FRANCISCO — On Monday, somewhere in New York City, 420 people will gather for High Times magazine’s annual beauty pageant, a secretly located and sold-out event that its sponsor says will “turn the Big Apple into the Baked Apple and help us usher in a new era of marijuana freedom in America.”

They will not be the only ones partaking: April 20 has long been an unofficial day of celebration for marijuana fans, an occasion for campus smoke-outs, concerts and cannabis festivals. But some advocates of legal marijuana say this year’s “high holiday” carries extra significance as they sense increasing momentum toward acceptance of the drug, either as medicine or entertainment.

“It is the biggest moment yet,” said Ethan Nadelmann, the founder and executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance in Washington, who cited several national polls showing growing support for legalization. “There’s a sense that the notion of legalizing marijuana is starting to cross the fringes into mainstream debate.”

For Mr. Nadelmann and others like him, the signs of change are everywhere, from the nation’s statehouses — where more than a dozen legislatures have taken up measures to allow some medical use of marijuana or some easing of penalties for recreational use — to its swimming pools, where an admission of marijuana use by the Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps was largely forgiven with a shrug.

Long stigmatized as political poison, the marijuana movement has found new allies in prominent politicians, including Representatives Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts, and Ron Paul, Republican of Texas, who co-wrote a bill last year to decrease federal penalties for possession and to give medical users new protections.

The bill failed, but with the recession prompting bulging budget deficits, some legislators in California and Massachusetts have gone further, suggesting that the drug could be legalized and taxed, a concept that has intrigued even such ideologically opposed pundits as Glenn Beck of Fox News and Jack Cafferty of CNN.
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Happy 4/20! The True Story Behind Stoners' Favorite Number

by Ryan Grim, Huffington Post -

Where does 420 come from?

Warren Haynes, the Allman Brothers Band guitarist, routinely plays with the surviving members of the Grateful Dead, now touring as The Dead. He's just finished a Dead show in Washington, D.C. and gets a pop quiz from the Huffington Post.

Where does 420 come from?

He pauses and thinks, hands on his side. "I don't know the real origin. I know myths and rumors," he says. "I'm really confused about the first time I heard it. It was like a police code for smoking in progress or something. What's the real story?"

Depending on who you ask, or their state of inebriation, there are as many varieties of answers as strains of medical bud in California. It's the number of active chemicals in marijuana. It's teatime in Holland. It has something to do with Hitler's birthday. It's those numbers in that Bob Dylan song multiplied.

The origin of the term 420, celebrated around the world by pot smokers every April 20th, has long been obscured by the clouded memories of the folks who made it a phenomenon.

The Huffington Post chased the term back to its roots and was able to find it in a lost patch of cannabis in a Point Reyes, California forest. Just as interesting as its origin, it turns out, is how it spread.

It starts with the Dead.

It was Christmas week in Oakland, 1990. Steven Bloom was wandering through The Lot - that timeless gathering of hippies that springs up in the parking lot before every Grateful Dead concert - when a Deadhead handed him a yellow flyer.

"We are going to meet at 4:20 on 4/20 for 420-ing in Marin County at the Bolinas Ridge sunset spot on Mt. Tamalpais," reads the message, which Bloom dug up and forwarded to the Huffington Post. Bloom, then a reporter for High Times magazine and now the publisher of CelebStoner.com and co-author of Pot Culture, had never heard of "420-ing" before.

The flyer came complete with a 420 back story: "420 started somewhere in San Rafael, California in the late '70s. It started as the police code for Marijuana Smoking in Progress. After local heads heard of the police call, they started using the expression 420 when referring to herb - Let's Go 420, dude!"

Bloom reported his find in the May 1991 issue of High Times, which the magazine found in its archives and provided to the Huffington Post. The story, though, was only partially right.

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A younger Barack Obama on the War on Drugs and marijuana

Barack Obama says the War on Drugs has been an utter failure and advocates the decriminalization of marijuana.
This clip will be blogged about at http://2parse.com/?p=2648


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Want to Have Great Sex? Smoke a Joint

Marijuana has been used as an aphrodisiac for thousands of years. So what exactly is it about weed that turns people on?

By Josey Vogels, My Messy Bedroom.

Marijuana has been used as an aphrodisiac for thousands of years.

The ancient Indian Ayurvedic medicine systems used cannabis to increase libido, produce long-lasting erections, delay ejaculation, facilitate lubrication and loosen inhibitions.

Some Tantric sex practitioners drink a substance called bhang, a sort of spiced marijuana milkshake to enhance the sexual experience. According to one source, Indian prostitutes eat bhang sherbet to help them feel sexually aroused.

In 19th century Serbia, female virgins were given mixtures of lamb's fat and cannabis on their wedding night to make sex less painful. Morocco, Egypt, Lebanon and other Middle Eastern and Northern African cultures used cannabis for sexual purposes in a potent form known at kif as recently as the early 20th century.

So what exactly is it about weed that turns people on?

Besides the obvious: it heightens your senses, relaxes you and makes you feel hyper connected, there are also physiological effects.

Along with an increased heart rate, changes in blood flow and respiration, according to William Novak, author of the 1980 tome, High Culture: Marijuana in the Lives of Americans, "Neurochemistry, hormonal systems and brain regions such as the temporal lobe are affected by both marijuana and sexual arousal."

That's because THC (delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol), the active ingredient in pot, not only releases dopamine in the brain -- causing the "high" -- it actually replicates the effects of a sexy little naturally occurring neurochemical called anandamide.

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Former Miss New Jersey Speaks Out For Medical Marijuana

From MikeCann.net

A former Miss New Jersey has put down her tiara and is ready to fight for the legalization of medical marijuana.

Georgine DiMaria, 24, said as a child her asthma was so severe that it left her bedridden, forcing her to be homeschooled. “When you can’t breathe, nothing else matters,” she said.When DiMaria learned that her uncle in South Carolina had used marijuana as part of his treatment for cancer, DiMaria investigated it herself. It helped her immensely, she said. Because of law enforcement taken against people that have used marijuana for medicinal purposes, DiMaria would not say when she used marijuana or how she obtained it, but she did say it was medically beneficial to her.

DiMaria also said she kept her usage under wraps while serving as Miss New Jersey, due to the controversy surrounding the drug and its potential to be abused. DiMaria became Miss New Jersey pageant and competed in the Miss America pageant in 2006. Since then, she has served as a national spokeswoman for the American Lung Association. DiMaria emphasized that she does not condone smoking.

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Hemp for Victory

Bring back industrial hemp

Eighty years ago, using a dizzying barrage of propaganda dirty tricks, the chemical company DuPont with the help of newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst succeeded in having the cultivation and possession of hemp criminalized.

The reality is that industrial grade hemp cannot be used to get high and it's one of the most useful plants in human history.

Two US Congressmen, Barney Frank and Ron Paul, have introduced the Industrial Hemp Farming Act to change this sorry state of affairs. Eight other Congressmen from both parties have co-sponsored it.

Currently, about 99% of marijuana that is being eradicated by the "heroic" efforts of the DEA and other publicly funded layabouts is "ditchweed," completely unsmokable biological material descended from hemp plants that used to provide America and the world with cloth, fiber, paper, industrial lubricants, and even food (the seeds are as nutritious as milk.)

Perhaps sanity will prevail.

Hemp for Victory

Technorati Tags: hemp,congress,Barney Frank,Ron Paul,Industrial Hemp Farming Act,video,BrasscheckTV,DEA,government

Carlos Santana Tells Obama to Legalize Marijuana

By Marcela Isaza - WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — President Barack Obama brushed off a question about legalizing marijuana in his online town hall last month, but guitar god Carlos Santana says he wishes he would seriously consider it.

"Legalize marijuana and take all that money and invest it in teachers and in education," Santana said in an interview this week. "You will see a transformation in America."

During his online town hall on March 26, Obama fielded a question about whether legalization of the illicit drug would help pull the nation out of recession. Obama said he didn't think it was good economic policy, and also joked: "I don't know what this says about the online audience."

But Santana said making pot legal is "really way overdue, like the prohibition with the alcohol and stuff like that.

"I really believe that as soon as we legalize and decriminalize marijuana we can actually afford a really good governor who won't keep taking money away from education and from teachers and send him back to Hollywood where he can do 'D' movies and we can get an 'A' governor," referring to former movie action hero and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Santana made the comments as he was promoting his upcoming rock residency in Las Vegas at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino. The show debuts May 27 and runs through 2010.

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It's High Time

Legalizing marijuana may be politically risky. But the economic benefits are becoming difficult to ignore.

By Joe Klein - For the past several years, I've been harboring a fantasy, a last political crusade for the baby-boom generation. We, who started on the path of righteousness, marching for civil rights and against the war in Vietnam, need to find an appropriately high-minded approach to life's exit ramp. In this case, I mean the high-minded part literally. And so, a deal: give us drugs, after a certain age — say, 80 — all drugs, any drugs we want. In return, we will give you our driver's licenses. (I mean, can you imagine how terrifying a nation of decrepit, solipsistic 90-year-old boomers behind the wheel would be?) We'll let you proceed with your lives — much of which will be spent paying for our retirement, in any case — without having to hear us complain about our every ache and reflux. We'll be too busy exploring altered states of consciousness. I even have a slogan for the campaign: "Tune in, turn on, drop dead."

A fantasy, I suppose. But, beneath the furious roil of the economic crisis, a national conversation has quietly begun about the irrationality of our drug laws. It is going on in state legislatures, like New York's, where the draconian Rockefeller drug laws are up for review; in other states, from California to Massachusetts, various forms of marijuana decriminalization are being enacted. And it has reached the floor of Congress, where Senators Jim Webb and Arlen Specter have proposed a major prison-reform package, which would directly address drug-sentencing policy. (See pictures of stoner cinema.)

There are also more puckish signs of a zeitgeist shift. A few weeks ago, the White House decided to stage a forum in which the President would answer questions submitted by the public; 92,000 people responded — and most of them seemed obsessed with the legalization of marijuana. The two most popular questions about "green jobs and energy," for example, were about pot. The President dismissed the outpouring — appropriately, I guess — as online ballot-stuffing and dismissed the legalization question with a simple: "No." (Read: "Can Marijuana Help Rescue California's Economy?)

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Michigan Readies For Medical Pot Use

Up to 50,000 May Qualify for Legal Smoking

Lynn Allen is busy squirreling away marijuana seeds - at $5 a shot - as he prepares to take advantage of a new state law that will allow seriously or terminally ill patients to legally smoke pot to ease their pain and suffering.


The 52-year-old married father of two from Williamston is confined to a wheelchair and unable to work because of a lack of stamina. He is one of an estimated 50,000 Michigan residents who may qualify for medical marijuana use once the state begins accepting applications on Saturday.

A hemophiliac who contracted HIV/AIDS from blood work, he lives in pain and battles to keep from losing weight because of a lack of appetite.

"I've decided I'm going to grow my own marijuana in my house," said Allen, who was forced to declare bankruptcy last year. "I can't afford to buy marijuana" - which can cost from $200 to $900 an ounce, according to police.

"But I have bought 10 seeds and now I'm waiting for the game to begin."

Michigan voters in November approved medical marijuana use by a 63 percent to 37 percent margin, joining a dozen other states that allow it.

State health officials are finalizing rules and regulations for the Michigan Medical Marijuana Program.

Step one: issuing picture ID cards for those on the marijuana registry; they should begin arriving by the end of April. The cards cost $100 each and will allow patients to legally possess 2.5 ounces of marijuana or grow 12 marijuana plants in a locked, enclosed area.

Caregivers, who can supply marijuana to a maximum of five patients, will also have to pay $100 for ID cards under a program the state hopes will be self-supporting and require no taxpayer dollars.

One thing the state won't do is provide the marijuana or even tell patients how to acquire it on their own.

And possession of marijuana remains a federal crime, although the Obama administration has said that it likely won't prosecute users in states where the drug's use for medicinal purposes has been approved by voters.

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DEA Raids Emmalyn's California Cannabis Clinic 3/25/09

Why do they continue to raid legal dispensaries when our president promised they would stop?


By Free Weed - On March 25th, 2009 a legal cannabis dispensary was raided and shutdown by the DEA (drug enforcement agency). They raided the dispensary despite the fact that what their doing is legal in their state. According to the U.S. Constitution, the supreme law of the land, the federal government isn't allowed to enforce anything except the Constitution. If any other laws want to be enforced then it's up to the individual state's to decide on whether or not to do so.




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Drug War Videos

DrugWarRant.com by Pete Guither - Here are some recommended and some fun videos on the drug war and related issues.

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I happened to like this one alot...

Mommy's Funny Medicine - the first children's book about medical marijuana

Medical Marijuana Trial Draws Activists To Kitsap

The trial of an Washington man accused of exceeding the allowable limit for medical marijuana is finishing its second week, and is drawing attention from throughout the state.

Bruce Olson, 54, is an approved medical marijuana patient who has four ailments that qualify him for such treatment, according to an expert witness for the defense.

Still, Olson was charged with illegal possession of marijuana with the intent to sell when Kitsap County detectives found 48 plants in a growing operation in May 2007.

Both Olson and his wife are medical marijuana patients, but have faced the same distribution charge. The law about acceptable quantities of medical marijuana has been more strictly defined since Pamela Olson’s trial.

Pamela Olson is now serving probation, having pleaded out to avoid jail time. As part of her sentence, she is not using the medical marijuana that she claims is necessary to ease her pain.

The case has become a flashpoint for medical marijuana advocates, or what Kitsap County Prosecutor Russ Hauge characterizes as “a well-organized lobby whose purpose is to see the laws changed.”

Approximately two dozen people, mostly advocates or medical marijuana patients, are observing the trial and showing their support.

About 15 of them have taken residency in a local bed-and-breakfast, doubling up on rooms while they attend every minute of the trial.

One attendee, Ellen Van Bockern of Maple Valley, was attending for personal reasons, since she hoped to begin a grow operation for a sick friend.

“I want to grow marijuana legally,” she said. “If they get off, then I can start my own operation and help my friend.”

Attendees maintained the law was wrong, and that Olson was being singled out for special treatment. A common argument is that governments who prosecute these crimes are wasting taxpayer money.

“Kitsap County doesn’t have a lot of money,” said patient Steve Elliott, a Kingston resident.

“This prosecution is wasting money left and right. And if they are prosecuting Bruce, then they can come after me.”

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Obama To Overturn Major Bush-Era Marijuana Ruling

By Katie Sanders - The White House wants to review Bush's order to shut down a UMass scientist's pot-growing operation. The research, which a DEA judge ruled to allow more than two years ago, would build the medical case for marijuana.

Days before President Bush left office in January, his administration fired a parting shot at Professor Lyle Craker's eight-year quest to cultivate marijuana for medical research by abruptly denying him a federal license despite a nearly two-year old Drug Enforcement Administration law judge's recommendation that he receive one.

But the new administration led by President Obama, who has publicly backed the use of marijuana for medical purposes to stave off pain, might reverse the decision and keep Craker's license application from going up in smoke.

A source familiar with the case said the White House will likely demand that the decision be reviewed.

"Basically they want to do an autopsy of what occurred and have it go through a proper review," the source said.

Craker, who is based at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, is cautiously optimistic Obama will do to the denial of the marijuana license what he has done to other Bush administration decisions on such hot-button cultural issues as embryonic stem-cell research and the abortion "gag rule" affecting overseas family planning groups.

"Obama has indicated that he's for science over politics," Craker said in an interview. "And I certainly feel the situation we have currently is politics over science."

Just last week, Obama called for the head of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy to "develop a strategy for restoring scientific integrity to government decision making."

"The public must be able to trust the science and scientific process informing public policy decisions," Obama wrote. "Public officials should not suppress or alter scientific or technological findings and conclusions."

On the issue of medicinal marijuana, Obama said at a November 2007 campaign stop in Iowa that he was open to allowing its use if it is what science and physicians suggest would be the best way to ease suffering.

"There's no difference between that and morphine when it comes to just giving people relief to pain," Obama said then.

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The case for a domestic marijuana industry

Like it or not, marijuana is a massive industry. One hundred million Americans admit to government survey-takers that they've used it, with nearly 15 million acknowledging use in the past month. That's a huge market -- exceeding the number of Americans who will buy a new car or truck this year, or who bought one last year.
The only way to stop drug gangs is to end their monopoly on production.
By Aaron Houston

Violence in Mexico is getting worse by the day. There are reports of beheadings, killings in the several thousands, and an environment of fear that makes it impossible for Mexican officials to do their work. The country's very stability may be threatened.

It's time to put an end to U.S. policies that subsidize these murderous drug gangs. The first step, as a growing chorus of voices is arguing, is to end the quixotic policy of prohibition, a proven failure. But the United States can do even better; by empowering a domestic marijuana industry, the United States would squeeze Mexican cartels' profits, cutting off the financial lifeline that sustains organized narcocrime.

According to U.S. and Mexican officials, some 60 percent of the profits that fuel Mexican narcotrafficking come from just one drug: marijuana. Although such estimates are inherently imprecise, there is no doubt that marijuana is the cash cow that makes these gangs the powerful, dangerous force they are -- both in Mexico and in the 230 U.S. cities where cartels are thought to operate. The chief of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's Mexico and Central America Section recently told the New York Times that marijuana is the "king crop" for Mexican cartels, because it "consistently sustains its marketability and profitability."

Last November, the U.S. Joint Forces Command warned in its "Joint Operating Environment" report that Mexico "bear[s] consideration for a rapid and sudden collapse" due to drug cartel violence. Some critics saw the report as unduly dire, but at a minimum, as outgoing CIA Director Michael Hayden warned, drug cartels "threaten ... the well-being of the Mexican people and the Mexican state." A further increase in instability would constitute a national security and humanitarian crisis on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. For now, there is no end in sight to the worsening violence and no adequate plan to address it.

This appalling situation is not just happenstance. It is the direct result of prohibitionist U.S. policies.

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Why is marijuana still against the law?

Tomorrow(today) marks the 10-year anniversary of the publication of the Institute of Medicine’s landmark study on medical cannabis: “Marijuana and Medicine: Assessing the Science Base.”
So what have we learned in the ten years following the release of this groundbreaking study?
We’ve affirmed that the use of medical marijuana can be used remarkably safely and effectively.
We’ve learned that cannabis possesses therapeutic value beyond symptom management, and that it can, in some cases, moderate disease progression.
We¹ve discovered alternative methods to safely, effectively and rapidly deliver marijuana’s therapeutic properties to patients that don’t involve smoking.
We¹ve learned that restricted patient access to medicinal cannabis will not necessarily result in higher use rates among young people or among the general public.
And finally we¹ve learned — much to the chagrin of medical marijuana opponents — that in fact the sky will not fall if we grant patients the right to use it.
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