CANNABIS

MODERN DISEASE PREVENTION

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MARIJUANA IS NONTOXIC AND CANNOT CAUSE DEATH — BUT STILL A CONTROLLED SUBSTANCE

Controlled Substance Act of 1970
     Public Law 91-513, The Controlled Substance Act of 1970, was enacted on October 27, 1970 and sign into law by President Richard M. Nixon. This legislation placed both illegal and prescription drugs into one of five categories called schedules. Cannabis (marijuana) was placed on Schedule I. Subsequent to this legislation the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Food and Drug Administration update and republish the Schedules annually.
     For a drug to be in Schedule I, the Controlled Substance Act of 1970 required that (A) The drug or other substance has a high potential for abuse, (B) The drug or other substance has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States, and (C) There is a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug or other substance under medical supervision.
     A petition to reschedule marijuana for medical patients was presented in 1972. But it wasn't until September 1988, that the Chief Administrative Law Judge for the Department of Justice ruled in favor of the petition. After hearing two years of testimony, Judge Francis L. Young, stated in his findings:
"...In strict medical terms marijuana is far safer than many foods we commonly consume. For example, eating ten raw potatoes can result in a toxic response. By comparison, it is physically impossible to eat enough marijuana to induce death...Marijuana, in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man. By any measure of rational analysis marijuana can be safely used within a supervised routine of medical care."
     Judge Young's 1988 ruling was reversed on appeal. However, a tablet form of cannabis' psychoactive ingredient, THC, was rescheduled and placed on schedule II in 1985 to allow for prescription use. Then in 1999 it was rescheduled again to allow prescription under schedule III. Cocaine (Cocaine hydrochloride) is on Schedule II. Cocaine is known by the street names blow, candy, coke, crack, flake, rock, snow, toot, etc. Cocaine can result in respiratory failure and strokes.
     The most recent petition to reschedule marijuana was filed in 2002. Today the Drug Enforcement Administration lists marijuana on Schedule I - along with GHB (gamma-hydroxybutyrate), for example. GHB is known by the street name liquid ecstasy and can result in loss of consciousness, loss of reflexes, seizures, coma, and death; and this drug is associated with rape.
     Various alkyl nitrites, recreational drug inhalants commonly called poppers (including amyl nitrite, butyl nitrite, isopropyl nitrite and isobutyl nitrite) are not included by the Drug Enforcement Administration on any of the Schedules. Poppers have the potential to damage to cardiovascular and nervous systems, and can cause sudden death. Nicotine — well it has the potential for respiratory depression and arrest, addiction, coma, and death. Drug Enforcement Administration doesn’t include Nicotine on any of the Schedules either.
     In a new study investigating marijuana-related effects on cognitive functioning of frequent marijuana users,[1] Columbia University researchers reported the volunteer participants in the their study exhibited similar neurophysiological effects, but more subtle performance effects, relative to previously reported findings using research volunteers who were infrequent marijuana users. They concluded that the overall performance accuracy by the frequent marijuana users was not significantly altered by marijuana (although the drug increased response times during task performance).
[1] Carl Hart PhD, Erik Gunderson MD, Richard Foltin PhD, Aaron Ilan, Alan Gevins, Kemi Role, and Jana Colley; NEUROPHYSIOLOGICAL AND COGNITIVE EFFECTS OF SMOKED MARIJUANA IN FREQUENT USERS; Division on Substance Abuse, New York State Psychiatric Institute and Department of Psychiatry, College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, New York, NY. 2010.

ABOUT MARIJUANA

Marijuana, or cannabis, as it is more appropriately called, is the third most popular recreational drug in America (behind alcohol and tobacco), and has been used by nearly 100 million Americans. According to government surveys, some 25 million Americans have smoked marijuana in the past year, and more than 14 million do so regularly despite harsh laws against its use.

Marijuana has been part of humanity's medicine chest for almost as long as history has been recorded. Our public policies should reflect this reality, not deny it. Of all the negative consequences of marijuana prohibition, none is as tragic as the denial of medicinal cannabis to the tens of thousands of patients who could benefit from its therapeutic use.

Around 50,000 people die each year from alcohol poisoning. Similarly, more than 400,000 deaths each year are attributed to tobacco smoking. By comparison, marijuana is nontoxic and cannot cause death by overdose. According to the prestigious European medical journal, The Lancet, “The smoking of cannabis, even long-term, is not harmful to health. ... It would be reasonable to judge cannabis as less of a threat ... than alcohol or tobacco."

Enforcing marijuana prohibition costs taxpayers an estimated $10 billion annually and resulted in the arrest of more than 847,000 individuals in 2008. This was far more than the total number of individuals arrested that year for all violent crimes combined; including murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault.

Of those individuals who were charged with marijuana violations in 2008, approximately 89 percent (754,224) were charged with possession only. The remaining 93,640 individuals were charged with sale/manufacture — a category that includes all cultivation offenses; including those where marijuana was being grown for personal or medical use. Driven by the Drug War, the prison population in the United States is six to ten times as high as most Western European nations.
NORML and the NORML Foundation. About Marijuana. The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, Washington DC, 16 Sep 2009.