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Friday, February 17th, 2012 10:25 am | by cadfy
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By Kevin A. Sabet
Published February 17. 2012
In the first installment of this series, I discussed the fallacy of rescheduling as part of the “medical” marijuana issue. This final part focuses on the issues brought up by the governors in their rescheduling petition: a so-called “consensus” opinion of doctors who approve of raw marijuana as medicine, and, the issue brought on by the California Medical Association that essentially says research on marijuana cannot go forward without legalization. I will tackle each at a time.
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Tuesday, February 14th, 2012 10:44 am | by cadfy
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By Kevin A. Sabet, PhD
Published February 14, 2012
Medical marijuana is a source of confusion, frustration and ignorance among many of us. On the one hand, we don’t want to see our loved ones suffer from needless pain, yet on the other hand, as professionals in the substance abuse field, we want to see all medications depoliticized and subject to the proper scientific process.
Much to the ire of legalization advocates – who banked on President Obama looking the other way while states voted to make an illegal drug medicine – the feds, working with state officials, have expanded its enforcement actions against commercialized “medical marijuana” operations. These operations market to kids, are tied to criminal organizations and their customers bear little resemblance to the truly sick and dying. There is no doubt that medical marijuana is a controversial and complex issue. I try to break down several of the more complicated issues, once and for all, in this two-part series.
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Friday, February 10th, 2012 1:51 pm | by cadfy
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By Kevin A. Sabet
Published February 10, 2012
Exactly two weeks to the day I was born in 1979, Keith Stroup, the head of the National Organization of Marijuana Laws (NORML), told the Emory University school newspaper, The Emory Wheel, that “We are trying to get marijuana reclassified medically. If we do that, (we’ll do it in at least 20 states this year for chemotherapy patients) we’ll be using the issue as a red herring to give marijuana a good name.”
So it is no surprise that last week, NORML — the nation’s oldest marijuana legalization organization — published in their weekly newsletter the sweeping assertion that “medical marijuana has no discernible impact on marijuana use.” NORML cited a new article in the Annals of Epidemiology (a respected publication to be sure; a similar epidemiology journal will soon release a study showing that marijuana is significantly linked with car crashes) which critiques an earlier article by Wall and colleagues showing an increase in marijuana use among states with medical marijuana. Essentially, the authors replicated the Wall study using different methods and got different results.
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Tuesday, January 24th, 2012 1:31 pm | by cadfy
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The Associated Press
Published January 24, 2012
UKIAH, Calif.—Mendocino County lawmakers have abolished a program that allowed medical marijuana collectives to grow 99 plants at a time with county approval out of fear that federal officials would take legal action against local officials.
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Monday, January 23rd, 2012 11:37 am | by cadfy
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By Matt Volz Associated Press
Published January 23, 2012
HELENA, Mont.—A judge has ruled that Montana’s medical marijuana law doesn’t shield providers of the drug from federal prosecution, delivering a new blow to an industry reeling from a state and federal crackdown.
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Wednesday, January 11th, 2012 11:45 am | by cadfy
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By Kevin A. Sabet
Published January 11, 2012
On Tuesday, major newspapers and pro-pot blogs alike published stories with the headline “Marijuana use does not harm the lungs.” They reported a surprising finding in a study of over 5,000 people, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, that occasional marijuana use did not harm the lungs. Heavier use, such as very frequent use, as well as occasional tobacco use, however, did show a decline a lung function. Most surprisingly, the study’s authors speculate that the mild beneficial effects they found in occasional marijuana smokers could be due to enhanced lung capacity resulting from the heavy and extended inhalations entailed in marijuana smoking. On the flip side, since beneficial lung effects were only observed in occasional marijuana smokers, the authors speculate that exposure to potential toxins was insufficient to outweigh or undo the observed benefits they report.
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