Marijuana.com

xxdr_zombiexx

Phone/ Fax Slam to Tommy Thompson, Secretary of Health & Human Services - Tuesday, Oct 5
From: Hilary McQuie" | hilary@effective-action.net | Sunday October 3, 2004

As you know, Oct. 5, ASA is imploring HHS to do the right thing, and allow for the rescheduling of Marijuana. For those of you who cannot attend the Washington DC event, you can still join us by sending a fax and calling HHS On Tuesday, Oct. 5!

Send a free Fax or Email from the ASA online action center on Tuesday.

Follow up with a toll-free phone call to 877 696 6775.

Tell Tommy Thomson, the head of HHS:

*Marijuana does have a currently accepted use in medical treatment.

* Please remember that the health and safety of people who benefit from the medical use of Marijuana is in your hands.

WHY HHS? To ensure safe access for ALL patients, Marijuana must be rescheduled, and its medicinal value recognized on the federal level. Health and Human Services (HHS) has the power to make this change. If HSS allows that Marijuana has medical value, the DEA must recommend rescheduling.

However, in 2001, HHS ruled that Marijuana had, "No currently accepted medical use in treatment." They did not address the mountain of data recognizing cannabis as a useful treatment. This allowed the DEA to reject rescheduling and gave them implicit permission to raid patients.

Six months later, the DEA started raiding and closing California dispensaries. Our highest health officials can stop this abuse simply by doing their job and applying sound science to this policy debate.

Reschedule Marijuana now!

[zombienote: OK...you heard the lady. Here's a chance for us all to collectively make an impact on one day. Let's stay on this all day Tuesday!]

__________________
Alien Space Signal

There's no money for your issue so long as we're squandering $50 billion a year on the DrugWar. Ben Masel

Fear became the ultimate tool of this government - V.

 

xxdr_zombiexx

If people write thier own original fax letter, be sure to paste a copy of it here as a comment.

I was thinking about that after I posted this.....

Suetaz

I don't have the appropriate address...

Health and Human Services
Mr. Tommy Thompson



It is my understanding that in 2001, Health and Human Services ruled that Marijuana has "No currently accepted medical use in treatment."

If this is true than why have 9 states legalized the medical use of Marijuana and why has the US government been supplying Marijuana to medical patients for 22 years? The US government is still currently supplying the remaining 7 patients with medical Marijuana every month. These actions of the government to supply 7 patients with Marijuana contradicts the statement that Marijuana has no medicinal value. The government has already accepted Marijuana's medicinal value or they wouldn't have been supplying it to patients.

The research has already been done. It is time to stop ignoring it and admit that Marijuana has medicinal value so that more than 7 people can use it without fear of Federal prosecution.

To ensure safe access for ALL patients, Marijuana must be rescheduled, and its medicinal value recognized on the federal level. Health and Human Services (HHS) has the power to make this change. If HHS allows that Marijuana has medical value, the DEA must recommend rescheduling.

There are millions of Americans suffering from chronic pain and many other ailments that could benefit from this medicine. The time to reschedule Marijuana is now. It is time for Health and Human Services to stop the lies and to do the right thing and allow that Marijuana has medicinal value.

Sincerely,

(one fed up Canadian neighbor)

__________________

xxdr_zombiexx

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
200 Independence Avenue, S.W.
Washington, D.C. 20201
Telephone: 202-619-0257
Toll Free: 1-877-696-6775


Please be aware that mail sent to our Washington D.C area offices takes an additional 3-4 days to process due to changes in mail handling resulting from the Anthrax crisis of October 2001.

Suetaz

Thanks Doc! I like to put the address at the top of an email when I send it. No point in my snail mailing it, it would be lucky to get there by Christmas.

HELLO?! Do any AMERICANS have anything to say to Health and Human Services? I hope one lone Canadian letter isn't going to be the only letter posted here.

Even if you're too shy to post your letter here, at least let us know if you sent one or called.

C'mon Americans! Where's your patriotism? Stand up for your rights while you can! Bombard these people with your opinions! Don't get caught at a time when you can do something.

 

sharpdog18

Well you can bet i will be calling starting tommorrow and then again on tuesday.

Peace

__________________
I just hope I meet a girl one day who understands my relationship with Mary.

xxdr_zombiexx

New Initiative Planned to Get Marijuana Curbs Eased
By Rick Weiss | Washington Post Staff Writer | Monday, October 4, 2004; Page A02

Convinced they have sound science on their side, advocates for the medical use of Marijuana plan to launch a novel effort today to get the federal government to ease restrictions on the illicit drug.

Americans for Safe Access, a Berkeley, Calif., coalition of patients and doctors wanting easier access to pot for research and patient use, plans to file a petition with the Department of Health and Human Services charging the agency with spreading inaccurate information about the drug's medical value.

Unlike previous efforts to ease Marijuana access, which relied on the courts and have dragged on for years, the petition invokes the Data Quality Act, a little-known but powerful law that gives people the right to challenge scientific information disseminated by federal agencies. The law demands that agencies respond to petitions within two months.

The act's use by Marijuana advocates represents a peculiar political twist. The act was written by a tobacco industry lobbyist and slipped into a huge piece of legislation after the 2000 election without any congressional discussion or debate. It has been used almost exclusively by corporations challenging the validity of scientific information that they fear might lead to costly regulations.

Many consumer groups want the act repealed, saying its wording -- and the fact that it is, by law, coordinated by the White House -- makes it easy for companies to dismiss as "junk science" damning evidence that their products are harmful.

But in one of the first uses of the act on behalf of a liberal, consumer-based cause, the new petition seeks to dismiss government assertions that Marijuana is dangerous and medically useless, saying they contradict findings of the Institute of Medicine and other authoritative sources.

"The government's position on medical Marijuana is out of touch with public opinion, but most important it's out of touch with the science," said William Dolphin, a spokesman for the Berkeley group, which plans to announce its action today. "It's time the federal government gets out of the way and lets doctors make decisions for their patients."

The petition calls for the government to correct "scientifically flawed statements" about Marijuana published in the Federal Register, a move that would allow -- though not compel -- the Drug Enforcement Administration to declare it a "Schedule II" drug. That would allow it to be prescribed for specified conditions and more easily obtained for research.

Schedule II drugs, including cocaine and morphine, are tightly controlled because of their high potential for abuse, but less stringently than Schedule I drugs (LSD, peyote and Marijuana among them), which by definition have no accepted medical use.

The petition challenges the government contention that "there have been no studies that have scientifically assessed the efficacy of Marijuana for any medical condition." In fact, the group notes, a 1999 Institute of Medicine report concluded that studies have found Marijuana helpful "for pain relief, control of nausea and vomiting, and appetite stimulation."

The institute called for clinical studies to identify pot's beneficial ingredients and to create drug delivery systems safer than smoking.

David Murray, a policy analyst with the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, agreed it is "beyond dispute" that Marijuana's efficacy has been assessed and potential benefits identified. But he dismissed as "lame" another of the Berkeley group's assertions: that pot has "currently accepted" medical uses in the United States -- a key requirement for reassignment to Schedule II.

The Safe Access group cited a survey published in the New England Journal of Medicine finding that more than 40 percent of cancer doctors had recommended the drug to patients to relieve nausea from chemotherapy. The group also noted pot's emerging popularity among people with multiple sclerosis after studies suggesting the drug can reduce muscle spasticity.

But Murray said it is up to the Food and Drug Administration to decide when a drug has "accepted" medical use. To leave that up to doctors and patients, he said, is like "leaving it to fans in the Redskins' end zone to call a touchdown, instead of the referees."

Murray emphasized the negative health effects of Marijuana smoke (studies show a possible increase in oral cancers) and concerns about effects on the brain.

But Safe Access's executive director, Steph Sherer, and the group's San Francisco attorney, Joe Elford, pointed to a DEA administrative law judge's conclusion that pot was far safer than aspirin.

"A smoker would have to consume nearly 1,500 pounds of Marijuana within about fifteen minutes to induce a lethal response," Judge Francis L. Young determined in 1988. Marijuana, he concluded, "has a currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States . . . and it may lawfully be transferred from Schedule I to Schedule II."

The ruling was upheld by a federal appeals court but was overturned on procedural grounds.

Schedule I drugs are eligible for study under grants from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and pot from a government farm in Mississippi is occasionally provided for experiments. But advocates say the hurdles to winning a grant are extreme.

"I can't understand why it isn't rescheduled," said John A. Benson Jr., the University of Nebraska Medical Center professor who led the institute study. Research on Marijuana could probably lead to an array of useful new medicines, he said in a telephone interview. "But politically, socially, and in general, there's just a reluctance to take this on."

Suetaz

Area activists arrested in D.C.

Oakland Tribune | FROM STAFF REPORTS | Oct. 6, 2004

Four Bay Area activists were among more than a dozen arrested Tuesday for civil disobedience on the steps of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, D.C., as they protested federal Marijuana policy.

Steph Sherer of Oakland, executive director of Berkeley-based Americans for Safe Access; Stacey Swimme of Oakland; and John Shaw and Alex Franco, both of San Francisco, were taken into custody but released later in the day.

Several dozen protesters had turned out to demand the federal government acknowledge Marijuana has medical use and change its policies.

Americans for Safe Access on Monday filed a legal petition with HHS claiming the department is violating the Data Quality Act, which requires federal agencies to use sound science in developing policies and disseminating information.

[Suetaznote: This is all the news I've found so far that has been reported about the protest. If something more comes along I'll add it. The "several dozen protesters" doesn't sound like they had a very good turnout.]