Marijuana has no medical value, will stay classified as dangerous drug, DEA rules

[tlongII]

http://www.oregonlive.com/marijuana/index.ssf/2016/08/obama_administration_rejects_r.html#incart_big-photo

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration on Thursday rejected requests to reclassify marijuana from its current status as a dangerous drug, though it will allow expanded production to support medical research.

The agency said it consulted with the U.S. Health and Human Services Department before making its decision. The review came in response to requests from the governors of Rhode Island and Washington, who asked the federal government to remove cannabis from its list of Schedule I substances.

That category of drugs, which includes heroin, is defined as substances that have a "high potential for abuse" and "no currently accepted medical use."

The DEA concluded that's where marijuana, a drug used by one in 10 Oregonians, belongs.

The agency said cannabis "does not meet the criteria for currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States," that there is a lack of "accepted safety for its use," and it has "a high potential for abuse."

The announcement disappointed cannabis legalization advocates in Oregon and nationwide who pressed the Obama administration to remove marijuana altogether from the federal government's schedule of controlled substances.

U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Oregon, said he welcomes the policy shift that allows for increased medical research, but he slammed the federal government's decision to maintain marijuana's status as a Schedule I drug.

"This decision doesn't go far enough and is further evidence that the DEA doesn't get it," said Blumenauer, who has been an outspoken proponent of reforming federal marijuana policy.

Retaining the drug's status, he said in a statement, "continues an outdated, failed approach — leaving patients and marijuana businesses trapped between state and federal laws."

Thursday's decision does nothing to address issues confronting marijuana businesses operating in states like Oregon and Washington where the drug is legal. Legal marijuana producers and retailers, for example, have trouble accessing banking services because of the federal prohibition on marijuana.

Oregon is among 25 states where marijuana is legal for medical or recreational use.

Paul Armentano, deputy director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, called the decision "largely a political one and not a scientific one."

"That the decision by the DEA fails to acknowledge the scientific evidence and the emerging public policy that is now in place in a majority of this country is simply an act of willful ignorance," Armentano said.

Although the federal government decided to maintain marijuana prohibition, it also relaxed rules for producing cannabis for medical research. The government currently allows research on cannabis, but the approval process is especially complicated and involves marijuana produced under a contract with the National Institute on Drug Abuse. The product is cultivated at a government-run facility based at the University of Mississippi.

The DEA said marijuana producers who meet agency requirements may register with the agency to supply researchers, as well as "strictly commercial endeavors" that would allow for the development of pharmaceutical products.

The announcement makes clear that the agency will register a limited number of licenses to producers of research-grade cannabis.

Dr. Colin Roberts, a pediatric neurologist and director of the Doernbecher Childhood Epilepsy Program at OHSU, said the prospect of an expanded supply of cannabis is promising.

Roberts' program is participating in several active clinical trials on pharmaceutical-grade cannabidiol produced by Insys, a pharmaceutical company. Cannabidiol, or CBD, is a component of the cannabis plant. Unlike tetrahydrocannabinol, known as THC, cannabidiol does not have psychoactive properties.

While the federal government's announcement does little to ease the thicket of red tape for researchers, it could lead to a wider variety of strains and products for scientists to work with. He said it's possible that OHSU may pursue an effort to produce cannabis for research.

"It depends on do we have enough people interested in doing the research with those products?" he said. "I know there is a lot of interest in the state because we have a lot of people who feel they can produce high quality products.

"Our ability to take those products from them and use them for for research -- we can't do that now," he said.

Mowgli Holmes, a biologist whose Oregon company is focused on cannabis genomics, said the federal decision to increase sources of research-grade marijuana "is a pretty small bone to throw at us."

Holmes served on a state task force that earlier this year recommended the creation of an independent marijuana institute to support and conduct world-class research into the drug's medical and public health benefits.

He said the new stance does nothing to address the bureaucratic burdens facing researchers who want to investigate marijuana. And it does not allow for agricultural research into the plant.

"All the basic agricultural research that needs to be done still can't be done under any circumstances," said Holmes.

[tlongII]

Thanks Obama!

[clambake]

typical

[SpursforSix]

The last thing BigPharma wants is to have an easy to produce low cost alternative to the pills they push.

[Splits]

The last thing DEA wants is to have an excuse for their funding to be drastically cut.

[boutons_deux]

The last thing DEA wants is to have an excuse for their funding to be drastically cut.

all police forces depend arresting USERS for simple, non-violent possession. The PIC also lobbies like hell to keep USERS filling their shithole prisons. incarceration, esp of blacks and browns, is a business.

mj as schedule I is one of the sickest aspects of American govt, out the very many diseases, caused by BigCorp $100Ms, every year.

[Chris]

What a fucking joke. Meanwhile BigPharma is slaughtering us like cattle.

[TheSanityAnnex]

bunch of bullshit

[FuzzyLumpkins]

DEA doesn't determine the law. Congress is going to have to do this. I do like how law enforcement think they know medicine better than doctors. DEA's charter needs to be revoked.

[Fabbs]

Cartells payments also helping kill the bill.

[Bender]

most of the whole world is fucked up about this. Illegal in almost every country, with very few exceptions.

[baseline bum]

Fuck the DEA. I'd much rather have our population smoking weed than getting a doctor's note to buy opiates to get high.

[Blake]

That category of drugs, which includes heroin, is defined as substances that have a "high potential for abuse" and "no currently accepted medical use."

I wish he'd explain why alcohol isn't in that category then

[boutons_deux]

Why the federal government still rejects marijuana as medicine

The drug enforcement arm of the federal government has reiterated its steadfast rejection of marijuana for medical use, even as more states continue to move toward legalizing the drug for medical and recreational use alike.

The DEA also said cannabis has “no current accepted medical use in treatment in the United States.”

The announcement disappointed advocates for marijuana legalization (http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2016/0811/DEA-rejects-marijuana-reclassification-despite-states-shifting-acceptance), who point to both public opinion polls and state referendums as evidence that federal law is behind the times. Societal views of marijuana are shifting, why hasn't the federal government's outlook?


But for those who study drug policy and the complex process of approving new drugs for medicine, it was no surprise.

btw, the Exec can lower the Schedule of mj, or de-Schedule it completely (like alcohol and nicotine), present to Congress for a vote. If no vote, then the Exec's decision become effective.

"It is not standard practice for either state legislators, let alone citizen votes, to decide what is or is not a medicine," says Jonathan Caulkins, a public policy professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Penn. "If Massachusetts passed a law tomorrow that said Twinkies were medicine, that would not make them medicine, nor would it bond in any way federal actions."

Federal agencies are bound by laws that require more rigorous scientific research than they have yet seen, which is why the government included in its Thursday announcement a promise to open up marijuana research to universities as never before.

"Much of the research on the health effects of marijuana is based on those who smoked low-potency product," says Beau Kilmer, a co-director for the RAND Drug Policy Research Center. "We need much more research on the consequences – both good and bad – associated with different modes of consumption, like vaping, and higher-potency products."

If the FDA finds evidence from the resulting research that marijuana has medical value, then the DEA will be empowered to change its classification.

What is new, then, about an announcement that the federal government will continue its official policy against marijuana? On a practical level, almost nothing.

Federal law enforcement will continue to focus its resources on America's opioid epidemic, taking on weed cases only for inter-city gangs or Mexican drug cartels, says Russ Baer of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

"The FDA process has been in existence for over 50 years, so why should marijuana get a free pass?" Mr. Baer asks. "If one day the FDA comes to us and says ... there is a medically accepted use for marijuana, for epilepsy, for example, then our narrative and our discussion changes drastically."

Those advocating for increased access to the drug say this attitude is behind the times and rejects the experience of many Americans.

"In order for it to be a Schedule 1 [drug] it's supposed to have no medical value and a potential for abuse, but half the states disagree with that," says Evan Nison, a board member for the Washington, D.C.-based National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML). "It’s a fact now that marijuana has medical value."

Granting any substance the distinction of "medicine" is a complex process, and the FDA does not approve entire plants for use by the American medical community. What is more likely is that, after the newly opened research runs its course, scientists with the FDA would allow doctors to prescribe strains and compounds derived from the plant to treat specific conditions.

"The FDA is not going to approve cannibis generically. That would be silly," says Mark Kleiman,a professor at the University of California-Los Angeles who specializes in drug abuse policy. " 'Blow some weed' is not medicine."

Legalization advocates say the medical argument has already been decided, and public opinion now rests on whether the drug will be available recreationally to all adults, a point 58 percent of Americans support (http://www.gallup.com/poll/186260/back-legal-marijuana.aspx), according to Gallup, and which five more states will vote on next November.

"The DEA has been left behind," says Tom Angell from the activist group Marijuana Majority. "They’re still opposing medical marijuana while the rest of the country is supporting full legalization of marijuana."

In terms of gaining FDA medical approval, the legalization movement has hurt its own case by trying to market marijuana as both a medicine and a recreational drug simultaneously, rather than lobbying Congress for another exemption like the one granted to alcohol and tobacco.

"If we're going to have an honest discussion about this, then let’s all agree to follow the science and not public opinion," Baer says. "That’s the difference right now between the federal government and the states."

Marijuana advocates will continue to point to state referendums and interest from elected officials and presidential candidates as evidence that history has spoken in favor of legalization, but federal agencies insist that without a pot-specific exemption from Congress, they cannot allow the drug into the nation's medical system.

They are, for their part, frustrated by legalization advocates who they say regularly switch between science and public opinion as their tactics, while they are bound to laws made decades ago by a now-stagnant Congressional act.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2016/0811/Why-the-federal-government-still-rejects-marijuana-as-medicine

meanwhile, drugs such as alcohol, nicotine, synthetic (BigPharma) opioids, fentanyl kill 100Ks of people every year, but BigCorp pays legislators to keep them all on the market, and keep BAC at 0.08, way above countries serious about reducing road deaths.

Of course, the FDA is fully captured, corrupted by BigPharma, polluted with BigPharma shills, lobbyists, doctors, execs.

[hater]

I wish he'd explain why alcohol isn't in that category then

Or tobacco or cofee or sugar

[boutons_deux]

Hillary Clinton Vows To Do What Obama Hasn’t — Reschedule Marijuana
She’s expressing strong support for loosening restrictions.

In a statement published yesterday in the Cannabist (http://www.thecannabist.co/2016/08/11/dea-rescheduling-marijuana-hillary-clinton/60849/), Maya Harris, a senior policy adviser to the Clinton campaign, applauded the DEA’s concurrent move to loosen restrictions on growing marijuana for research (https://thinkprogress.org/dea-expected-to-expand-access-to-marijuana-research-89c499d6872#.tdl0gygt9) — and indicated Clinton will go even further to accomplish what Obama has failed to so far.

“We applaud the steps taken today by the Obama Administration to remove research barriers that have significantly limited the scientific study of marijuana,” Harris said. “Marijuana is already being used for medical purposes in states across the country, and it has the potential for even further medical use.

As Hillary Clinton has said throughout this campaign, we should make it easier to study marijuana so that we can better understand its potential benefits, as well as its side effects.”

“As president, Hillary will build on the important steps announced today by rescheduling marijuana from a Schedule I to a Schedule II substance,” she continued. “She will also ensure Colorado, and other states that have enacted marijuana laws, can continue to serve as laboratories of democracy.”

https://thinkprogress.org/hillary-clinton-vows-to-do-what-obama-hasnt-reschedule-marijuana-fa58a833717b#.irvdodte3

[Quetzal-X]

Fuck those assholes.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Or tobacco or cofee or sugar

Because there is specific federal law that exempts them from FDA oversight. ATF is in its stead.

[boutons_deux]

Fun read:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_J._Anslinger

http://www.alternet.org/story/12666/once-secret_%22nixon_tapes%22_show_why_the_u.s._outlawe d_pot

http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-richard-nixon-drug-war-blacks-hippie/

http://naturalsociety.com/thank-president-nixon-dea-us-prison-industry-classifying-marijuana-schedule-drug/

Fucking Repugs, fucking up America

[boutons_deux]

There was an asshole mucky muck doctor from a big national Drug Abuse org on NPR today.

Of course, he totally supported keeping marijuana Sched 1.

He gave several bogus reasons, but a big two were that mj should be Sched 1 because it causes dependence, and is abused.

But alcohol and acetaminophen cause dependence, and are so abused that they cause 10Ks of deaths per year, and 100Ks of injuries.

Neither is even scheduled.

The guy was so full of bullshit, etc, etc, etc. He welcomed research on mj. :lol see next post

[boutons_deux]

New Medical Marijuana Policy Is a Catch-22, Researchers Say

Medical research on marijuana (http://www.livescience.com/24559-marijuana-facts-cannabis.html)probably won't get any easier, experts say, despite a new government policy aimed at boosting the supply of the drug for medical studies.

That means the types of studies that are needed to address the safety and effectiveness of the drug as a medicine could still be a long way off.

Marijuana's legal status as a "Schedule I" drug, which makes it an illegal drug on the federal level, "severely constrains the access and the number and type of people who can do research with cannabis," said Ryan Vandrey, an associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine who studies marijuana.

"The unfortunate result of that is that we're now in a situation where you have literally millions of people using a drug for which we don't have established safety or efficacy data," Vandrey said. [11 Odd Facts About Marijuana (http://www.livescience.com/48246-odd-facts-marijuana.html)]

But marijuana's illegal status makes it very difficult to carry out rigorous studies on the drug — the exact type of studies that are needed to definitively test its merit as medicine.

"Every research protocol we design and want to do has to go through a number of extra regulatory approval before we can do them," Vandrey told Live Science.

"The consequence of that is, we have major delays in getting done what we need to get done." The supply of marijuana available (http://www.livescience.com/24554-medical-marijuana.html) for research doesn't change any of that, he added.

Vandrey said it took him a year and a half to get all of the necessary regulatory approvals for a recent medical marijuana (http://www.livescience.com/54088-marijuana-cancer-treatments.html) study involving 76 people at two research facilities.

Larger studies involving more hospital sites — the kind of studies that are generally looked upon as a gold standard for research in testing out any new drug — would be incredibly difficult, he said.

Before a facility can carry out a medical marijuana study, the researchers need to apply for a "Schedule I license," which involves an evaluation for safety and security.

Many hospitals wouldn't be able to meet the criteria for a Schedule I license because they don't have the security or infrastructure required for it, Vandrey said.

http://www.livescience.com/55765-new-medical-marijuana-policy-hinders-researchers.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Livesciencecom+%28LiveScience .com+Science+Headline+Feed%29

Thanks, Repugs (criminal Tricky Dick Nixon)

[boutons_deux]

OTC drugs are much more dangerous than marijuana

Acetaminophen: Study Says Using Drug While Pregnant Tied to Greater Odds of Childhood Behavioral Problems

A paper published in JAMA Pediatrics Monday found that women who took the painkiller between 18 and 32 weeks of pregnancy were more likely to have children with behavioral problems or hyperactivity.

http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/08/15/490069664/how-big-a-risk-is-acetaminophen-during-pregnancy?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20160815

[boutons_deux]

The Ninth Circuit Just Handed Medical Marijuana Patients a Huge Victory

On Tuesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit handed medical marijuana patients a huge legal victory, barring the federal government from prosecuting patients, growers, and dispensaries that follow state medical marijuana laws.

The emphatic decision may finally persuade the Department of Justice to halt its campaign against medical marijuana, which remains illegal under federal law but has been legalized in 25 states and the District of Columbia

At issue in Tuesday’s decision is a congressional appropriations rider passed in 2015 and renewed in 2016.

Approved with bipartisan support, the rider barred the DOJ from spending any funds in a way that would prevent states from “implementing their own State laws that authorize the use, distribution, possession, or cultivation of medical marijuana.”

The rider’s supporters explicitly stated that its purpose was to halt federal prosecution of medical marijuana patients, growers, and dispensaries.

The 9th Circuit vigorously rejected this tortured sophistry, which one federal judge previously castigated (https://www.scribd.com/doc/285976410/MAMM-vs-USDOJ-Charles-R-Breyer-ruling-to-lift-injunction) as “at odds with fundamental notions of the rule of law.”

In an opinion (https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2016/08/16/15-10117.pdf) by Judge Diarmuid O'Scannlain, a Reagan appointee, the court affirmed that when the federal government prosecutes medical marijuana users and growers, “it has prevented the state from giving practical effect to its law” legalizing medical marijuana use and distribution.

And that, of course, is precisely what the rider was meant to proscribe.

Thus, so long as patients, growers, and dispensaries adhere to the applicable state law, they may not be prosecuted by the federal government.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/08/17/medical_marijuana_patients_handed_legal_victory_in _ninth_circuit.html

Now what about the growers, dispensaries, users that have been arrested, prosecuted?

[sickdsm]

Boutons still slobbering on dnc schlong instead calling Hillary the bitch she is and giving kudos to libertarian party on this issue.

[Th'Pusher]

Boutons still slobbering on dnc schlong instead calling Hillary the bitch she is and giving kudos to libertarian party on this issue.

http://www.marijuana.com/blog/news/2016/06/democrats-approve-marijuana-platform-plank/

[boutons_deux]

Boutons still slobbering on dnc schlong instead calling Hillary the bitch she is and giving kudos to libertarian party on this issue.

sicko, there is nothing here about Hillary from me, try not to post under the influence, and the libertarian frauds maybe be for mj, but they are so marginal compared to entire mj legalization/medicalization movement, absolutely marginal.

[Big Empty]

I wonder if marijuana can really treat major illnesses such as cancer. There are all these oils and extracts. Wonder which ones really work.

[CosmicCowboy]

I wonder if marijuana can really treat major illnesses such as cancer. There are all these oils and extracts. Wonder which ones really work.
I think the point is it cant cure cancer but make it more bearable with minor side effects. Combat nausea from chemo, decrease pain etc.

[boutons_deux]

google the amazing recently discovered endocannibinoid system

[Blake]

The agency said it consulted with the U.S. Health and Human Services Department before making its decision. The review came in response to requests from the governors of Rhode Island and Washington, who asked the federal government to remove cannabis from its list of Schedule I substances.

That category of drugs, which includes heroin, is defined as substances that have a "high potential for abuse" and "no currently accepted medical use."

The DEA concluded that's where marijuana, a drug used by one in 10 Oregonians, belongs.

But hard liquor and cigarettes are a-OK :bobo

[tlongII]

At least it’s legal here!

[boutons_deux]

But hard liquor and cigarettes are a-OK :bobo

Smoking leads to disease and disability and harms nearly every organ of the body.1



More than 16 million Americans are living with a disease caused by smoking.
For every person who dies because of smoking, at least 30 people live with a serious smoking-related illness.
Smoking causes cancer, heart disease, stroke, lung diseases, diabetes, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), which includes emphysema and chronic bronchitis.
Smoking also increases risk for tuberculosis, certain eye diseases, and problems of the immune system, including rheumatoid arthritis.
Smoking is a known cause of erectile dysfunction in males.

Smoking is the leading cause of preventable death.



Worldwide, tobacco use causes nearly 6 million deaths per year, and current trends show that tobacco use will cause more than 8 million deaths annually by 2030.2
Cigarette smoking is responsible for more than 480,000 deaths per year in the United States, including more than 41,000 deaths resulting from secondhand smoke exposure. This is about one in five deaths annually, or 1,300 deaths every day.1
On average, smokers die 10 years earlier than nonsmokers.3
If smoking continues at the current rate among U.S. youth, 5.6 million of today’s Americans younger than 18 years of age are expected to die prematurely from a smoking-related illness. This represents about one in every 13 Americans aged 17 years or younger who are alive today.1


https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/fast_facts/index.htm (https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/fast_facts/index.htm)

===============

Alcohol-Related Deaths:



An estimated 88,0008 people (approximately 62,000 men and 26,000 women8) die from alcohol-related causes annually, making alcohol the third leading preventable cause of death in the United States. The first is tobacco, and the second is poor diet and physical inactivity.9
In 2014, alcohol-impaired driving fatalities accounted for 9,967 deaths (31 percent of overall driving fatalities).10


Economic Burden:



In 2010, alcohol misuse cost the United States $249.0 billion.11
Three-quarters of the total cost of alcohol misuse is related to binge drinking.11



https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohol-health/overview-alcohol-consumption/alcohol-facts-and-statistics


marijuana has BigCorp $Bs against it,

while tobacco and alcohol have $Bs protecting them

The oligarchy makes the law, not The People, nor science.