“You would theoretically have to consume 1,500 pounds of marijuana in 15 minutes to overdose, and this is impossible.”
Two House bills were recently filed that could end the federal prohibition of marijuana, including one which would remove marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act’s schedules and regulate it similarly to alcohol. Recreational marijuana use is now legal in 5 states, but how legal is it? In Alaska and Washington D.C., there are no retail stores that will sell it to adults upon presentation of an ID. In addition, you cannot buy it at the dispensary designed for medical marijuana users. Farmers who grow it are allowed to give away up to one ounce. The state government is not collecting any revenue from marijuana, which is extremely foolish considering how much money Colorado raised by taxing recreational marijuana last year. This absurd marijuana policy will inevitably lead to street drug vendors selling marijuana in exchange for cash and all the profit will go to the drug vendors instead of the state governments.
The states where recreational marijuana is legal – Alaska, Washington DC., Washington state, Oregon and Colorado – all have very different laws regarding its sale and use. It is illegal to use marijuana in public in DC. You basically have to grow your own pot, bake your own cookies, and consume it at home (assuming you don’t live in public housing, where it could be cause for eviction). According to the District of Columbia Municipal Regulations for the Medical Marijuana Program, marijuana must be obtained from a designated dispensary. Rule 603.1 states that “a caregiver shall only obtain medical marijuana for the qualifying patient from the dispensary designated on his or her registration identification card and shall not: (a) Grow or cultivate medical marijuana for the qualifying patient; (b) Purchase medical marijuana through street vendors; or (c) Obtain medical marijuana from other registered qualifying patients and caregivers.”
What this means is that medical marijuana patients and caregivers cannot grow plants at home, even though it is legal for recreational users to do so, and recreational users cannot purchase marijuana from a medical marijuana dispensary if they don’t know how to grow it at home. It is absurd to make recreational marijuana legal in a state that already has dispensaries for medical marijuana and then insist that recreational users grow it at home instead of buying it from medical marijuana dispensaries that already exist. This is a revenue killer and the only reason this policy exists is that several outspoken members of the GOP simply do not want recreational marijuana to be legal in Washington D.C. despite what the voters want. Thank God not every member of the GOP is against legalizing marijuana. According to David Simpson, a Republican state representative in Texas who recently introduced a bill to make marijuana legal, stated that he did not believe that when God created marijuana, He made a mistake that the government needs to fix. Unfortunately, the Republicans in D.C. don’t feel the same way.
Last summer, I wrote about the conflict between federal and state law regarding marijuana use. I explained that states cannot be forced to comply with the federal prohibition of marijuana. Even though the federal government has a right to ban marijuana, the Tenth Amendment allows states to opt out of participating in the law or assisting in enforcement in any way, making it impossible for federal officials to enforce the ban.
Several members of the GOP sent a letter to the mayor of Washington DC, Muriel Bowser, threatening her with jail time if she implements the new law, which received 70.1% voter approval. She is determined not to be blackmailed by the GOP and insists that she is doing her job by implementing a law that the voters approved, and she is right. The GOP has no right to tell the mayor of Washington D.C. not to do her job, but since when does a constitutional amendment stop the GOP from pursuing its agenda? They are still trying to overturn Obamacare which has saved the lives of many poor and middle class individuals with pre-existing conditions who could not purchase health insurance prior to 2014.
When a few members of Congress asked Attorney General Eric Holder to block Washington, D.C. from legalizing the possession of marijuana for recreational purposes, Holder declined to intervene. Holder was asked by the National Press Club, “Under the Controlled Substances Act, the administration has the power to reclassify marijuana with no further congressional action needed. Do you think that is something that the president should consider in the next couple of years?” Holder denied that he had the authority to reclassify marijuana, which is a lie. Under federal law, the attorney general can move to add, reschedule or remove drugs on his own, at the request of the health and human services secretary or in response to a public petition. However, the law also requires the attorney general to gather information from the Health and Human Services secretary before doing so.1 Holder has the authority to reclassify marijuana if he chooses to do so, but Congress has the authority to overturn the decision.
It is possible that Holder believes that if he tries to reclassify marijuana, it will be opposed by Congress, which is more concerned about the loss of profit at pharmaceutical companies with powerful lobbyists. As long as marijuana is a Schedule I drug, there are limitations to conducting the extensive clinical trials required to take it out of Schedule I, so it is stuck because of the conflicting federal and state laws, and this issue should be addressed by the federal government as soon as possible.
The Schedule I classification means researchers cannot obtain federal funding to study the drug properly. This is tragic, because there is already research that indicates that the CBD in marijuana can stop some types of cancer from metastasizing. Studies have been done and continue to take place, but they are on a smaller scale than are needed. The FDA should start cooperating with the DEA and NIDA to follow strict research protocols to study the effects and medical uses of marijuana. The DEA has certain requirements for the research setting, and NIDA provides grants and a small amount of research-grade marijuana for scientific study.
Most people know that morphine, oxycodone, alcohol and cigarettes can be fatal, but marijuana is a neuroprotectant that can ease pain without any possibility of killing you. No one has ever overdosed on natural marijuana regardless of whether they smoked it or baked it into cookies or brownies. The only people who ended up in emergency rooms were buying synthetic marijuana on the Internet, which was not meant for human consumption, and the chemicals in it caused all kinds of life threatening problems.
If I had multiple sclerosis, fibromyalgia, or some other type of neurological disease that causes chronic pain, I would choose medical marijuana over the narcotic pain pills doctors now offer patients. According to a recent article in the New York Times, people are not just using more opioids; they’re using stronger ones. The trend toward stronger drugs may be driving the increase in deaths. Using a strong painkiller is appropriate in some cases, but a review of the relevant scientific data, published on Feb. 17, 2015 in Annals of Internal Medicine, casts doubt on how much opioid treatment is really necessary. The review was conducted by recognized experts in evaluating medical evidence and treating chronic pain at the Oregon Health and Science University, in Portland, Ore., and the University of Washington, in Seattle, Wash. The researchers found little or no evidence that long-term opioid therapy (therapy lasting more than three months) relieves chronic pain, in part because almost all the studies are of short duration. It is extremely reckless to allow opioid usage and deaths to soar in the absence of proof that the treatment is effective. By contrast, there is considerable evidence of opioid therapy’s dangers, including overdoses, opioid abuse, fractures, and heart attacks.2
We all know that the real reason why marijuana is illegal in most states is due to the choke hold Big Pharma and Big Tobacco has on politics. They don’t want us to know that marijuana is medicinal, and can help recreational users with common ailments like muscle aches and pains, migraine headaches and insomnia. Big Tobacco would rather sell us its poison than let us smoke or eat a natural plant created by God with proven medicinal properties. I suspect that many citizens of Colorado are probably beginning to throw out their expensive prescriptions for Ambien and eating a “Rookie Cookie” (low dose marijuana product sold in Colorado dispensaries) with milk before bed. Big Pharma and Big Tobacco don’t want to lose money and they obviously don’t care if their products kill people.
Footnotes
1Ye Hee Lee, Michele (February 26, 2015)Can Eric Holder change the federal drug classification of marijuana? The Washington Post. (Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/wp/2015/02/26/can-eric-holder-change-the-federal-drug-classification-of-marijuana/?postshare=9651424977400700)
2Pain Killer Abuses and Ignorance. (March 2, 2015) New York Times. (Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/02/opinion/painkiller-abuses-and-ignorance.html?ref=todayspaper)