Press release from National Drug Prevention Alliance, United Kingdom
Yesterday, 26th June was International Anti-Narcotics Day – always a provocation to the pro-drug fraternity. We in the United Kingdom have managed to ignore the siren calls for so-called ‘medical marijuana’ – that is allowing people to smoke raw marijuana ( cannabis) on the unproven assertion that it would help their illnesses. No serious doctor or scientist would ever recommend smoking as a way to ingest any substance – legal or illegal – because of damage to the lungs. And they would certainly not suggest sustained use of a damaging and addictive substance.
This spurious proposing of cannabis as a medicine has long been a ploy by the disciples of dope. As long ago as February 1979 Keith Stroup, Exec Director of pot campaigners NORML, told an audience at Emory University in the USA: “we will use medical marijuana as a red herring to give pot a good name”
It is clear that the legalisers in the USA have been very successful in applying this tactic, as the data from Montana quoted below shows. Rogue doctors sign cards that say the owner suffers from illnesses such as headaches or back pain, and they can then purchase marijuana legally. The use of marijuana has escalated – even amongst minors. But now the electorate in many States are beginning to realise that they have been duped, and moves are afoot to change the legislation – witness the California data shown here.
In Britain a reputable pharmaceutical company, G. W. Pharmaceuticals has spent 11 years researching and extracting substances from crude marijuana which have proved to be effective for MS patients. The advantage of the GWP medicine is that you don’t smoke it, it doesn’t get you high, and it is not addictive – in other words the pro-pot crowd will not be interested in it, except as something they will wish to attack as ‘missing the point’. Moreover, the licence just granted to GWP ensures that only some doctors will be able to prescribe for particular patients. The UK will not go down the path of the USA in using so-called medical marijuana as a stepping stone to legalising the abuse of this substance.
Footnote 1:
Nearly One in 10 Montana Parolees Has Medical Marijuana Card
Medical-marijuana cards are carried by 1.25 percent of the general population in Montana but about 9 percent of parolees in the state.
The data from the Montana Department of Corrections led deputy Missoula County attorney Andrew W. Paul and others to say that the medical-marijuana program is being abused.
“It’s a ridiculously large amount,” said Paul. “I’m all for the cancer patient who is wasting away who needs it. That was how this initiative was sold. To call it medicine for 80 percent of the people with cards is just a farce.”
Just 176 medical-marijuana cards were issued in the first year after Montana’s 2004 law went into effect. The number of cardholders didn’t hit 1,000 until June 2008, but now there are more than 15,000. (Source: Join Together June 16th 2010)
Footnote 2:
California dreamin’
In California, proponents of Prop 215 and legalization of marijuana often try to use arrest statistics to show lower usage of pot. This, however, is misleading because the local laws have changed so much, police are reluctant and in some cases prevented from making arrests for possession of small amounts of marijuana.
Around the same time that Prop 215 passed to legalize marijuana as a so-called medicine, the state also changed their Education Code to restrict being able to obtain data from young people without parental consent. Since drug surveys in California now require parental consent, one can reasonably assume that the students who come from drug using parents are more likely to be users themselves, and one can also assume that parents who are drug users themselves, or who suspect their children of using, will not most likely give their consent for their children to be surveyed. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that the data coming out of California pertaining to youth drug use are skewed, in that a significant portion of the drug-using students are not participating in the surveys. Similar laws for drug use surveys in schools also exist in New Jersey.
However, one relatively solid indicator of drug use, including use of marijuana, is the hospital emergency department admissions. Most, probably more than half of all Government agency DAWN (Drug Abuse Warning Network) admissions, involve more than one drug and a third involve alcohol and some other psychoactive substance. Thus, it is not possible to say with accuracy whether any single drug mentioned in connection with a specific DAWN episode actually “caused” the emergency. Nonetheless, hospital admissions for acute drug-related emergencies can tell us what drugs are most frequently used by persons who experience emergency health crises. As you can see from the table below, taken from the actual DAWN data sheets , the incidence of marijuana showing up in DAWN hospital emergency episodes in two cities in CA where DAWN collects clinical records, is quite significant over a five-year period, from 2004 to 2008. Inasmuch as these data do not rely on police arrests or any other law enforcement database, they probably tell a more accurate story about marijuana use in California than what those who want to legalise drugs in the State via Proposition 215 would like you to know. Also, as a federal public health surveillance study, the DAWN data collectors are not constrained by California’s Education Code for drug surveys requiring parental consent.
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