cannabisnews.com: Court Should Cancel Prescription for Marijuana


cannabisnews.com: Court Should Cancel Prescription for Marijuana





Court Should Cancel Prescription for Marijuana
Posted by FoM on April 02, 2001 at 07:34:10 PT
By Don Feder
Source: WorldNetDaily
If marijuana is medicine, Dr. Kevorkian wrote the prescription. Last week, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in United States of America vs. Oakland Cannabis Buyers Cooperative. At issue is whether the nation's drug laws can be nullified for so-called medical necessity. The court could go further and decide that state laws legalizing pot for medical purposes are unconstitutional because drug policy is an area pre-empted by federal law. 
California is one of eight states whose citizens decided they were competent to make scientific judgments. In 1996, voters passed Proposition 215, allowing anyone to treat himself with a joint for any illness, on a physician's recommendation. The initiative was heavily funded with out-of-state money. (Three individuals alone contributed more than $600,000.) After the question passed, its author told an interviewer that everyone who smokes pot is "self-medicating," thus all marijuana use is medicinal. Calling Dr. Cheech. Calling Dr. Chong. Medical marijuana is the compassion cover for legalization. Ethan Nadelmann, a spokesman for George Soros (a billionaire backer of the California initiative) has stated, "Ultimately our drug policy should be based upon one very simple notion: that people should not be discriminated against based upon the substance they consume." An article in Proceedings of the Association of American Physicians observes, "Most supporters of medical marijuana are hostile to the use of purified chemicals from marijuana, insisting that only smoked marijuana leaves be used as 'medicine,' revealing clearly that their motivation is not scientific medicine but backdoor legalization." There are more than 400 chemicals in raw marijuana; most have never been analyzed. Its potency can vary greatly from batch to batch. Marijuana is a narcotic. According to the Drug Abuse Warning Network, marijuana use accounted for 87,150 emergency-room admissions in 1999, up 455 percent from a decade earlier. Longtime users (who spend an estimated 27 percent of their income on the drug) suffer withdrawal symptoms and usually need some type of therapy to stop. Medical marijuana is a way to persuade the public that pot is benign. It's also great for getting kids hooked. If adults tell them that marijuana helps cancer patients, how bad can it be? "Just say no to medicine" is not an effective slogan. An increase in juvenile pot use has coincided with the medical marijuana campaign. The number of eighth-graders who'd used marijuana at least once went from 10.2 percent in 1991 to 20.3 percent in 2000. Former Health, Education and Welfare Secretary Joseph Califano (with the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse) reports, "12- to 17-year-olds who smoke marijuana are 85 times more likely to use cocaine than those who don't." The drug lobby counters that most causal users never progress to harder drugs. But when an adolescent becomes used to the effects of marijuana, many are prepared, physically and psychologically, to seek a more intense high. Ginger Katz of Norwalk, Conn., understands this all too well. Several years ago, her son called from college. "Crying, he told his father he'd been snorting heroin for four months and couldn't stop," Katz relates. "'Please come and help me,' he said." His family did. There was rehab and out-patient programs. But there were also relapses. Several months later, Ian Katz died of an overdose at age 20. He started smoking pot when he was 13. Today, Ginger is the head of Courage to Speak, composed of individuals who've lost a loved one to drugs. On Wednesday, she held a picture of Ian in a silent vigil outside the Supreme Court building. "People underestimate marijuana. I don't," Katz says. "The condoning of this gives a message to young people that it's OK. You're defeating all of the good anti-drug programs out there." A ruling is expected in June. In their questions, the justices seemed suitably skeptical. Justice Anthony Kennedy disagreed that medical marijuana was a narrow exception to the federal Controlled Substances Act. "That's a huge rewrite of the statute," Kennedy commented. The huge rewrite is also a deadly prescription. Don Feder is a columnist for the Boston Herald and the author of "Who is afraid of the Religious Right?" and "A Jewish Conservative Looks at Pagan America." Source: WorldNetDaily (US Web)Author: Don FederPublished: Monday, April 2, 2001Copyright: 2001, WorldNetDaily.com, Inc.Contact: letters worldnetdaily.comWebsite: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/Related Articles & Web Sites:Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperativehttp://www.rxcbc.org/TLC - DPFhttp://www.lindesmith.org/Cannabis Question Has Its Day in Court http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread9239.shtmlCannabisNews Medical Marijuana Archiveshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/list/medical.shtml 
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Comment #20 posted by sm247 on April 03, 2001 at 05:24:26 PT
No way
Marijuana is a narcotic. According to the Drug Abuse Warning Network, marijuana use accounted for 87,150   emergency-room admissions in 1999, up 455 percent from a decade earlierWhat kind of moron would go to the hospital because they were high ???Maybe it was for the food.... cute nurses... ?? Really I can believe there are that many idiots in amerika
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Comment #19 posted by Dankhank on April 02, 2001 at 17:27:07 PT:
To the point ...
I value the detailed refutations that I read here, but sometimes just have to get to the point. text of my email to the worlddaily.Stupid EvilNo other way to describe your rant/cant in any other way ...MORPHINE is valuable to Cancer patients. Does that explain illegal morphine use? ... It is good enough for a terminal person so must be good enough for me? I never have done morphine even though I know that it is useful for intractable pain .. How stupid can you get???
HEMP n STUFF
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Comment #18 posted by FoM on April 02, 2001 at 17:23:55 PT
ras
I'm not sure what you mean. I believe there is a size limit on posts but I haven't tried to post anything very big. If that is the problem try splitting it into two parts. Observer does that. If that isn't the problem try to explain it to me a little better and I'll try to figure what is wrong.
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Comment #17 posted by ras james rsifwh on April 02, 2001 at 16:25:32 PT
to Fo Mo
I went to a different library and therfore different internet computers. Sorry all my messages had been posted; but not one showed up on the other computers????
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Comment #16 posted by silenced on April 02, 2001 at 16:09:17 PT
cannot post my messages
Ras James
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Comment #15 posted by Adam Celine on April 02, 2001 at 16:09:08 PT:
my letter to worldnetdaily
For what it's worth, this is the text of my letter to worldnetdaily.com. Hopefully they will run it, or at least other opposing views. Thanks and apologies to the posters here (especially observer) from whom i stole a few lines.Mark Twain once wrote that there are three kinds of untruths; lies, damned lies, and statistics. Don Feder’s column on April 2 contains all three."If marijuana is medicine, Dr. Kevorkian wrote the prescription. "   This sets the tone for Feder’s entire article. He attempts to ridicule the concept of medical marijuana use as something only “Dr. Death” could approve of. We can therefore ignore the opinions of Dr. Andrew Weil, Dr. Thomas Szaz, Dr. Milton Freidman, Dr. Alfred Lindesmith, Dr. Lester Grinspoon, Dr. John Morgan, and the scores of other vocal proponents of medical cannabis. They’re probably all just potheads anyway, right Don?"California is one of eight states whose citizens decided they were competent to make scientific judgments. "   Of course, patients and their physicians cannot be trusted to make sound decisions about the best treatment options. That is the role of Congress."After the question passed, its author told an interviewer that everyone who smokes pot is "self-medicating," thus all marijuana use is medicinal. "   An interesting opinion, but Prop. 215 requires a doctors prescription, it’s not for “everyone who smokes pot”. As with the Ethan Nadelman quote, Feder would rather attack the opinions of Prop. 215’s supporters rather than what the law actually says."Medical marijuana is the compassion cover for legalization. "   Of course Feder would like to equate medical use with “legalization”. It’s a lot easier to argue against legalization than it is to admit your solution involves jailing sick and dying people. In fact, prison is one thing Feder never once mentions. And that is what this issue really comes down to. Regardless of what the Supreme Court decides, sick people who see it as a choice between death and using a forbidden medicine will continue to break the law. Should we continue imprisoning them, with all that accompanies incarceration – prison rape and abuse, the inability to get their prescribed meds in a timely manner, overcrowded conditions in what even former Drug Fuhrer Barry McCaffrey called “the American gulag”? Is this really how we want our tax dollars spent, how we want to treat sick people? If it is, we should at least be honest about it instead of trying to divert the issue to an argument against “legalization”."Most supporters of medical marijuana are hostile to the use of purified chemicals from marijuana, insisting that only smoked marijuana leaves be used as 'medicine,'"   What this refers to is the contention that pills like Marinol are not as effective as smoked cannabis. The problem these patients have is an inability to keep down the medications they swallow. Giving them an expensive pill (at 20 milligrams per day a months supply of Marinol costs about $600) that they must keep down long enough to digest, by which time ninety percent of the THC has been metabolized by the liver without reaching sites of activity in the body, is not an effective or logical solution. One study showed that two hours after taking Marinol, 84% had no measurable THC in their bloodstream. After five hours, 54% still had no measurable THC. (Mattes, RD, et.al.; “Bypassing the First Pass Effect for the Therapeutic Effects of Cannabinoids” ; Pharmacology, Biochemistry and Behavior, 44: 745-47). By contrast, 2-5 milligrams of smoked cannabis produces therapeutic levels within minutes. But then again, my motives cannot possibly be scientific or compassionate, right?," marijuana use accounted for 87,150 emergency-room admissions in 1999, up 455 percent from a decade earlier."   The number of emergency room patients who admit smoking marijuana has increased. On this basis the visit is recorded as “marijuana related” regardless of whether or not marijuana had anything to do with the patients condition. Despite being the most frequently used illicit drug, marijuana is mentioned less often by patients than any other drug besides LSD and PCP. In Feder’s world an admission of use, or a positive test becomes “accounted for” which implies causation. But correlation does not prove causality, though I guess one shouldn’t expect prohibitionists to know that."Medical marijuana is a way to persuade the public that pot is benign. It's also great for getting kids hooked. "The implication is that those of us who want cannabis to be available to the sick and dying (and every survey to date puts medical marijuana supporters at 60-75% of the populace) are really intent on getting kids “hooked” on drugs. Simply demonize your opponents, it’s a lot easier than arguing against their actual position."An increase in juvenile pot use has coincided with the medical marijuana campaign. The number of eighth-graders who'd used marijuana at least once went from 10.2 percent in 1991 to 20.3 percent in 2000. "   Since Prop. 215 wasn’t passed until 1996, and the government has recently assured us that adolescent marijuana use is decreasing, I’m not sure what Feder’s data is supposed to prove., "12- to 17-year-olds who smoke marijuana are 85 times more likely to use cocaine than those who don't." …But when an adolescent becomes used to the effects of marijuana, many are prepared, physically and psychologically, to seek a more intense high."   This is a rehash of the Gateway Theory, which has been discredited consistently, by the LaGuardia Committee Report , the British Wootton Report, Canada’s Le Dain Commission report, and the recent findings of the Institute of Medicine in the US to name but a few. Still, prohibitionists know that if you repeat a lie often enough people start to believe it.Finally Feder leaves us with a truly tragic story. But note that the unfortunate death was not really related to marijuana, it was a heroin overdose. This is because there has never been a single reported case of death by cannabis overdose. By contrast, there is the story of author Peter McWilliams who, because he was forbidden the only medicine which allowed him to keep down the many pills he took to survive AIDS and cancer, choked to death on his own vomit. How many lesser known patients have died, or will die in the future, because allowing them the medicine that would save their lives would “send the wrong message to children”? And what message are we sending them by imprisoning the sick and dying? The message that human life is less valuable than political expediency.
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Comment #14 posted by ras james rsifwh on April 02, 2001 at 16:08:01 PT
Religious use of marijuana is legal
Fo Mo is there a screen...my full message will not post.
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Comment #13 posted by ras james rsifwh on April 02, 2001 at 16:03:04 PT
RELIGIOUS USE OF MARIJUANA IS LEGAL
"Congress shall make no laws restricting..."Rastafarians, Hindu Sadhus, and Solomonic Jews have a legal and constitutional right to use Cannabis Sativa for spiritual reasons.Wise King Solomon, according to the Ethiopian Coptic Church, was the first coming of Christ. Solomon burned Cannabis Sativa on the hill tops in honor of the Queen of Heaven. Remember the Ethiopian Coptic Church is older than the Roman Catholic Church...this overstanding is called the "breaking of the Seventh Seal"...aka the Seal of Cannabis or the Seal of Queen Omega...Later unwise Jewish Kings banned the use Cannabis Sativa and the belief in God the Mother.
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Comment #12 posted by RAS JAMES RSIFWH on April 02, 2001 at 15:45:48 PT
RELIGIOUS USE OF MARIJUANA IS ALWAYS LEGAL
Rastafarians and Hindu Sadhus have the legal and constitutional right to use cannabis sativa...for "congress shall make no laws restricting..."For Rastas, this is the Age of Zion...when Jah Rastafari has established the Almighty's Reign here on Earth.The Sign being when Cannabis Sativa, the Tree of Life, bears fruits (achenes=one-seed-fruits)on both sides of the streets each month of the year. This has now happened in all American Cities since Cannabis Sativa has and is being grown in small growrooms by thousanads and thousands of citizens.Yes! Revelation 22: 1&2 has manifested in reality. The crystal-clear waters are flowing down the middle of American streets in bottled spring waters carried by thousands and thousands of automobile drivers.Yes! Revelation 22: 1&2 is manifesting as scientists around the world are learning Cannabis Leaves are great medicine.The Seventh Seal has been opened...the Seal of Cannabis...it is the time when Queen Omega returns and gives birth to Zion...giving women full spiritual equality. The right to be popes, priests, rabbis, and fakirs. It was Solomon, the wise Jewish king, who burned Cannabis in honor of the Queen of Heaven. King Solomon was, according to the Ethiopian Coptic Church, the first coming of Christ. Remember the Ethiopian Coptic Church is older than the Roman Catholic Church.By the way, Solomonic Jews have the legal and constitutional right to go to the hill tops and burn Cannabis in their tents in honor of the Queen of Heaven...Yes! "Give me that old time Religion."Hindu Sadus have the legal and constitutional right to smoke cannabis sativa bcause for four thousand years God the Father has given marijuana to mankind...as a special present. Those people who oppose Religious use of Cannabis Sativa are not true Americans. They do not believe in our most precious right...religious freedom.
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Comment #11 posted by snoopy on April 02, 2001 at 15:17:52 PT:
HEY
 what the hell is this guy talkin bout, im right now doing a research paper on marijuana, the pros and cons of its legalization and how it can be used as a medicine, my mother died of cancer, i remember how she was after chemo,she was outta it and in pain all the time. i got her some a couple of times and it eased her pain. think of all those needlesly suffering and how much good that this wonderful drug can do...im all for it. this guys outta it, his statistics...what the hell, i havnt in my research found anything like this, this guy needs to get a clue.all for madicinal marijuana use in massmike 
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Comment #10 posted by CannabisMythsExposed on April 02, 2001 at 13:17:25 PT:
Ironic isn't it?
I find it ironic that a Jewish person could sound so much like the Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebels.Feder is a dangerous, evil, corrupt little man. A war criminal no less.
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Comment #9 posted by Rambler on April 02, 2001 at 12:56:22 PT
Oy vey!
My favorite part of this type of sleazy articles,is the bogus"statistics".One will say;"drug use is down amongst ninth gradersby 33 percent",to prove that anti drug campaigns are working.And then this idiot says;" The number of eighth-graders who'd used marijuana at least once went from 10.2 percent in 1991 to 20.3 percent in 2000."...It is this sort of shameless manipulation of"statistics",that is keeping the antis alive. 
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Comment #8 posted by cajun01 on April 02, 2001 at 11:27:08 PT
What an idiot.
Who is this puppet of government slander? What a jerk.
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Comment #7 posted by craven on April 02, 2001 at 09:51:10 PT
Thats funny...
Read any pro-WOsD article and they state the WOsD is working because juvenile marijuana use is down... now when it comes to trying to make medical use look evil, they spout stats like "An increase in juvenile pot use has coincided with the medical marijuana campaign. The number of eighth-graders who'd used marijuana at least once went from 10.2 percent in 1991 to 20.3 percent in 2000."
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Comment #6 posted by Ethan Russo, MD on April 02, 2001 at 08:35:15 PT:
Feder vs. Jewish Law
The Judaism I studied clearly agrees with Greenberg's interpretation of law and tradition, and would be impossible to reconcile with the vitriol and hate of Feder.As to Ethan Nadelmann, he is the son and grandson of Orthodox rabbis. Do you think for a moment that he is not aware of Jewish teachings? From my experience of all of his writings and speeches, I can tell you that his stance is an extremely moral one, that is quite consistent with Jewish teachings.Although this an area of controversy, it seems very likely that the kaneh bosem of the Bible, used as an ingredient for the ritual incense and annointing oil was cannabis. "Modern" translation call it calamus, but there is no evidence that it grew in that area in those times. Here is an excerpt from one of my pieces:   Longstanding debate has occurred as to the veracity of Cannabis use in the Bible. In 1903, one author surmised it had a role in Samson’s strength and the madness of Saul, but his theories were all based on indirect evidence and hypothesis [Creighton, 1903 #1251], and were not accepted with credence by most. However, subsequently Benetowa [Benetowa, 1936 #1183] proposed a similar theory on a stronger philological basis. Her theories were little noticed, due to the fact that her treatise was published in Polish with a summary in French. Her theories were re-presented a few decades later [Benet, 1975 #1182]. [The reader should note that standard Hebrew calligraphy uses no expressed vowels, and pronunciation is known or assumed from the context]:Both in the original Hebrew text of the Old Testament and in the Aramaic translation, the word kaneh or keneh is used either alone or linked to the adjective bosm in Hebrew and busma in Aramaic, meaning aromatic. It is cana in Sanskrit, qunnabu in Assyrian, kenab in Persian, kannab in Arabic and kanbun in Chaldean. In Exodus 30:23, God directs Moses to make a holy oil composed of “myrrh, sweet cinnamon, kaneh bosm and kassia.” In many ancient languages, including Hebrew, the root kan has a double meaning – both hemp and reed.Benet, S. 1975. Early Diffusion and Folk Uses of Hemp. In: V. Rubin(Ed.) Cannabis and Culture. The Hague, Paris: Mouton Publishers.Benetowa, S., 1936. Konopie W Wierzeniach I Zwyczajach Ludowych: Le Chanvre dans les Croyances et les Coûtumes Populaires, Warsaw, Nakladem Towarzystwa Naukowego Warszawskiego.Creighton, C., On indications of the hachish-vice in the Old Testament. Janus 8 (1903) 241-246,297-303.Ultimately, cannabis may be among the most Jewish of herbs!
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Comment #5 posted by Dan B on April 02, 2001 at 08:29:18 PT:
Bravo, Observer!
Three outstanding posts, my friend. I appreciate the time and effort you took to post these well-researched, factual responses to an utterly insipid article. Excellent replies--I can't think of anything at all to add.Dan BP.S.--I like your subject headings, too.
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Comment #4 posted by observer on April 02, 2001 at 08:12:09 PT
Bottom Feder 1/3
 Court should cancel prescription for medical marijuana("Don Feder is a columnist for the Boston Herald and the author of 'Who is afraid of the Religious Right?' and 'A Jewish Conservative Looks at Pagan America.'") see Medical Marijuana (Richard Greenberg, Jewish Law, 2001)http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n343/a05.htmlIf marijuana is medicine, Dr. Kevorkian wrote the prescription. Notice the immediate resort to ridicule (ridicule technique, FM 33-1 http://www.mcad.edu/classrooms/POLITPROP/palace/library/proptech.html ). The implication here is that only a "Dr Death" could write a "prescription" for medical cannabis. Last week, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in United States of America vs. Oakland Cannabis Buyers Cooperative. At issue is whether the nation's drug laws can be nullified for so-called medical necessity. Is that really the issue? Note also the loaded language of this so-called journalist. The court could go further and decide that state laws legalizing pot for medical purposes are unconstitutional because drug policy is an area pre-empted by federal law. Playing again upon the well-tainted "legalizing" concept. (Note absolutely no mention of jail or prison in Feder's piece.) Whipping up opposition to the "legalizing" bugaboo again. And Feder is also incorrecton the matter before the court here. California is one of eight states whose citizens decided they were competent to make scientific judgments. Note the sneering contempt of the voter's repeatedly expressed will. We're talking about freeing people (not many) from jail who's only "crime" was using or distributing a plant. A plant that all Americans were free to use as medicine or food or as matrass stuffing or whatever, until 1937. Why do adults Americans deserve to have that freedom stolen from them? Why do they deserve jail for using a plant that queen Victoria used? (Let me guess: taking cannabis is wicked now because the FDA/prescription law exists?) In 1996, voters passed Proposition 215, allowing anyone to treat himself with a joint for any illness, on a physician's recommendation. Note the slang term "joint" (mild ridicule), but more importantly the insinuation that people who take cannabis medicinally must smoke it. Though this is a fundamental right, I believe, (to ingest it by smoking, that is), whole cannabis is frequently consumed in foods.http://www.google.com/search?q=cannabis+recipies The initiative was heavily funded with out-of-state money. (Three individuals alone contributed more than $600,000.) Shades of The Czar's Little Red Book. . . . McCAFFREY: . . .we had this bizarre situation where there was a lot of money, millions of dollars, pushing a referendum from out-of-state individuals, and not many of them. I think it was essentially six people who bankrolled the whole thing. ROSENTHAL: And who were they?McCAFFREY: It's George Soros. It's a guy named [Sperling], there's - Rockefeller was one of them. Harper's Magazine, Nov 2000http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1595/a11.html Prohibitionist propagandists all seem to work from the same sheet of music, don't they?seeNational Families in Action A Guide to the Drug-Legalization Movement http://www.nationalfamilies.org/legalization/ After the question passed, its author told an interviewer that everyone who smokes pot is "self-medicating," thus all marijuana use is medicinal. Interesting opinion. The law the voters voted on says that a licensed physician must write a note. Prop 215 is very different from "everyone who smokes pot" as Feder claims. Calling Dr. Cheech. Calling Dr. Chong. While voters in a half dozen states have voted to legalize medical marijuana, McCaffrey has mocked the initiatives as "Cheech and Chong medicine."seeCheech and Chong Medicinehttp://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v99/n389/a04.html Medical marijuana is the compassion cover for legalization. Again, note the playing on the well-established negative conotations of "legalization." This is so that the propagandist may avoid having to deal with the fact that his laws are arresting and incarcerating (i.e. JAILING) millions of people who's sole "crime" was taking cannabis, a plant that all Americans were once free to use. Feder is mum on jail in this piece. He'd rather do battle against the bogeyman of "legalization", than to talk of the jail and attendant prison rapes etc. that Feder and his ilk have planed for your daughters and sons. Is your son (not Feder's son, but yours) smoking a little pot? Throw him in a cell with a friendly 300 lb murderer: after your son (not Feder's son) has his a****** stretched by his 'mate then your sons and daughters will think twice before defying The State, they'll not date to mess with The Government of which Feder is so worshipful.(for more on the prison rape Feder has planned for your daughters and sons, see: http://www.spr.org ) Ethan Nadelmann, a spokesman for George Soros (a billionaire backer of the California initiative) has stated, "Ultimately our drug policy should be based upon one very simple notion: that people should not be discriminated against based upon the substance they consume." Again, note that Feder would rather deal with the philosophical positions of Prop 215's many many backers, rather than the law (prop 215) itself. And of course, Feder's extended ad hominem/guilt-by-association argument here is devoid of mention of jail: jail being what the patients who plead Prop 215 in front of a jury are trying to avoid. But Feder never mentions prison.
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Comment #3 posted by observer on April 02, 2001 at 08:11:33 PT
Bottom Feder 2/3
 An article in Proceedings of the Association of American Physicians observes, "Most supporters of medical marijuana are hostile to the use of purified chemicals from marijuana, insisting that only smoked marijuana leaves be used as 'medicine,' This is false on the face of it: no one insists that "only smoked marijuana" may be used in medicine. Many people want that option (of smoking) without the threat of jail, however: this a is very different proposition than what Feder claims....revealing clearly that their motivation is not scientific medicine but backdoor legalization." Attacking motivations like this is the ad hominem fallacy in pure form.Again, playing on the "legalization" bogeyman, no mention of "jail" or the impacts of incarceration on health. Methinks that the politicos in the AAP are less interested in health than in toadying to perceived political correctness. The issue is keeping people (who take cannabis medicinally) out of jail, it is not one of the relative effective of meds. Nor is it one of the opinions of every supporter of prop 215.In California, Prop 215 has the backing of doctors.seeMedical Community United In Support Of Medical Marijuana Reform (Oct 1998)http://www.marijuananews.com/medical_community_united_in_supp.htm There are more than 400 chemicals in raw marijuana; most have never been analyzed. Its potency can vary greatly from batch to batch. Oh that's so scary! But wait ... isn't it true that a cucumber or a tomato has "400 chemicals" where "most have never been analyzed?" Isn't it also true that the quality and food value of tomatoes "can vary greatly from batch to batch?"Was any of that a cogent argument for the incarceration of adults for taking cannabis? Marijuana is a narcotic. In a narrow, legalistic dictionary definition ... "1.b. a drug (as marijuana or LSD) subject to restriction similar to that of addictive narcotics whether physiologically addictive and narcotic or not."As a reason for retaining punative restrictions (i.e. JAIL) for marijuana users, it is entirely circular.This type of denuciation is useful to the propagandist to taint cannabis with pejorative associations, granted. According to the Drug Abuse Warning Network, marijuana use accounted for 87,150 emergency-room admissions in 1999, up 455 percent from a decade earlier. Longtime users (who spend an estimated 27 percent of their income on the drug) suffer withdrawal symptoms and usually need some type of therapy to stop. Note how that Feder changes a mention of marijuana or a positive test for it into "accounted for", which falsely implies causation. Given that a significant number of people use cannabis, it would be indeed surprising and miraculous if accident victims never tested positive for cannabis!see   UK: Cannabis May Make You A Safer Driver (2000)    http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1161/a02.html    University Of Toronto Study Shows Marijuana Not A Factor In Driving Accidents (1999)   http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases\1999\03\990325110700.htm    Australia: Study Goes to Pot (1998)    http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98/n947/a06.html    Australia: Cannabis Crash Risk Less: Study (1998)    http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98/n945/a08.html Medical marijuana is a way to persuade the public that pot is benign. It's also great for getting kids hooked. If adults tell them that marijuana helps cancer patients, how bad can it be? "Just say no to medicine" is not an effective slogan. Feder's implication here is that all who are struggling to change the law in the direction of repealing prohibition, in the direction of restoring freedoms that all Amercians once shared -- the implication is that these people are attempting to seduce children, attempting to "get kids hooked" on drugs. (see http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/History/ticp.html theme#8) False of course, but a great way to try to scare parents into (unwittingly) tossing their own kids into jail. And pay for the jails with their own tax money. Must be a great $ystem, for prohibitionists and their camp followers, that is. An increase in juvenile pot use has coincided with the medical marijuana campaign. The number of eighth-graders who'd used marijuana at least once went from 10.2 percent in 1991 to 20.3 percent in 2000. Fast and loose with the numbers here, eh, Feder? What's this, 1991? 1991? The medical marijuana laws were passed in California in 1996. Since then, no increase in California youth cannabis use. I think Feder knows this, given his rather facile application of "How to Lie with Statistics." Former Health, Education and Welfare Secretary Joseph Califano (with the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse) Sanctioned frauds like Heath, Nahas, Kleber and Califano, engineers of today's disaster, are given far more political credence than the likes of Dr. Lester Grinspoon, Dr. Solomon Snyder, Dr. Marie Nyswander, Dr. Vincent Dole, Dr. John Morgan, Dr. Alfred Lindesmith, Dr. Richard Evans Schultes, Dr. Michael Harner, Dr. Peter Furst, Dr. Andrew Weil, Dr. Michael Taussig, Dr. Timothy Plowman, Dr. Anthony Richard Henman, Dr. Marija Gimbutas, Dr. Thomas Szasz, Dr. Arnold Trebach, Dr. Charles Snyder, Dr. Jerome Miller and Dr. Milton Friedman.Joe Califano's Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia stokes this reefer madness with a steady stream of fake science. CASA is supported by the Carnegie Corporation, the Ford Foundation, the Kaiser Family Fund, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Commonwealth Fund, the superstar professional alcoholic Betty Ford and a host of national and international power brokers and agencies.Dan Russell, Drug War, 2000http://www.drugwar.com/fakescience.htm 
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Comment #2 posted by observer on April 02, 2001 at 08:10:41 PT
Bottom Feder 3/3
 reports, "12- to 17-year-olds who smoke marijuana are 85 times more likely to use cocaine than those who don't." Myth: Marijuana leads to harder drugshttp://paranoia.lycaeum.org/marijuana/facts/mj-health-mythology.html#myth18 The drug lobby counters that most causal users never progress to harder drugs. But when an adolescent becomes used to the effects of marijuana, many are prepared, physically and psychologically, to seek a more intense high. Feder simply repeats the gateway myth here, restating it using slightly more scientific sounding jargon ("physically and psychologically", etc.). Repeating the myth will not make it any more true. (Though, it is true that Goebbels said, "Truth is a lie that is repeated a thousand times.")Even repeating lurid tales won't make the gateway myth any more true, than it was before . . . Ginger Katz of Norwalk, Conn., understands this all too well. Several years ago, her son called from college. "Crying, he told his father he'd been snorting heroin for four months and couldn't stop," Katz relates. "'Please come and help me,' he said." His family did. There was rehab and out-patient programs. But there were also relapses. Several months later, Ian Katz died of an overdose at age 20. He started smoking pot when he was 13. Those are tragic tales, to be sure. But they don't prove that cannabis "leads to" heroin addiction any more than previously. Pure propaganda on Feder's part. The Concept of "Controlled" Usage is Destroyed and Replaced by a "Domino [aka Stepping-Stone/Gateway] Theory" of Chemical ProgressionThe history of prohibitionist pronouncements is replete with examples which propose a "domino [gateway] theory" of chemical usage. Such a theory holds that the use of a particular drug (usually the one presently targeted for prohibition) inevitably and with rare exception leads-to the use of other drugs (usually drugs already prohibited or drugs already defined as evil). . .The destruction of the concept of controlled drug usage implies that everyone who ever uses heroin will be a "dope fiend," everyone who drinks will be an alcoholic, etc. In general this strategy equates the use and abuse of drugs and implies that it is impossible to use the particular drug or drugs in question without physical, mental, and moral deterioration. Such a view holds that there are powers within the drug over which no one can exert control. The extreme absurdity of such a view seems apparent when one considers the vast majority of persons who use alcohol in this country with minimal or no dysfunctional consequences and the numbers of users of illicit drugs who do not suffer physical deterioration, who do not progress to compulsive drug usage, who do continue to work, raise children, and maintain the usually expected social responsibilities. . . . The continued belief in this domino theory of chemical progression and its implications for current policies is perhaps well illustrated by a 1974 survey in which 39 percent of non-marihuana users in the sample cited "marijuana use leads to harder drugs" as the primary reason for their opposition to legalization of marihuana.Themes in Chemical ProhibitionNational Institute on Drug Abuse, 1979http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/History/ticp.html Today, Ginger is the head of Courage to Speak, composed of individuals who've lost a loved one to drugs. On Wednesday, she held a picture of Ian in a silent vigil outside the Supreme Court building. "Silent vigil", eh? Richard Cowan's 420 News featured an interview with Allan St Peirre describing the harrassment and nasty verbal abuse these "concerned" citizens meted out to the medical cannabis supporters present then. Feder omits this, of course. "Silent vigil," my foot. "People underestimate marijuana. I don't," Katz says. "The condoning of this gives a message to young people that it's OK. You're defeating all of the good anti-drug programs out there." "All" of them? Defeating "all of the good anti-drug programs" by simply allowing a medical cannabis buyer's co-op for prop 215 patients? Why can't the same thing be said of Tylenol-4 ... allowing the codiene in it must be "defeating all of the good anti-drug programs out there." And Ridalin prescriptions must do the same for "all of the good anti-drug programs", too, what, with sending out the wrong "message" like that. A ruling is expected in June. In their questions, the justices seemed suitably skeptical. Justice Anthony Kennedy disagreed that medical marijuana was a narrow exception to the federal Controlled Substances Act. "That's a huge rewrite of the statute," Kennedy commented. . . . before he was answered by the lawyers which Feder omits, of course. The huge rewrite is also a deadly prescription. "Deadly"? Not locking up cancer patients for getting some relief from cannabis is "a deadly prescription"? I think feder has the effects of jail confused with the effects of cannabis. Jail (which Feder just happens not to mention) is deadly. Ask Donald Scott, Mario Paz, Esequiel Hernandez and others how deadly cannabis prohibiton is. Cannabis never killed anyone. ROSENTHAL: And what we've got to do, I mean, not we, but all of us, is convince people of the connection between the California initiative, which they still see as a pot initiative, and the 100,000 dead.McCAFFREY: Yeah, that's right.ROSENTHAL: That's what we have to do. Harper's Magazine, Nov 2000http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1595/a11.html also see (1940's) poster about cannabis:"THE DEATH DRUG!"http://www.datacomm.ch/~virus/dbc/vdanslij.htm#TOP
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Comment #1 posted by Ethan Russo, MD on April 02, 2001 at 08:07:28 PT:
Recycled Garbage is Still Garbage
Do you notice the same tired quotations, and the same tired "studies" are continually quoted in these rants? Every supportive point cited in this opinion is false or exaggerated info. The public has been force-fed this material for more than a generation, and it is time to purge. The collective nausea of the American people is now overwhelming. One, two, three: regurgitate! You probably feel like it unless, of course, you're already medicated.
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