Reason.tv dishonors go to the Drug Warrior-in-Chief Barack Obama, whose DEA banned fake pot, thwarted a scientist’s decade-long campaign to study marijuana, and raided dispensaries in Montana and California—all in one month!
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Drug Policy Question of the Week – 3-12-11
As answered by Mary Jane Borden, Editor of Drug War Facts for the Drug Truth Network on 3-12-11. http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/node/3302
Question of the Week: What is dronabinol?
A November 2010 Federal Register posting by the Drug Enforcement Administration defined dronabinol as,
“the United States Adopted Name (USAN) for [Delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol or THC], which is believed to be the major psychoactive component of the cannabis plant [aka] (marijuana).”
Bantam Medical Dictionary defines, a “United States Adopted Name” as the
“US generic name for any compound to be used as a drug.”
Dronabinol is generic for tetrahydrocannabinol or THC.
Abbott Laboratories markets the pharmaceutical drug Marinol®, containing, using the DEA’s definition,
“dronabinol in sesame oil and encapsulated in both hard gelatin or soft gelatin capsules.”
Because Abbott lists dronabinol as the only active ingredient of Marinol®, sesame oil is inactive. Abbott states that dronabinol
“is also a naturally occurring component of Cannabis sativa L. (Marijuana)”
and that Marinol is
“controlled [Schedule III] under the Controlled Substances Act,”
The naturally occurring Cannabis sativa L, is a tightly restricted and highly illegal plant under Schedule I.
The Coalition for Rescheduling Cannabis argued in its 2002 Petition to Reschedule Cannabis,”
Cannabis is a natural source of dronabinol (THC), the ingredient of Marinol, a Schedule III drug. There are no grounds to schedule cannabis in a more restrictive schedule than Marinol”.
Minus the inactive sesame oil, the DEA seemed to agree with the petition by stating in the Federal Register that,
“dronabinol products, both naturally-derived or synthetically produced, … meet the criteria for placement in schedule III.”
If they do, then shouldn’t the source of “naturally-derived” dronabinol (THC) – the tightly restricted and highly illegal Cannabis sativa L plant – be a legal Schedule III as well?
These facts and others like them can be found in the Medical Marijuana Chapter of Drug War Facts at www.drugwarfacts.org.
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Drug Policy Question of the Week – 3-2-11
As answered by Mary Jane Borden, Editor of Drug War Facts for the Drug Truth Network on 3-2-11. http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/node/3289
Question of the Week: What can hemp be used for?
A 2010 report from the Congressional Research Service defines,
“Hemp, also called “industrial hemp,”3 [as] cannabis varieties that are primarily grown as an agricultural crop (such as seeds and fiber, and byproducts such as oil, seed cake, hurds) …”
According to the 2008 National Hemp Strategy from the Manitoba Agriculture,
“The hemp plant has three primary components: bast fibre, hurd, and seed / oil.”
The report goes on to describe the uses of each,
“Hemp bast fibres are among the strongest and most durable of natural fibres, with high tensile strength, wet strength, and other characteristics favourable for various industrial products …including cordage (rope, twine, etc.), specialty papers, fabrics for clothing and other applications, and industrial textiles such as geotextiles and carpeting. The strength of hemp fibre also makes it ideal for use in a range of composites for applications such as moulded car parts and fibreboard for construction.”
“The whole hemp stalk can also be used to produce various biofuels such as bio-oil (or pyrolytic liquid), cellulosic ethanol, (synthetic gas) and methane. … The processes by which hemp is converted to biofuels may also produce valuable chemicals and other materials as bi-products.”
“Hemp oil is extremely nutritious, and is used in foods and nutraceutical products for humans and animals, as well as in personal care products. Hemp oil is also suitable for use in industrial products such as paints, varnishes, inks and industrial lubricants, and can be used to produce biodiesel. The crushed seed meal left over from oil production is frequently used for animal feed.”
These facts and others like them can be found in the recently updated Hemp Chapter of Drug War Facts at www.drugwarfacts.org.
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In this myth shattering, information packed documentary, learn from physicians and leading researchers about medicinal cannabis and its demonstrated effects on human health.
This game-changing movie presents the most comprehensive synopsis to date of the real science surrounding the world’s most controversial plant.
Medicinal Cannabis and its Impact on Human Health – Documentary
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WASHINGTON (AP) — A University of Massachusetts-Amherst professor says he’s dropping his nearly decade-long fight to persuade the government to let him grow marijuana in bulk for medical research.
Horticulturist Lyle Craker wanted to cultivate marijuana to boost research into the plant’s potential medicinal benefits. But he’s been rebuffed — even as more than a dozen states have legalized medical marijuana.
Craker, 70, said he saw no end in sight to the legal wrangling, given the likelihood of an appeals process that could run several years, or even decades. He was frustrated, too, that he never got a hoped-for boost from the Obama administration.
“I’m disappointed in our system,” he said. “But I’m not disappointed at what we did. I think our efforts have brought the problem to the public eye more. … This is just the first battle in a war.”
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Mohideen Mifthah
KATHMANDU, March 2, 2011
(AFP) – Police in Nepal on Wednesday cracked down on the sale of cannabis at a major religious festival where the drug is smoked legally by thousands of long-haired holy men to honour a Hindu god, an official said.
Marijuana is illegal in Nepal, but under an ancient legal loophole authorities allow holy men — known as sadhus — to smoke it during a night of often wild celebrations in honour of Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction.
Thousands of pilgrims travel to the sprawling Pashupatinath temple complex in Kathmandu every year from all over Nepal and India to mark the occasion, which is known as Shivaratri.
At one time the government even used to provide marijuana for the occasion, but authorities said they decided to enforce a ban on holy men selling the drug because of complaints they were dealing to local people.
“The holy men are free to use the drugs for themselves. But they can’t sell it to others,” said Narottam Vaidhya of the Pashupati Area Development Trust, which looks after the temple complex.
“Not all the sadhus are holy men and some come with bad intentions. Our aim is to prevent people from posing as holy men in order to break the law,” he told AFP.
Vaidhya said armed police, some of them in plain clothes, had been deployed to the area to look out for anyone breaking the law ahead of Wednesday’s celebrations.
“As of today, we have arrested seven sadhus for selling drugs,” he added.
Sadhus, who renounce all worldly possessions and usually live in caves or temples, have been coming to Kathmandu for hundreds of years to celebrate the festival.
They mark it by smoking cannabis because Hindu mythology suggests Shiva himself enjoyed the drug.
Shivaratri is a public holiday in India and Nepal, where all government offices and schools are shut for the day.
Huge camps are set up to accommodate the visiting sadhus, many of whom arrive weeks ahead of the celebrations.
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Tuesday, February 22nd, 2011
PARIS – The ingredient that gives cannabis its “high” and famously whets the appetite can help cancer patients recover lost pleasure in food, according to a study published on Wednesday.
Researchers in Canada enrolled 21 patients who had been treated with chemotherapy for advanced cancer, and gave them either capsules containing THC — delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, the psychoactive chemical in cannabis — or dummy lookalike pills.
The volunteers took the tablets for 18 days, and were asked to fill in questionnaires.
Seventy-three percent of those who took the THC reported an increased liking for food and 55 percent said the medication “made food taste better”. In the placebo group, these figures were only 30 percent and 10 percent.
Both groups consumed roughly the same total of calories, but the THC patients said they ate more protein than before the start of the experiment and enjoyed savoury foods more.
The THC-takers also reported better quality of sleep and relaxation than in the placebo group.
The experiment is small scale but the first to explore the touted qualities of THC through random selection of volunteers and use of a “control” group by which to make a comparison.
Lead investigator Wendy Wismer, an associate professor at the University of Alberta, said the findings were important because cancer, or its treatment, can cripple appetite and lead to dangerous weight loss.
Many cancer patients, for instance, complain that meat smells and tastes unpleasant, so they eat less of it.
“For a long time, everyone has thought that nothing could be done about this,” Wismer said in a press release.
“Indeed, cancer patients are often told to ‘cope’ with chemosensory problems by eating bland, cold and colourless food. This may well have the result of reducing food intake and food enjoyment.”
Wismer said that doctors should consider THC treatment for cancer patients suffering from loss of taste, smell and appetite.
THC was well tolerated, and in terms of side effects there were no differences between the THC and placebo groups, which suggests that long-term therapy is also an option, she said.
The study appears in the journal Annals of Oncology, published by the European Society for Medical Oncology.
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By Jacob Sullum
A new YouGov poll commissioned by The Economist finds most Americans support marijuana legalization. Here is the question:
Some people say marijuana should be treated like alcohol and tobacco. They say it should be regulated and taxed and made illegal for minors. Do you agree?
Fifty-eight percent of respondents said they agreed, while only 23 percent disagreed. The remaining 19 percent had no opinion. This is the strongest support for legalization that I can recall seeing in a nationally representative poll. A Gallup poll in late October found that 46 percent of Americans favored legalization, a record for that organization’s surveys. (By comparison, support was under 30 percent in Gallup polls taken during the late 1970s, a time that today is remembered as relatively pot-tolerant.) As far as I know, the only other survey to find majority support for legalizing pot was a May 2009 Zogby poll in which 52 percent of respondents favored that position. The question in that survey was pretty slanted in favor of legalization, however.
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By Agence France-Presse
Sunday, January 30th, 2011
MAASTRICHT, Netherlands — Learning to grow their own weed or finding a dealer: French and Belgian potheads are seeking alternatives to the famous Dutch coffee shop as The Hague plans to cut off drug tourists.
Incensed by the “nuisance” caused by millions of people crossing its borders each year to visit one of 670 licensed coffee shops, the Netherlands plans to turn these cannabis-vending cafes into private clubs for card-carrying members — Dutch residents only.
“We are busy learning about growing cannabis at home,” a 27-year-old Belgian visitor told AFP at “Mississippi”, a well-known coffee shop in Maastricht on the border with Germany and Belgium.
“Smoking a joint, that is our recreation. We really enjoy smoking a joint with a cup of coffee,” said the woman, a regular of the smoky establishment in the hold of a barge moored on the Maas River.
Though technically illegal, the Netherlands decriminalized the possession of less than five grams (0.18 ounce) of cannabis in 1976 under a so-called “tolerance” policy.
Cannabis cultivation and wholesale remain illegal and are in the hands of criminal organizations in a black-market business worth an estimated two billion euros ($2.7 billion) per year.
About 1.4 million foreigners visit Maastricht’s 14 coffee shops every year, more than half of them Belgian, followed in joint second place by French and Germans.
The foreigners’ presence raises the hackles of local residents who blame them for traffic jams, nocturnal disturbances, and attracting the seedy underbelly of the illegal drug trade.
“In the 200 yards between the parking garage and the entrance to Mississippi, I can be approached twice or three times by people trying to sell me cocaine,” said a 19-year-old French student on the street of Maastricht.
The city proposed in 2005 to ban foreigners from its coffee shops, whose owners opposed the move and are contesting it before the Dutch Council of State — the country’s highest administrative court which also advises the government on legal issues.
The court, set to make a ruling in the coming months, sought the input of the European Court of Justice, which ruled in December that banning foreigners was justified “by the objective of combating drug tourism and the accompanying public nuisance”.
The new, rightist Dutch government inaugurated last October wants to extend the proposed ban to coffee shops countrywide and has mooted the introduction of a national “wietpas” (literally weed pass).
Coffee shops are currently permitted to stock no more than 500 grams (a little over one pound) of the soft drug at any given time, but this limit is often flouted.
“Nuisance and criminality related to … the trade in narcotics must be reduced,” states the governing coalition agreement signed in September.
“Coffee shops must be private clubs for adult residents of the Netherlands on presentation of a pass,” it stipulates.
“If they keep us out, we will find it (cannabis) at home, in France, but it is not the same,” said regular Maastricht visitor Kevin Armand, 22. “The quality of what we can buy on the street (in France) is not the same.”
Armand was on a three-day visit to the Netherlands … “to smoke quality grass in peace,” as he explains.
Adrian, a 25-year-old salesman from Luxembourg, insisted he would continue visiting the capital of the southern Limburg province and “try to find weed from dealers on the streets”.
Maastricht’s coffee shop owners also dread the impact of the government’s hardened stance on soft drugs.
“It will be an economic catastrophe for us, but also for tourism,” predicted Marc Josemans, owner of the “Easy Going” coffee shop and president of the Association of Coffee Shops of Maastricht.
At least one Belgian has read the writing on the wall.
“I have been coming to Maastricht for years to get my weed,” said the 57-year-old, who like most of the cannabis users approached by AFP, did not want to give his name.
“This may be a good time to stop smoking joints.”