The Hill: NORML vs. ONDCP (Round Two)

In what is passing for one of the first public debates ever between the government’s ‘anti-drug’ office (Office of National Drug Control Policy, aka ONDCP) and the world’s most famous pro-cannabis reform organization (NORML), check out my rebuttal to the ONDCP’s attempts to discredit the nearly 40 year effort to end cannabis prohibition.

To date, this unofficial debate between NORML and ONDCP has been one of the most popular public discussions ever at The Hill’s blog, which informs their editors (as well as other major publications’ and broadcast editors) that the issue of cannabis law reform is of great public concern and ripe for ongoing public policy debates about the future of cannabis prohibition.

Preview: In advance of you reading, and hopefully weighing in on The Hill’s blog, rather than engage in what I describe as the ‘flash card’ game–where every misapplication of science or anti-pot myth needs to be addressed–in my reply to the ONDCP’s rebuttal of NORML’s pro-reform advocacy efforts I try to focus on the larger issues at hand regarding personal freedom, autonomy, the proper role of the government in the private lives of it’s citizens and the obvious juxtaposition of the legal ‘drug’ industries (alcohol, tobacco and pharmaceuticals) to the failed 70-year old prohibition of cannabis.

Pelosi Talks Medical Pot

Hard to believe that the entire Democratic National Convention could go by without even one speaker paying lip service to the devastating folly that is America’s war on (some) drugs, but as NORML podcaster Russ Belville reports in his latest blog post here, the subject of marijuana law reform has been all but “invisible” in Denver.

Fortunately, thousands of Digg.com users posed the following question to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi live on CNN: “As a taxable resource, what stops marijuana from being legalized, for medical or recreational purposes, throughout the country?”

(The question comes four and a half minutes into the video.)

Pelosi’s response is candid yet disappointing. While acknowledging that scientific research clearly supports the medical use of cannabis, Pelosi acknowledges that most of Congress — including many otherwise ‘progressive’ members of the influential Congressional Black Caucus — “just isn’t there yet. … There just isn’t enough support for it.”

Of course, anyone who has followed this issue knows that the Speaker’s Congressional assessment is painfully accurate.

That said, I find myself a bit incredulous when Pelosi says: “We have important work to do outside the Congress in order for us to have success inside the Congress for [the] use of medical marijuana. … [W]e need peoples’ help to be in touch with their members of Congress to say why this should be the case.”

While I agree that it’s both important and necessary for constituents to contact their elected officials, I’m disappointed that Ms. Pelosi still believes that the ‘heavy-lifting’ needed to successfully move this issue forward federally must be engaged in outside, not inside Congress.

Pardon me, but here in the real world (outside of the Washington Beltway) public voteafter public vote illustrates that the overwhelming majority of registered voters back the legalization of medical pot, and national poll after national poll consistently shows that upwards of 70 percent of the electorate support a patient’s right to use cannabis legally.

Here in the real world, numerous health and medical organizations such as the American Public Health Association and the American College of Physicians have passed resolutions urging Congress reschedule marijuana so that a physician may prescribe it, and scientific papers indicating that cannabis can inhibit diseases ranging from multiple sclerosis to cancer to MRSA are being published virtually every week.

Given this reality, I humbly submit that those of us who work ‘outside’ the so-called ‘hallowed halls’ of Congress have done our part. It’s now time for our federally elected officials, in particular Speaker Pelosi and Democratic Presidential Nominee Obama, to pledge to do theirs.

Do They Also Believe That The Earth Is Flat?

Pot Dispute Still Unresolved
via The San Bernardino County Sun

If state Attorney General Jerry Brown’s medical-marijuana recommendations released this week were meant to clarify a muddied issue caused by conflicting state and federal law, not all local officials saw the light.

… San Bernardino County and its Sheriff’s Department are challenging Brown’s recommendations with a petition to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“We still think the recommendation is in direct conflict with federal law,” said San Bernardino County sheriff’s spokeswoman Arden Wiltshire. “Our sheriffs believe federal law supersedes state law.”

… “I’m not sure if the new determinations make a difference or not, it’s too soon to tell,” said Fontana police Sgt. Jeff Decker. “We still treat a violation of marijuana possession as a violation of the federal law.”

This, of course, would be humorous if it wasn’t so pathetic.

Let’s review shall we.

The voters of the state of California approved legislation to exempt qualified medical marijuana patients from state arrest and prosecution in 1996 — that’s 12 years ago.

Since then, the Legislative Counsel of California, the state Attorney General’s Office, the Superior Court of California, the 4th District Court of Appeals, and a majority of the California legislature have all determined that local politicians and law enforcement are obligated to uphold the provisions of California’s medical marijuana laws.

California’s constitution is also quite clear on this point — mandating that police have a sworn duty to uphold state law, not to enforce federal statutes.

In short, there is no ‘confusion’ regarding the legality of California’s pot laws.

There is only arrogance and recalcitrance on the part of those who have chosen to abuse their power and position to hamstring the will of the voters, the legislature, and the courts.

Pot Versus The ‘Superbug’

UPDATE!!! UPDATE!!!

You can also comment on this story at the Huffington Post by clicking here. Help spread the truth about medicinal cannabis by commenting, ‘Digging,’ and passing this story on to others.

According to the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, colloquially known as MRSA or ‘the superbug,’ is now responsible for more annual US deaths than AIDS. Yet despite this sobering statistic, it’s unlikely that either JAMA or anyone in the mainstream US media will report on the findings of a forthcoming Italian study — you didn’t actually think I was going to say that this took place in America did you? — demonstrating that compounds in cannabis possess “exceptional antibacterial activity” against multi-drug resistant pathogens, including MRSA.

“Although the use of cannabinoids as systemic antibacterial agents awaits rigorous clinical trials, … their topical application to reduce skin colonization by MRSA seems promising,” the study’s authors write. “Cannabis sativa … represents an interesting source of antibacterial agents to address the problem of multidrug resistance in MRSA and other pathogenic bacteria.”

(You can read the full text ahead of publication here.)

Ironically, the study notes that preparations from cannabis were “investigated extensively in the 1950s as highly active topical antiseptic agents.” Predictably — in yet another ‘victory’ for prohibition — authors declare that little, if any, research into this potential clinical application has taken place since.

Several years ago, when I first began writing the booklet Emerging Clinical Applications for Cannabis and Cannabinoids, I mused about what sort of advancements in the treatment of disease may have been achieved over the past 70+ years had U.S. government chosen to advance — rather than stifle — clinical research into the therapeutic effects of cannabis.

Now, more than ever, this is a question that our elected officials — both Republican and Democrat — must answer.

NORML To The Drug Czar’s Office: “Now Do We Have Your Attention?”

More than 100 readers have posted comments in support of NORML’s recent guest editorial, “Criminalization of Marijuana Must End,” which appeared in The Hill‘s influential ‘Congressional Blog.’ Editors at The Hill inform NORML that it’s the highest volume of readers’ response they’ve ever received on any commentary on any topic!

So it’s hardly surprising that the Drug Czar’s office has grudgingly and belatedly offered their two-cents worth in a factually bereft editorial entitled “Marijuana Decriminalization Bill Ignores the Facts.” It’s an unintentionally amusing essay — though judging by the comments it appears that few people, if anyone, have actually bothered to read it — topped off by this half-baked claim, “[L]egalizing marijuana [is] a topic more often heard in college dorms at 2 o’clock in the morning than in the hallowed halls of our Congress.”

Excuse me, but if debating the merits of America’s failed cannabis policy is, in the Drug Czar’s opinion, a topic only appropriate for midnight musings, then why is the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy straining their already diminished intellectual capacities responding to this discussion in The Hill (which, last time I checked, was not a publication frequently read by college students in their dorm rooms at 2 am)??!!

Of course, I suppose The Hill should thank their lucky stars that the Drug Czar responded at all, given that no representatives from the ONDCP, CADCA, or other ‘pro-prohibition’ groups will ever agree to engage with NORML in a face-to-face debate in a public forum. I mean, it wasn’t all that long ago that federal officials were distributing a guidebook, “How to Hold Your Own in a Drug Legalization Debate,” that recommended that prohibition advocates decline invitations to publicly debate drug policy issues.

My how times have changed!