Worth Repeating
By Ron Marczyk, RN
In 1964 THC, the molecule,
was first discovered. What do the last 48 years of science have to say
about medical marijuana stripped of DEA bias and its groupthink
ideologically driven research?
The time is NOW to listen, and let the science supporting medical marijuana speak for itself!
In a loud, clear voice the science concludes overwhelmingly: YES! Marijuana is medicine! And Schedule I is an outdated scientifically false claim!
After 10 years of stonewalling by the DEA, medical marijuana patients will finally get their day in federal court to prove that the Drug Enforcement Administration's marijuana claims are false!
 |
The United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has agreed to hear oral arguments in Americans for Safe Access v. Drug Enforcement Administration, a lawsuit challenging the federal government's classification of marijuana as a dangerous drug with no medical value.
An
appeals court will finally review the scientific evidence regarding the
therapeutic value of marijuana and possibly override the DEA; for the
first time, a judge may reschedule marijuana to a correct lower status.
To give you some perspective, crack cocaine is presently Schedule II -- officially less dangerous than marijuana!
The D.C. Circuit is scheduled to hear oral arguments on October 16th at 9:30 a.m.
Want to help? Ask your family doctor to sign on to support safe access!
You as a patient have a right to choose and be fully involved in your own plan of medical treatment.
But why is this case being heard now, after 10 years of stonewalling by the DEA?
Timing in life is everything. Is there a hidden agenda at work here?
 |
| The Weed Blog |
Is their hidden end game really to let Schedule I fall on purpose, but only for pharmaceutically produced cannabinoids, because the timing is now right to give cover for the rollout of Sativex to the U.S. market a few months from now?
This
would give the DEA the right to say that they did reduce Schedule I for
marijuana, but only a special "type" of the marijuana that is safe,
because the high has been removed.
The strategy here is to give your opponent what they want, but not in the way they want it.
This
court case will put the medical marijuana issue in the media spotlight,
a month before the Presidential election. If the media is doing its job
for Americans' right to know, then this case should force statements
from both candidates, making it a major issue in the presidential
election right before voters in six states -- Arkansas, Colorado,
Massachusetts, Montana, Oregon, and Washington -- will be deciding on marijuana-specific ballot measures in November.
This case is about the falsification of the DEA's original outdated, erroneous claims about medical marijuana that date all the way back to 1937, which are still struck on stupid.
If
an organization with total control will not allow outside testing so
that their claims are forever safe, Real science has a higher standard
for what we call true. It is called... Falsification.
Falsification is: Retesting an orthodox scientific/medical claim using empirical evidence gathered from updated technology, experiments or observations to challenge its validity.
Why no outside testing?
Marijuana's
prohibition origins are that of a racial law backed up by bad science
and twisted by political interests to protect profits then as now.
This
case is about a paramilitary agency shutting down the free flow of
scientific information and research on "marijuana," but allowing
corporations to profit using the same plant relabeled as
"cannabinoids."
This case is not about
restricting information for national security reasons ... this is a case
about forbidding medical research that could help people who have
cancer and other serious diseases. We're talking prevention, possibly
curing diseases, and vastly improving the lives of people who suffer.
 |
| educannabis |
Or
are corporate profits being protected over the welfare of people?
Corporations do not get sick, suffer from diseases, feel pain or suffer.
Corporations are not people.
Think of it as forbidding the medical freedom to conduct research and publish data which may be contrary to "official
DEA marijuana science." This is the antithesis to the principle of the
free flow of knowledge, which is at the heart of how medical science
works.
"This is a rare opportunity for
patients to confront politically motivated decision-making with
scientific evidence of marijuana's medical efficacy. What's
at stake in this case is nothing less than our country's scientific
integrity and the imminent needs of millions of patients."
The
DEA is the sole agency that sets drug scheduling status, yet their
mission statement only allows for the study of negative effects of
marijuana. This conflict of interest drives the internal closed loop of
circular thinking that has been frozen in time for the last 75 years
and is about to fall like the Berlin wall!
 |
| Florida Pundit |
| The fall of marijuana prohibition will look like this, but with a big cloud of smoke in the air! |
Many small people in many small places doing small things can alter the face of the world!
This is a case that highlights official DEA science that has gone off the rails.
Marijuana prohibition has always been anti-science and it is a form of social control against people who use this gentle plant.
Schedule I shuts down all outside research by independent medical researchers not on the DEA payroll and not under DEA control. We
are about to find out what the DEA has been hiding from the U.S.
population and the extent of their scientific research malpractice. See: "The Anti-Science Streak in Federal Marijuana Policy," The Atlantic.
Claims
that marijuana is dangerous and not an effective medicine for a
multitude of conditions is false information that is 75 years outdated
and has unequivocally been disproven many times over.
This past year, a pro-marijuana tipping point
was reached when, for the first time, a majority of Americans polled by
Gallup believed marijuana should be legalized for medical use.
"70
percent favored making it legal for doctors to prescribe marijuana in
order to reduce pain and suffering. Americans have consistently been
more likely to favor the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes than to
favor its legalization generally."
But now, a medical/scientific tipping point has also been reached. When the data from the last ten years is reviewed in meta-analysis fashion, it will reveal an overwhelming amount of positive cannabinoid evidence.
"The two largest organizations that represent physicians, the American Medical Association
and American College of Physicians, want the federal government to
reconsider the classification of cannabis as Schedule 1 under the
Controlled Substances Act."
"The writing
is on the wall. The two largest physicians' groups in the country are
saying that the Schedule 1 of marijuana is suspect and urgently needs
reconsideration." - Sunil Kumar Aggarwal, MD, PhD
"The American Nurses Association (ANA) recognizes
that patients should have safe access to therapeutic marijuana/cannabis.
Cannabis or marijuana has been used medicinally for centuries. It has
been shown to be effective in treating a wide range of symptoms and
conditions."
"Position Statement: Providing Patients Safe
Access to Therapeutic Marijuana/Cannabis," American Nurses Association
(ANA) website, March 19, 2004
Suppressing scientific medical information and not allowing independent research is a violation of freedom of speech.
 |
Schedule
I takes away the freedom of academic speech, freedom of
self-expression, freedom of the medical press to publish, all free from
government interference in the scientific process.
Again, should a paramilitary organization really be in charge of decisions I make with my doctor in private?
Suppression
of scientific information that could relieve the pain and suffering of
countless cancer patients, and which may prevent deaths from cancer,
should be a crime requiring jail time. Should Harry Anslinger be
posthumously tried for crimes against humanity for his leading role in
marijuana prohibition?
The scientific case for the entire prohibition of medical marijuana rests on the truth or falsification of the following three medical claims made by the DEA, which are the heart of their case, their rationale for prohibition, and the reason why one in six U.S. prisoners are presently in jail over marijuana.
 |
CLAIM #1: Marijuana has a very high potential for abuse.
This is a false claim.
Marijuana dependence is as about as bad as quitting coffee, according to NIDA.
 |
| The Lancet |
| Relative harm assessment of various drugs from the scientific journal The Lancet |
CLAIM #2: Marijuana has no accepted medical use in the United States.
FALSE. Here is an 840-page compilation of published medical studies that show the proactive use of cannabis in various forms. Granny Storm Crow's MMJ Reference List, July 2012; please click on this link [PDF].
CLAIM #3: Marijuana lacks accepted safety data for use even under medical supervision.
 |
| Hey, DEA, did you ever read the medical patent held by HHS? |
Historically,
these three claims can all be directly connected to way back to 1937,
when marijuana was made illegal after two days of committee hearings
with no supporting science, and over the objections of AMA by Congress.
 |
If
present-day scientific evidence could prove one or all of these
statements as inaccurate, would Schedule I and prohibition be
overturned? What method governs this process to get at the real
scientific truth that strips the bias out of scientific research so the
science can speak for itself?
In all the
headlines and rush of positive cannabis medical news stories vs.
government misinformation, sometimes we lose sight of the basic
principles of the true meaning of what the scientific method and falsification
stand for. These are not obscure footnotes debated by researchers; they
are at the heart of what separates real science from junk science.
Real
scientific medical research is governed by a set of rules that cannot
be violated and still call itself valid science. The first principle of
valid scientific research: it is free from cognitive bias.
An example would be the DEA studying "marijuana."
 |
| Marijuana Planet |
Even that word, marijuana,
is biased, and the starting point for much research. It is an invented
guttural term for cannabis; it was used like the "N" word, a demonized
word that was used to bully non-Whites and control two cultures, Mexicans and Blacks. And yet that word is still being used in research in the year 2012!
Preventing
independent research by keeping cannabis Schedule I is the worst type
of intimidation, because it targets the sick and ill, who are the least
able to fight back and, in some cases, dying.
In 1937, zero technology existed to support the claim that marijuana was dangerous and to prohibit its growing after more than 10,000 years of human use.
The scientific method is the best rational method invented for judging and separating competing claims for accuracy and truth. Why is this important?
Because
we as humans all have our own personal biases, fears, prejudices,
hidden agendas, financial motives, delusional and sacred ideas that
control our conscious and unconscious beliefs, which prejudices our
viewing of information and creeps into our conclusions. The scientific method and falsification corrects for this.
If
you have a lack of an understanding about the rules governing
scientific governing medical marijuana research, you could easily be
fooled by all the intentional misinformation.
This is what drives new research and progress. Unfortunately, the above three claims have not been updated in 75 years!
Let's see if the good people at GW Pharmaceuticals can help us falsify Schedule I.
The
first line in the Sativex pipeline chart below clearly states that
Sativex has been approved for multiple sclerosis spasticity (in the
U.S.? In the last month? What happened? Did somebody forget to put an
American flag on its status?).
I bet large supplies of Sativex right now are sitting in boxes on loading docks, ready to be shipped out.
Please check to see that I mean this.
In
addition, the results of Sativex testing for cancer pain is about to be
submitted to the United States FDA in short order. Please look at the
other medical conditions that the FDA will soon also allow Sativex to
treat. But marijuana, not so much.
The currently approved multiple sclerosis indication for Sativex represents only the start of Sativex commercial life.
Oh! But wait a minute -- I must be all wrong about this! The DEA says marijuana never was medicine and never will be medicine.
 |
| GW Pharmaceuticals |
"Soon after taking office, I directed the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy to ensure that our policies reflect what science tells us without distortion or manipulation. We appointed scientific advisors based on their credentials and experience, not their politics or ideology. I also have insisted that we be open and honest with the American people about the science behind our decisions."
"Only by ensuring that scientific data is never distorted or concealed to serve a political agenda, making
scientific decisions based on facts, not ideology, and including the
public in our decision making process will we harness the power of
science to achieve our goals."
 |
| Ron Marczyk |
| Mr. Worth Repeating: former NYPD cop, former high school health teacher, the unstoppable Ron Marczyk, R.N., Toke of the Town columnist |
Editor's note: Ron
Marczyk is a retired high school health education teacher who taught
Wellness and Disease Prevention, Drug and Sex Ed, and AIDS education to
teens aged 13-17. He also taught a high school International
Baccalaureate psychology course. He taught in a New York City public
school as a Drug Prevention Specialist. He is a Registered Nurse with
six years of ER/Critical Care experience in NYC hospitals, earned an
M.S. in cardiac rehabilitation and exercise physiology, and worked as a
New York City police officer for two years. Currently he is focused on
how evolutionary psychology explains human behavior.
