Montana Senate resuscitates medical marijuana repeal bill 29-21

(NBC Montana) HELENA, Mont. — Senators endorsed a bill repealing medical marijuana shortly after 6 p.m. Thursday by a vote of 29-21. It needs one more, mostly procedural, vote to clear the chamber.

The Senate began arguing the repeal after a last minute push got HB 161 to the Senate floor by a one-vote margin.

Democrats say Republicans are going against what the public wants, but Republicans say what’s going on in Montana now isn’t what 62 percent of the voters approved several years ago.

It looks like Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer may be all that stands between 28,000 patients returning to criminal status and protecting them from arrest. Call the governor and prevent the first ever marijuana reform state loss in forty years of drug war.

Governor Brian D. Schweitzer
Office of the Governor
Montana State Capitol Bldg.
P.O. Box 200801
Helena MT 59620-0801
(406) 444-3111, FAX (406) 444-5529

National Cancer Institute scrubs “anti-tumoral effect” of cannabinoids from website

You may recall last Wednesday when we pointed out this incredible paragraph on the website of the National Cancer Institute at cancer.gov, on their general information about medical cannabis, touting its antitumoral effects:

The potential benefits of medicinal Cannabis for people living with cancer include antiemetic effects, appetite stimulation, pain relief, and improved sleep. In the practice of integrative oncology, the health care provider may recommend medicinal Cannabis not only for symptom management but also for its possible direct antitumor effect.

NCI apparently got a talking to from someone, because now that page has been scrubbed of any reference to the direct antitumoral effects of cannabis:

The potential benefits of medicinal Cannabis for people living with cancer include antiemetic effects, appetite stimulation, pain relief, and improved sleep. Though no relevant surveys of practice patterns exist, it appears that physicians caring for cancer patients who prescribe medicinal Cannabis predominantly do so for symptom management.

See for yourself:

Click the image for the full-size screenshots of the NCI's Cancer.gov website

Pot For Pain: The Verdict Is In

[Editor's note: This post is excerpted from this week's forthcoming NORML weekly media advisory. To have NORML's media advisories and legislative updates delivered straight to your in-box, sign up for 'NORML News' here.]

Cannabis inhalation and the administration of cannabinoids are both associated with “significant analgesic effects” in the treatment of chronic non-cancer pain, according to a systemic review of randomized controlled trials to be published in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology.

Investigators from the University of Toronto, Hospital for Sick Children, conducted a literature review regarding the efficacy of cannabinoids in the treatment of chronic pain, including neuropathic pain, fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis, and mixed chronic pain. Eighteen randomized controlled trials published between 2003 and 2010 involving a total of 766 participants met inclusion criteria. Four of the trials assessed inhaled cannabis, while other studies assessed the analgesic properties of either plant-derived cannabinoids or synthetic cannabinoids.

“Overall the quality of trials was excellent,” authors wrote. “Fifteen of the eighteen trials that met inclusion criteria demonstrated a significant analgesic effect of cannabinoid as compared to placebo, several reported significant improvements in sleep. There were no serious adverse effects.”

Researchers noted that all four trials involving inhaled cannabis “found a positive effect with no serious adverse side effects.” They added: “Of special importance is the fact that two of the trials examining smoked cannabis demonstrated a significant analgesic effect in HIV neuropathy, a type of pain that has been notoriously resistant to other treatments normally used for neuropathic pain. In the trial examining cannabis based medicines in rheumatoid arthritis a significant reduction in disease activity was also noted, this is consistent with pre-clinical work demonstrating that cannabinoids are anti-inflammatory.”

Investigators concluded, “[C]annabinoids are a modestly effective and safe treatment option for chronic non-cancer (predominantly neuropathic) pain. Given the prevalence of chronic pain, its impact on function and the paucity of effective therapeutic interventions, additional treatment options are urgently needed. More large-scale trials of longer duration reporting on pain and level of function are required.”

NORML has additional information on the analgesic properties of cannabinoids in its handbook, Emerging Clinical Applications for Cannabis and Cannabinoids, here.

Tuesday Dr. Oz asks “Medical Marijuana: Is it Time to Make it Legal?”

Tue, Mar 29, Dr. Oz show asks "Medical Marijuana: Is it Time to Make it Legal?" (click image for promo video, available to Mar 30, 2011)

On Tuesday’s edition of The Dr. Oz Show NORML Executive Director Allen St. Pierre appears along with Montel Williams and Dr. Donald Abrams, as well as an audience loaded with NORML activists from around the Tri-State area.

The show, “Medical Marijuana: Is it Time to Make it Legal?” also brings in former ONDCP staffer Andrea Barthwell (now a consultant for a firm she created called EMGlobal Public Health) and audience members from a heroin rehab center to examine the issue of medical marijuana.

Because, after all, medical marijuana could lead to heroin addiction (*face palm*).

Click the image to visit the Dr. Oz website and watch the promotional video – you’ll hear St. Pierre telling Barthwell “you’re wrong!” and you” hear Williams respond with righteous indignation in support of medical marijuana.  (That video will be gone by Wednesday.)  Check the Dr. Oz website or your local listings to find if and when the Dr. Oz show airs in your area.

Ask NORML: Drugged Driving and Impairment Tests

A new installment of ‘Ask NORML’ is now streaming on NORMLtv. This week’s topic, decided by our online audience, is drugged driving. In this episode, Executive Director Allen St. Pierre addresses concerns surrounding “stoned drivers” and the efficacy of current roadside testing.

Subscribe to NORMLtv and visit NORML’s Facebook page for announcements regarding future ‘Ask NORML’ episodes. Please submit your medical use related questions here and we’ll do our best to answer as many as we can.

Get active; get NORML!

You can now follow NORMLtv on Twitter for up to the minute updates on new content and community engagement.

The Feds Finally Recognize The Anti-Cancer Potential Of Cannabis — 36 Years Too Late!

Scientific trials have for decades documented the anti-cancer properties of cannabis and its constituents. Yet it took until this week for the website of the National Institute of Cancer, a component of the U.S. government’s National Institutes of Health, to finally acknowledged the herb’s therapeutic utility for patients living with disease or suffering from the adverse side-effects of cancer treatment.

In a newly added section to the website, entitled ‘Cannabis and Cannabinoids,’ the Institute states:

Cannabinoids may cause antitumor effects by various mechanisms, including induction of cell death, inhibition of cell growth, and inhibition of tumor angiogenesis and metastasis. Cannabinoids appear to kill tumor cells but do not affect their nontransformed counterparts and may even protect them from cell death.”

…The potential benefits of medicinal cannabis for people living with cancer include antiemetic effects, appetite stimulation, pain relief, and improved sleep. In the practice of integrative oncology, the health care provider may recommend medicinal cannabis not only for symptom management but also for its possible direct antitumor effect.”

It’s a stunning acknowledgment, given that the NIH is a branch of the very same government that presently maintains that the cannabis plant and all of its naturally-derived components have ‘no accepted medical use.’ Yet it also begs the question: Where has the National Institute of Cancer been all these years?

After all, the anti-tumor activity of cannabinoids were initially documented in 1975! That’s right; it’s taken 36 years for the Institute to get with the program.

Hopefully it won’t take them another 36 years to demand that the Feds finally assess whether these preclinical results are replicable in human trials.

NORML@40: Marijuana Advocates and the Shafer Commission

The third installment of ‘NORML@40’ is now available for viewing on our YouTube Channel, NORMLtv. (Note: For easy navigation you can now access NORMLtv through our new domain norml.tv)

‘NORML@40′ is a retrospective video series that documents the trials, tribulations, and accomplishments of America’s marijuana consumer lobby from those who kept the movement going for the past four decades.

In this episode, founder and legal counsel Keith Stroup looks back on the first years of NORML and how the National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse provided him with a clear mission.

Subscribe to NORMLtv, visit NORML’s Facebook page, and follow NORMLtv on Twitter for announcements and polls regarding future NORMLtv programming. Click here to vote for which ‘Ask NORML’ topic you want to see premiere this Friday.

Get active; get NORML!

Cannabis Inhalation Associated With Spontaneous Tumor Regression, Study Says

[Editor's note: This post is excerpted from this week's forthcoming NORML weekly media advisory. To have NORML's media advisories and legislative updates delivered straight to your in-box, sign up for 'NORML News' here. To read more about the anticancer properties of cannabinoids, please see NORML's literature review here.]

Cannabis inhalation is associated with spontaneous brain tumor regression in two subjects, according to a pair of case reports to be published in Child’s Nervous System, the official journal of the International Society for Pediatric Neurosurgery.

Investigators at the British Columbia Children’s Hospital in Vancouver documented the mitigation of residual tumors in two adolescent subjects who regularly inhaled cannabis. Authors determined that both subjects experienced a “clear regression” of their residual brain tumors over a three-year-period.

“Neither patient received any conventional adjuvant treatment” during this time period, investigators wrote. “The tumors regressed over the same period of time that cannabis was consumed via inhalation, raising the possibility that cannabis played a role in tumor regression.”

Researchers concluded, “Further research may be appropriate to elucidate the increasingly recognized effect of cannabis/cannabinoids on gliomas (brain cancers).”

A 2006 pilot study published in the British Journal of Cancer previously reported that the intratumoral administration of the cannabinoid THC was associated with reduced tumor cell proliferation in two of nine human subjects with brain cancer.

Separate preclinical studies assessing the anticancer activity of cannabinoids and endocannabinoids indicate that the substances can inhibit the proliferation of various types of cancerous cells, including breast carcinoma, prostate carcinoma, and lung cancer.

Commenting on the two new case reports, researcher Jahan Marcu — who has previously documented the inhibitory effects of cannabinoids on human glioblastoma cell proliferation and survival — wrote in the blog Freedom Is Green: “Can marijuana contribute to the regression or remission of certain cancers? Given the slow progress of clinical trials for whole plant Cannabis, it can be frustrating waiting for years, even decades, trying to answer these vital questions. But for the two young women with brain cancer in (this) report, a shift to a cannabis lifestyle may have made a difference.”

NORML@40: Playboy and the $5,000 Decision

NORMLtv is pleased to announce that the second installment of ‘NORML@40’ is now available for your viewing pleasure. This retrospective video collection documents the trials, tribulations, and accomplishments of America’s marijuana consumer lobby from those who kept the movement going for the past four decades.

In this episode, founder and legal counsel Keith Stroup recounts how he came to acquire some of NORML’s earliest funding from an unlikely source, Hugh Hefner and the Playboy Foundation.

Subscribe to NORMLtv and visit NORML’s Facebook page for announcements regarding future ‘NORML@40’ episodes. Also stay tuned to NORMLtv for periodic installments of ‘NORML Update’ and ‘Ask NORML.’

Get active; get NORML!

NORML’s Weekly Legislative Round Up

Marijuana law reform legislation is pending in over twenty states, and liberalization measures have been pre-filed in many more. Below is this week’s edition of NORML’s Weekly Legislative Round Up — activists’ one-stop guide to the latest statewide votes and happenings relevant to marijuana law reform.

For a listing of all of the pending marijuana law reform proposals that NORML is tracking, please visit NORML’s ‘Take Action Center’ here. (For a map of pending legislation, please visit here.)

Connecticut: Lawmakers in the House and Senate heard testimony on Monday in favor of measures seeking to decriminalize and medicalize marijuana. A just-released statewide poll shows that voters overwhelmingly support both proposals, which have also been endorsed by the state’s leading newspaper. You can voice your support for these measures by clicking here and here.

Hawaii: Senate lawmakers last week approved a series of legislative proposals aimed at amending the state’s marijuana laws. Legislators unanimously approved SB 1460, which reduces the adult possession of up to one ounce of marijuana from a criminal misdemeanor (punishable by up to 30 days in jail and a $1,000 fine) to a civil violation punishable by a fine of not more than $100. Regarding the medical use of marijuana, the Senate approved SB 1458, which allows for the state licensed production and distribution of medical cannabis and cannabis-infused therapeutic products. Senators also passed SB 58, which increases the quantity of marijuana that authorized patients may legally possess under state law. All three measures are now before House lawmakers for consideration. NORML has separate alerts for all three measures at our ‘Take Action Center’ here.

Montana: Members of the Senate Judicial Committee on Monday deadlocked 6 to 6 regarding House Bill 161, which sought to repeal that state’s six-year-old, voter-approved medical marijuana law. House representatives had previously voted, largely along party lines, 63 to 37 in favor of the repeal measure. Monday’s Senate vote does not kill the measure outright. Senators may still elect to reconsider the measure, or they may call for a ‘blast motion,’ which is a procedure that allows measures to bypass committee and be debated by the full chamber. NORML will keep you updated if there is an any future action taken regarding this draconian legislation.

New Hampshire: House lawmakers on Tuesday decided 221 to 96 in favor of legislation, HB 442, that seeks to allow for the state to license facilities to produce and distribute marijuana to qualified patients. The proposal now moves to the Senate. Lawmakers in House and Senate approved similar legislation in 2009, but it was vetoed by Democrat Gov. John Lynch. More information regarding this year’s effort is available from NORML here or from NHCompassion.org.

New Mexico: A New Mexico lawmaker has withdrawn legislation that sought to repeal the state’s four-year-old medical marijuana law. Newly elected Republican Gov. Susana Martinez said that she would have signed the measure, House Bill 593, had it reached her desk. The bill’s sponsor is now proposing a House Memorial bill that calls on lawmakers to study the state’s medical cannabis program.

Rhode Island: Lawmakers heard testimony today in favor of measures regarding the decriminalization and legalization of cannabis. You can learn more about both measures via NORML’s ‘Take Action Center’ here and here. In related news from the Ocean State, state regulators on Tuesday approved applications for the establishment of the state’s first three medical marijuana dispensaries. You can learn more about this story here.