November 10, 2008
AMA Calls for Review of Marijuana's Schedule I Status
The American Medical Association voted today to return to its original position that cannabis has wide ranging therapeutic benefits and should not be prohibited.
It's odd, in a way, that it took the AMA so long to climb on board the medical cannabis train. Back in 1937, the AMA strongly objected to the implementation of the Marijuana Tax Act, and lobbied hard for a medical exemption for the plant. That testimony was unfortunately both ignored and misrepresented to congress by forces pushing the Tax Act. But it was the forced removal of cannabis from the United States Pharmacopeia in 1940 which pulled the veil of forgetfulness over the eyes of physicians, who, until that time, prescribed cannabis regularly for a wide range of ailments including insomnia, hysteria, pruritis, and as a way for alcoholics and opiate users to free themselves from their addictions.
Perhaps the organization's reluctance to disturb the waters, until now, hinged on the fact that the DEA has long held the AMA by the fiscal short and curlies -- giving that illustrious organization exclusive rights to publish and sell the code books which every physician must buy to navigate the treacherous waters of insurance billing; that and the fact that code book revenue supplies the AMA with 60% of their operating expenses suggest there's not a lot of wiggle room when it comes to disagreeing with the DEA. One can only assume that new directives have been coming down the pike.
One also must give a lot of credit to the medical student wing of the organization, which had been lobbying hard for a rethink on the marijuana issue.
But for whatever reasons, including, perhaps, the overwhelming scientific evidence of both the efficacy and safety of cannabis; and in response to a pre-publication report by the Council on Science and Public Health, the AMA called for a review of the present scheduling under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), in order to support more effective research.
Presently cannabis is classified, along with heroin, and LSD as having no current use for medical treatment in the United States, a high potential for abuse, and not safe to use even under a physician's supervision. As a result of this classification, research into the medical benefits of cannabis has been fully stymied.
The geriatric CSA was shepherded through congress by President Richard Nixon as a part of his War on Drugs, launched back in 1972. Nixon began his military action with a cultural focus on marijuana, and the "peaceniks" who smoked it. In order to do this he had to ignore the recommendations of the very commission he appointed to investigate marijuana, headed by former Republican Governor Raymond Shafer. The Shafer Report, which was the summary of two long years of hearings on the subject concluded that, "neither the marijuana user nor the drug itself can be said to constitute a danger to public safety," and recommended to Congress that "citizens should not be criminalized or jailed merely for private possession or use." Nixon was not pleased.
In spite of numerous lawsuits which began right after the Acts implementation, and sympathetic but overturned findings by the DEA's own administrative law judges in response to those suits, decade after decade, lawmakers have refused to revisit the classification.
That may all change now.
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Comments
-Sunil Aggarwal, PhD, MD Cand.
Now with the AMA maybe there will not be such a reluctance for politicians both republican and democrat to end this madness.
I will recheck my source on the licensing issue (thanks).
Add to this the cost and side effects of many prescription drugs and marijuana is becoming a viable option.
But this whole debate is stupid. It is well known INTERNATIONALLY AT THIS POINT, and the FDA is doing trials one the topic now both here and in Canada with both Pot and Drobinol/Marinol (although stupidly banning a drug already in production from import from Israel) for a variety of hard to treat neurological diseases.
Check out the government scientific trails websites up for info on subject or NORML's website. This whole thing is ridiculous and yet again how corrupt our system is, how incompetent the President is on the subject, not to mention corrupt.
Free us from pharma monopolies and give us jobs and we can raise money for somebody else and don't have to take the poisonous crap that costs a fucking fortune. That has horrible side effects.
I've done alot of research on the subject....as I both have two very rare neurological disorders and of course both are most effectively managed by guess what? And just like opium/morphine, for people who need it, it has very different effects for people in real pain.
Plus of course no real research has been done on recombinations of the over 300 chemicals in the plant to target it for different conditions...ie epilepsy vs. multiple schlerosis.
The whole thing is FUBAR, corrupt and screwed up. And unfortunately typical of more change we can't believe in than that we can.
'Bout time, Andy, 'bout time, indeed.