DdC

The Politics of Pot
A Register-Guard Editorial May 01, 2006 Oregon*
The FDA should change its name to the Politically Approved Food and Drug Administration - PAFDA. It's a longer acronym, but it rolls off the tongue nicely and people would appreciate its greater honesty. The agency's other option is to stop embarrassing its dedicated doctors and scientists with utterly unscientific announcements such as the recent bulletin that smoked marijuana has no medicinal value. Continued... cannabisnews.com/news/thread21800

Professor Lester Grinspoon, Harvard Medical School, USA
"Marijuana is one of the least toxic substances in the whole pharmacopoeia"

President Abraham Lincoln (December 1840)
"Prohibition... goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control mans' appetite through legislation and makes a crime out of things that are not even crimes... A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our Government was founded"

Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1894
"The commission has come to the conclusion that the moderate use of hemp
drugs is practically attended by no evil results at all. ... ...moderate use
of hemp... appears to cause no appreciable physical injury of any kind,...
no injurious effects on the mind... [and] no moral injury whatever."

Albert Eistein: My First Impression of the U.S.A., 1921
"The prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by the prohibition law. For nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced. It is an open secret that the dangerous increase of crime in this country is closely connected with this."

Panama Canal Zone Report, 1925
"There is no evidence... that any deleterious influence on the individual using [cannabis]"

PREJUDICE: MARIJUANA AND JIM CROW LAWS
The Racist Ganjawar



LaGuardia Commission Report, 1944
"Cannabis smoking] does not lead directly to mental or physical deterioration... Those who have consumed marijuana for a period of years showed no mental or physical deterioration which may be attributed to the drug."

The LaGardia sub-committee of New York 1944
"The use of marijuana does not lead to morphine or heroin or cocaine addiction and no effort is made to create a market for these narcotics by stimulating the practice of marijuana smoking"

"Marijuana is not the determining factor in the commission of major crime....The publicity concerning the catastrophic effect of marijuana smoking in New York City, is unfounded"



Dr J. H. Jaffe, The Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics. L.Goodman and A
Gillman, 3rd edn. 1965
"There are no long lasting ill-effects from the acute use of marijuana and no fatalities have ever been recorded ... there seems to be growing agreement within the medical community, at least, that marijuana does not directly cause criminal behaviour, juvenile delinquency, sexual excitement, or addiction."

1968 UK ROYAL COMMISSION, THE WOOTTON REPORT
"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" "the long-asserted dangers of cannabis are exaggerated and that the related law is socially damaging, if not unworkable"

Marijuana: the law vs. 12 million people
Life magazine Oct 31, 1969. 25-35

DdC

Jamaican Study 1970
"This study indicates that there is little correlation between the use of ganga and crime, except insofar as the possession and cultivation of ganga are technically crimes"

The Shafer Commission of 1970
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"

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.

Nixon Commission Report Advising Decriminalization of Marijuana
Celebrates 30th Anniversary



US Jamaican Study 1974
"... as a multipurpose plant, ganga is used medicinally, even by non-smokers. ....

There were no indications of organic brain damage or chromosome damage among smokers and no significant clinical psychiatric, psychological or medical) differences between smokers and controls."

"No impairment of physiological, sensory and perceptual performance, tests of concept formation, abstracting ability, and cognitive style, and tests of memory"

"[Cannabis smoking] does not lead directly to mental or physical deterioration...

Those who have consumed marijuana for a period of years showed no mental or physical deterioration which may be attributed to the drug."

Cannabis Shrinks Tumors: Government Knew in 74
The DEA quickly shut down the Virginia study and all further cannabis/tumor research, according to Jack Herer, who reports on the events in his book, The Emperor Wears No Clothes.* In 1976, President Gerald Ford put an end to all public cannabis research and granted exclusive research rights to major pharmaceutical companies, who set out -- unsuccessfully -- to develop synthetic forms of THC that would deliver all the medical benefits without the "high."

Jamaican Studies (1968-74, 1975)
"Definite Benefits For Marijuana Smokers"

President Jimmy Carter 1976
"Penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself"

U.S. GOVT. COVERS UP MARIJUANA CANCER CURE!

U.S. Representative Dan Quayle, March 1977
"Congress should definitely consider decriminalizing possession of marijuana... We should concentrate on prosecuting the rapists and burglars who are a menace to society."

The Coptic Study (1981)
"No Harm to Human Brain or Intelligence"

The USA Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy 1987
"Cannabis can be used on an episodic but continual basis without evidence of social or psychic dysfunction. In many users the term dependence with its obvious connotations, probably is mis-applied... The chief opposition to the drug rests on a moral and political, and not toxicologic, foundation".

The Economist March 28th 1992
"Medicines often produce side effects. Sometimes they are physically unpleasant. Cannabis too has discomforting side effects, but these are not physical they are political"

U.S. Department of Transportation, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
(DOT HS 808 078), Final Report, November 1993
"THC's adverse effects on driving performance appear relatively small"

"Marijuana: Facts for Teens." U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Washington, D.C. 1995, p.10.
"Most marijuana users do not go on to use other drugs."

Professor Olaf Drummer, a forensic scientist the Royal College of Surgeons in Melbourne in 1996
":Compared to alcohol, which makers people take more risks on the road, marijuana made drivers slow down and drive more carefully.... Cannabis is good for driving skills, as people tend to overcompensate for a perceived impairment."



At the 10th International Conference on Drug Policy, 1996, USA John P Morgan MD, Professor of Pharmacology, City University of New York Medical School, said of Marinol, the synthetic THC marketed in the States, "In a recent study, the scientists gave patients 20 mg of Marinol by mouth to see if it increased their appetite. Not only could they not detect much appetite-increasing effect, but they learned the interesting fact that, in one-third of people who take Marinol by mouth, you have no blood levels at all. The drug is so poorly bio-available it's surprising that it got onto the market. There may well be some reason to believe that there are individuals in our government who are interested in getting Marinol on the market to diminish the pressure for marijuana smokers."

Proven : Cannabis is a safe medicine by Ian Williams Goddard
BOSTON, Jan. 30, 1997 (UPI) -
CANNABIS DOES NOT CAUSE CANCER
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.

The Kaiser Permanente study
"Marijuana Use and Mortality" April 1997 American Journal of Public Health".
"Relatively few adverse clinical effects from the chronic use of marijuana have been documented in humans. However, the criminalization of marijuana use may itself be a health hazard, since it may expose the users to violence and criminal activity."

Testimony of Professor Lester Grinspoon, M.D.
Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, before the Crime Subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee, U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, D.C., October 1, 1997:
"Cannabis is remarkably safe. Although not harmless, it is surely less toxic than most of the conventional medicines it could replace if it were legally available. Despite its use by millions of people over thousands of years, cannabis has never caused an overdose death."

What the WHO doesn't want you to know about cannabis
Marijuana Special Report (New Scientist, 21. Februar 1998)
Health officials in Geneva have suppressed the publication of a politically sensitive analysis that confirms what ageing hippies have known for decades: cannabis is safer than alcohol or tobacco.

The Lancet, vol 352, number 9140, November 14 1998
"We.. say that on the medical evidence available, moderate indulgence in cannabis has little ill-effect on health, and that decisions to ban or legalise cannabis should be based on other considerations."

F.D.A. Dismisses Medical Benefit From Marijuana
The Food and Drug Administration declared Thursday that "no sound scientific studies" supported the medical use of marijuana, contradicting a 1999 review by top government scientists. Susan Bro, an agency spokeswoman, said Thursday's statement resulted from a combined review by federal drug enforcement, regulatory and research agencies that concluded "smoked marijuana has no currently accepted or proven medical use in the United States and is not an approved medical treatment."

IOM Report
CannabisNews Medical Marijuana Archives

Drugwar Lies Linked to Schizophrenia
PDFA - Slickly Packaged Lies.