tagged w/ medicinal marijuana
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Excellent work from the MPP
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Dear NORML Members and Supporters,
Sure, tens of millions of Americans will be hunkering down in front of their television sets with friends and family tomorrow to ostensibly watch the Super Bowl between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Arizona Cardinals, but as we all know the day of the Super Bowl is America’s showcase for the most expensive and often creative commercial television advertisements of the year.
That’s all fine and dandy, but how much cooler is NORML’s first ever SuperBOWL Pro-Marijuana Law Reform Ad Contest? Heh?!
$10,000 in cash prizes and NORML swag is up for grabs for the most creative pro-marijuana law reform ad—and YOU and your friends are the judges to determine this year’s winners.
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Lots of well done videos were entered, which one would YOU like to see aired on national television?
Voting online for the winners will last one week and end at midnight (PST), Sunday, February 7, 2009.
I encourage all of you to help spread these videos by posting them everywhere you can! Also, go to the YouTube page and vote it up if you like it!!Dear NORML Members and Supporters,
Sure, tens of millions of Americans will be... more
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There are plans for a Million Marijuana March on DC for July 4th 2009.
I've been talking with the organizer who had some interesting things to say about support he has gotten. This could be a pretty big deal if he pulls it off!
Here's what he said about the initial plans and who's involved:
"Ask Larry Lippert of American Cannabis, or Richard Rawlings from Norml, Or Casper from Time for Hemp, all people I have associated with and are collaborating with me on this.
... I am willing to give up my freedom, even my life, so that others can be free, that I was able to confidently coin myself in the phrase and context of a civil rights leader... Fear cannot drive freedom. Only spur on tyranny. So be not afraid brother. There is no greater an action in a man's life then to be a martyr of freedom, and many have sacrificed to do so, I am not afraid to sacrifice.
Also me and my counter-parts in NORML, American Cannabis, The Marijuana Policy Project, and artists like the Individuals and DJ Slim are currently contacting Willie Nelson, Cheech and Chong, Cypress Hill, ZZ Top and Woody Harrelson personally, to help us promote the march. The Million Man March only had Snoop Dog as they're main artist helping them promote, and they acquired nearly 750 THOUSAND marchers. Imagine what we can do with the artists we are acquiring.
There is nothing to fear but fear itself. Be brave my brother, the world needs you too."
-Tom D. (TRM3)
We need more freedom fighters like Tom. The media won't cover it unless it's impossible to ignore it. A million people in DC would certainly draw some attention. Especially with headliners like DJ Slim, Willie Nelson, Cheech and Chong, Cypress Hill, ZZ Top and Woody Harrelson!
Here's the TRM3 mission statement:
WHAT IS TRM3 THE REAL MILLION MARIJUANA MARCH: TRM3 The Real Million Marijuana March is a grass-roots organization based out of Salt Lake City Utah, who's aim is to gather one Million protesters in D.C. July 4th of 2009 for the worlds largest sit-in and protest of marijuana being illegal!!! Being as it is the worlds largest sit-in, it is a great act of civil-disobedience, and though we may get permits for our routes there and to arrive there, there is no permit issued by the U.S. government for a sit-in with no end date. We want a million activists to gather and STAY in D.C. until the United States government legalizes marijuana. This massive act of civil disobedience will cause the United States government to react in one of three ways: They will ignore us (which is highly doubtful) or; They will remove us (probably by force which will most likely end in rioting and martyr our cause further like the civil rights riots of African Americans in the past) or; Legalize it. These are the only options we give our government if we can accomplish one million people in D.C. next year. So help spread the news, help spread the word, and those that believe in personal freedom and the right for everyone to choose for themselves, I ask for a dedication to be there and protest with us in non-violence. Thank you! -Tom D. (TRM3)
There are plans for a Million Marijuana March on DC for July 4th 2009.
I've... more
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I’d like to give you seven specific reasons why the use of cannabis by adults remains a crime in America.
Marijuana law reformers, myself included, have spilled volumes of ink commenting on the numerous reasons and vested interests responsible for the continued prohibition of cannabis. But while these lengthy writings may be worthwhile intellectual exercises, I fear that they overlook the obvious.
That’s why, right now, I’d like to give you seven specific reasons why the use of cannabis by adults -- including seriously ill patients -- remains a crime in America. Ready? Here they are:
Governor Donald Carcieri (R-Rhode Island)
Governor James Douglas (R-Vermont)
Governor Linda Lingle (R-Hawaii)
Governor John Lynch (D-New Hampshire)
Governor Tim Pawlenty (R-Minnesota)
Governor Jodi Rell (R-Connecticut)
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-California)
Each of these Governors have single-handedly opted to kill marijuana law reform legislation in their states — either by the stroke of a pen (Carcieri, Lingle, Rell, Schwarzenegger) or by applying enough legislative pressure to abruptly halt ‘pro-pot’ proposals from ever reaching their desk. (In fairness to Gov. Douglas, he has allowed both medical marijuana and hemp law reform bills to become law without his signature.) Governors Carcieri and Schwarzenegger are multiple offenders — having combined to veto half a dozen marijuana-law reform bills in recent years.
Want to know why pot remains illegal in America? You can start by asking your Governor.I’d like to give you seven specific reasons why the use of cannabis by adults... more
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"The hazy legality of medical marijuana just got a little clearer. Since 1996 when voters approved a measure allowing the humane use of cannabis to ease sickness and pain, California has struggled to come up with an orderly way to supply the weed.
Federal law hasn't help as Washington insisted that pot is illegal, plain and simple. And local communities have deployed varying rules to rein in the runaway profusion of loosely watched dispensaries. Neither police nor medical marijuana sponsors are happy with the confusing present-day picture.
California Attorney General Jerry Brown believes new guidelines can solve the practical problems, minimize the legal worries and calm patient fears.
His plans, as always, rely on a wink and a nod from the feds, who retain the last word legally. But the Justice Department, via Joseph Russoniello, the U.S. attorney for Northern California, suggests that scaling back operations as outlined by Brown would be tolerated. The feds, Russoniello says, are mainly interested in the big growers and traffickers, not the small-time tokers with chronic back pain or a debilitating illness.
The changes call for dispensaries to be run as nonprofits or cooperatives, a shift designed to cut out big-bucks operators who now exploit the medical label to sell pot to nearly anyone who shows up at the door. There are approximately 300 dispensaries statewide with 29 operating in San Francisco, far more than the city needs.
Under Brown's outline, patients would be urged to get a state ID card obtained with a doctor's note. Presently, some counties issue such cards while others don't. Marijuana sellers also accept a physician's recommendation, adding another variable, while some hardly ask at all.
Brown also wants a reality check on the vast amount of pot on the market. Only a patient, caregiver or dispensary could grow the relatively small amounts of marijuana needed. This would cut medical pot off from a surging and often violent weed-growing industry worth $14 billion in 2006, according to a recent drug-policy study. ""The hazy legality of medical marijuana just got a little clearer. Since 1996... more
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edicinal marijuana helps relieve neuropathic pain in people with HIV, says a University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine study.
It included 28 HIV patients with neuropathic pain that wasn't adequately controlled by opiates or other pain relievers. The researchers found that 46 percent of patients who smoked medicinal marijuana reported clinically meaningful pain relief, compared with 18 percent of those who smoked a placebo.
The study, published online Aug. 6 in Neuropsychopharmacology, was sponsored by the University of California Center for Medical Cannabis Research (CMCR).
"Neuropathy is a chronic and significant problem in HIV patients as there are few existing treatments that offer adequate pain management to sufferers," study leader Dr. Ronald J. Ellis, an associate professor of neurosciences, said in an UCSD news release. "We found that smoked cannabis was generally well-tolerated and effective when added to the patient's existing pain medication, resulting in increased pain relief."
The findings are consistent with and extend other recent CMCR-sponsored research supporting the short-term effectiveness of medicinal marijuana in treating neuropathic pain.
"This study adds to a growing body of evidence that indicates that cannabis is effective, in the short-term at least, in the management of neuropathic pain," Dr. Igor Grant, a professor of psychiatry and director of the CMCR, said in the UCSD news release.edicinal marijuana helps relieve neuropathic pain in people with HIV, says a... more
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Interviews at the Playboy Mansion with celebrities and musicians regarding medical marijuana. Kat Von D, LA Ink, Perry Farrell, Jane's Addiction, Jackie Martling, Adrianne Curry, Margaret Cho, Scott Kirkland, Crystal Method, Christopher "Kid" Ried, Kid 'N Play, House Party, Bernie Ellis, Rob Kampia. The Marijuana Policy Project.Interviews at the Playboy Mansion with celebrities and musicians regarding medical... more
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Slate posted a letter from John Conyers Jr., chairman of the House judiciary committee, to the DEA's acting administrator Michele Leonhart about the agency's "dramatically intensified … frequency of paramilitary-style enforcement raids" on legal cannabis users and dispensaries.
Conyers asked for an accounting of the agency's costs for these measures against "individuals who suffer from severe or chronic illness" and for its rationale for threatening landlords of licensed dispensaries with "arrest and forfeiture of their property." Meanwhile, the California State Legislature is considering a measure that would allow state and local law enforcement agencies to refuse cooperation with the DEA.
http://www.slate.com/id/2192062/entry/2192063/
Slate posted a letter from John Conyers Jr., chairman of the House judiciary... more
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Dr. Phil Leveque Salem-News.com
When I chose this title I thought I was being a smart aleck. I checked Google I found over 50 articles on the same subject.
Scene from the propaganda movie "Reefer Madness" from 1938
(MOLALLA, Ore.) - Response to February 4th 2008 editorial in The Oregonian.
This is not what you may think but it could be because marijuana acts like a comforting tranquilizer. But that is not exactly what I am writing about.
The Oregonian seems to be getting some perverse superpleasure writing about how bad it is with the pejorative words "abuse", "workplace hazard" and "out of control medical marijuana program" and that the Oregon Marijuana law is a "bad law".
They decry that Oregon has the highest rate of marijuana use and the highest rate of marijuana abuse. Both of these allegations are perversely false and they should know it. It reminds me of the "Reefer Madness" movie. Perhaps they saw it and believed it.
Oregon has possibly the toughest marijuana law. They do not mention that about 2,700 doctors have signed the applications for patients they certify are eligible for the about 20,000 patients who have permits. If the Oregonian thinks these patients are bamboozling the doctors they are totally mistaken.
The U.S. government estimated that there are 300 thousand Oregon marijuana users. It is a cheap, safe, quick-acting tranquilizer. These patients are getting to doctors as soon and fast as possibly and the number of permit card holders is increasing by about 100 per week.
The Oregonian's allegation that medical users use it to "get high" is ridiculous. It costs too much to be used so frivolously. I must admit some high schoolers do get high. How would they like to be in high school these days?
For the Oregonian to infer and publish that it was for "terminal cancer patients" shows their ignorance. However if it is good for a dying patient in pain, why should it not be good for a chronic pain patient with many years ahead? There is some strange perverse sophistry going on here.
The Oregonian fails to address the "on the job hazards" of Oxycontin use, alcoholic hangovers, heavy anti-depressant or tranquilizer use, all of which are far more dangerous than marijuana use which even with heavy use ceases its brain effects in about four hours.
The DEA's administrative judge, Francis J. Young, after hearing two weeks of testimony, wrote: "nearly all medicines have toxins, potentially lethal affects, but marijuana is not such a substance...Marijuana, in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man. By any measure of rational analysis marijuana can be safely used within a supervised routine of medical care" (DEA Docket No. 86-22, 57)
By the way, marinol, the pure substance in marijuana, is an FDA approved prescription drug. If one is bad and dangerous, both are! In fact, marinol is worse than marijuana.
I hope the Oregonian writers can get over this obsessive-compulsive activity and get themselves educated. At one time cannabis medications were the most prescribed in the U.S. Furthermore, cannabis has been used as medicine for about 4,000 years and NEVER caused a death. Even aspirin is far more dangerous.Dr. Phil Leveque Salem-News.com
When I chose this title I thought I was being a smart... more
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It's generally believed that the number one product from California's number one industry isn't legal. Agriculture remains the Golden State's biggest business, and some believe marijuana is worth $14 billion. No one really knows for sure.
The LEGAL medical marijuana business is estimated by advocates to be worth up to $2 billion. Legal, that is, in the state's eyes. It's still illegal under federal law.
Today I'm reporting on the business of selling pot legally, the costs and challenges that go with it. Twelve years after California was the first state to make medical marijuana legal, many clinics are still raided as criminal enterprises (and some are--even under state law), and many others remain paranoid, having come from an underground culture that has pervaded the industry for so long.
Then there are those pushing for openness, transparency, ethics, and standardized practices. In the face of almost no regulatory standards, they're developing their own, and making money doing so.
Follow link for full story and Video'sIt's generally believed that the number one product from California's number... more
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An informative Show about Hemp on the world wide web, you must register to view the show.
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Once again the cancer diagnosis of a well-known national figure -- in this case Sen. Ted Kennedy -- has sparked a flurry of interest in efforts to treat and cure this frustrating, complex and deadly illness. One of the most promising areas of research involves a group of chemicals whose origins may seem shocking.
The chemicals, called cannabinoids, are the active components in marijuana.
Yes, marijuana, the very same drug that seems to generate endless controversy here and abroad, and that our government still claims causes cancer -- a claim that appears to stand reality on its head.
The first solid data showing the anticancer effects of cannabinoids was developed by U.S. government researchers and published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute back in 1975. The scientists found that THC, the component that produces marijuana's "high," inhibits the growth of lung cancer cells in the test tube and in mice.
In a world that made sense, this discovery would have set off a frenzy of new research. After all, President Richard Nixon had declared "war on cancer" just a few years before, and vast sums of money were being spent investigating new approaches. But Nixon had also declared "war on drugs," with marijuana at the top of the demon-drugs list, so our government -- by far the world's largest source of medical research funding -- never pursued these remarkable findings. Research ground to a near-complete halt until the late 1990s.
Since then, THC and other marijuana components have been shown to block growth not only of lung tumors but a variety of other cancers, including leukemia, lymphoma and cancers of the breast and skin. These effects seem to occur through a variety of different cellular mechanisms.
As Spanish researcher Dr. Manuel Guzman, one of the world's leading experts in the field, wrote in a 2003 review in the journal Nature Reviews: Cancer, "Cannabinoids are selective antitumor compounds, as they can kill tumor cells without affecting their non-transformed counterparts. It is probable that cannabinoid receptors regulate cell-survival and cell-death pathways differently in tumor and nontumor cells."
That is exactly what you want in a cancer drug: Something that kills the malignant cells without harming healthy cells. It's because most chemotherapy drugs aren't selective enough that they cause such terrible nausea, vomiting, hair loss and other side effects.
One of the most fruitful areas of research has involved gliomas, the same type of brain tumor that Sen. Kennedy is battling. A search of PubMed, the U.S. government's medical database, using the search terms "cannabis" (the scientific name for marijuana), "cannabinoid," and "glioma" turned up 94 scientific journal articles, most of them published since 2000.
Most are lab or animal studies, demonstrating various mechanisms by which these marijuana chemicals kill glioma cells or stop glioma tumor growth. Amazingly, despite all this evidence, there has been only one, tiny, human study thus far, conducted by Dr. Guzman.
Guzman and colleagues injected THC directly into brain tumors in a handful of patients with recurring, inoperable gliomas -- patients considered terminal. It was primarily a safety study, and the THC injections proved completely safe.
Although the researchers concluded that the injection method they used may not have adequately distributed the medicine to all parts of these large tumors, two patients seemed to show definite (albeit temporary) improvement due to the treatment. The researchers urge that additional trials testing THC and other cannabinoids in this and other types of tumors be undertaken.
This is an exciting area of research, but one that has been needlessly -- and perhaps lethally -- slowed down by the U.S. government's slavish devotion to anti-marijuana dogma. That most of the work testing these marijuana derivatives as anticancer drugs is occurring outside the United States is a sad commentary indeed.
By Bruce Mirken Once again the cancer diagnosis of a well-known national figure -- in this case Sen.... more
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Obama does not endorse legalization, but he does pledge to leave states to decide their own policy on medical marijuana and to not federally prosecute doctors and patients. Many states currently allow medicinal marijuana, but often those who have certified proscriptions or permits for growing, are still arrested by federal agents. It seems more important to focus our resources on real issues rather than on stopping old ladies who find solace for their glaucoma in THC.Obama does not endorse legalization, but he does pledge to leave states to decide... more
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Forty-two-year-old Vernon Smith had pleaded guilty to possession of marijuana with intent to sell after police found him with more than 20 pounds of the drug earlier this year. Forty-two-year-old Vernon Smith had pleaded guilty to possession of marijuana with... more
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This pod explores the issue of medical marijuana in California, through the eyes of a dispensary owner.This pod explores the issue of medical marijuana in California, through the eyes of a... more
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