RE:
Da Vinci,
- Make it a daily-practice to dissect
their spurious arguments.
- Copy news-article(s) to a word-processor,
save, then preface each section with initials
(and appropo text-modifying HTML-TAGS,
for bolding and italics),
when posting to NORML-Blog.

EXAMPLES,
(Replace left and right brackets with
less-than / greater-than symbols):
[b] bold [/b]
[i] italics [/i]

- Firefox BBCode Add-On is also very helpful
for easily-creating text-emphasis.

Nice job on the rebutle to that propoganda piece. I saw that article on Norml News and almost wrote one my self. We cant let stuff like this go unanswered anylonger, so thank you sir.

just type the word Marijuana in the search box and then click the search botton, and all kinds of questions come up for ya to vote on

This OPED article has more holes than Swiss-Cheese:
Rebuttals to Mr. Biffany’s OPED are in BOLD Italics!!!

(John Biffany’s FAULTY, insensitive…)
LOGIC ELIMINATES MEDICAL MARIJUANA
by John Biffany, (Source:Journal Standard)
Regional News

22 May 2009

Illinois
——-

JB:
Two bills have been introduced in the Illinois Legislature
intending to make legal the medicinal use of smoked marijuana.

RE:
- Smoking is NOT the only means of ingesting Medical-Cannabis.
Please get up-to-date, sir…

JB:
The companion bills,
entitled the Compassionate Use of Medical Cannabis Pilot Program Act,
have been filed in both the Illinois House and Senate and
are supported by a surprisingly large percentage of the Democratic caucuses in both chambers.

RE:
Praise the God-of-Creation for this!!!

JB:
Legislative members,
however, have been misinformed by supporters
regarding both the impact the bills will have upon Illinois and
the long term motivations of the bill’s supporters.

RE:
Who are you to say
“Legislative members…have been misinformed ”
Just because they’re not in line with
your woefully-insufficient knowledge???

JB:
Lobbyists are making no attempt to conceal
their long range goal
for Illinois:
cannabis legalization.

RE:
- What is wrong with that?
(“cannabis legalization”)

-The policy of banning certain plants is of a
very “14th century” witch-hunt mentality.
THIS MUST END NOW!!!

JB:
The Illinois bill is similar to one that passed in California several years ago.

RE:
- Is that really so???

- My own observation is that
the Illinois bill is far stricter than California’s
from the very onset.

JB:
- In Northern California,
marijuana has become the most lucrative agricultural commodity in the region
( surpassing wine ),
and is known in California as the “cash crop.”

- California is fast overtaking Mexico as the exporter of the marijuana
being smuggled into the Midwestern and Eastern United States.

RE:
Mr. Biffany,
You’re confusing THE DRAWBACKS OF
the illicit, undergroud markets,

with those of legit caregivers and medi-cann patients!!!

JB:
During the past year,
more cannabis loads were interdicted along Interstate 80 in Illinois
originating from California than from Mexico.
Is Illinois poised to become the next supplier of marijuana to the East Coast?

RE:
Did you know ???
CANNABIS is,
in actuality,
an AGRICULTRAL-PRODUCT!!!

(By the way, cannabis requires minimal-fertilizers,
no pesticides!!!)

JB:
The law is nominally intended for terminally ill patients.
In California, 40 percent of medical marijuana patients are
between 21 and 30 years of age, and not terminally ill.
As the current legislation is written,
anyone complaining of chronic pain is eligible to obtain a license.

RE:
- Who are you to NOT consider chronic pain as a valid reason???
If WHOLE-cannabis ITSELF is the safest and most efficacious medicine for
a person’s pain-alleviation, then who are you to deny us?

(MAY YOU EXPERIENCE OUR unalleviated PAIN THREE-FOLD!!!
No…make that TENFOLD!!!)

JB:
-Proponents of the bill claim that compounds in cannabis
have medicinal properties that ease the pain and suffering of certain terminally ill patients.
If so, then those chemical compounds should be isolated and researched.

RE:
- Whole-cannabis is STILL SAFER
and more efficacious than single,
isolated, synthetic cannabinoids…
AND
less expensive than anything
churned-out by a pharmaceutical company…

- Just ask any medi-cann patient who has
had the opportunity to try both Marinol,
(a single, isolated synthetic cannabinoid),
and whole cannabis-herb.

JB:
- In the United States,
there is a process for creating and vetting medicines
that should not be averted with this particular chemical compound.
Several plant based substances have been converted to medicines
( aspirin and morphine, for example ), including Opium plants.

RE:
White-willow,
(the botanical-origin of aspirin),
is not a villified, ‘illegal plant’,
nor
should opium-poppies or cannabis be, either!

- The folly of Marinol is that it only contains ONE,
isolated synthetic cannabinoid, not counter-balanced,
nor interacting synergistly
with other cannabinoids normally present in whole-cannabis.

JB:
- In no medicinal prescription
has smoking been determined to be the best delivery system of the drug.
The American Medical Association also
opposes smoking as a viable delivery system.

RE:
Mr. Biffany,
- Smoking is NOT the only means of
ingesting / utilizing Medical-Cannabis.

- Have you ever heard of tinctures, ointments,
edibles or low-temperature aromative-vaporization?!?

JB:
Dr. Rafael Meshulam from Hebrew University has been
conducting brain injury research for over 20 years.
He has isolated compounds from the cannabis sativa plant
that experimentation has shown has some promising medicinal qualities for trauma patients.
He has patented those medicines with injectable delivery systems,
and a large Israeli pharmaceutical company is working toward commercializing the products.

RE:
- Is this merely for Big-Pharma profits,
(i.e. bio-piracy of Nature),
or for use alongside natural, botanical sources?

- And, why only injectable delivery-systems?
(as opposed to NON-INVASIVE
nebulizer / aspirator delivery-systems).

JB:
- Featured in a National Geographic Explorer episode entitled
“Marijuana Nation,” Dr. Meshulam questions the
smoking of cannabis as a crude medical delivery system.

RE:
- AGAIN, Mr. Biffany,
Smoking is NOT the
only means of administering whole medical-cannabis…

- If Dr. Meshulam is truly unaware of the
ADVANCED smokeless-technologies,
(AROMATICIZERS, NEBULIZERS, VAPORIZERS),
for utilizing medical-cannabis,
then they need to do further
research on the inherent safety and effectiveness of
these emergent medical-technologies.

JB:
- On the program,
he wonders aloud how a doctor prescribing
smokable cannabis can be sure of what dosage any particular patient is receiving.

RE:
Mr. Biffany,
I understand your concern.

- Please,
if truly concerned, do familiarize yourself.

JB:
When doctors prescribe any other drug,
the dosage recommendation is extremely specific.
There is a substantial difference, for example,
between giving a patient 30 milligrams or 10 grams of a particular drug.

RE:
Cannabis / cannabinoids has / have a very high therapeutic-index,
(in other words, very low risk of toxicity / lethality,
comparative to most presently available medications…
Cannabis is safer than aspirin, in terms of LD-50).

JB:
Marijuana, on the other hand,
can range by as much a 3 percent to over 30 percent THC content.
Is this a controlled medical drug?

RE:
Medi-cann patients are,
(AMAZINGLY),
able to titrate their dosage-intake…
(Consuming only the amounts which they need, then stopping…),
regardless of initial cannabis ‘potency’.

- Besides,
cannabis-cultivars and hybrids, cannabis extracts can be analysed for
medicinal-component levels / cannabinoid-fraction percentages,
and labled accordingly, as whole-cannabis medications.
(THC is only ONE of the MANY
medicinally-USEFUL compounds found in whole-cannabis).

JB:
Beyond the murky medicinal link,

RE:
Only ‘Murky’, because the ‘facts’ you rely upon and present
are likewise so.

there are several other potential community impacts that are contained in the bill.
The bill allows each license holder to grow up to seven plants.

RE:
So…!?!

JB:
Given that each plant yields an average of
one-half pound of smokable marijuana,
and each half pound of marijuana equates
to 454 cigarettes,
how could each patient consume 454 joints produced by each plant?

RE:
Why are you only thinking in terms of “joints” ???

- If a medi-cann patient is utilizing non-smokable forms of whole-cannabis,
then “number-of-joints” assertions become ENTIRELY IRRELEVENT!!!

JB:
Coincidentally, each patient is also allowed a care giver who can also grow 7 plants,
making the yield for the patient actually 3,178 joints.

RE:
Your assumption,
(“number of pounds / number of joints of smokable marijuana per-plant”),
is very-inaccurate, NOT valid…

- How many medical-cannabis licensees,
(caregivers or patients),
would be THAT successful???

JB:
- In the proposed legislation,
there are no restrictions for who may be licensed patients.
Police officers, day care workers, bus drivers, pilots, teachers,
elected officials, surgeons, paramedics, fire fighters, and air traffic
controllers can all be medical marijuana consumers under the law
( they just cannot be impaired while flying a plane or driving a bus ).
However, there is no objective definition of “impairment.”

RE:
“Performance-testing”,
irrespective of inactive cannabinoid-metabolite levels,
ought to be the criteria-of-evalution…

- The impairment-hazards of medi-cann
fall WITHIN THE RANGE of currently-available OTC meds.
(Even though most OTC-Meds are far more lethal than cannabis).

JB:
-The law also gives landlords and property owners
no way to restrict or prevent licensed patients from
growing cannabis inside their buildings.

-The odor, mold and chemical residue issues that
police find after raiding these indoor facilities make the buildings
uninhabitable and will be expensive for property owners to mitigate.

RE:
Mr. Biffany,
the indoor grow-hazards
you’ve mentioned are
only true for illicit,
for-profit grow-ops
under current-policy of Prohibition 2.

JB:
Residential properties are ill-suited to commercial agricultural operations of any of any type.

RE:
Mr. Biffany,
How does a 7 plant medi-cann / caregiver-grow equate to being a
“commercial agricultural operation” ???
(Especially if the cannbis is being grown for private, individual. medical-use).

- WOULD “commercial agricultural operation”
also include OUTDOOR vegetable-gardens,
or INDOOR food-crop starter-seedlings?
(At one’s own residence,
for own consumption of said edible-produce).

JB:
Fifty-percent of residential fires in California now originate from grows gone bad.

RE:
You’re CONFUSING / CONFLATING hazards of underground,
opportunistic, profiteering, Prohibition-Borne indoor-grows,
(with low concern for building-property-maintanence,
proper, non-evasive electrical-usage, responsible-growing-practices),

(Of which, in practice, would be done responsibly
if given guidelines on how to do so,
for reduction of excessive moisture,
mold, circuit-overloading and plant-borne odors).

JB:
This is not a road that Illinois wants to travel down.

RE:
- Not the in the way your OPED has portrayed it…
(If given the right spin / slant, people would ALSO
be convinced to outlaw water!!!).

JB:
If there are therapeutic benefits to compounds within the cannabis plant,
let them be extracted and delivered safely like every other medicine.

RE:
Mr. Biffany,
- The best medical-cannabis experts in California
and Europe have developed
the safest delivery-mechanisms, extraction-methods for
whole medical-cannabis,
INCLUDING…
Tinctures, edibles, ointments / topical creams,
low-temperature herbal aromatization / vaporization,
(Vaporization, for effective therapeutic-immediacy of smoking,
minus the hazards thereof).

CFJ