Medical Marijuana in the New York State Legislature–Sheep’s Clothing for the Wolf of Legalization
June 21st, 2010
Let’s hear it for New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg for calling the “medical marijuana” bill before the state legislature a quintessential example of political hypocrisy. Bloomberg is one of those extraordinary politicians that call actions as he sees them. And he sees this one clearly.
The United States has the best system in the world for assessing the safety and efficacy of medicines in the Food and Drug Administration and I, like Mayor Bloomberg and New York City’s top narcotics prosecutor Bridget Brennan, support government study of the use of marijuana (and its active ingredient THC) for medicinal purposes. But like them, I do not support the con game going in the dysfunctional New York State legislature.
The bill Albany is considering is legalization in drag–a loosely drafted piece of legislation that, as special narcotics prosecutor Brennan points out, would allow an unlimited number of shops to sell “medical” marijuana and does not even require a physician in good standing to meet with patients before “prescribing” pot. Indeed a small army of non-physicians can dispense this state’s “medical” marijuana, including podiatrists, veterinarians and nurses. The law does not even require any checks for contaminants that could harm patients with weak immune systems like HIV victims and those undergoing chemotherapy.
The two Albany legislators pushing this bill, Senator Thomas Duane, (D-Manhattan, 29th District) and Assemblyman Richard Gottfried, (D-Manhattan, 75th District) are chairs of the Health committees in the state senate and house. They are also stealth drug pushers who, like street drug pushers who deal their stuff in dark alleys, are trying to bury their marijuana bill in the state’s budget legislation. That way members can hide their vote on it and do not have to take any heat from their constituents for the marijuana shops that open up in their districts. Senator Duane and Assemblyman Gottfried won’t propose their marijuana bill as a separate piece of legislation because they don‘t have the votes to pass it. Their colleagues in the Albany legislature should demand that this three-card Monte attempt to force them to vote to legalize marijuana should be rejected.
Legislative drug pushers Duane and Gottfried are trying to escape responsibility and blame for themselves and their colleagues for the scores of marijuana shops that will open up in neighborhoods across the city and the state. This is exactly what occurred in Los Angeles where the city council faced an onslaught of angry citizens whose neighborhoods were overrun with pot heads and just recently closed 437 of the thousand or more marijuana shops that opened up after passage of California’s medical marijuana law. The LA city council acted in an effort to “achieve some order out of what has essentially been a very chaotic situation” where marijuana dispensaries were popping up all over the city, some near schools and churches, and were serving recreational marijuana users.
And the New York law is far looser than California’s. As Brennan notes, the New York bill is “far too loosely drawn, and offers no safeguards to protect the health of those who use it, and the safety of the communities where marijuana dispensaries would be located.”
Politically prescribing medicine, rather than scientifically prescribing it through the Food and Drug Administration, is a dangerous and cynical game. Searching for the therapeutic potential of any substance is appropriate, but approving “medicine” by political referendum is a slippery slope that plays fast and loose with the desperate cries of help from the sick.
When I was Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare in the late 1970s, more than half the states responded to frantic pleas from cancer victims by passing bills to legalize the use of laetrile, a concoction of crushed apricot pits and cyanide, which was touted as a cancer cure. At least 50,000 cancer patients took it before our scientific analysis exposed it as completely worthless.
The plight of individuals in chronic pain and with serious diseases like cancer and multiple sclerosis should not be used by politicians to make “medical” marijuana widely available to anyone with a cough or a cut and to recreational users.
So I say, hurrah for Bloomberg and Brennan. I hope Bill O’Reilly gives them his Patriots award and slaps the two Albany legislator drug pushers with his Pinhead award.
If we do not nip this problem in the bud now it will continue to grow like a weed–making me wonder, what the next drug we’ll approve by political referendum will be?
Comments:
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Bravo, Mr. Califano, thank you for telling the truth on this issue. Medical marijuana is a Trojan horse. Liberalization of penalties for pot possession is an unreported disaster in Massachusetts, as high school student use seems to have grown dramatically since a decriminalization bill passed the legislature. This is a topic of regular conversation among high school teachers and administrators, however no one is measuring the health impact of this new law on the young.
If marijuana is to be legalized, it should be subject to regulation similar to that applied to alcoholic beverages by the municipalities, states, and federal government. And taxed, like cigarettes, at a level commensurate with its probable health consequences to our society.
In the name of empathy for those who suffer from debilitating illness, some people are pushing a long-deferred agenda, which holds nothing less that total legalization as its ultimate goal. We had better think very comprehensively as a society about the hidden costs of giving medical marijuana proponents what they are demanding, because this is not all they want.
Harry Lynch
Boston, MA
Are you opposed to marijuana legalization, or the manner in which New York is attempting to achieve it?
I don’t believe your laetrile analogy is applicable here, as we already know the use of marijuana is not useless.
The bottom line is that decades of harsh penalties have not and never will stop drug use and sales, particularly of marijuana, anymore than alcohol prohibition stopped alcohol. There is no perfect solution to this issue, but prohibition and criminalization make matters worse.
Your harsh words make me believe that you are against the legalization of marijuana for medicinal purposes. I hope that you are mischaracterizing your feelings on this.
My husband, Lenny, recently passed away. During his bout with cancer, the only thing that staved off his nausea, assisted him in having an appetite, and made it possible for him to eat was marijuana that he smoked. We talked to his cancer physician about Marisol, but he was clear in saying that smoking marijuana produced a better result than Marisol, if one had access to marijuana. Lenny started out weighing 315 lbs. When he died, he weighed under 200 lbs. If he hadn’t smoked marijuana, he would have lost much more weight. He didn’t die of cancer, he died of unconsciounable medical ineptness - literally dying of sepsis and acute appendicitis after 4 days of “care” in a Florida hospital. I’m sure he lost more weight there because they virtually starved him — not giving he food he could eat and not feeding him via his vein. He could have benefited from marijuana on those last days to help him with the pain they never treated and the food he couldn’t ever tolerate.
Please don’t be against medical marijuana — instead of launching a tirade against the bill, launch a “fix” for the bill so that it is possible for those who need medical marijuana to have access to it.
I agree this is a loosely written bill. However: trashing the concept and fearing our state being overrun by “pot stores” is ludicrous. No one wants a state full of potheads, but instead of scrapping the whole idea, why can’t we write a bill that limits the number of sites in a geographic region without impinging on our rights to free enterprise? Please, let us not forsake those members of our society who find themselves losing the quality of life they once knew.
Have some compassion if you can’t muster up some empathy. I think it fair to say that those who’s symptomes can’t be treated or controlled with traditional medicine never asked for their particular ailments and would much rather have had success with more conventional forms of treatment. For many, medical marijuana has the potential to return some degree or improve the quality of life they once knew. Let’s not turn our backs on those who were and are productive members of our society. Why can’t we protect their rights by writing a credible, responsbile bill that can not be rejected in Albany and put this issue on the back burner? Why? Because they obviously have no idea what it is to be chronically ill or in pain and have run out of options.
I agree that medical marijuana should not be legalized without all the appropriate safeguards taken. However, to date both in the USA and here, in Canada, our punitive laws toward drug users have done absolutely nothing to impede the use of all drugs, including marijuana. For medical use, it seems to me that doctors should properly assess the patient and his/her need for that particular drug and then prescribe it, if necessary, through the proper channel. Why, if it is an appropriate drug, is it not dispensed in pharmacies, like all other medications? Clearly, the use of medical marijuana is most desired by those who already use it for recreation and there is a significant blurring of its efficacy for pain and other symptoms. If nothing else, this proposed legislation should encourage intelligent discussion of the “drug problem” which, to date, is growing worse with the current regime.
It is amazing to me that you center on non-medical oversight when the most dangerous drug that kills over 400,000 individuals in the US alone is the local gas station and the drug is Tobacco!
It would seem that your diatribe against a relatively harmless drug that provides relief from a terrible treatment for cancer exemplifies the problems the AMA is facing with a dwindling membership.
A further note on the Medical solution to Tobacco Addiction, the AMA promotes Nicotine Replacement, and addictive drug openly advertised on TV with new flavors that are attractive to American youth. Where does the nicotine come from for you Medication? tobacco is the only source for nicotine.
You seem to promote a double standard, Sir, and therefore sacrifice credibility.
Respectfully submitted,
Barry McMillen, MA, LADC, MAC, CTAS
Your stand against medical cannabis is outdated and unfounded. Cannabis is an ancient medicine and was a widely used medicine in the US until “reefer madness” propaganda got the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 passed and essentially got it removed from the U.S. Pharmacopoeia. New discoveries of the human endogenous cannabinboid system (ECS) help explain why cannabis is safe and effective for a wide array of indications. In fact, in the past and today cannabis has been helpful in getting persons off more dangerous drugs such as opioids, alcohol, tobacco, and cocaine. I urge you to open your mind to the fact that we have been denied a valuable medicine for more than 70 years - and this prohibition was based on lies, racism, and greed. Please go to http://www.medicalcannabis.com and learn about the research. How do you argue against an herbal medicine that has been used for centuries with therapeutic results and is safer than most medications available today, when patients are allowed the option of using very toxic chemotherapy to fight cancer? Shouldn’t patients have a choice and doesn’t it make sense to allow them this safe one?
I agree with others that the NY bill can be improved - the legislators could look at the RI or NM laws, which are working well and continually being refined. I believe patients should be able to grow their own, but most patients are not necessarily good gardeners. Many patients will need a supply, and I agree with you that the dispensaries should be required to test their cannabis for contamination as well as content.
Unfortunately the press picks up on all of the problems in CA, but dismisses what is working. There are many dispensaries serving the local patients that are very well respected in the community. In fact, local testing in Oakland found that indeed much of the cannabis available was high in THC (the primary psychoactive cannabinoid), but very low in CBD (a non-psychoactive cannabinoid, but with many therapeutic benefits). So this dispensary is working on developing strains higher in CBD (which by the way, helps to mitigate the “high” from the THC).
You state a concern that allowing patients this medicine will put us on a slippery slope towards legalization. That is a separate issue, but it should be addressed. We need to stop treating cannabis as though it were a dangerous drug when you don’t have the carnage you see with other drugs such as alcohol and tobacco. The science says it is a remarkably safe drug. It is a travesty that because of the current prohibition we are willing to lock up individuals simply for growing or using this plant. Whatever happened to our freedom to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? Our government should only be concerned if we do harm to others in our pursuit of happiness. For those few who choose to use cannabis and develop an addiction problem, they should be able to get treatment. However, for the patients and yes, even for Joe and Jane Citizen, the social users, the decision to use cannabis should be their own decision - the world will not fall apart. Again, most of your concerns/fears are based on the unjust and unfounded reefer madness lies. It’s time to learn about the science behind this wonderful plant.
Mr. Califano apparently does not know how laws are enacted in New York, or anywhere else for that matter. If medical marijuana law was enacted, marijuana does not automatically become legal. That would be a seperate law that would have to go through the standard legislataive process as any other law. It’s kind of curious how he never specifically says how one would lead to the other, probably because he can’t.
A Trojan horse would be where someone gets you to go along with one thing, and then you have something else come along with it that you can’t stop because you you let the first one happen. Kind of like when someone gets people to go along with fighting against medical marijuana, then when you do help squash a medical marijuana law you find out that all you actually did was to help sentence some very ill people to a lifetime of misery and send some others to an early grave.
The real telltale is that he will not debate anyone about his statements. He would rather hit and run, relying on scare tactics that would be easily refuted in a public discourse. Example: Ethan Nadleman, the head of the Drug Policy Alliance would most certainly travel to wherever Califano hides out and discuss this with him…on record. What do you think? Is Califano up to it? If you support his statements you should love to see that discussion take place. Come on now. Everybody! Lets ask him to have that discussion! No? I didn’t think so. I guess the next step is to look up the definition of coward. Probably something like “someone who has public opinions but refuses to discuss them on record with any knowledgeable source that has an opposite opinion..
The Chairman would support medical marijuana if only it obtained Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval. This sounds good, but it is really an impossible and unnecessary precondition, no closer to being obtained now than it was in the 1960’s.
It takes hundreds of millions of dollars to get a drug through the current FDA approval process. Pharmaceutical companies spend this kind of money with the expectation that they will be able to patent new drugs and charge exorbitant prices for them. But no one can patent all the different strains of marijuana—it grows wild, and is cultivated, in all 50 states. No company can expect to recoup its expenses after conducting the type of trials of marijuana that the FDA currently considers standard for newly developed drugs. Nor should this be necessary. Marijuana is not a newly developed drug. Marijuana has been used medicinally for thousands of years and was included in the U.S. Pharmacopoeia until the 1940’s.
Even if some non-profit medical center or university was inclined to spend the millions of dollars to obtain FDA approval, the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) has been obstructing, and continues to obstruct, scientific research in this area. For the past nine years the University of Massachusetts at Amherst has been suing the DEA to allow it to grow its own marijuana to conduct clinical trials. The DEA refuses to allow anyone but itself to legally grow marijuana even for research or compassionate use programs. With very few exceptions, independent clinical trials of marijuana’s medical benefits simply cannot get done here in America.
Look at New Jersey. In 1981, the New Jersey legislature unanimously passed into law the “Dangerous Substances Therapeutic Research Act.” This law was designed to protect New Jersey patients who were engaged in clinical trials of marijuana. In 29 years not a single New Jersey resident has been able to take part in a clinical trial of medical marijuana. In fact, no clinical trial of medical marijuana has ever taken place in New Jersey. The National Academy of Sciences’ 1999 Institute of Medicine report, which recommended immediate access to clinical trials of marijuana, called the DEA’s death grip on marijuana “a daunting thicket of regulations to be negotiated at the federal level.”
There is only one federal study of medical marijuana currently being done—one, in the entire country–and it has been closed to new applicants since 1992. There are only a few patients still involved in this Investigational New Drug (IND) study. Every month, the federal government sends these patients 300 marijuana cigarettes that they smoke at the rate of ten per day. They have been doing so for over 20 years. In all that time the federal government has never once asked these patients how they are doing. It fell to a private organization, Patients Out of Time, to gather these patients together and study them. Patients Out of Time found that none of the IND patients suffered any adverse effects from marijuana, their conditions were all under control, and marijuana was the only therapeutic agent they were using. The federal government simply does not want to know how effective marijuana is—reality would clash too greatly with its preconceived notions that marijuana has no recognized medical uses and is unsafe for use even under medical supervision.
We are all entitled to our opinions on sensitive issues like medical marijuana but I don’t think it’s right to disparage and ascribe venal motivation to Assemblyman Gottfried and Senator Duane. Both gentleman have witnessed a good deal of pain and suffering within their constituencies and this bill is an attempt to address some of that pain. They may be wrong, as may be their opponents, but their motivation is undoubtedly sincere and altruistic .
Your arguments in opposition to medical use of marijuana are simply at variance with the scientific evidence and expert consensus.
From myriad examples;
The American College of Physicians (124,000 members)
Position paper, 2008, at http://drugsense.org/url/RTJp0V7l
“A clear discord exists between the scientific community and federal legal and regulatory agencies over the medicinal value of marijuana … ”
“ACP urges review of marijuana’s status as a Schedule I controlled substance and its reclassification into a more appropriate schedule … ”
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Dr. George Lundberg, editor-in-chief of JAMA from 1982 to 1999, Medscape editorial August 2005 at http://dpft.org/marijuana.htm)
“For many decades, marijuana has been the American poster child for how not to deal with a troubling psychoactive substance.”
“Although far from harmless by toxicological or pathologic criteria, marijuana is much less dangerous than many other substances in less restrictive schedules, like morphine and cocaine, not to mention the unscheduled legal mass killers tobacco and alcohol.”
“Of course, marijuana does have proven medical usefulness for some conditions,” ( citing the New England Journal of Medicine)
“In fact, enforcement of unrealistic laws regarding marijuana has probably caused more harm than marijuana itself.
“People obey laws they believe to be just; they do not obey the marijuana laws because they know they are unjust, even absurd.”
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Legalization is a red herring. While I favor regulation - which transfers control from cartels to us - it is a separate issue. Your argument was rejected by the Institute of Medicine in 1999. (http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=6376) It was further noted by IOM that such speculation is not a proper ethical consideration for medical decisions. Now the data shows that the first 11 states to legalize medical use did not see a consequent increase in general use just as IOM predicted it would not; all that has happened is that less than two percent of their populations now get marijuana from a legal source rather than funding the cartels.
Please reconsider.
It was a political decision to ban marijuana in 1937, not a medical or scientific one. Previous scientific studies like the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission Report were ignored. More recently, the Schafer Commission studied the issue for two years. In 1972, they reported that marijuana should be decriminalized for adult use in the U.S. They also said, “Marijuana has important therapeutic qualities which should be aggressively explored.” Nothing came of this report.
Also in 1972, some groups petitioned the federal government to reschedule marijuana to make it available for doctors to prescribe. The government refused to hold hearings for 14 years. Finally in 1986, after three court orders, hearings were conducted which lasted two years. The DEA testified why marijuana should remain unavailable. Doctors, nurses, patients and researchers testified that marijuana should be available. The decision was given by the US Department of Justice, DEA Administrative Law Judge Francis L. Young on September 6, 1988. He said:
“The evidence in this record clearly shows that marijuana has been accepted as capable of relieving the distress of great numbers of very ill people, and during so with safety under medical supervision. It would be unreasoning, arbitrary and capricious for DEA to continue to stand between these sufferers and this substance in light of the evidence in this record…Marijuana, in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man.”
Marijuana should have been approved nationwide for medical use then and there. Unfortunately, the Administrator of the DEA overturned the judge’s decision, acting in an arbitrary, capricious and unreasoning manner.
The whole point of any “compassionate use program” is to allow innovative therapies for seriously ill patients prior to FDA approval. This is why states pass laws like the one New York is currently considering. Patients have a right to the best possible care available. Comparing laetrile to marijuana is absurd. Laetrile is ineffective as a cancer fighting agent and it has side effects that resemble cyanide poisoning; marijuana is effective for a wide range of symptoms and conditions and its side effects are mild and transient.
It takes a real leap from saying, “Marijuana therapy is not for me,” to saying, “Marijuana therapy is not for anyone in New York State.” It speaks of a monumental ego that is dreadfully mistaken. An ego that is so fearful of the possible evolution of social policy, that it would permit countless dreadfully ill patients to suffer needlessly just to ensure the status quo. Moreover, there is a clear scientific basis for the safety and efficacy of marijuana for some clinical conditions. There is an entirely new scientific field emerging with the recent discovery of the Endocannabinoid System. This system details the cannabinoid receptors that exist in every organ of the human body, and explain why marijuana is effective for such a wide range of conditions. Learn it, and be avant-garde, or ignore it and be derriere.
I have read a few other blogs related to this subject in the past few days in doing a research report for school. I have to say that what you’re saying here makes perfect sense and is helping me to get my head around this subject. Do you have any other places you could recommend to help my research?
Thanks,
Chiropractor
Chiropractor Myrtle Beach
It is not only marijuana that should be legal, but all drugs (yes, all of them). Granted, you don’t have to make heroin widely available to everyone, but at least let the addicts get hold of it without knocking off a gas station.
Seriously, why do people think this is worse than legalizing alchohol? People are desperate for jobs and this is one product that could reboot the entire economy. I just don’t see any reason why people are so upset about recreational drug use as long as it is not done on the job. We live in such a miserable time. Really, the worst ever. Just legalize it already.