NORML’s Weekly Legislative Round Up

Below is this week’s summary of pending state legislation and tips to help you become involved in changing the laws in your state.

California: While early returns indicate a narrow margin of victory for Mendocino’s Measure B — which seeks to repeal the county’s eight-year-old law allowing adults to possess up to 25 marijuana plants — final results may not be available for several weeks. Opponents of the measure are expected to challenge Measure B. They argue that the provision directly conflicts with a recent state District Court of Appeals decision that prohibits municipalities from imposing limits on the quantity of marijuana patients may possess under state law.

Rhode Island: State activists are encouraged to attend a lobby day at the State House on June 11. The lobby day is sponsored by The Rhode Island Patient Advocacy Coalition, which is backing legislation to establish state-licensed medical cannabis distribution centers. The Rhode Island Senate previously approved the measure, and advertisments in support of the House bill are now playing in various markets. To learn more about this effort, please visit NORML’s online advocacy system.

New York: Television ads in favor of pending medical cannabis legislation began airing this week in select markets of New York state. To view the ad, click here. To learn more about what you can do to support efforts to legalize medical marijuana in New York, please click here.

Just Say ‘No’ to Big Pharma’s Anti-Pot Pill

I’ve said this before but it bears repeating. The endocannabinoid system is involved in the regulation of a broad range of primary biological functions in humans — including appetite, mood regulation, blood pressure, bone density, reproduction, learning capacity, and motor coordination.

Shutting down this system in order to lose a few vanity pounds is likely not a good idea — and, in fact, is a pretty effective way to kill mice.

It’s arguably not a healthy option for humans either.

UK drug body: Sanofi’s Acomplia linked to five deaths
via CNN

Sanofi-Aventis S.A.’s (SNY) anti-obesity pill Acomplia has been linked to five deaths and 720 adverse reaction since its U.K. launch in 2006, according to a document posted on the U.K. drug regulator’s website Tuesday.

One of the deaths was due to suicide, said the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, or MHRA, document, which recorded adverse side effects up until May 9.

The drug, a new kind of obesity treatment that blocks certain brain receptors that regulate appetite, last year was rejected by a panel of U.S. Food and Drug Administration experts on concerns that the drug increases the number of psychiatric events like depression and suicidal thinking among users.

… Despite withdrawing its application to market the drug in the U.S., where it was to have been known as Zimulti, Sanofi-Aventis has plans to resubmit it to the FDA and other regulators in 2009 for approval as a treatment for type 2 diabetes.

In a study released in 2006, Acomplia showed promise as a diabetes treatment after patients who took the pill for a year reported improvements in blood sugar control and cholesterol along with modest weight loss.

However, a recent study of the drug in obese heart patients found more than 40% of those who took the drug developed psychiatric problems, while another study, published last month, raised concerns about using drugs like Acomplia in children.  

Smoking Pot All Day, Every Day Might Not Be Good For You

Ever wonder why the studies purporting to ‘prove’ marijuana’s health risks only recruit subjects who smoke pot 24 hours a day, seven days a week?

Heavy marijuana use shrinks brain parts
via Reuters  

Brain scans showed the hippocampus and amygdala were smaller in men who were heavy marijuana users compared to nonusers.  … The men had smoked at least five marijuana cigarettes daily for on average 20 years.    

The answer: If they didn’t, there wouldn’t be any purported risks left to write about.

I mean, seriously, imagine if these scientists had tried recruiting 15 subjects who drank at least five shots of vodka every day for 20 years? That is, if they could find 15 subjects who were still alive.

Marijuana may up heart attack, stroke risk
via Reuters

Heavy marijuana use can boost blood levels of a particular protein, perhaps raising a person’s risk of a heart attack or stroke, U.S. government researchers said on Tuesday. …The marijuana users in the study averaged smoking 78 to 350 marijuana cigarettes per week.

The study did not look at whether the heavy marijuana users actually had heart disease. 

So here we go again. Three-hundred and fifty joints per week?! Who are these people? And what’s with the caveat at the end of the story? If the purpose of the study is to assess whether there might be a link between ridiculously heavy pot use and heart disease, then why not, you know, look to see whether the subjects actually suffered from heart disease? (Likely answer: Aside from the abnormal protein level, the patients were probably otherwise healthy.)

Bottom line: smoking pot all day, every day probably isn’t good for you (though I find it interesting that, even among the most prolific pot users, most of the herb’s purported dangers are either speculative or are only apparent on hyper-sensitive brain scans and multi-tiered neurocognitive tests). Fortunately, 99.9 percent of pot smokers don’t behave this way.

And no, it’s not prohibition that curbs their use habits; it’s the recognition that too much pot is not conducive to an otherwise healthy, responsible lifestyle (just as pounding five shots a day wouldn’t be conducive to, well, life).

So what lesson can be learned from the two studies above (aside from the fact that our government has no interest in investigating the health of ordinary cannabis consumers)? It’s that pot, like alcohol, is best consumed in moderation, and that pot prohibition — even when compared to the excessive use of the drug itself — still poses the greatest threat to health.