cannabisnews.com: A History of Debating Marijuana Legalization 





A History of Debating Marijuana Legalization 
Posted by FoM on January 11, 2002 at 22:25:17 PT
Daily Policy Digest 
Source: NCPA
The British medical community is debating legalization of cannabis, or marijuana, with proponents now claiming that the social and governmental cost of prohibition outweighs the increased health costs that might be expected after legalization. They point to a number of commissions and politicians that have reached similar conclusions over the years: 
* In 1893 Britain's Indian Hemp Drugs Commission concluded that excessive use of cannabis was uncommon and that moderate use produced practically no ill effects. * In 1926, Sir Humphrey Rolleston, then president of the Royal College of Physicians, chaired a committee that recommended against criminalizing opiates. * Similarly, Dr W. C. Woodward, counsel to the American Medical Association, testified in Congress in 1937 to the lack of evidence justifying criminalization of cannabis, and several other commissions in Britain, Canada and the United States have come to similar conclusions. * In 1972, an American presidential commission concluded that marijuana "does not warrant" the harmful consequences of "criminal stigma and threat of incarceration." * In 1978, President Carter told Congress that "penalties against the use of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of a drug itself; and where they are they should be changed. Nowhere is this more clear than in the laws against the possession of marijuana." * The U.K. Police Foundation's review of cannabis policy in 2000 reached the same verdict: "Our conclusion is that the present law on cannabis produces more harm than it prevents." However, the costs of either marijuana use or prohibition in the United Kingdom have not been quantified. And opponents of legalization point to adverse health effects for users, such as increased risk of cancer. Source: Alex Wodak, Craig Reinarman and Peter D. A. Cohen, "Cannabis control: costs outweigh the benefits," For and Against, British Medical Journal, January 12, 2002. For text: http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/324/7329/105?lookupType=volpage&vol=324&fp=105&view=short#artFor more on Drug Use and Controlhttp://www.ncpa.org/iss/soc/Source: National Center of Policy Analysis (NCPA) Published: Friday, January 11, 2002 Copyright: 2002 National Center for Policy Analysis  Wensite: http://www.ncpa.org/Contact: http://www.ncpa.org/contact.htmlRelated Articles:Dutch Model for UK Drug Laws http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread11624.shtmlMinisters Advised To Legalise Cannabis Cafeshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread11379.shtmlWhy Britain is Going Dutch http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread11175.shtml 
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Comment #3 posted by E_Johnson on January 12, 2002 at 10:16:42 PT
And who says health costs would go up?
Let's see what science has told us so far about cannabinoids:They promote sleep, hunger and thirst, which are healthy instincts that promote health in sick people and also in people with depression or who suffer from hard drug abuse or alcohol abuse.They act as antioxidant neuroprotectants in the brain and CNS.They have an anti-arrhythmic effect on the heart.They lower blood pressure.They inhibit inflammation, especially in people with chronic autoimmune diseases.There is some evidence they have anti-tumoral properties.These are all properties that would lead to reduced, not increased, health costs.And then there is the so-called "marijuana high" -- a relief from the stressful modern sensation of lack of sensation.That general stress from modern living is reflected in many places in the total cost of health care. People in cities have invented "Happy Hour" to combat this sense of modern lack of sensation, but "Happy Hour" revolves around alcohol, which is a huge source of health care cost in and of itself.Why can't "Happy Hour" involve a neuroprotectant antiinflammatory promoter of hunger, thirst and sleep, rather than a substance that disrupts hunger, thirst and sleep, and inflames the body and mind and then inflames the whole social surroundings to boot?Tony Blair, you shouldn't have stopped at the Third Way. There's a Fourth Way too.
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Comment #2 posted by Lehder on January 12, 2002 at 07:26:30 PT
missing link
for quote in comment #1http://pub3.ezboard.com/fendingcannabisprohibitionwhyitstimetolegalize.showMessage?topicID=116.topiccopy it. spread it around.
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Comment #1 posted by Lehder on January 12, 2002 at 07:18:11 PT
Cancer
And opponents of legalization point to adverse health effects for users, such as increased risk of cancer. 
There's another side to this claim:The term medical marijuana took on dramatic new meaning in February when researchers in Madrid announced the had destroyed incurable brain cancer tumors in rats by injecting them with THC, the active ingredient in cannabis. The Madrid study marks only the second time that THC has been administered to tumor-bearing animals; the first was
a Virginia investigation 26 years ago. In both studies, the THC shrank or destroyed tumors in a majority of the test
subjects. Most Americans don't know anything about the Madrid discovery. Virtually no U.S. newspapers carried the story, which ran only once on the AP and UPI news wires, on Feb. 29. The ominous part is that this isn't the first time scientists have discovered that THC shrinks tumors. In 1974
researchers at the Medical College of Virginia, who had been funded by the National Institute of Health to find
evidence that marijuana damages the immune system, found instead that THC slowed the growth of three kinds of
cancer in mice -- lung and breast cancer, and a virus-induced leukemia. Most researchers would say these studies are far from definitive, and I must agree. But none would say that the results shuld be supressed or that they indicate research on the question should be banned, and millions of people would be angered if they knew. Lung cancer, breast cancer, brain cancer, leukemia. How many families have been devastated by these diseases since 1974? If this sort of information were publicized on TV, all those families would become proponents of marijuana law reform - and many of them angry ones, too. We ought to publicize these stories as much as possible. We should copy them and leave them in doctors' offices beside the stacks of old People magazines. If marijuana can shrink or kill tumors, then it likely prevents them from ever forming in healthy people too. Other studies have indicated that marijuana prevents lung cancer in cigarette smokers. Maybe marijuana should be smoked or eaten daily the same as vitamins. People ought to know. They should be able to make their own choice between dying from cigarette tobacco or dying from AIDS or tuberculosis in our prisons. People have a right to know. But as in every other aspect of the drug wars, the government fears the truth. It fears research, science and an informed population. Spread the word. If you know a family that has suffered from cancer, copy some of the articles on this topic and let them know about the government's sneaky genocide for the the sake of political expedience and profits for pharmaceutical companies. Tell it to them straight: Your loved one is dying so that George Bush and Asa Hutchinson and John Walters can collect fat paychecks and lots of graft.http://google.yahoo.com/bin/query?p=cancer+tumor+marijuana+Spain+brain&hc=0&hs=0
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