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MMJ a Decoy in Effort To Legalize All Drugs
9/28/07|Daily Bulletin| by Brenda Chabot, Guest Columnist

The Inland Valley Drug Free Community Coalition stands firmly against medical-marijuana dispensaries.
We have a tough fight in front of us, but one that we are winning - and it's due in large part to the efforts of political leaders, community volunteers and parents who are standing up against the plight of medical-marijuana dispensaries.

Leadership in this community has helped to expose the dangers of smoked marijuana and the dangers of allowing marijuana shops to operate in our communities. We applaud Ontario and Norco, just to name a few, who have had the courage to stand up and ban these dispensaries outright from their cities. We want other cities to do the same, especially those who continue to sit on the fence with a moratorium.

Research has not demonstrated that smoked marijuana can be helpful as medicine.

Marinol is a medicine - smoked marijuana is not. Unfortunately, positive coverage of the medical-marijuana debate has contributed to misperception that marijuana is harmless or may even have health benefits. Interviews with teens found that some believe that marijuana can cure cancer and other serious diseases.

Any determination of a drug's valid medical use must be based on the best available science undertaken by medical professionals. The Institute of Medicine conducted a comprehensive study in 1999 to assess the potential health benefits of marijuana and its constituent cannabinoids. The study concluded that smoking marijuana is not recommended for the treatment of any disease condition. In addition, there are more effective medications currently available. For those reasons, the Institute of Medicine concluded that there is little future in smoked marijuana as a medically approved medication.

Advocates have promoted the use of marijuana to treat medical conditions such as glaucoma. However, this is a good example of more effective medicines already available. According to the Institute of Medicine, there are six classes of drugs and multiple surgical techniques that are available to treat glaucoma that effectively slow the progression of this disease by reducing high intraocular pressure.

In other studies, smoked marijuana has been shown to cause a variety of health problems, including cancer, respiratory problems, increased heart rate and loss of motor skills. Furthermore, marijuana can affect the immune system by impairing the ability of T-cells to fight off infections, demonstrating that marijuana can do more harm than good in people with already compromised immune systems.

In addition, in a recent study by the Mayo Clinic, THC was shown to be less effective than standard treatments in helping cancer patients regain lost appetites.

The American Medical Association recommends that marijuana remain a Schedule I controlled substance.

As a result of such research, a synthetic THC drug, Marinol, has been available to the public since 1985. The Food and Drug Administration has determined that Marinol is safe, effective and has therapeutic benefits for use as a treatment for nausea and vomiting associated with cancer chemotherapy, and as a treatment of weight loss in patients with AIDS. However, it does not produce the harmful health effects associated with smoking marijuana.

It's also important to realize that the campaign to allow marijuana to be used as medicine is a tactical maneuver in an overall strategy to completely legalize all drugs.

Prolegalization groups have transformed the debate from decriminalizing drug use to one of compassion and care for people with serious diseases.

Marijuana is a dangerous, addictive drug that poses significant health threats to users and to the community in which marijuana is sold.

Marijuana has no medical value that can't be met more effectively by legal drugs. Marijuana users are far more likely to use other drugs like cocaine and heroin than nonmarijuana users, and this raises additional concerns for those trying to purchase marijuana in our Inland Valley cities.

Drug legalizers use "medical marijuana" as red herring in effort to advocate broader legalization of drug use.

 

Buzzby

This article is a mass of misinformation, misrepresentation, and outright lies. When I went to the source site, the article doesn't appear to be available for responses.

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Kattaran

I concur, people really need to stop with the misinfo about MJ. Honestly, I can think of only two people I know that have done other drugs besides MJ. Most people I come in contact with are against harder drugs and support MJ because it is so harmless...

SirSmokaALot

"Marinol is a medicine - smoked marijuana is not. Unfortunately, positive coverage of the medical-marijuana debate has contributed to misperception that marijuana is harmless or may even have health benefits. Interviews with teens found that some believe that marijuana can cure cancer and other serious diseases."

Hahaha that person have to be mute/deaf/dumb/blind all at same time due to that part... Marinol is a medicine and smoked marijuana is not.... what a irony.. i wonder where marinol's THC comes from. There are researches (and people ourselves!) proving that Marinol are useless in many cases comparing to smoked method (or vaped the healthier method) because whatever goes into lungs get absorbed faster and uninterpreted unlike stomach. Therefore... another brainwashed person.

"Advocates have promoted the use of marijuana to treat medical conditions such as glaucoma. However, this is a good example of more effective medicines already available. According to the Institute of Medicine, there are six classes of drugs and multiple surgical techniques that are available to treat glaucoma that effectively slow the progression of this disease by reducing high intraocular pressure."

um I think most of people would rather inexpensive & risk-free grass to treat the glaucoma over expensive & risky surgeries... God, reading this article is like watching a fat bitch running... putting major sore upon my eyes.

"In other studies, smoked marijuana has been shown to cause a variety of health problems, including cancer, respiratory problems, increased heart rate and loss of motor skills. Furthermore, marijuana can affect the immune system by impairing the ability of T-cells to fight off infections, demonstrating that marijuana can do more harm than good in people with already compromised immune systems."

Another information plucked out of debunked studies... *yawns*

BillieBudd

How would you like to have that gal for a neighbor (or Boss or teacher)? Whew!!

 

Buzzby

It's entirely synthetic - made in a laboratory.

Bad example. There are much better and longer lasting medicines to reduce the intraocular pressure of glaucoma. The only people who would use marijuana for it (other than stoners) are people who can't tolerate these meds.

reggie_the_dog

You do not even need to smoke medical marijuana, you can vaporize it. So VAPORIZED cannabis would be medecine. Vaporizers eliminate any possiblity of negative effect on the lungs. With vaporizers the BS that smoked cannabis is not medecie is not valid.

Tokamak

I tried to find a way to contact the bitch that wrote this piece of trash. The best I could find was the email address of her organization, Inland Valley Drug Free Community Coalition. It's info@ivdfc.org. We should all take the time to give these ignorant Prohibitionist busy-bodies a little education...

Peace.

__________________
"He who knows does not speak. He who speaks does not know."
- Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

disheartenedwamerica

I sent her this....


Frankly I'd like to start by saying that resources like this that classify cannabis users as "stupid" or "less intelligent" then those who do not is a disgrace. Personally I enjoy cannabis after a long day of classes. I am a student in college with a 3.7 GPA, and trust me I am no dumber then the people who don't use cannabis. I am a non-violent person with a strong interest in politics and government. I hope to be President one day. I would like to point out that the reason your statistics show that so many people who us cannabis do "harder" drugs. If you lie about the dangers of a harmless plant, then children and adolescents, who you claim to be trying to protect, assume that all the information they receive is biased and false. Hence they feel that if there is no harm from one, then none can be as bad as they are described. Sadly this is not true and drugs like Meth and Heroine are sinister and destroy lives.
I would also like to further dispel yor "gateway" theory. That "theory" is a poorly constructed scare tactic to trick parents into believing that if their kids use cannabis that they will grow up to be violent junkies. To be blunt you could link almost any behavior as a "gateway" to something negative if you take enough time to look up enough information to support your case. For instance you could say that being born is a "gateway" to murder. Do you know any murders that weren't born? Or how about racism, is that a "gateway" to violence. Racists are more likely to violent then non-racists so is there a link? There could be, but most definitely does not mean there is a 100% link. Unfortunately thanks to people like you who dilute the real information about things like cannabis, children trying to find information for themselves only discover lies.
In addition the fact the persecution of cannabis users is far worse then any other violation in America is disgusting. You claim that cannabis is harmful and dangerous to America. Some people like to have a beer or a glass of wine after a hard day, others enjoy smoking cannabis. Tell me, if so much money from alcohol and tobacco companies wasn't pumped into so many congressperson's campaigns each election, would tobacco, which contains nicotine, the most addictive "drug" and yes I say drug, still be legal. Alcohol is a poison, a toxin, that people can easily overdose from, or become extremely ill. How many cannabis overdoses do we have each year in America? Please next time you want to influence people about the "harms" of cannabis, please take a step back and remember you are condemning a plant, instead of a harmful drug. I personally am under persecution of the DEA's tyrannical war on "drugs". Ironically I believe it was the CIA who brought heroin to the U.S. to begin with to fund their other unjustifiable wars. I love America and I want the children of the U.S. to be protected and they can't be protected if the people who are supposed to work for and protect them, the police, FBI, and the DEA constantly lie to them, and persecute the harmless, victimless crimes, all the while squandering billions of tax dollars that could be used to stop murderers, rapists, or other violent offenders. Better yet put those billions into helping people with actual problems from real drugs, or maybe provide healthcare to children you care so much about. I guess if it helps you sleep better at night, you can ignore the fact that you rip apart families, throw them into despair, and in addition leave millions of children with no health care due to squandered monies, but hey it's your conscience not mine. I just wanted to say that you are a disgrace, and frankly I think you should be locked in a cage for spreading such malicious lies and malignant harm. It is people like you who are damaging America's youth and population, not a plant. Thank you.

Nephrosis

That Train Already Left The Station

The Daily Bulletin has an anti-medical marijuana column today by Brenda Chabot of the Inland Valley Drug Free Community Coalition that seems like a pretty normal newspaper op-ed piece until you realize that it's arguing a point that California's voters rejected more than 10 years ago.

Chabot spends hundreds of words repeating misinformation about medical marijuana's medical efficacy, arguing that "Marinol is a medicine - smoked marijuana is not," flogging the "gateway drug" theory, and generally championing the party line of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. She forgets to use the goofy ONDCP tagline -- "Marijuana: harmless?" -- but otherwise sounds like she's writing a speech for John Walters to deliver to some provincial Rotary Club.

The thing she seems to forget is that the train she's riding already left the station a long time ago in California, along with 11 other states.

California voters don't buy the federal argument, which they recognize as a mixture of bad science and blatant propaganda. That's why California voters passed Prop. 215 in 1996, why California's legislature enacted laws like SB420 to help implement the law, why a number of California cities have passed rules like Oakland's Meaure Z to make marijuana arrests the lowest possible priority for law enforcement. Medical marijuana is already a reality in California.

The battle that Chabot is fighting has been over for a long time.

Chabot and her fellow drug warriors lost.

(Sometimes they just don't seem to realize it.)

Heres teh link Drug Law Blog: That Train Already Left The Station