The U.S. federal government has failed to make public its own 1994 study that undercuts its position that marijuana is carcinogenic - a $2 million study by the National Toxicology Program. The program's deputy director, John Bucher, says the study "found absolutely no evidence of cancer." In fact, animals that received THC had fewer cancers. Bucher denies his agency had been pressured to shelve the report, saying the delay in making it public was due to a personnel shortage.
The Boston Globe reported Thursday (1-30-97) that the study indicates not only that the main ingredient in marijuana, THC, does not cause cancer, but also that it may even protect against malignancies, laboratory tests on animals show.
The report comes on the heels of an editorial in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine that favors the controlled medical use of marijuana, and calls current federal policy "misguided, heavy-handed and inhumane."
The Clinton administration has said that doctors prescribing marijuana could be prosecuted for a federal crime.
Marijuana has been reported to ease the pain, nausea and vomiting in advanced stages of cancer, AIDS and other serious illnesses, but the federal government claims other treatments have been deemed safer than what it calls "a psychoactive, burning carcinogen."
However, The Boston Globe says the government's claim appears to be undercut by its own $2 million study.
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"Having reviewed all the material available to us we find ourselves in agreement with the conclusion reached by the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission appointed by the Government of India (1893-94) and the New York Mayor's Committee (1944 - LaGuardia) that the long-term consumption of cannabis in moderate doses has no harmful effects"
Manistee Doctor Supporting Marijuana Initiative By Kevin Braciszeski
CN Source: Ludington Daily News October 16, 2008 Michigan
The U.S. government’s 1937 Marihuana Tax Act made marijuana possession illegal throughout the country and the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 continued the federal ban.
Many states, however, have recognized that marijuana use can be beneficial for patients with some debilitating diseases and several states passed laws allowing its use for medical reasons. Read More...
Officials Ask Voters To Nix Pot Proposal By Mike Martindale
CN Source: Detroit News October 16, 2008 Southfield, MI
Several law enforcement officials joined U.S. drug czar John Walters on Wednesday and urged Michigan voters to say "no" to Proposal 1, the issue on the November ballot that would permit use of marijuana for medical reasons.
Walters, a Michigan native, said proponents are using photographs of people in wheelchairs to appeal to the public's sympathy. Read More...
U.S. 'Drug Czar' Criticizes Prop 1 in Lansing Walters, the director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, said during a Lansing stop that the passage of Proposal 1 would result in more teens abusing marijuana and the expansion of the drug trade in Michigan.
The proposal "gives people who are addicted a way to say I have a medical problem" and get more of the drug, Walters said.
"Marijuana does not lead to physical dependency, although some evidence indicates that the heavy, long-term users may develop a psychological dependence on the drug"
-- The Shafer Commission of 1970
Walters, a Lansing native, compared Michigan's prospects to what has happened in California since 1996, when the state passed a medical marijuana bill.
As a result, Walters said, numerous "pot shops," places where the drug is easily available, have opened up in places such as San Francisco, and teens have found sympathetic doctors to write prescriptions for them.
Walters said that unlike opiate medications, such as morphine, medical marijuana there is largely unregulated. The potency of the drug can vary widely, and there aren't uniform production standards in place.
"We don't tell people the best we can do for them is make them intoxicated, To say, we need to smoke a weed to make people high because that's the best we can do for them is an abomination." Walters said.
Do you remember the Nixon tape exerpt,from the meeting he had with then Gov. Schaffer . The exerpt is Nixon ranting to Schaffer ,how he will not go against his (Nixon's) drug policy by revealing the results of a Cannabis study headed by Schaffer ,which found cannabis to be of little if any harm to the casual user ?
"You know, it's a funny thing, every one of the bastards that are out for legalizing marijuana is Jewish. What the Christ is the matter with the Jews, Bob?
"You're enough of a pro," Nixon tells Shafer, "to know that for you to come out with something that would run counter to what the Congress feels and what the country feels, and what we're planning to do, would make your commission just look bad as hell."
- Richard Milhouse Nixon
"Marijuana does not lead to physical dependency, although some evidence indicates that the heavy, long-term users may develop a psychological dependence on the drug"
-- The Shafer Commission of 1970
30 Years After Nixon's Marijuana Commission Advocated Decriminalization, Report Findings Are Still Valid, Nixon Never Read His Own Report, President Bush Should
March 22nd marks the 30th anniversary of the release of the report of the so-called "Shafer Commission" -- the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse -- whose members were appointed by then-President Richard Nixon. The Shafer Commission's (named after commission Chair, Gov. Raymond Shafer of Pennsylvania) 1972 report, entitled "Marihuana: A Signal of Misunderstanding," boldly proclaimed that "neither the marihuana user nor the drug itself can be said to constitute a danger to public safety" and recommended Congress and state legislatures decriminalize the use and casual distribution of marijuana for personal use.
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