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Potheads won't get MRSA
Researchers in Italy and the U.K. tested five major marijuana chemicals called cannabinoids on different strains of MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus). All five showed germ-killing activity against the MRSA strains in lab tests. Some synthetic cannabinoids also showed germ-killing capability. The scientists note the cannabinoids kill bacteria in a different way than traditional antibiotics, meaning they might be able to bypass bacterial resistance. Researchers in Italy and the U.K. tested five major marijuana chemicals called cannabinoids on different strains of MRSA (methicillin-... more
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Pelosi Talks Medical Marijuana
Hard to believe that the entire Democratic National Convention could go by without even one speaker paying lip service to the devastating folly that is America’s war on (some) drugs, but as NORML podcaster Russ Belville reports in his latest blog post here, the subject of marijuana law reform has been all but “invisible” in Denver.
Fortunately, thousands of Digg.com users posed the following question to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi live on CNN: “As a taxable resource, what stops marijuana from being legalized, for medical or recreational purposes, throughout the country?”
(The question comes four and a half minutes into the video.)
Pelosi’s response is candid yet disappointing. While acknowledging that scientific research clearly supports the medical use of cannabis, Pelosi acknowledges that most of Congress — including many otherwise ‘progressive’ members of the influential Congressional Black Caucus — “just isn’t there yet. … There just isn’t enough support for it.”
Of course, anyone who has followed this issue knows that the Speaker’s Congressional assessment is painfully accurate.
That said, I find myself a bit incredulous when Pelosi says: “We have important work to do outside the Congress in order for us to have success inside the Congress for [the] use of medical marijuana. … [W]e need peoples’ help to be in touch with their members of Congress to say why this should be the case.”
While I agree that it’s both important and necessary for constituents to contact their elected officials, I’m disappointed that Ms. Pelosi still believes that the ‘heavy-lifting’ needed to successfully move this issue forward federally must be engaged in outside, not inside Congress.
Pardon me, but here in the real world (outside of the Washington Beltway) public voteafter public vote illustrates that the overwhelming majority of registered voters back the legalization of medical pot, and national poll after national poll consistently shows that upwards of 70 percent of the electorate support a patient’s right to use cannabis legally.
Here in the real world, numerous health and medical organizations such as the American Public Health Association and the American College of Physicians have passed resolutions urging Congress reschedule marijuana so that a physician may prescribe it, and scientific papers indicating that cannabis can inhibit diseases ranging from multiple sclerosis to cancer to MRSA are being published virtually every week.
Given this reality, I humbly submit that those of us who work ‘outside’ the so-called ‘hallowed halls’ of Congress have done our part. It’s now time for our federally elected officials, in particular Speaker Pelosi and Democratic Presidential Nominee Obama, to pledge to do theirs. Hard to believe that the entire Democratic National Convention could go by without even one speaker paying lip service to the devastat... more -
Pot Versus The ‘Superbug’
According to the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, colloquially known as MRSA or ‘the superbug,’ is now responsible for more annual US deaths than AIDS. Yet despite this sobering statistic, it’s unlikely that either JAMA or anyone in the mainstream US media will report on the findings of a forthcoming Italian study — you didn’t actually think I was going to say that this took place in America did you? — demonstrating that compounds in cannabis possess “exceptional antibacterial activity” against multi-drug resistant pathogens, including MRSA.
“Although the use of cannabinoids as systemic antibacterial agents awaits rigorous clinical trials, … their topical application to reduce skin colonization by MRSA seems promising,” the study’s authors write. “Cannabis sativa … represents an interesting source of antibacterial agents to address the problem of multidrug resistance in MRSA and other pathogenic bacteria.”
(You can read the full text ahead of publication here.)
Ironically, the study notes that preparations from cannabis were “investigated extensively in the 1950s as highly active topical antiseptic agents.” Predictably — in yet another ‘victory’ for prohibition — authors declare that little, if any, research into this potential clinical application has taken place since.
Several years ago, when I first began writing the booklet Emerging Clinical Applications for Cannabis and Cannabinoids, I mused about what sort of advancements in the treatment of disease may have been achieved over the past 70+ years had U.S. government chosen to advance — rather than stifle — clinical research into the therapeutic effects of cannabis.
Now, more than ever, this is a question that our elected officials — both Republican and Democrat — must answer. According to the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, colloquially known a... more -
Weed-Whacking Drug Czar Looks Silly & Sounds Foolish
Ever want to see a perfect example of rank government propaganda? Watch this public relations stunt filmed by CNN of moralist-masquerading-as-drug czar John Walters making a flaccid attempt at being funny, and relevant. The video immediately goes into a 2:30 story about outdoor cannabis in California that largely parrots the government’s party line.
Some thoughts after watching the videos:
-John Walters, the self-described anti-1960s warrior (well, in the video he apparently has moved onto hating the ‘values’ of the 1970s), lumbers up a hillside for a highly staged public relations stunt and the best message he can stammer out is to try to shame ‘Hollywood’ (a favorite target of rightwing moralists) into ‘helping us spread the word against cannabis’ (this is the very same rhetoric Reagan and to a degree Bush 1.0 employed to incite emotional contagion in the media against ‘drugs’ in the halcyon ‘just say no’ days).
Help the ONDCP? Is Walters whining that Hollywood is no longer an ONDCP stooge?
Is Walters forgetting the hundreds of absurd and insulting ads from the Partnership for a Drug-Free America, produced largely gratis by, well, ‘Hollywood’? Or, when the ONDCP used to sneak anti-cannabis ads into popular TV shows produced in, well, Hollywood, before NORML successfully sued them via the FCC?
-What is it with the obsession these drug czars have with trying to pigeon hole every derogative thing they can think to say about cannabis into what they believe is a witty dig on ‘Cheech and Chong’? Clinton’s Drug Czar, former General Barry McCaffrey, frequently would deride medical cannabis as “Cheech and Chong medicine”.
How’d that work General? Apparently, Walters has not learned from such blundered, detached-from-science rhetoric.
Also, my guess is that Walters is likely a big Bill O’Reilly fan. Shocking, I know. Why do I surmise as such? Did you catch all the weird references from Walters in the video to people who use cannabis being in their “basement”? The only person I’ve ever heard, on numerous occasions, make references to cannabis consumers as ‘boobs in the basement’ is O’Reilly.
Ironically, on the times that O’Reilly disparages cannabis consumers as ‘boobs in the basement’ he is usually quick to add that he favors decriminalizing cannabis for adults.[more] Ever want to see a perfect example of rank government propaganda? Watch this public relations stunt filmed by CNN of moralist-masquera... more -
Emperor - Chapter 15
The Official Story - Debunking "Gutter Science"
After 15 days of taking testimony and more than a year's legal deliberation, DEA Administrative Law Judge Francis L. Young formally urged the DEA to allow doctors to prescribe marijuana. In a September 1988 judgment, he ruled: "The evidence in this record clearly shows that marijuana has been accepted as capable of relieving the distress of great numbers of very ill people, and doing so with safety under medical supervision . . . It would be unreasonable, arbitrary and capricious for the DEA to continue to stand between those sufferers and the benefits of this substance in light of the evidence in this record. In strict medical terms, marijuana is far safer than many foods we commonly consume marijuana in its natural form is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man."
Yet former DEA Administrator John Lawn, his successor, Robert Bonner, and current DEA Administrator John Constantine - non-doctors all! - have refused to comply and have continued to deprive persons of medical cannabis, according to their own personal discretion.
Wasting Time, Wasting Lives
More than 100 years have passed since the 1894 British Raj commission study of hashish smokers in India reported cannabis use was harmless and even helpful. Numerous studies since have all agreed: The most prominent being Siler, LaGuardia, Nixon's Shafer Commission, Canada's LeDain Commission, and the California Research Advisory Commission.
Concurrently, American presidents have praised hemp, the USDA amassed volumes of data showing its value as a natural resource, and in 1942 the Roosevelt administration even made Hemp for Victory, a film glorifying our patriotic hemp farmers. That same year, Germany produced The Humorous Hemp Primer, a comic book, written in rhyme, extolling hemp's virtues. (See appendix I of the paper version of this book.)
Yet even the humane use of hemp for medicine is now denied. Asked in late 1989 about the DEA's failure to implement his decision quoted above, Judge Young responded that administrator John Lawn was being given time to comply.
More than a year after that ruling, Lawn officially refused to reschedule cannabis, again classing it as a Schedule I "dangerous" drug that is not even allowed to be used as medicine.
Decrying this needless suffering of helpless Americans, the National Organization to Reform Marijuana Laws (NORML) and the Family Council on Drug Awareness quickly demanded Lawn's resignation. His successors, Bonner, and now Constantine, retain the same policy.
What hypocrisy allows public officials to scoff at the facts and deny the truth? How do they rationalize their atrocities? How? They invent their own experts. The Official Story - Debunking "Gutter Science" ... more -
2008 Chicago Hempfest
The "Highest Click In Chicago" gets it poppin at the 2008 Chicago Hempfest!
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YouTube - Bill Maher on Marijuana Legalization, NORML 2002
Cannabis/Hemp legalization is not left, or right, it's American. Your here at current.com, research cannabis/hemp,don't be misled! Learn the facts, ignore the spin (distorted facts). Cannabis/Hemp legalization is not left, or right, it's American. Your here at current.com, research cannabis/hemp,don't be ... more
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SMOKE THE VOTE!
HIGHTIMES Editor Bobby Black is on a "Nation Wide Campaign" for NORML to get more Americans to vote and become politically active and aware. HIGHTIMES Editor Bobby Black is on a "Nation Wide Campaign" for NORML to get more Americans to vote and become politically a... more
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Marijuana Hotbed Retreats on Medicinal Use
UKIAH, Calif. — There is probably no marijuana-friendlier place in the country than here in Mendocino County, where plants can grow more than 15 feet high, medical marijuana clubs adopt stretches of highway, and the sticky, sweet aroma of cannabis fills this city’s streets during the autumn harvest.
Lately, however, residents of Mendocino County, like those in other parts of California, are wondering if the state’s embrace of marijuana for medicinal purposes has gone too far.
With video and slide show. UKIAH, Calif. — There is probably no marijuana-friendlier place in the country than here in Mendocino County, where plants can grow mo... more -
Marijuana law reform - NORML
NORML's mission is to move public opinion sufficiently to achieve the repeal of marijuana prohibition so that the responsible use of cannabis by adults is no longer subject to penalty.
Adopted by the NORML Board of Directors, February 27, 1999 NORML's mission is to move public opinion sufficiently to achieve the repeal of marijuana prohibition so that the responsible use... more -
Is Senator Kennedy A Victim Of Pot Prohibition?
May 20th, 2008 By: Paul Armentano, NORML Deputy Director
Forgive me if the headline above sounds slightly exploitive. My intention is not to piggyback on a personal tragedy, but I did want to get your attention.
As I originally wrote in 2004 essay for Alternet.org, entitled “Pot Shows Promise as a Cancer Cure”
In fact, the first experiment documenting pot’s anti-tumor effects took place in 1974 at the Medical College of Virginia at the behest of the U.S. government. The results of that study, reported in an Aug. 18, 1974, Washington Post newspaper feature, were that marijuana’s psychoactive component, THC, “slowed the growth of lung cancers, breast cancers and a virus-induced leukemia in laboratory mice, and prolonged their lives by as much as 36 percent.”
Despite these favorable preliminary findings, U.S. government officials banished the study, and refused to fund any follow-up research until conducting a similar – though secret – clinical trial in the mid-1990s. That study, conducted by the U.S. National Toxicology Program to the tune of $2 million concluded that mice and rats administered high doses of THC over long periods had greater protection against malignant tumors than untreated controls.
However, rather than publicize their findings, government researchers shelved the results, which only became public after a draft copy of its findings were leaked in 1997 to a medical journal which in turn forwarded the story to the national media.
In the years since the completion of the National Toxicology trial, the U.S. government has yet to fund a single additional study examining the drug’s potential anti-cancer properties. Is this a case of federal bureaucrats putting politics over the health and safety of patients? You be the judge.
Fortunately, in the past ten years scientists overseas have generously picked up where U.S. researchers so abruptly left off, reporting that cannabinoids can halt the spread of numerous cancer cells — including prostate cancer, breast cancer, lung cancer, pancreatic cancer, and in one human clinical trial, brain cancer.
Writing earlier this year in the journal Expert Review of Neurotherapeutics, Italian researchers reiterated, “[C]annabinoids have displayed a great potency in reducing glioma tumor growth either in vitro or in animal experimental models. … [They] appear to be selective antitumoral agents as they kill glioma cells without affecting the viability of nontransformed counterparts.” Not one mainstream media outlet reported their findings. Perhaps now they’ll pay better attention.
What possible advancements in the treatment of cancer may have been achieved over the past 34 years had US government officials chosen to advance — rather than suppress — clinical research into the anti-cancer effects of cannabis? It’s a shame we have to speculate; it’s even more tragic that the families of Senator Kennedy and thousands of others must suffer while we do. May 20th, 2008 By: Paul Armentano, NORML Deputy Director ... more -
Smoking pot all day, every day might not be good for you
Ever wonder why the studies purporting to ‘prove’ marijuana’s health risks only recruit subjects who smoke pot 24 hours a day, seven days a week?
"Heavy marijuana use shrinks brain parts
via Reuters
Brain scans showed the hippocampus and amygdala were smaller in men who were heavy marijuana users compared to nonusers. … The men had smoked at least five marijuana cigarettes daily for on average 20 years."
The answer: If they didn’t, there wouldn’t be any purported risks left to write about.
I mean, seriously, imagine if these scientists had tried recruiting 15 subjects who drank at least five shots of vodka every day for 20 years? That is, if they could find 15 subjects who were still alive.
"Marijuana may up heart attack, stroke risk
via Reuters
Heavy marijuana use can boost blood levels of a particular protein, perhaps raising a person’s risk of a heart attack or stroke, U.S. government researchers said on Tuesday. …The marijuana users in the study averaged smoking 78 to 350 marijuana cigarettes per week."
The study did not look at whether the heavy marijuana users actually had heart disease.
So here we go again. Three-hundred and fifty joints per week?! Who are these people? And what’s with the caveat at the end of the story? If the purpose of the study is to assess whether there might be a link between ridiculously heavy pot use and heart disease, then why not, you know, look to see whether the subjects actually suffered from heart disease? (Likely answer: aside from the abnormal protein level, the patients were probably otherwise healthy.)
Bottom line: smoking pot all day, every day probably isn’t good for you (though I find it interesting that, even among the most prolific pot users, most of the herb’s purported dangers are either speculative or are only apparent on hyper-sensitive brain scans and multi-tiered neurocognitive tests). Fortunately, 99.9 percent of pot smokers don’t behave this way.
And no, it’s not prohibition that curbs their use habits; it’s the recognition that too much pot is not conducive to an otherwise healthy, responsible lifestyle (just as pounding five shots a day wouldn’t be conducive to, well, life).
So what lesson can be learned from the two studies above (aside from the fact that our government has no interest in investigating the health of ordinary cannabis consumers)? It’s that pot, like alcohol, is best consumed in moderation, and that pot prohibition — even when compared to the excessive use of the drug itself — still poses the greatest threat to health.
By Paul Armentano, NORML Deputy Director Ever wonder why the studies purporting to ‘prove’ marijuana’s health risks only recruit subjects who smoke pot 24 hours a day, seven d... more -
Just say ‘No’ to Big Pharma’s anti-pot pill
I’ve said this before but it bears repeating. The endocannabinoid system is involved in the regulation of a broad range of primary biological functions in humans — including appetite, mood regulation, blood pressure, bone density, reproduction, learning capacity, and motor coordination.
Shutting down this system in order to lose a few vanity pounds is likely not a good idea — and, in fact, is a pretty effective way to kill mice.
It’s arguably not a healthy option for humans either.
UK drug body: Sanofi’s Acomplia linked to five deaths
via CNN
Sanofi-Aventis S.A.’s (SNY) anti-obesity pill Acomplia has been linked to five deaths and 720 adverse reaction since its U.K. launch in 2006, according to a document posted on the U.K. drug regulator’s website Tuesday.
One of the deaths was due to suicide, said the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, or MHRA, document, which recorded adverse side effects up until May 9.
The drug, a new kind of obesity treatment that blocks certain brain receptors that regulate appetite, last year was rejected by a panel of U.S. Food and Drug Administration experts on concerns that the drug increases the number of psychiatric events like depression and suicidal thinking among users.
… Despite withdrawing its application to market the drug in the U.S., where it was to have been known as Zimulti, Sanofi-Aventis has plans to resubmit it to the FDA and other regulators in 2009 for approval as a treatment for type 2 diabetes.
In a study released in 2006, Acomplia showed promise as a diabetes treatment after patients who took the pill for a year reported improvements in blood sugar control and cholesterol along with modest weight loss.
However, a recent study of the drug in obese heart patients found more than 40% of those who took the drug developed psychiatric problems, while another study, published last month, raised concerns about using drugs like Acomplia in children. I’ve said this before but it bears repeating. The endocannabinoid system is involved in the regulation of a broad range of primary bio... more -
YouTube - Jack I'm Mellow
Is'nt prohibition fun? It still doesn't work .... Trixie Smith performing Jack I'm Mellow
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The Cannabis Consumers Campaign
The goal of the Cannabis Consumers Campaign is to create public policy changes by: 1) dispelling the myths and negative stereotypes that perpetuate marijuana prohibition and all its harsh consequences and 2) providing a more positive and accurate image of adults who consume cannabis. By coming out of the closet, we demonstrate to the general public, the media, and our political leaders that pot smokers are good, responsible, contributing members of society who deserve equal status and treatment before the law and in society as a whole. Come on out with us, Stop being afraid. The goal of the Cannabis Consumers Campaign is to create public policy changes by: 1) dispelling the myths and negative stereotypes th... more
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John Conyers wants DEA to stop busting California medical marijuana users
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 committee, to the DEA's acting administrator Michele... more -
Willie Is Still Rocking
Willie Nelson turns 75! The Daily Fix takes a look back at his years of accomplishments, and gives you the update on his recent projects. Willie Nelson turns 75! The Daily Fix takes a look back at his years of accomplishments, and gives you the update on his recent projec... more
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Reefer Madness
It's no accident that people are afraid of marijuana and hemp.
The film toured around the country for many years - often being re-edited and re-titled ("Tell Your Children", "Dope Addict", "Doped Youth", "Love Madness", "The Burning Question"). It was re-discovered in the early 1970s by NORML (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws) and screened again as an example of the government's demonization of marijuana. It's no accident that people are afraid of marijuana and hemp. ... more
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