I våras visade siffror från socialtjänstdelen hos Maria Ungdom att mer än hälften av de som behandlades uppgav att cannabis var deras huvuddrog....
...siffror från i Maria Ungdom som SvD kunde presentera för en månad sedan visade att trenden fortsatt. Antalet nya fall av missbruk ökade samtidigt som nu hela 66 procent angav cannabis som sin huvuddrog.
The research, it seems, is a victim of marijuana politics. Under federal law, a drug is considered most harmful — and placed in the most restrictive category, Schedule I — if it has “no currently accepted medical use.” Although marijuana was listed as a medicine in the U.S. Pharmacopoeia before its prohibition and was widely used for dozens of conditions, Congress temporarily placed it in Schedule I in 1970, pending the outcome of a government study. The study, produced by a national commission on drug abuse, ultimately concluded that marijuana’s harmful effects were so limited for light and moderate users that it should not even be a criminal offense to use it. But its status as a Schedule I drug has not changed.
Advocates have been working toward a change since 1972, when the first petition to reschedule marijuana was filed with the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, the predecessor of the Drug Enforcement Administration. After many refusals to act and a few court rulings, the DEA finally initiated hearings on rescheduling in 1986 — 14 years after the first filing.
These hearings led to an opinion in 1988 by the DEA’s chief administrative law judge, Francis Young, who wrote: “Marijuana, in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man. . . . It would be unreasonable, arbitrary and capricious for DEA to continue to stand between those sufferers and the benefits of this substance in light of the evidence in this record.” He concluded that the provisions of the Controlled Substances Act “permit and require” the transfer of marijuana from Schedule I to a less restrictive category.
Yet the DEA administrator did not reclassify marijuana. Since that time, the agency has denied two other rescheduling petitions, most recently in July.
It is bad enough that the DEA has repeatedly ignored existing evidence regarding marijuana’s therapeutic value in order to maintain the drug’s Schedule I status. But both the DEA and NIDA have taken further steps to block any new evidence from being produced. Most notably, the DEA has refused for 10 years to grant a license to the University of Massachusetts to cultivate marijuana for FDA-approved research, providing a privately funded alternative source to NIDA’s marijuana supply. The refusal has occurred despite yet another DEA administrative law judge ruling that the license would be “in the public interest” and should be granted.
Federal marijuana policy is thus trapped in absurd circular logic. Officials argue that marijuana must be kept illegal because it is a “dangerous” Schedule I drug. They refuse to move it out of Schedule I, claiming that there is no evidence that it has medical value. They refuse to allow private entities to cultivate marijuana for research to demonstrate that it has medical value. And they set up endless obstacles for any researchers who hope to conduct potentially favorable studies with the marijuana controlled by the government. No research, no evidence, no rescheduling. Therefore, marijuana is still dangerous.
The federal government’s stance has led to our current state-by-state battles over medical marijuana. We will continue to fight and will add more states to the pro-medical-marijuana side of the ledger. But it will be many years, possibly decades, before marijuana is legal for medical purposes in all 50 states.
When current and former service men and women are seriously suffering — to the point where some have even taken their own lives — we at least owe it to them to explore any treatment that might be effective.
It is time for government officials to take this nation’s veterans off the medical marijuana battlefield. NIDA should grant the researchers’ request to purchase marijuana and allow the FDA-approved PTSD study of veterans to move forward. These brave men and women don’t have decades to wait for relief.
Steve Fox is the director of government relations at the Marijuana Policy Project and the co-author of “Marijuana Is Safer: So Why Are We Driving People to Drink?”
__________________
Senast redigerad av BMMB 2011-10-16 kl. 23:49.
Anledning: .
The research, it seems, is a victim of marijuana politics. Under federal law, a drug is considered most harmful — and placed in the most restrictive category, Schedule I — if it has “no currently accepted medical use.” Although marijuana was listed as a medicine in the U.S. Pharmacopoeia before its prohibition and was widely used for dozens of conditions, Congress temporarily placed it in Schedule I in 1970, pending the outcome of a government study. The study, produced by a national commission on drug abuse, ultimately concluded that marijuana’s harmful effects were so limited for light and moderate users that it should not even be a criminal offense to use it. But its status as a Schedule I drug has not changed.
Advocates have been working toward a change since 1972, when the first petition to reschedule marijuana was filed with the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, the predecessor of the Drug Enforcement Administration. After many refusals to act and a few court rulings, the DEA finally initiated hearings on rescheduling in 1986 — 14 years after the first filing.
These hearings led to an opinion in 1988 by the DEA’s chief administrative law judge, Francis Young, who wrote: “Marijuana, in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man. . . . It would be unreasonable, arbitrary and capricious for DEA to continue to stand between those sufferers and the benefits of this substance in light of the evidence in this record.” He concluded that the provisions of the Controlled Substances Act “permit and require” the transfer of marijuana from Schedule I to a less restrictive category.
Yet the DEA administrator did not reclassify marijuana. Since that time, the agency has denied two other rescheduling petitions, most recently in July.
It is bad enough that the DEA has repeatedly ignored existing evidence regarding marijuana’s therapeutic value in order to maintain the drug’s Schedule I status. But both the DEA and NIDA have taken further steps to block any new evidence from being produced. Most notably, the DEA has refused for 10 years to grant a license to the University of Massachusetts to cultivate marijuana for FDA-approved research, providing a privately funded alternative source to NIDA’s marijuana supply. The refusal has occurred despite yet another DEA administrative law judge ruling that the license would be “in the public interest” and should be granted.
Federal marijuana policy is thus trapped in absurd circular logic. Officials argue that marijuana must be kept illegal because it is a “dangerous” Schedule I drug. They refuse to move it out of Schedule I, claiming that there is no evidence that it has medical value. They refuse to allow private entities to cultivate marijuana for research to demonstrate that it has medical value. And they set up endless obstacles for any researchers who hope to conduct potentially favorable studies with the marijuana controlled by the government. No research, no evidence, no rescheduling. Therefore, marijuana is still dangerous.
The federal government’s stance has led to our current state-by-state battles over medical marijuana. We will continue to fight and will add more states to the pro-medical-marijuana side of the ledger. But it will be many years, possibly decades, before marijuana is legal for medical purposes in all 50 states.
When current and former service men and women are seriously suffering — to the point where some have even taken their own lives — we at least owe it to them to explore any treatment that might be effective.
It is time for government officials to take this nation’s veterans off the medical marijuana battlefield. NIDA should grant the researchers’ request to purchase marijuana and allow the FDA-approved PTSD study of veterans to move forward. These brave men and women don’t have decades to wait for relief.
Steve Fox is the director of government relations at the Marijuana Policy Project and the co-author of “Marijuana Is Safer: So Why Are We Driving People to Drink?”
Konstig rubrk, Cannabis hjälper mot PTSD, särskilt om man börjar använde det inom 2 dagar (eller var det veckor? dagar låter troligast) efter indicdenten(arna). Rätt vedertaget, Israeliska armen har ju tagit förnuftet till fånga och skriver ut medicinsk marijuana till skärrade soldater.
Har i försig inte läst artikeln, men jag tycker den är ändå lite mesig.
