5 Favorite Law Enforcement Lies About Marijuana

Gallup Polls Support and Opposition to Marijuana Legalization 1969-2011

As 50% of Americans now support marijuana legalization, the prohibitionists are coming out in full force with hysterical propaganda to once again terrorize voters about cannabis.  We intended to scour multiple sources to compile the five most common scare tactics they use, but Joseph Summerill, director of the Summerill Group LLC, a Washington, D.C.- based law enforcement think tank and general counsel for the Major County Sheriffs’ Association, made our job easy by using all five in one op-ed piece published today in the Washington Examiner entitled, “Facts on medical marijuana are stubborn things, too“.

Lie #1) Marijuana’s not really medical.  The government says so!

[M]arijuana is a Schedule I drug… a high potential for abuse or dependency… no accepted medical value… unsafe to use, even under medical supervision.  [M]arijuana has not passed the rigid scrutiny of medicine proposed by the FDA.

The Truth

• National Institutes of Drug Abuse (NIDA) puts the lifetime dependence rate on cannabis at 9%, same as caffeine.  Alcohol has a 15% rate of abuse and Tobacco’s is 32%.
• One third of federal jurisdictions (16 states and DC) accept the medical value of cannabis.
• The federal government is supplying four Americans with this “unsafe” medicine with no medical supervision.
• Cannabis has been used medically for 5,000 years without a single human death – a far greater safety standard than an FDA that approved phen-fen and Vioxx.

(more…)

Closing The ‘Gateway’ To Drug Abuse — With Cannabis

For decades opponents of marijuana law reform policies have falsely argued that marijuana is a ‘gateway’ to drug abuse — a guilt-by-association charge that implies that because tens of millions of people have used cannabis and a minority of these tens of millions have also tried other drugs that somehow it must have been the pot that triggered the hard drug use.

But while reformers have been consistent — and accurate — to point out that the so-called ‘gateway theory’ lacks any statistical support (for example, the U.S. government contends that more than four in ten Americans have used cannabis, yet fewer than two percent have ever tried heroin), few in our movement have publicized the fact that for many people cannabis can be a powerful ‘exit drug’ for those looking to curb or cease their use of alcohol, opiates, or narcotics. For instance:

A 2010 study published in the Harm Reduction Journal demonstrating that cannabis-using adults enrolled in substance abuse treatment programs fared equally or better than nonusers in various outcome categories, including treatment completion.

A 2009 survey published in the Harm Reduction Journal finding that 40 percent of respondents said used marijuana as a substitute for alcohol, and 26 percent used it to replace their former use of more potent illegal drugs.

A 2009 study published in the American Journal on Addictions reporting that moderate cannabis use and improved retention in naltrexone treatment among opiate-dependent subjects in a New York state inpatient detoxification program.

A 2009 preclinical study published in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology demonstrating that oral THC suppressed sensitivity to opiate dependence and conditioning.

Based on this and other emerging evidence, investigators at the Harborside Health Center in Oakland, California are now enrolling residents in twelve-step-like classes that use cannabis to quit heroin, pills, cigarettes, alcohol, and other potentially addictive substances.

Oaklanders Quitting Oxycontin with Cannabis
via The East Bay Express

For years, there have been anecdotal reports about people using cannabis to quit harder drugs. The process is called “substitution”, and it’s a tactic that’s beginning to be endorsed by the “harm reduction” philosophy of mental health.

… So Harborside crafted a program that’s similar to traditional twelve-step programs, but ignores the pot smoking.

… Janichek is tracking the outcomes of Harborside’s free, cannabis-positive mental health services, with the goal of extrapolating the data into guidelines and replicating the services in other dispensaries.

It will be interesting to see the results of this program in the coming months — as well as the response (read: outcry) from the traditional drug treatment community.

One can expect that Harborside’s findings will further undermine the notion that cannabis is an alleged ‘gateway’ to hard drug use, and strengthen the argument that the plant may, in fact, be a useful tool for deterring the initiation or continuation of drug abuse.

Alternet: “Five Things the Corporate Media Don’t Want You to Know About Cannabis”

I’ve written previously about the mainstream media’s propensity to under report and distort stories that challenge marijuana prohibition.

Apparently my latest missive has hit a nerve — as it has quickly risen to become the most read story on Alternet.

5 Things the Corporate Media Don’t Want You to Know About Cannabis
via Alternet.org

1. Marijuana Use Is Not Associated With a Rise in Incidences of Schizophrenia

2. Marijuana Smoke Doesn’t Damage the Lungs Like Tobacco

3. Cannabis Use Potentially Protects, Rather Than Harms, the Brain

4. Marijuana Is a Terminus, Not a ‘Gateway,’ to Hard Drug Use

5. Government’s Anti-Pot Ads Encourage, Rather Than Discourage, Marijuana Use

Read the full text of the story here.

The End Of Marijuana Prohibition — In Under Three Minutes!

The criminal prohibition of cannabis is an indefensible public policy position. Why can I say that? Just watch the video below.

It’s been clear for quite some time that proponents of marijuana prohibition have nary a leg to stand on. When their position is scrutinized, even the least bit, it ends up collapsing like a house of cards. In this case, the look on FBI Director Robert Mueller’s face two minutes and forty-three seconds into the video says it all. His empty rhetoric has failed and he has no more artillery left in his arsenal. He’s been defeated and he knows it.

(more…)