Ask yourself a question: Do you want emotional anecdotal, pre-clinical evidence (Ephedirin is a good example) offered by political interest groups or the dispassionate scientific certainty associated with the expert scientific process devoid of political considerations to be the standard for determining both the medications and amounts of medications the public uses? In short, do you want politics corrupting science?
1. Smoking a joint does not make wacky weed medicinal. Neither the MS Society or American Cancer society advocates its use. The November 21, 2009 LA Times Editorial “The AMA’s Reversal on Marijuana” specifically notes: For all the debate over whether marijuana has medicinal value, arguments that the drug has significant palliative properties or that it has none suffer from the same flaw: There’s little scientific proof either way.”
As to its potential, the American Medical Association, LA Times, and Washington Post are calling for extensive federal research of marijuana’s medicinal purpose(s). The FDA is currently near the end of extensive clinical trials of Sativex for cancer and M.S.
2. The States are structurally incapable of assuring such treatments are safe, valid, accurate, reliable, and capable of administrative management.
According to the AMA “the patchwork of state-based systems that have been established for ‘medical marijuana’ is woefully inadequate in establishing even rudimentary safeguards that would normally be applied to the appropriate clinical use of Psychoactive substances.”
The Washington Post editorial (Oct 25 “Questions About Pot”) calls for a moratorium on new state programs.
Editor’s note: The federal government has steadfastly thwarted scientific research on the value of marijuana as medicine by withholding marijuana from reputable institutions who for years have sought access to federally grown marijuana to conduct studies.
