Coming home from work today, I saw some guys putting up a large sign right next to the main drag through town (Bloomington, IL). It read:

4th of July – Defend your Freedom – Celebrate the Bill of Rights

Made my day.

This article is your fairly standard teens-have-the-most-fatal-car-accidents-exposÚ, and would not be of interest to me, except that Andrea Barthwell was quoted (as co-director of a physician-led group called End Needless Death On Our Roadways — an organization whose entire purpose appears to be to allow Andrea to ocassionally be quoted as co-director of it, while channelling some more treatment business her way.)
Anyway, here’s the quote that made me fall off my chair:

“Sometimes you can’t legislate all of the changes you need,” said Andrea Barthwell, co-director of the physician-led group. She said parents have to be brought into the campaign against risky driving because they are often the only ones who know they have risk- and thrill-taking kids. [emphasis added]

Yep, we may have to actually involve parents in raising their kids, because “sometimes you can’t legislate all the changes you need.”
Mind like a blotter. Soaks it up, but gets it all backwards.

After the Supreme Court decision earlier this month, John Walters:

“Today’s decision marks the end of medical marijuana as a political issue.”

Not so fast, John. Yesterday, Rhode Island legislature passed their own medical marijuana bill. It passed the House last week 52-10 and the Senate yesterday 33-1. It looks veto-proof. State #11. John, as […]

Those who have followed Drug WarRant for awhile may remember me talking about Julie Falco, an MS patient in Illinois who testified on behalf of medical marijuana in the Illinois hearings. I got a chance to meet her then, and she’s quite an amazing young woman. (Here’s a great article about her by Steve Young.
Well, Julie and her doctor, Dr. Anthony Reder, are applying for access to the liquid form of marijuana called Sativex¬. According to Americans for Safe Access:

“The introduction of Sativex¬ to Canadian markets vindicates what patients, doctors, and medical associations have been saying for centuries: marijuana is a safe and effective medication, “said Steph Sherer, Executive Director of Americans for Safe Access, the largest medical marijuana advocacy group in the country. “The bottom line is marijuana MUST be rescheduled so that we can have a real conversation about the best uses of marijuana as medicine, including the introduction of Sativex¬ to the US market.” (ASA information on Sativex¬)

Americans for Safe Access will be assisting a number of MS patients and their doctors through this application process, while they continue in their quest to change the schedule of marijuana from its current status, in the same category as heroin, to another category that recognizes the medicinal value of marijuana. Federal law allows for promising drugs that have been approved in another country, but not yet in the United States, to be used under the direction of a physician, pending special permission. The Investigational New Drug program (IND) is the means through which the sponsor (either a physician or pharmaceutical company) technically obtains this authorization from the FDA. The federal government has had a Compassionate Use IND program that has provided medical cannabis to patients for nearly 30 years. Only a handful of patients were ever approved to use NIDA‰s University of Mississippi-grown marijuana. Seven of these patients are still surviving and receiving their monthly allocations of medical cannabis.

Of course, I’ve talked about the IND program as well. And it seems likely to me that the government will deny this application. But once again they’re going to look bad doing it. This is what it takes. Keep chipping away.
Good luck, Julie. You deserve to get the medicine you need without having to be a criminal.
A press conference will be held on Wednesday at 11 am at the Kluczynski Federal Building, 230 S Dearborn St, Chicago.

My first reaction was to jump all over the story (which has been reported elsewhere) of DEA raids on medical marijuana operations in San Francisco (so quickly after the Supreme Court decision). Given the official stories of money laundering and ecstasy, etc. in conjunction with the busts, however, I decided to wait until I had […]