Drug War Issues
Politics & Advocacy
In a ruling Tuesday, the Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit denied a petition seeking to reschedule marijuana. The court held that while petitioners had presented some evidence of marijuana's medical efficacy, there was not enough to override the federal government's decision to place marijuana on Schedule I, the most restrictive classification.
E. Barrett Prettyman US Courthouse and William B. Bryant Annex
The ruling came in Americans for Safe Access v. Drug Enforcement Administration. It comes more than 10 years after the Coalition for Rescheduling Cannabis, led by Jon Gettman, originally filed its petition in October 2002 and 40 years after NORML first filed a petition seeking to reschedule the herb. The Coalition petition was denied in 2011, after ASA sued the Obama administration for delaying its response. The current appeal was the first time in two decades that a federal court has reviewed the issue of whether there exists adequate scientific evidence to reschedule marijuana.
The first challenge for petitioners was that of standing to sue. The presence of disabled Air Force veteran and Veterans for Medical Cannabis Access member Michael Krawitz among the petitioners provided that standing. Krawitz, who has tussled with the Department of Veterans Affairs over his use of medical marijuana, "has suffered injury-in-fact because he must shoulder a financial cost for services he would otherwise obtain for free of charge from the VA" and thus has standing to sue, the court held.
But that was just the threshold question. On the substantive issue of rescheduling marijuana, the court came down squarely on the side of the federal government.
"The question before the court is not whether marijuana could have some medical benefits," wrote Senior Circuit Court Judge Harry Edwards for the majority. "Rather, the limited question that we address is whether the DEA’s decision declining to initiate proceedings to reschedule marijuana under the CSA was arbitrary and capricious… On the record before us, we hold that the DEA’s denial of the rescheduling petition survives review under the deferential arbitrary and capricious standard. The petition asks the DEA to reclassify marijuana as a Schedule III, IV, or V drug, which, under the terms of the CSA, requires a 'currently accepted medical use.' The DEA's regulations… define 'currently accepted medical use' to require, inter alia, 'adequate and well-controlled studies proving efficacy.' … We defer to the agency’s interpretation of these regulations and find that substantial evidence supports its determination that such studies do not exist."
"The court says the DEA didn't act arbitrarily and capriciously, but if that wasn't arbitrary and capricious, I'm going back to the dictionary," said a frustrated Krawitz. "This is an issue with 70% supporting change, yet nothing happens. We have a handful of champions in Congress, but where is one person in the federal government who represents us? How can there be so little integrity at the National Institutes for Health and the FDA, where they are supposed to be there to protect our interests?"
"We're stuck in a Catch-22 -- the DEA is saying that marijuana needs FDA approval to be removed from Schedule I, but at the same time they are obstructing that very research," said Tamar Todd, senior staff attorney for the Drug Policy Alliance. "While there is a plethora of scientific evidence establishing marijuana's safety and efficacy, the specific clinical trials necessary to gain FDA approval have long been obstructed by the federal government itself."
"It's more of the same from the federal courts. I'm disappointed, but not surprised," said Dale Gieringer, longtime head of California NORML. "There has been a long line of court decisions affirming the federal government's dictatorial power to make arbitrary decisions about drugs. Ironically, this decision comes on the same day as the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. Women in this country have the right to terminate the live of their fetuses, but not to smoke a joint."
"To deny that sufficient evidence is lacking on the medical efficacy of marijuana is to ignore a mountain of well-documented studies that conclude otherwise," said Joe Elford, Chief Counsel with Americans for Safe Access (ASA), which appealed the denial of the rescheduling petition in January of last year. "The Court has unfortunately agreed with the Obama Administration's unreasonably raised bar on what qualifies as an 'adequate and well-controlled' study, thereby continuing their game of 'Gotcha.'"
ASA said it will seek an en banc review of the decision by the full DC Circuit and will go to the Supreme Court if necessary. The group said it will argue that the Obama administration has acted "arbitrarily and capriciously" by shifting its definition of what constitutes "medical efficacy." The administration now argues that Stage II and III clinical trials are necessary to show efficacy, while ASA contends that the more than 200 peer-reviewed studies it cited in legal briefs in the case meet the standard.
"The Obama Administration's legal efforts will keep marijuana out of reach for millions of qualified patients who would benefit from its use," said Elford. "It's time for President Obama to change his harmful policy with regard to medical marijuana and treat this as a public health issue, something entirely within the capability and authority of the executive office."
While ASA pursues its appeals in the courts, it is also trying to turn up the heat on Congress and the administration. With rescheduling through the courts blocked -- at least pending a favorable ruling on appeal -- that is where the action will be.
"I'm not optimistic that the courts are going to change their position," said Gieringer. "That means we will have to put pressure on the administration or Congress to do it."
But it's important to see that rescheduling is not an end in itself, but a means, said Gieringer.
"Rescheduling in itself would accomplish very little in the real world," he pointed out. "It would not end the federal-state conflict on marijuana, and even if it were rescheduled, there is still no FDA-approved supply. All of the marijuana out there today would still be an illegal controlled substance without FDA approval."
Marijuana policy reform is not just about real world effects; it is also about perceptions, and rescheduling marijuana would have been something of a game changer, as Gieringer noted.
"Symbolically, of course, it would have been huge," he said. "It would open the way for prescriptions and help unblock research -- the controls on Schedule II drugs are not nearly as fearsome. Still, rescheduling would have been a baby step, but a lot of other stuff has to happen, and that requires an act of Congress, and I haven't seen any sign of that."
But the federal courts have so far made clear that they will defer to Congress and the executive branch on these issues. That means that's where the battle will have to be won.
Permission to Reprint: This content is licensed under a modified Creative Commons Attribution license. Content of a purely educational nature in Drug War Chronicle appear courtesy of DRCNet Foundation, unless otherwise noted.
Comments
The court is letting itself be tied around DEA's little finger
They're giving the DEA a huge reward for not allowing research into MMJ. Unbelievable dereliction of duty on their part. They've willfully chose to be deaf, dumb and blind to the pain of people who need medical cannabis. Damn these cruel stupid bastards!
It's ok...
I don't want marijuana rescheduled ... I want it removed from the CSA altogether--regulated, and taxed, just like alcohol is.
In reply to It's ok... by Uncle Bob (not verified)
Forget rescheduling - repeal the CSA
The Controlled Substance Act is mostly malicious, arbitrary and capricious. The scheduling provisions of it are almost entirely arbitrary and capricious by design. Over 40 years after enactment key terms such as "abuse" remain undefined and the undefined term "abuse" is part of three of the unrevised eight factor analysis guidelines/hints/whatever the f*ck that were initially enacted to give the appearance of mitigating what should have been ruled as a fatal flaw by 1971 or 1972 at the latest, IMO.
The CSA is a disastrous act of federal overreach that needs to be repealed and mostly unreplaced and the various state Uniform Controlled Substance Acts also need to be repealed. The CSA has been around long enough that most Americans think in terms of it and some of the dreadful concepts it introduced such as "controlled substance" and "controlled substance schedules". Indeed, I believe the CSA has evolved from oppressive legislation tainted by motives and elements of religious repression into a repressive state religion although the religious aspects are almost unacknowledged today although at the time it was drafted and enacted there was much public discussion of a need to suppress perceived drug threats to established religious institutions by law; LSD and marijuana being the drugs most perceived and denounced as such threats. If this sounds like nutty ravings, look up the definition of "state religion" (See for example, http://www2.ohchr.org/english/issues/religion/standards.htm#II2 for Human Rights Committee general comment 22 on State Religion), review newspapers, magazines, archived TV and radion broadcasts from the mid-1960s to mid-1970s and talk with people who remember the time period and its controversies.
However, I'm digressing from my point. The CSA needs to be repealed, not just tinkered with. The CSA is not necessary, desirable or salvageable. As a practical matter it needs changes in the interim just as slavery laws needed changes while they existed but the goal should be abolition. A revision of an inherently evil law may be an improvement but it is no substitution for repealing the evil law. IMO, drug law reformers and the general population need to get away from the mindset of the CSA to make real progress. I suggest the Bill of Rights as a better mental starting point when thinking about drug laws.
BTW, if thinking about Washington's pseudo-legalization of marijuana makes anyone consider the state progressive in regard to drugs, drug laws or personal liberty remember Washington's first bans on synthetic cannabinoids were direct violations of Washington State Supreme Court rulings on state constitutional limits on the validity of delegated legislative authority to administrative agencies [indeed, the leading case in this area is IN RE POWELL, 92 Wn.2d 882 (1979) http://www.mrsc.org/mc/courts/supreme/092wn2d/092wn2d0882.htm which held emergency scheduling of drugs/substances by the Washington State Board of Pharmacy was an invalid delegation of authority and emergency scheduling by the WSBOP was precisely how the first WA bans on synthetic cannabinoids were created]. Also remember that in 2010 WA enacted extremely inhumane restrictions on the treatment of chronic non-cancer pain with opiods. Ironically, restrictions on the treatment of chronic non-cancer pain was one of the human rights violations addressed by the Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health in the 2010 Annual Report to the General Assembly (main focus: the right to health and international drug control, compulsory treatment for drug dependence and access to controlled medicines) [A/65/255, click E for English language PDF] http://www2.ohchr.org/english/issues/health/right/annual.htm.
They made the wrong argument
This case was a train wreck right from the beginning. No court has ever reversed a public health agency on a question of science. DEA did not even make the decision. DEA is bound by law to acccept the decision of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). DHHS said marijuana was not medicine in 2006 and these petitioners just sat on it until 2011 when they started this case.
Krawitz, the only petitioner who actually had standing, only had standing because he filed a new affidavit after the oral argument alleging that he lived in Oregon a month or two out of the year and had an Oregon Medical Marijuana Act card.
How could these petitioners be so brain dead to realize Krawitz had standing based on living in a state that accepts the medical use of marijuana, but fail to make the argument the classification requires that marijuana have no accepted medical use in treatment the United States? The classification is invalid for the same reason he had standing.
He could have made a valid argument and didn’t. The fact the petitioners didn't even know any of them had standing until after the oral argument is the same reason they didn't know they had a legal argument based on federalism that they never made.
In reply to They made the wrong argument by Carl Olsen (not verified)
I'm not so sure, as the court
I'm not so sure, as the court quoted the DEA, and the DEA quotes it power from the ONDCP which takes its policy from direction from the Whitehouse, which takes its direction from Campaign contributors...
Just saying, whatever argument had been used, a fully prepared rebuttal was waiting in the wings! These organizations and private/public companies campaign contributors have been at this game a loooooong time.
Imo, only by vote will ANY... change happen-within the States, and only by direct conflict with the Central Govt will the States create enough momentum to overpower the status quo... held so dearly by commercial interests.
In reply to They made the wrong argument by Carl Olsen (not verified)
No court's reversed a public health agency on issue of science
Has a public health agency ever made a laughingstock out of themselves with a claim as bogus as "cannabis has no medicinal value"?
Just think about it. States determine medical use
The states have determined that marijuana is medicine and that should be enough. If the states didn't have that power their medical marijuana laws would have been overturned long ago by the feds. To remain in federal schedule I it can have no medical use in the United States. Clearly it has medical use and those states and those citizens of those states with medical marijuana laws should be demanding that the feds remove it from federal schedule I. By the courts and feds standard you can't run clinical trials so it will never be approved. The people ultimately have the power. The voice of the people is the voice of God.
Flowers and oranges
If oranges were illegal and this fight was about legalizing them, we wouldn't be able to prove that they meet the FDA's standard for approval either. It is next to impossible to take a complex natural organism like an orange or a cannabis flower and prove that it meets the extremely rigid criteria for drug approval.
So even though cannabis is safer than coffee, our government will continue, until the end of time, to arrest 700,000 otherwise innocent people every year for possessing it.
Take the government out of the equation.
These have evolved into bureaucratic 'pissing contests.'
DC Appeals Court Denies Marijuana Rescheduling [FEATURE]
I just don't understand this Country.
We Vote and Elect people to Govern us as a people, To act in Our interests, To represent Us as our Voice in this Union Of The People, By The People.
But every time an election comes along we Vote the same Assh**** into Office that refuses to Represent Us, Refuses to Listen to Us, Refuses to Act for Us?, WHY?
If Electing a "Repetitive of Us" means we have to Agree with that Persons Campaign Contributors Ideals and Agendas. We the People should be made aware of just who are the Campaign Contributors so we can either Agree with their Agendas or just not Vote.
Something like what NASCAR has done with it Drivers/Pit crews Suits and the Contributors Stickers they place so prominently on their cars.
That way "We the People" can know exactly Who & for What Ideals they are working for, Instead of blindly Voting someone into Office to Represent "US" and then Constantly complaining that they are NOT Representing "US" and instead Speaking for the Unseen all powerful "OZ" the persons behind the curtains
I have no ideal on what Testing and under what conditions and scrutiny the Original Cannabis Testing went through to be found to be one of the Deadliest Dr"ugs in the World today A "Schedule 1 Narcotic"
I think anytime Anyone brings up the subject of "Marijuana" in the Government or Congress they start passing around copies of Reefer Madness as they all think it is a True Documentary into the effects of Marijuana.
Contrubitors c
Lets not forget that
Lets not forget that marijuana is a made up name with no meaning for propaganda. Stop calling it marijuana.
It's cannabis..
Secondly, the Industrial Prison Complex would stand to loose out on millions if people were not incarcerated for cannabis use.. Thirdly , it's not the will of the voters of the constituents of the politicians, it's the will of the lobbyist for certain corporations who would loose out on gainful profits from their carbon based products.
If the Roots are Poison, So be the Fruit!
The plaintiffs in the case presented more than 200 peer-reviewed studies that show the benefits of medicinal marijuana. And Governor Lincoln Chafee in Rhode Island, and Governor Christie Gregoire in Washington, both called for marijuana to be rescheduled. But the court wasn’t swayed, ultimately ruling that they are “obliged to defer to the agency’s interpretation” of controlled substances.
It’s clear that the battle for sensible drug reform will not be won on a federal level – it will be won in the states, and has already been won in Washington and Colorado.
Court Rejects Bid To Have Marijuana Reclassified
CN Source: Associated Press (Wire)
Author: Frederic J. Frommer
Published: January 22, 2013
Copyright: 2013 The Associated Press
DdC wrote: Clear as mud. That is exactly what the feds want. State politicians restricting individuals more than the feds. Fill state prisons and courts, as most are now. The only acceptable solution is to re-schedule cannabis! This case was just more shuck and jive catch 22 nonsense. As the article states, this has nothing to do with the medicinal value of cannabis or even the scheduling status. That is a corporate profit decision to perpetuate the Ganjawar, mostly keeping Hemp from family farmers and factories. Basic DEA funk, same as cannabis users going to the ER for any reason, become statistics stating a half a million cannabis users went to the ER. They did, just not for cannabis as the DEA "suggests". Same bogus statistics stating how well their eradications are going when they pull up wild unkept ditchweed as the majority of eradicated plants. Looks good when asking for budgets.
No different than the stupid statements of no medicinal value as they grow, roll and ship 300 joints to the 4 remaining IND patients. Same con game stating more are seeking rehabilitation because of stronger pot. We've always had potent pot, more expensive and harder to get. Most smoke the same potency as they did in the 70's. Just now the seeds have their own value and are sold separately. Those seeking rehabilitation are doing so due to court orders of their plea bargains. Along with profits on urine testing. 95% take a pea bargain and mandatory rehabilitation because of the risk of losing a jury trial is mandatory minimum sentencing if you lose.
Unless it is a well informed jury and they decide to nullify the verdict. Most are found guilty because of the 404 gag rules disallowing them to use a medicinal defense. Hopefully they will pass the Truth in Trials legiislation and remedy the situation. Doubtful since most of the time these laws are never even brought to the floor. Regardless of the reality of shipping joints to 4 people or the mounds of medicinal evidence the DEA stands on the grounds of no medicinal value and therefore no evidence and no defense other than a common drug trafficker. Charlie Lynch was partners with the City of Morrow Bay and is doing 5 years MM. Shuck and Jive. Not zero tolerance or legalizing for the unclean masses. The money is in perpetuating the Ganjawar and keeping organic renewable competition out of the marketplace.
Court Rejects Bid To Have Marijuana Reclassified
Read it. It simply stated that the DEA was not arbitrary and capricious in its decision, not that there was no value as medicine. That the DEA followed their own rules as arbitrary and capricious as they may be. All of the evidence was moot. Not that there is no evidence. As shown numerous times, the feds are not going to take from the rich and corporations profits just so we can sell it in coffee shops. Unless and until we overturn the CSA, the IRS has jurisdiction over sales and exchanges. Not my lil bit of homegrown for me and my patients. That is a state jurisdiction depending on states laws on the books. MMJ state initiatives have more restrictions than the feds already grant.
Same shuck and jive thinking the Commerce clause won't outlaw the buyers clubs in WA and CO. While individuals are legal to grow and possess and use reasonable amounts already determined by the DEA as 300 joints every 25 days. They aren't even budgeted to go after less than 100 plant crops. Smoking has been determined a factor to prevent it as medicine. The IOM stated it had medicinal value by reevaluating previous studies back to the Indian Hemp Commission.
The smoke tests only used cigarettes since no cannabis was used in the actual testing. If it was it would be the same government monopoly of crushed sticks, stems and seeds. Cigarettes they used are loaded with additional chemicals for your smoking pleasure. Flame retardants and I heard the other day even gun powder is used to speed up the burning. Not in Ganja. All tests on Ganja show no damage and even a protection to smokers and for pollution. So to cover this falsehood they came up with a sublingual spray to be distributed by Bayer. The company is run by an x deputy drug czar Barthwell. It will eliminate the "need" for buyers clubs and most important it will leave Hemp as a schedule#1 drug. The DEA also has patents on individual cannabinoids to use as pharmaceutical applications. Shuck and jive is the name of the neocon game called the Ganjawar, "There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power government has is the power to crack down on criminals. When there aren't enough criminals, one makes them.
Shame on the Drug Worrier Profiteers
Organic Cannabis/Tobacco vs Chemical Cigarettes
Smoking Ganja
Ending D.E.A.th & Pillage Incrementally
Spending time, resources and energy Incrementalizing this abomination is why it will take another 40 years for real science to catch up. Its only for the money interests that states are writing their own initiatives. Unlike CA prop 215 where citizens rule. MMJ laws are more restrictive than the feds. Temporary profits or ambiguity is not law. Waiting for the feds to bust grow ops is not business. At their convenience. The IRS is taking down large money making enterprises the same as they took down Al Capone while the drinkers were left alone.
Note. CA's Compassionate Use Act not the MMJ Act
Studying Marijuana and Its Loftier Purpose
As it stands I would highly suggest states activists write the laws with prop 215 as the template. It has no provisions for amounts or sales so the fed standards are the law of the land. 12 joints a day per individual or bona fide caregivers for their patient. As Obama said he would leave alone, he has. Not because he is compassionate towards those doing the very same thing he has done and enjoyed on numerous occasions. But because the 10th amendment gives states jurisdiction over individuals where the Constitution doesn't state it as a federal responsibility.
The Obama Admin's Anti-Marijuana Manifesto
"Arbitrary and capricious" is legal language that was used by DEA Administrative Law Judge Francis Young in 1988 to conclude that DEA was obligated under the Controlled Substances Act to reschedule marijuana as a prescription medicine. DEA Chief Administrator Robert Bonner proceeded to arbitrarily and capriciously disregard Judge Young's well researched and reasoned decision, which the Act allowed him to do.
Irvin Rosenfeld's 115,000th joint
Cannabis Medicine
Since 1982, Irvin Rosenfeld has received a free tin of 300 marijuana cigarettes from the federal government every 25 days. And he wants the world to know how it has helped him cope with multiple congenital cartilaginous exostosis, a bone disorder that resulted in scores of tumors in his body.
U.S.Fort Schwag Mississippi
The National Institute on Drug Abuse pays the University of Mississippi to grow what a spokeswoman called a "consistent, reliable source of research-grade cannabis" A North Carolina manufacturing plant receives $62,000 a year from the government to roll the cigarettes and ship them in sealed tins of 300 each, to the 4 patients' doctors and pharmacists.
This 6-inch diameter canister held 254.89 grams of federal medical marijuana for an IND patient, a typical monthly supply mailed from the federal cannabis research garden in Mississippi.
Ole Miss Home To Medical Marijuana Lab
"The compassionate access program is an acknowledgment by the government of the United States that marijuana has medicinal value," said Lawrence Hirsch, the lawyer for the patients. "It is fundamentally unfair for the government to supply marijuana for medical necessity to four remaining people in the United States, when the rest of the potential candidates for therapeutic cannabis are excluded."
AMA Ends 72-Year Policy, Says Marijuana has Medical Benefits
The American Medical Association voted today to reverse its long-held position that marijuana be retained as a Schedule I substance with no medical value.
American Medical Association reverses
antiquecannabisbook
Is The DEA Legalizing THC?
So, in other words, if a pharmaceutical product contains THC extracted from the marijuana plant, that would be a legal commodity. But if you or I possessed THC extracted from the marijuana plant, that would remain an illegal commodity.
Wait, it gets even more absurd.
Since the cannabis plant itself will remain illegal under federal law, then from whom precisely could Big Pharma legally obtain their soon-to-be legal THC extracts? There’s only one answer: The federal government’s lone legally licensed marijuana cultivator, The University of Mississippi at Oxford, which already has the licensing agreements with the pharmaceutical industry in hand.
Drug Czar is Required by Law to Lie
Most people know that the “drug czar” — the director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) — is an advocate for the government position regarding the drug war. But not everyone knows that he and his office are mandated to tell lies as part of their Congressional authorization.
According to Title VII Office of National Drug Control Policy Reauthorization Act of 1998: H11225:
NeoCon Flicts of Interest Bush Barthwell & Drugs
US investors piled into GW Pharmaceuticals yesterday amid excitement over the prospects for an American launch of its revolutionary cannabis-based treatment for multiple sclerosis. Health regulators have sent an uncompromising message that smoked cannabis will not be approved for use by MS sufferers, leaving the way open for GW's under-the-tongue spray version of the drug. Justin Gover, the managing director, said GW'sshares had attracted attention from private investors.
Andrea Barthwell, Snake Oil Salesman
Former Deputy Drug Czar Andrea Barthwell (more about her here) is the new spokesperson for getting GW Pharmaceuticals’ Sativex approved for use in the United States.
Dr. Andrea Barthwell, deputy director for demand reduction at the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, rejects the term “medical marijuana,” instead calling it “medical excuse marijuana.” She says those who push for laws like Maryland’s are “feeding off the pain and suffering of people” in pursuit of their real goal: complete legalization of marijuana. “There’s no basis in medical [knowledge] for taking a crude plant material and providing it as medicine,”
Make no mistake: Sativex is liquid marijuana. It is nothing like Marinol, the synthetic THC pill sold in the U.S. and sometimes falsely touted as an adequate substitute for marijuana.
Sativex is a whole-plant extract, containing the rich variety of naturally occurring compounds called cannabinoids that are unique to marijuana. It also contains trace elements of other compounds contained in the plant, which scientists believe contribute to its therapeutic value.
Rob Kampia
Former Deputy Drug Czar Andrea Barthwell is the new spokesperson for getting GW Pharmaceuticals' Sativex approved for use in the United States
21 May 2003 - Bayer and GW Pharmaceuticals
announce marketing agreement on pioneering new cannabis-based treatment
Cannabis, cannabin of 1907
Cannabis extract made by Parke, Davis & Co. circa 1910
CANNABIS INDICA. U. S., Br., INDIAN CANNABIS [Indian Hemp]
" The dried flowering tops of the pistillate plants of Cannabis sativa Linne (Fain. Moracece), grown in the East Indies and gathered while the fruits are yet undeveloped, and carrying the whole of their natural resin." U. S. " The dried flowering or fruiting tops of the female plant of Cannabis sativa, Linn., grown in India; from which the resin has not been removed."
than the federal government and drug policy dwr
Can we use the "F" word yet? Fascists!
because it is a merger of state and corporate power.*
~ Benito Mussolini
In reply to If the Roots are Poison, So be the Fruit! by DdC (not verified)
I'll need to have a little time set aside if I want to read this
If you know what I mean
In reply to I'll need to have a little time set aside if I want to read this by saynotohypocrisy (not verified)
12 joints a day?
I note that "smoked cannabis" is rejected as medicine, meanwhile no one has refuted the point that ANY ONE-HITTER IS A VAPORIZER if you hold the lighter flame far enough below the opening to get a 385F AIR ENTRY TEMPERATURE.
A joint vaporizes, but imperfectly, wasting much of the cannabinoids. Vaporization occurs in a narrow zone immediately adjacent to the edge of the burning area. The slower you suck, the slower the burning advances, leaving more time for cannabinoids in each unignited herb particle to exvaporize. But if you are patient enough to withhold igniting long enough, theoretically you can vaporize 100% of the cannabinoids out of a 25-mg. single toke in any of numerous one-hitters now sold for as little as $2.95 on line.
Two caveats: (A) have a long enough extension tube (HOOKAH HOSE WITHOUT HOOKAH) attached to the "butt end" that you can see what you are doing and perform the vape/light operation properly; (B) have a screen in the crater so you can use sifted uniform size particles without drawing them down into the channel.
I don't know what kind of illness requires 12 joints a day as therapy. Some prohib "doctor" said smoked cannabis yields 70% more CARBON MONOXIDE than $igarette tobacco, as heavy a dose as from a PACK A DAY OF SQUEAHS. Does Mr. Rosenthal know he can tear a tiny 25-mg pinch off the end of each 900-mg government $igarette and get 12 x 40 x 0.9 = 432 vape tokes a day?
In reply to 12 joints a day? by mexweedtoke (not verified)
If You Find Yourself Going Down the Wrong Road, Turn Around!
?That is the number determined by the IND. 300 joints/25days = 12/day
?Vapes are smoked cannabis to the feds. that is why they are pushing the sublingual spray. People have been smoking cannabis for thousands of years. Vapes are not only new, they are paraphernalia and would fall under the Commerce Clause. Same as when they busted Tommy Chong. They passed on the pound of pot and went for the bongs. The entry temperature is a theory and as most selling a product it is used more to sell vapes than science. People have lived around camp fires and fire places without much damage. Plus Ganja expectorates pollution or cigarette chemicals. I've been smoking joints for 40 years and my lungs are clear. Vapes aren't natural and they taste the same way. I might loose some smoke between tokes but I know I'm getting what its got. Vapes release CBD's and I understand that detracts from the high.
?"At DEA, our mission is to fight drug trafficking in order to make drug abuse the most expensive, unpleasant, risky, and disreputable form of recreation a person could have."
– Donnie Marshall,
Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA)
?No it wastes all of the cannabinoids between hits but vapes heat slowly and I'd wonder if they miss some of the cannabinoids all of the time. Plus vapor and lungs equals pneumonia. Ill stick with the tried and true. Regardless, the DEA is totally full tilt bozo in the prohibition business and i won't even listen or read anything about appeasing them. Fuck them! As I said, if the roots are poison, so be the fruit. There is nothing coming out of a drug worriers mouth that has anything to do with reality.
?"We have spent over a trillion dollars trying to eradicate the world's most beneficial plant off the face of the earth. Imagine what a better world this would be if that money had been spent on treatment, education and studying the medical benefits of marijuana."
-- Steve Hager,
High Times Editor (1988 - 2003)
?Still taste like air and the buzz sucks. One hitters are still considered contraband by the DEA where one hit of cannabis is a state matter unless paraphernalia is involved. Papers are exempted apparently since they are used on tobacco. If price is the issue then more bang for the buck seems logical. But if you save money and don't get the satisfaction or medicinal relief, what is the point? How much to you save when you don;t enjoy the experience? I might be safer in an armored truck than a motor cycle. Both are transportation. The risk is what our forefathers took when they toked. Plus aren't most vapes hoses are made of plastic?
?"The anti-marijuana campaign is a cancerous tissue of lies, undermining law enforcement, aggravating the drug problem, depriving the sick of needed help, and suckering well-intentioned conservatives and countless frightened parents. Narcotics police are an enormous, corrupt international bureaucracy ... and now fund a coterie of researchers who provide them with 'scientific support' ... fanatics who distort the legitimate research of others."
~ William F. Buckley, Jr. Requiescat In Pace
Commentary in The National Review, April 29, 1983, p. 495
?Go fer it. Seems like a lot of time for one hit. I can tend to more agree using it for patients with compromised immune systems or lung problems. I'm pretty sure most property management companies banning Ganja use would also ban it in vapes. So all in all I'll stick with traditional methods.
?The truly and deliberately evil men are a very small minority;
it is the appeaser who unleashes them on mankind.
-- Ayn Rand (1905-1982)
?You might try comprehension testing since what is legally dispensed is not always what is used. Plus it is the feds rules. What does reality have to do with it? None of the Ganjawar is logical. The main reason they require 12 joints is because of the three parts of the Ganja plant you should never smoke. The leaves with 30% THC, the stems and the seeds. All vegetation with little or no buzz. This is what the government crushes, rolls, and then ships to the 4 remaining patients. My Cali homegrown takes a few hits of a joint maybe 4 or 5 times a day. Usually no more than two joints.
?"In politics, nothing happens by accident.
If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way."
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
?Not nearly as much as following a diesel bus in traffic. You answered your own question saying Some prohib "doctor" said. They say tar is bad too and yet it has no carcinogens. All the DEA has is hypotheses and bogus science gossip. Why would anyone trust anything they say with such a vested interest in perpetuating the war and keeping corporations free of competition in the process. Especially the non-psychoactive Hemp. Go by the results of time and count the victims. All federal Ganja testing has been banned since 1974 when they accidently discovered it shrank brain tumors. No Ganja has been used by the IOM tests in 1999, that is still shelved at the HHS. Just re-evaluations or previous tests stating its benign qualities and safety. So they compared Ganja smoke to cigarettes. Then hyped any differences. One problem is tobacco hasn't harmed anyone in thousands of years of use either. Not until the mid 20th century when they started getting celebrities to sell it and started adding chemicals for your smoking pleasure. Sometimes hundreds of adulterants not in Ganja. So no comparison. Its all shuck and jive. No victims unless its statistical manipulation such as including ditchweed or any DAWN ER visit bunk etc. No victims, no crime.
?Its all fiction. As noted numerous times and numerous ways. None of it is logical let alone the best methods. None of it as harmful as mandatory minimum sentencing in prison. The plan is to keep it in the Pharmacy's with non smoke or vape, just sublingual (under the tongue) liquid extract in a whiffer style spray application. This will do the Wall St proud by keeping Ganja and Hemp prohibited. That after-all is the only problem. That is the priority of the Corporate government merger concerning cannabis. Ganja is for the poor without the infrastructures or paraphernalia required for the status quo companies like booze, beer or drugs. Karma begs the question of how many humans are effected by mining the clay for the ceramic bowl? The plastic tube is made from crude oil. The glass is silica that is requiring bulldozers all using diesel crude oil. The packaging and shipping all cause pollution. Rolling a doober with a hemp paper is minimal. Toking from a home made pipe is even less. I harm no one in the process of copping a buzz. I'm not against each individual choosing what is best for them, including Sativex or Vapes. Just don't put people in jail for being old fashioned.
from the Fascist acts of eliminating competition. Booze/Ethanol then Ganja//Hemp.
Cover-Ups, Prevarications, Subversions & Sabotage
Bill and Hillary's Hippie Daze December 13, 2007
The other thing you can bet the stash on about the Clintons in that summer of 1971 in Berkeley is that they were stoned, loaded, blasted, wasted, high as a kite, and just plain baked. At the very least.
The Clinton's Berkeley Summer of Love by Josh Gerstein
The New York Sun
Hillary was clerking for the radical Treuhaft law firm in nearby Oakland.
Don't forget Rahm whispering in their ears too. Bidon lies producing the RAVE Ax and the drug czar. Neocons. It seems to me that Hillary was outing anti war groups as a lawyer pretending to take their cases. It has been noted that many of the Weathermen, SDS, Yippies and Black Panthers were infiltrated by FBI agents. To this day sabotage among protesters takes place. Much of the so called anarchists are black ops tossing bricks. Just to make the media and smudge the characters of the protesters. Bill, I truly believe is a protege of GHWBoosh. Since the early 70's when they sent him to Oxford as an undercover, or snitch. When he was in Berzerkley supposedly not inhaling. As if that makes any difference. He got high sublingually, the same way Sativex works. Then as one of the youngest governors in Arkansas during all of the Iran Contra Barry Seals West Arkansas coke smuggling while Asa Hutchinson was the DA. So I agree both are fascists with no scruples, morals, ethics or Americanism in them. Obama is a protege of Slick Willy and old Rahm was whispering in his ear too.
Clinton Quiet About Own Radical Ties
Clinton Asks Supreme Court To Overturn MMJ Ruling
Cover-Ups, Prevarications, Subversions & Sabotage
Marijuana Legalization Would Promote Drug Use, DEA Contends
Can the DEA Hide a Surveillance Camera on Your Property?
Drug Exposé u2b
Marijuana: the law vs. 12 million people
Life magazine Oct 31, 1969. 25-35
Tell you what, Governement.. I'll trade 'ya.
I know what I'm about to post will be extremely unpopular and probably rile a lot of people up, but I mean it wholeheartedly... trade 'ya Washington... guns for weed. You can take all my guns away and ban them just let me have legal weed and let me smoke it w/o worrying about drug testing and losing my job. That's a fair trade for me eye for an eye.
science requirements
Since the court agrees that peer review studies are not stringent enough to use as a determining medical efficacy,,shouldn't the DEA and any federally funded research for harms be held to the same standards?
Is there any way to stop the prohibitionist from using "bought" science and skewed statistics too claim false harms from cannabis?
Was the Gold Standard FDA clinical studies done by CMRI on smoked marijuana in the list of research evidence? It was done with the DEA/NIDA oversight anf government grown ditch weed furnished by them and several studies were done to those standards the DEA claims are necessary and proved smoked marijuana was an effective medicine for MS and other health issues.
The only thing I have heard about those studies were that the ONDCP Admin had issues with the studies,,never heard what the issues were though. His opinion is not scientific so can qualified studies be disqualified by someone that has no scientific,medical or even a research background. I think his issue with the studies were that the studies would remove cannabis from schedule 1 and he is required by law to have issues with that.
In reply to science requirements by claygooding (not verified)
MPP tried this years ago...
...as I recall. They went to the GAO, (office of accountability and oversight), the government agency charged with ensuring that the government does not engage in propaganda. MPP officially objected to the ONDCP drug czar's ongoing and blatant lies about MJ. Astonishingly, the response was (paraphrased): "Well, it's okay to lie as long as it's for the purpose of fighting marijuana."(!) (Check with MPP for the actual facts, I'm just going from memory.)
It's all bass akwards
The federal government hasn't proven it's case that marijuana is "harmful", has no medical benefits, or any of the other claims it's made. It hasn't proven it has the power to outlaw a plant based on no scientific evidence, hearsay, lies, and misleading information. And to continue the assault on the American people based on no evidence is a crime.
This is just postponing the inevitable.
The question is.. how long can they postpone legalization, by putting up this farce? 10 years? 20? I don't want to wait that long. I want to smoke legal weed in my own lifetime.. I want to smoke it like, yesterday. Not everyone in American who wants to smoke weed can do so... some of us are in professions where random drug screening is aggressive, highly accurate, and the consequences for failure are worse than you could ever imagine. (Hint: a lot worse than just being fired from the job) The Drug War is not fully won until all suspicionless drug testing is abolished as an unconstitutional invasion of privacy. The end.
Haven't touched weed in over 6 years, but still never stopped supporting legalization, never stopped respecting my friends and relatives who still smoke it, never stopped rolling my eyes at the absurd lies out of washington.. Schedule I... that is the biggest slap in the face of all. That's the insult to injury. I wish Richard Nixon was still alive to see what happened in Washington and Colorado last November.
In reply to This is just postponing the inevitable. by Uncle Bob (not verified)
I wish Nancy Reagan was still alive to get her comeuppance
last November. Now that was an alcohol supremacist bigot of the highest boozed up order. They don't make 'em like that anymore.
Stem cell
Ugh.. you reminded me of the whole Stem Cell research mess... it's always been Republicans holding us back in this country, on almost ALL issues... so sad and pathetic. These people are so up-tight...
US Civil War Generals Were Hash Heads
POT TV - Watch Cannabis Culture News LIVE for the latest news and views on pot politics and the marijuana community. In this episode: The US Civil War's most well-known generals, Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee, were both hash heads – and we have the proof.
Cannabis historian Chris Bennett joins the show to discuss a newly-surfaced full-page advertisement from a 1860s issue of Good Samaritan and Domestic Physician featuring endorsements for "HASHEESH CANDY" from the war's top generals.
Maple Sugar Hashish Candy
Starting in the 1860s, the Ganja Wallah Hasheesh Candy Company made maple sugar hashish candy, which soon became one of the most popular treats in America. For 40 years, it was sold over the counter and advertised in newspapers, as well as being listed in the catalogs of Sears-Roebuck, as a totally harmless, delicious, and fun candy.
Turkish Smoking Parlors
Le Club Des Haschischins
The Club des Hashischins (sometimes also spelled Club des Hashishins or Club des Hachichins, "Club of the Hashish-Eaters"), was a Parisian group dedicated to the exploration of drug-induced experiences, notably with hashish.[1] Members included Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, Charles Baudelaire, and Honoré de Balzac.
Ancient Temple Hashish Incense! Did Jesus Inhale?
Cannabis: The Philosopher’s Stone
1. The Knights Templar and Cannabis
2. Sufi Alchemists and the Grail Myth
3. The Alchemist Monk Francois Rabalais
4. Medieval Alchemists and Cannabis
5. The Hashish Club
Literary Inspiration
American as Apple Pie
American High Society
Military Veterans Say Pot Eases PTSD
Cannabis, the Importance of Forgetting
Such a running joke
Lawmakers to introduce new bills :)
I heard Earl Blumenauer and Jared Polis are going to introduce some new stuff soon that should get some attention.
Drug Czar gives ominious warning about Colorado/Washington
http://www2.macleans.ca/2013/02/11/on-the-perils-of-pot-legalization-and-how-canada-creates-drug-problems-for-the-u-s/
Q: In the November elections, two states—Washington and Colorado—voted to legalize marijuana for recreational use. President Obama has said that the U.S. government has “bigger fish to fry” than to go after recreational users in states where it is legal. Where do things stand with regard to producers and distributors of marijuana, which is still illegal under federal law?
A: You’ll continue to see enforcement against distributors and large-scale growers as the Justice Department has outlined. They will use their limited resources on those groups and not on going after individual users.
We'll continue to see enforcement against distributors, he promises.. well.. good luck Colorado and Washington state employees.. looks like you're about to be persecuted by an out-of-touch with reality administration for doing your job and carrying out the will of the voters.
This is an outrage, this old dinosaur should be removed from that position.. actually the position itself should be eliminated. If there's no "War on Drugs" why in the hell do we need a Drug Czar? Every penny spent on his man's salary is a waste.
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