Toxic science

Regardless of what you may feel about the appropriateness politically of the “marijuana is safer” than alcohol campaigns, the truth is that in some areas, marijuana is, in fact, scientifically and objectively safer than alcohol.

A recent ad aired at NASCAR said that marijuana is less toxic than alcohol, and that specific claim was analyzed by Politifact, which looked at the facts, found that the science supports that marijuana is less toxic and called the claim “Mostly True” (who knows why “mostly true” instead of just “true”).

The really interesting part of the story, however, is the attempts by opposition to dance around the straightforward science of toxicity and try to re-define it to keep from making marijuana sound good in any way.

“It’s like trying to compare different weapons. Both have the potential to cause harm,” said Dr. Scott Teitelbaum, professor and vice chairman of the Department of Psychiatry and chief of the Division of Addiction Medicine, at University of Florida. “I don’t know that there’s a clear answer.” […]

Calvina Fay, executive director of the Drug Free America Foundation, said she wants the public to realize that “these are two drugs that are both addictive and impairing and they both create unsafe situations.”

Of course, we expect that from Calvina. But how about the federal agency that focuses on the use of science?

NIDA states in an email that the effect of marijuana can depend on the person (their biology) who’s using it, the amount and under what circumstances.

“Claiming that marijuana is less toxic than alcohol cannot be substantiated since each possess their own unique set of risks and consequences for a given individual,” according to an agency email statement.

Um, no. Toxicity is a measurable scientific standard (LD50), and while each individual is unique, there have been clearly established overall differences in toxicity between alcohol and marijuana. Period.

It appears that science is toxic to NIDA.

This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.

74 Responses to Toxic science

  1. Howard says:

    Politifact’s own bulleted points that led to their ‘Mostly True’ ruling;

    -Deaths or even trips to the hospital are much more likely due to alcohol;

    -Scientists could not find any documented deaths from smoking marijuana;

    -A study found the safety ratio for marijuana (the number of doses to cause death) is much greater than compared to alcohol. Put another way, marijuana is 100 times less toxic than alcohol.

    So does Politifact need marijuana to be 1000 times less toxic to garner a ‘True’ ruling? 10,000 times? What?

    By the way, NIDA has had zero credibility regarding cannabis for a long time. My own ‘ruling’ on their credibility now is downright subterranean.

  2. claygooding says:

    I think all prohibitionist are going to find fewer people listening to them after Guptka accusing them of systemically lying to America,,we have shouted it for decades but I have already spoken with several people that now ask me about some of the lies,,I did not engage them in the discussion,,they asked me in the last few days.

  3. divadab says:

    The lying scum at NIDA should be polishing up their resumes. What a disgrace that scientists would lie to preserve their prohibition-dependent jobs. Filthy traitors to the truth. And my tax dollars pay for their salaries, gold-plated benefits, and indexed pension.

    This crime against us citizens and the truth cannot be allowed to continue.

  4. cave horse says:

    Science is God until it conflicts with your preconceived notions, personal prejudices, and financial incentives.

  5. Duncan20903 says:

    .
    .

    Pete, it appears that you’ve skipped a groove. NIDA “focuses on the use of science?” Since when?? Just because they dress up in lab coats and deliver their propaganda in a somber tone of authority doesn’t change the fact that their focus is producing the holy trinity of the prohibitionist parasites i.e. bald faced lies, half truths, and hysterical rhetoric.

  6. Servetus says:

    Latest Non-NIDA Research: LSD and other psychedelics not linked with mental health problems

    The use of LSD, magic mushrooms, or peyote does not increase a person’s risk of developing mental health problems, according to an analysis of information from more than 130,000 randomly chosen people, including 22,000 people who had used psychedelics at least once.

    Researcher Teri Krebs and clinical psychologist PÃ¥l-Ørjan Johansen, from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology’s (NTNU) Department of Neuroscience, used data from a US national health survey to see what association there was, if any, between psychedelic drug use and mental health problems.

    The authors found no link between the use of psychedelic drugs and a range of mental health problems. Instead they found some significant associations between the use of psychedelic drugs and fewer mental health problems

    The results are published in the 19 August edition of journal PLOS ONE and are freely available online.

    Another drug myth bites the dust.

  7. darkcycle says:

    Surprise, surprise. If marijuana is found Non-toxic, a new definition of “Toxic” must be crafted. That this “new” definition has nothing to do with actual, medical use of the term is unimportant. And as a side effect, it will result in widespread confusion. That, of course, is a feature, not a bug.

    • claygooding says:

      As you have noted they changed the standards for addiction to allow marijuana being addictive,,changing definitions of toxicity is the next step,,now it they can change the definition of death they can shoot down zero deaths from marijuana

  8. Duncan20903 says:

    .
    .

    Let’s play “Ask the Prohibitionist!”

    Q) How many prohibitionists does it take to screw in a light bulb?
    A) None. If the light bulb refuses to comply with the law and light up when required, we’ll send in a jack booted thug with a nightstick to adjust its attitude.

  9. stlgonzo says:

    Washington State Prepares For ‘Worst-Case Scenario,’ A Federal Lawsuit Over Marijuana Legalization

    http://tinyurl.com/mqn33wr

    I have mixed emotions on this. It is great that Washington State is preparing for the worst case scenario. But I fear how the federal courts would rule.

    • Duncan20903 says:

      .
      .

      I agree. It’s a darn good thing that the Feds don’t have the standing required to file such a lawsuit.

      Did you forget that from the Feds point of view that I-502 and A-64 are identical to the medicinal cannabis patient protection laws with California’s Compassionate Use Act being in force for 17 years? Do you ever wonder why the only Court challenges to these laws on the basis of Federal preemption have been filed by State and local authorities?

      Remember that in City of Garden Grove v Felix Kha (2007) and County of San Diego v San Diego NORML (2008) those arguments of Federal preemption didn’t just lose, the prohibitionist parasites couldn’t even get a ruling in their favor in the local Court, and the California Supreme Court, the Federal Court of Appeals and the SCOTUS weren’t even interested in hearing the petitioners blather about their lame legal theories.

      It just isn’t going to happen.

  10. Howard says:

    The NIDA wiggles, dithers and parses just as the detached and hypocritical bureaucracy they are famously known for being;

    “Claiming that marijuana is less toxic than alcohol cannot be substantiated since each possess their own unique set of risks and consequences for a given individual,” according to an agency email statement.

    Is DEATH enough of a substantiation? In the starkest terms, cannabis use has a risk and consequence of non-death. Alcohol use has the possible risk and consequence of death. Non-death (i.e., life) and death are two conditions that are generally considered to be opposite from one another (even among scientists!), regardless of how they are applied to any “given individual”. Sheesh, it’s embarrassing to even type these words…

    Okay, I need to go for a walk and look at flowers and butterflies. This NIDA drivel is about to make my head explode.

    • Duncan20903 says:

      .
      .

      The risk of death from long term abuse or overdose from drinking alcohol pales in comparison to the risk to the prohibitionist parasites’ steady paychecks if cannabis is re-legalized.

  11. allan says:

    hmmm… Doc Gupta should meet Dr Schwarz:

    Obama, What About “Free and Open Scientific Inquiry” for Medical Marijuana?

    It’s hard to escape the fact that there is a growing gap between the American public and the federal government on this topic. Seventeen states and the District of Columbia have legalized the medical use of marijuana in one way or another. Public debate over the subject has mostly been confined to the question of how exactly marijuana should be delivered to the patients in states allowing its use. Increasing numbers of medical professionals are speaking out in support of the new laws as the biochemical understanding of marijuana’s medicinal properties continues to grow.

    Meanwhile, the federal government takes the official position of the Drug Enforcement Administration that marijuana belongs in the Schedule I category of controlled substances as a deadly narcotic on par with heroin, far too dangerous to be prescribed by doctors for medical use.

    This enormous gap between what the public accepts as true and what the government insists is true has a long, unfortunate history. It reminds me of the great divide that developed between the then-ruling Catholic Church and the European public over the order of the cosmos in the 17th century. In 1633, the Church sentenced Galileo Galilei to lifetime house arrest for claiming that the earth revolves around the Sun rather than the other way around.

    So isn’t a conspiracy to commit fraud… like… you know, one of those RICO things?

    And if we throw in a bit of Doc Aggarwal:

    Adequate and Well-Controlled Studies Proving Medical Efficacy of Cannabis Exist but Are Ignored by Marijuana Schedulers

    The DEA’s argument, stated in a 2006 report from the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), is that there are no “adequate and well-controlled studies” proving marijuana’s efficacy. Though they noted a number of U.S.-based small-to-medium sized randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled studies of inhaled marijuana for severe pain, spasticity, and wasting syndromes, all showing valid medical benefits, they felt these were not big enough. What DEA wants to see are akin to Phase III clinical trials — large studies, involving hundreds of subjects, comparing marijuana to placebo in a double-blind, randomized fashion for a specific indication — exactly what the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) wants when evaluating interstate drug marketing applications. Here’s the rub: those kinds of studies have been done and are published in the peer-reviewed scientific literature and yet neither the DEA, nor the HHS, nor the Court took notice. Large, multicenter, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled studies involving hundreds of patients in America and abroad that are in some cases a year in duration have been published in U.S. National Library of Medicine indexed journals showing that marijuana, orally administered in extract form, can treat intractable pain in cancer and improve mobility and symptom control in multiple sclerosis. What is arbitrary and capricious is federal agencies have chosen to ignore these studies because they have been done mainly in the private pharmaceutical drug development sector where marijuana-infused products are produced, tested, and sometimes strategically renamed. This hide and seek game has resulted in rigorous research having little to no bearing on public scientific understanding of the medical use of marijuana.

    We have a pretty literal glove slap to the face of “government science.”

    Obama started his Prez schtick w/ his memorandum:

    Science and the scientific process must inform and guide decisions of my Administration on a wide range of issues, including improvement of public health, protection of the environment, increased efficiency in the use of energy and other resources, mitigation of the threat of climate change, and protection of national security.

    The drug war and pot prohibition are the (in the words of Peter Tosh) “fleas under da collar” of Obama’s presidency and he can’t ignore ’em much longer…

    This isn’t a homework assignment and “my dog ate it” won’t cut it.

    Get off your ass Mr President and live up to some of your campaign hype. I mean really… I’d be embarassed to be such a foot dragging, gutless wuss in public.

    And yes, the simple and appropriate comparison of toxicity is the LD50 and it’s been a big stick for a long time. Now it’s about to become a club.

  12. Jean Valjean says:

    I’ve always enjoyed listening to Science Friday on NPR, but lately I’ve noticed Nora Volkow appearing regularly to spell out NIDA’s propaganda. (She also visits a lot of grade schools under the bogus pretext of “science education” to promote the drug war). Her fake science would be bad enough but she seems to get an excessively flattering, deferential reception from the presenters, as though a Nobel prize was just around the corner for this “pioneering scientist.”

    • Duncan20903 says:

      .
      .

      She’s rewarded regularly for her position so why in the world would she change her mind? It’s how flibbertigibbet gets ensconced in a bureaucracy. Harry J. Anslinger was put in charge of drugs policy in 1930. Mr. Anslinger proceeded to promote underlings who most closely regurgitated his positions. After his sycophants were promoted they proceeded to promote their underlings who most closely regurgitated their position on the subject. The true believers are most able to regurgitate the correct dogma resulting in them getting rewarded for their belief which only further reinforces their beliefs.

      These people don’t get rewarded for being liars. They really are telling the truth as they see it. Being rewarded for their ignorant beliefs just reinforces their beliefs. It’s the epitome of a self congratulatory circle jerk and the bureaucratic rewards which they receive are the bureaucratic equivalent of Viagra. So around and around the circle they go. But they’re never going to stop until somebody introduces the bureaucratic equivalent of leeches to suck the blood from their bureaucratic erections.

      All IMHO, of course. I apologize for the disturbing (but accurate) imagery.

  13. Kevin Hunt says:

    The wheels are falling off the prohibitionists’ short bus!

  14. DonDig says:

    The time is rapidly approaching when the anecdotal evidence has become so pervasive even the loudest naysayers must take a break and look at that evidence as well as the facts.
    I’m looking forward to our government becoming truthful regarding these things. It will obviously take more outcry, but won’t it be refreshing when it arrives?

  15. Duncan20903 says:

    .
    .

    Oh my word. They wouldn’t even look at Bernie Madoff’s so called accounting. During my years of finding and short selling fraudulent companies which were engaged in the business of selling worthless stock to the gullible I never once saw the SEC issue any warnings and it isn’t as if any of those companies are still in business.
    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-20/medical-marijuana-spawning-pump-and-dump-scams-finra.html

    I must admit that I’m surprised at just how offended I am by this SEC warning considering that I think that it’s highly accurate. But I lost count of how many stock market frauds were ignored by Federal regulators a long time ago. Perhaps this is the dawning of a new era of actually warning when people are selling worthless stock to the gullible? For some unknown reason I find that possibility highly unlikely.

    You idiot! Get back in there and sell, sell!

    • Duncan20903 says:

      .
      .

      OK, I stand corrected. There was no such thing as FINRA back in my day. It’s very pleasing that it was established, but I still want to see people notified about the people like Mr. Madoff and companies like Enron before people have their life savings stolen.

  16. Duncan20903 says:

    There are Seattle police issued Doritos for sale on Ebay. Forty frickin’ dollars? The sellers must be drunk. Ooops, nevermind there are bids over $50…the buyers must be drunk.

    • claygooding says:

      does anyone else see the possibility of buying a replica?

      • allan says:

        sure… ruin a good pipe dream… but can you buy a bag of Doritos w/ that sticker?

        I mean I realize it’s not like buying one of the first Mustangs and storing it for decades…

        • Plant Down Babylon says:

          i think it’s the first instance of cops being semi cool

          That’s gotta be worth something….

  17. Not All Drugs Are Created Equal
    by: Robert Gable-is an emeritus professor of psychology at Claremont Graduate University.

    “Based on my research, the safety margin of recreational substances as normally used is: 6 for heroin; 10 for alcohol; 15 for cocaine; 16 for MDMA; 20 for codeine; and 1,000 for LSD or marijuana. Cigarettes have little immediate risk of death because most of the very lethal nicotine is destroyed in the smoke. The long-term risk of addiction and cancer from cigarettes is well known.”

    “No drug is good for teenagers. But when it comes to the chances of immediate death by chemical toxicity, marijuana is about a hundred times safer than alcohol or cocaine.”
    NYT December 19, 2011
    http://tinyurl.com/cpauxah

    • This goes with your comment Howard.

      • Howard says:

        I’m with you. And it’s yet another smackdown of the ongoing prevaricating of the NIDA, the DEA, the ONDCP and other prohibition nimrod-filled agencies.

        The principals of these agencies remind me of tenured professors. Once they reach some sort of hallowed status, they can roam the halls in their bathrobes spouting long debunked nonsense. In the case of certain government employees, their ‘tenure’ is a safety bubble beyond the reach of the public. You’ll never see Nora D. Volkow, M.D. of NIDA respond to inquiries from the taxpaying public in a town hall meeting. Ever. How uncivilized it would be for those who foot the bill and whose lives are impacted by NIDA’s policies to demand accountability. There is no one to answer to. Brain dead policies just live on, zombie like (with help from tax payer cash flowing into coffers provided by our beloved Congress with their 6% approval rating in tow). It’s just lovely.

  18. Scott says:

    A few years ago, I read a sentence starting with “While we know marijuana isn’t harmless…”

    “We do?”, I thought to myself.

    I then went to the prohibitionists’ websites to find experimental science concluding (not suggesting) any harm in moderate cannabis use.

    Instead, I found suggestive research concluding that heavy cannabis use or abuse may or can be harmful.

    Importantly note that I’m being kind (pun now intended) by calling such research suggestive, while I feel confident assuming the rigor demanded by the scientific method has never been fully (and therefore properly) applied in the case of cannabis.

    Key factors apparently missing from many (if not all) such research include:

    1. Precise Intake Amount

    If the intake amount is measured in “joints”, the research is unscientific.

    Number of joints is not even close to a technical measure.

    Your doctor prescribes precise dosage for a good reason (making carefully accurate adjustments for patients’ safety), noting you could probably kill yourself on any FDA-approved substance at some intake amount threshold.

    Research will remain unreliable until a precise technical measure of cannabis intake amount is applied (arguably only when the failed prohibition opposing the scientific method is repealed).

    2. Strain Comparison

    There’s a dramatic array of cannabis effects styling from wild to relaxing for the user to choose from (not to mention the possibility of combining strains to produce a ‘deeper’ effect — i.e. more complex texture, more dimension, etc.)

    Many people may be surprised to learn that choosing cannabis effects is on par with choosing music to listen to in terms of the number of options available. Cannabis offers the equivalent of the most soothing classical music through the most dissonant sonic thrashing.

    Research concluding that cannabis causes impairment, paranoia, etc. without factoring strict strain controls to remove possibility of strain influence (instead of overall cannabis influence) should be instantly dismissed as unscientific.

    3. Intake Method

    Studies focusing solely upon smoked cannabis can never conclude cannabis is harmful, when smoking itself remains a possible cause of concluded harm.

    Overall, this is why I proclaim the fact that no experimental science proves any harm in moderate cannabis use.

    If I’m missing something here, please enlighten me.

    • darkcycle says:

      Precise dosing with cannabis may not be possible. With any medicine, dosage response is individual, that’s why it’s a range in the first place. Marijuana’s dose-response is even more personal. No two people will have the same response to the same dose, and some people are HIGHLY sensitive to the effects of THC. For instance, my neighbor and patient Jim. Jim has been medicating for cancer for several years now (he was just recently declared “cancer free”, yay!). He can vaporize a couple of whip-loads, and be playing guitar happily. His wife can’t use it at all. One hit off the vaporizer and she is profoundly and uncomfortably high. I have a HUGE tolerance, and can medicate with edibles and still puff all night.
      It depends on many factors, some of them unknown. Luckily, it has no toxic dose, no drug interactions of any kind, and manageable side effects.

      • Scott says:

        Thank you for the enlightenment and congratulations to Jim!

        My offhand thought then is a precise measure can only occur when an individual’s “cannabis response signature” is properly measurable and strain consistency is applied for everyone participating in the research (with intake method being factored in too).

        I confess that I don’t have a grip yet on the extent that scientists can accurately define the cannabis response signature (or whatever they call it) and welcome further enlightenment (noting I assume there will be more opportunities to continue this line in future DWR posts, so we need not address it now — i.e. I’ll probably raise this issue again in future comments to deepen my understanding of this important subject).

  19. kaptinemo says:

    I’d said that they’d get crazier as they got backed into a corner. But what’s getting been more noticeable is the depth of the insult to the intelligence they’re willing to go. They’re so used to lying that it’s habitual, to the point of they’re being unconscious of it.

    Compare it to the last time NIDA lived up to its’ charter: Themes in Chemical Prohibition By William L. White from: Drugs in Perspective, National Institute on Drug Abuse, 1979

    The last time I ever believed anything NIDA said. Like all the Fed prohibition agencies, they just can’t wrap their brains around the fact that the demographic they were counting on to replace the one they could always count on supporting prohibition…didn’t swallow the lies uncritically as did the one before.

    The demographic least knowledgeable but most powerful politically and was able to block drug law reform is being replaced by the bane of prohibs everywhere: A now-adult DARE graduate who’s sick of the lies, who knows the truth about cannabis from first-hand or observational experience…and who votes.

    The USS Prohibic sees the demographic icebergs looming on the horizon, but won’t change course soon enough to avoid its’ fate. Because the idiots in the wheelhouse keep thinking nothing’s wrong.

    May they continue to do so; it will make our job much easier…

    • Duncan20903 says:

      .
      .

      they’re so used to lying that it’s habitual, to the point of they’re being unconscious of it.

      Not only are they so used to lying that they’re unconscious of that particular character defect but they’re just as used to being believed unconditionally by their sycophants. But that’s the problem with the prohibitionist parasites. They don’t appear to be aware that you can only fool some of the people all of the time.

      (I confess, sycophant is my currently my favorite word)

  20. Scott says:

    “these are two drugs that are both addictive and impairing and they both create unsafe situations.”

    Law abuse (e.g. a prohibition ruled constitutional by way of an irrational application of the Commerce Clause, or by way of an illegal judicial redefining of the Commerce Clause) is both addictive and impairing, creating situations so unsafe, an entire nation (United States of America) was established in a bloody revolution against such abuse (as clearly proven in the U.S. Declaration of Independence, which even lists examples of law abuse perpetrated by the British king at the time, memory serving).

    Such establishment set in place the self-evidently unalienable right to liberty and the self-proclaimed “supreme law of the land” (i.e. our Constitution) with enumerated government powers (that actually have nothing to do with drug use, or marriage btw) all to oppose the worst form of abuse due to its mainly broad scope of destruction — law abuse.

    Instead, for over two centuries (i.e. throughout American history), too many people have been conned by the people in power (including law abusers) into thinking modern civilization is about perpetually improving the legal definition of risk (i.e. continuing with the well-proven disastrous pre-American conservatism grossly fueling law abuse).

    That well-proven disaster continues, including all of the horrific results due to the war on some drugs (actually, the war on people properly exercising their unalienable right to liberty to grow/make, transport, possess, and use such drugs).

    To legally define risk is to undoubtedly define liberty (an automatic infringement upon that unalienable right), despite any judicial or public support for the contrary, importantly noting the judicial community nor even the public has authority to righteously infringe upon a person’s liberty.

    For those countering that the U.S. Declaration of Independence is not law (so neither are our fundamental rights), I refer you to amendment nine in the Bill of Rights, which (with obvious intent) states:

    “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

    Clearly our fundamental rights must be included in “others retained by the people”.

    Just demonstrate no to law abuse.

    This urgently includes applying serious public pressure against our judicial community to restore the original Commerce Clause (i.e. “To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;”). “To regulate Commerce…” is obviously unequal to ‘to regulate any activity having a substantial effect on commerce’. This latter “interpretation” was created solely in Supreme Court decisions, not constitutional legislation, and this “interpretation” enables law abuse in the form of the Controlled Substances Act.

    Moreover, your thought activity, which determines all of your buying and selling decisions, always has a substantial effect on commerce. Does Congress have authority to regulate your thoughts? Based upon the current “interpretation” of the Commerce Clause, the rational answer can only be yes.

    This grossly powerful insanity must be properly stopped now. To the extent the rule-of-law is discredited is logically the extent a nation is destabilized.

    “We the people” are feeling the serious impact of such instability, and as the actual constitutionally appointed leaders of our nation, must demand our public servants immediately clean up this horrific mess they created decades ago and finally put society on the righteous path towards improving liberty for all (not just for the dominant people whom get to define unacceptable risk to their liking).

    The fact is risk can only be addressed by education in a nation with an unalienable right to liberty — never addressed by law.

    • claygooding says:

      “these are two drugs that are both addictive and impairing and they both create unsafe situations.”

      The unsafe situation created by marijuana will disappear when we legalize it and get rid of NIDA

    • claygooding says:

      And another fine comment hits FB,,with tasteful art work added..
      See at Norman Gooding on FB

    • B. Snow says:

      Dammit dude… That was Deep!

      (For full effect, imagine that I was impersonating/using Ralphie May’s voice.)

      • allan says:

        these front row couch seats are great! I think we’re witnessing a new frontier in absurd theater.

        As weird as it seems, somebody – a real human being – actually had to make a decision to make such a statement and somebody – another real human being – had to be tasked with writing it… may they be identified and properly pilloried.

    • Rick Steeb says:

      Hell holds a special place for those who maintain that the Declaration of Independence is not “law” but Wickard -v- Filburn IS…

      • divadab says:

        Well then the federal government is a tool of Satan, apparently. The whole structure of federal economic, agricultural, and criminal regulation hangs on Wickard. Like cannabis prohibition, a gift from the fascism of the thirties, our own living memento of the fucks who brought us WW2. And it was the sainted FDR who brought it into being.

        The whole edifice is an insult to the Constitution, the revolution, and the Republic (r.i.p.).

  21. ezrydn says:

    If you haven’t read Mark Levin’s “The Liberty Amendments” yet, you should hop on it. It’s already got a “movement” started. It specifically addresses Section 5 of the US Constitution. A great read and a fire-starter. State-by-state propositions aren’t the only way to skin this raggedy cat. Amazon-Kindle-$10.

    It’s time to go for the throat!

  22. Francis says:

    “It’s like trying to compare different weapons. Both have the potential to cause harm,” said Dr. Scott Teitelbaum, professor and vice chairman of the Department of Psychiatry and chief of the Division of Addiction Medicine, at University of Florida.

    Good point. Alcohol is a machine gun. Cannabis is a Nerf bat. But who can really say which is the more dangerous?

    • primus says:

      Fair and Balanced. Like Fox (Faux) News.

    • divadab says:

      Scott Teitelbaum, M.D. | Medical Director, Florida Recovery Center

      He’s another prohibition profiteer. Lying to preserve his job treating marijuana “addicts”. What scum.

      http://drscottteitelbaum.com/bio

      “Dr. Teitelbaum has been consulted by the White House Office of National Drug Control, the DEA and the Executive Office of the President to help with the media campaign on the use of marijuana by children and adolescents. He also serves as an expert panelist and speaker for the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign, sponsored by the White House, Office of National Drug Control Policy.”

  23. CJ says:

    The transparency is pathetic. They cannot refute the truth. I mean, it’s not debatable that marijuana is safer than alcohol, purely evaluating substance versus substance and no mitigating circumstances need be analyzed. Strictly substance versus substance. What we find is that in terms of our human bodies, marijuana is far safer than alcohol. More importantly, heroin – diacetylmorphine (or diamorphine for our British friends) is also safer than alcohol. I forget which prestigious university it was but not THAT long ago a prestigious University published the reports of their findings and their research was based on learning the dangers of ALL the substances. Tobacco, Alcohol, Heroin, Crack, Cocaine, ‘Shrooms, weed etc. etc. What the research told us was that above all else, alcohol was the absolute worst for you. Worse than crack, dope etc. etc. that’s what their research said so for this imbecile to say that is just transparent corruption. He’s probably got an invested interest in the perpetuation of prohibition or maybe his father in law. who knows!?! Either way he’s full of it.

  24. ប៉ុល ព/on/location says:

    The precedents for what will happen are already there in states and nations that have decriminalized. Holland, Portugal, Spain, California and many others have been letting go of the chocker chain without catastrophic result. In fact the opposite is evident. There seems to be a gradual decrease in all things bad. Drug use by teens and adults goes down, crime and violence goes down and traffik fatalities decrease. The prohibitionists will tell us this is a coincidence but they told us that marijuana availability would lead to disaster and it hasn’t happened anywhere that laws have been relaxed. Go to a concert in Colorado and there is a big cloud of smoke and no fights. Prohibition was a lie that forced violence and crime and drug use into the community. Ending prohibition will return society to a more normal state and every state and nation that follows Colorado and Washington will prove that. Prohibition is about to be exposed for the lie that it is.

    – Paul Pot at 6:49 PM August 20, 2013

    http://tiny.cc/m6p51w

    • strayan says:

      I wish these journalists would recognise that the lawful availability of cannabis is not an experiment, it’s the goddamn natural state.

      • primus says:

        It is prohibition which is the bandaide approach. It is prohibition which is an experiment. A failed experiment at that.

  25. DdC says:

    NIDA’s Nutty Nora’s Tax Paid Gossip ecp

    “The anti-marijuana campaign is a cancerous tissue of lies, undermining law enforcement, aggravating the drug problem, depriving the sick of needed help, and suckering well-intentioned conservatives and countless frightened parents.

    Narcotics police are an enormous, corrupt international bureaucracy … and now fund a coterie of researchers who provide them with ‘scientific support’ … fanatics who distort the legitimate research of others.”
    ~ William F. Buckley, Jr. Requiescat In Pace
    Commentary in The National Review, April 29, 1983, p. 495

    The ‘Virtues’ of Ganja
    The Politics of Pot

    The USA Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy 1987
    “Cannabis can be used on an episodic but continual basis without evidence of social or psychic dysfunction. In many users the term dependence with its obvious connotations, probably is mis-applied… The chief opposition to the drug rests on a moral and political, and not toxicologic, foundation”.

    What the WHO doesn’t want you to know about cannabis
    The comparison was due to appear in a report on the harmful effects of cannabis published last December by the WHO. But it was ditched at the last minute following a long and intense dispute between WHO officials, the cannabis experts who drafted the report and a group of external advisers.

    Scientists Re-Re-Re-Discover
    Cannabis Stops Metastasis In Aggressive Cancers!

    In 1983 the Reagan/Bush Administration tried to persuade American universities and researchers to destroy all 1966-76 cannabis research work, including compendiums in libraries, reports Jack Herer, who states, “We know that large amounts of information have since disappeared.”

    ‘Government is not reason,
    it is not eloquence, it is force!
    Like fire, it is a useful servant
    and a fearful master.’
    – George Washington.

    Reagan/Bush Monkey Test herer

    1968 UK ROYAL COMMISSION, THE WOOTTON REPORT
    “Having reviewed all the material available to us we find ourselves in agreement with the conclusion reached by the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission appointed by the Government of India (1893-94) and the New York Mayor’s Committee (1944 – LaGuardia) that the long-term consumption of cannabis in moderate doses has no harmful effects” “the long-asserted dangers of cannabis are exaggerated and that the related law is socially damaging, if not unworkable”

    With 100 million trying Ganja. Anyone trying it twice must have enjoyed it. Or at least had to understand that it wasn’t what drug worriers were shrieking over. For almost 20 years information has flooded the internet. Ganja was listing thousands of sites to get information while clinton’s czar was busting birdseed deliveries. Medicinal use was getting results for patients wasting away so clinton re-birthed thalidomide as an appetite stimulant. Alternatives to stop using white powders was seen as a threat rather than the benefit to patients or citizens. The tensile strength, yield and expense of growing Hemp is pure laws of physics and capitalism. The properties of Ganja have been known for thousands of years. Yet the US only discovered the cannabinoid system in the human body in 1988. About the time when spousal rape became illegal federally.

    Sooner or later we have to ask ourselves the question. Are Americans just too stupid or addicted to being told how to be? Both political herds and their fringes following idiots blindly, both idiots serving the same Walmartians. In 197fucking4 they discovered it shrunk god damned brain tumors and that is when the fascist phucks banned funding further research. 40 years the american sheep were wondering aimlessly in the desert and none of the 100 million with experience in using this plant even daring to ask, what the fuck are we doing wondering around in the desert? The ban of medicinal research funding didn’t alert the fake free press. Didn’t rile up AARP or the American Legion. It didn’t alarm the unions. It didn’t outrage the doctors or nurses or even the patients families.

    The church cheered. The rehabilitation’s and prisons partied. The fossil fools stayed kingpins and the people did their duty paying tax on the misery. Then as some scalded dog cowering, we pay tributes to reward them for it. From salaries eradicating ditch-weed to keeping out viable renewable local competition from Wall St and their DC lobby’s and lackey’s. Every time one of the fascists enter the balcony the peasants stop what they are doing in hope of a promise they know won’t be kept. But its better than nothing. Some geek tries to sell SqWAT cops a better image handing out junk food with a message that the appeasers had to include to limit individuals of their ability to grow their own. It’s legal with a small “l”. Hempfest as usual was a success, 40 years after Nixon declared Hemp blue jeans were as dangerous as pcp.

    The pesticides not used on Hemp are used on the bible belt cotton crops that abort more babies than r v w. Ever hear that from Planned Parenthood? Preventing more clinical abortions than fortune 700 clubbers. But like Greenpeace or any of the spare changers always matching funds I don’t understand. Some of the most rabid dung worriers are so misnomered as pro life. This nation has sold its soul and killed the mothers of invention and nature. The only remaining entrepreneurs are the Dispensaries, Ganja Growers and Hemp Industry. The only remaining obstacle to the death of America. The goal to gut the middle class and create more cheap labor and absolute authority. Big Dope has the means to cut out homegrown dispensaries and keep hemp a schedule#1. 40 years ago we tried to circumvent Wall St by growing Hemp and Ganja. Leary had the Tax Act over turned and no one heard about it. The Shafer Commission rejected Nixon’s hysteria and no one heard about it. We had fliers about Fucking Ma Bell and free Angila Davis Stop the War Machine and Free the Weed. Full Page Ads, The cover of Life Magazine. Will it be legal? Soon we will know… Oct 1969

    I stomached as much as I could flipping through infotainment channels for something on the Hempfest. Higher priorities how the new nazi’s are shutting down more clinics and an all out expense costing more than health care itself to stop people from health care. Oh how they hissy fit over peons getting health care. Oh how they pull Sissy Chrissy’s strings over military assault weapon bans that are infringing on citizens rights to own weapons of mass destruction, anthrax, pocket rockets and nukes. But not a damn peep out of the pussies in 40 years of banning research funding for Ganja. Accidently discovering it by more tax dollars trying to unsuccessfully prove, I mean without a shadow of doubt prove it caused lung damage. Damn damn damn ah shucks they only found it shrunk tumors in three types of cancers. Boy did they get their asses chewed out.

    Its the airplane movie reality and more drama than what hollyweird fabricates or buffoons at the mainline media emote. We have the biggest guns and that used to mean something. Now we have 100 million available to fight and 7 billion rapidly equalizing with the out sourcing, prison slave and scab labor gutting the middle class. As I was flipping for HF I glimpsed a flick about Army Ants covering the land devouring everything, leaving dead people, plants and animals in their path. Like shooting them with a machine gun would only get the NRA munitions makers richer. Basically maybe Americans are just too gullible and irresponsible to free their minds. Without some dictator’s orders they wonder around in the desert 40 years. If we didn’t protest Vietnam for profit police action to all but the soldiers, it was war. Yet it would have continued who knows how long. Same with the cold war and now the Ganjawar. If we never hold the liars accountable, then we shouldn’t be surprised if they continue lying. If we permit a minority of Wall St inherited wealth brats do obvious abuses and not speak out due to party affiliation.

    Making it harder to vote or cutting mothers from food stamps while spending more tax on corporate welfare. Dysfunction has become America’s greatest commodity. Pity so many are so selfish to stay quiet over all abuses until its their turn to whine about their own. Incremental Retardation appeasing for a pat on the head. Praising the crumbs tossed to the starving while outlawing the most nutritionally complete food on the planet. Neoliberalism eating up Walmartians like the cancerous Koch’s and Bush Clintons and Barry the poster child for racist scum to rally. If the people are too stupid to know limbog and beck are propagandists then are they worthy of Ganja? If they shop at Wallmart they’re basically doing harm to Americans and the American work force. That’s what enemies do.

    I have been helping patients get their medicine for 30 years, 20+ as a hospice caregiver. I will continue legal or not. I am having concerns over all of the years of the liars getting the stage and their message inculcated, even mainlined into the schools. All of the years of millions suffering long jail sentences and death and injury. Forfeitures and confiscations of cars and even parents kids. How can we just keep making deals with these liars? Cheering the modern fascists in hope of tinkledown, or even sound bites. Getting giddy on Obombo knowing he was a lawyer from chicago. Not hearing his words clearly say he wasn’t ending the drug war and he wouldn’t target individuals which he hasn’t. How everyone thought that meant Buyers Clubs wouldn’t be hit and continue incrementally thumbing the state nose in spite of what the citizens face. The most draconian laws were by states and each appeasement bill as 19 states have passed, further limit individuals ability to grow hemp or with limits and conditions even their own medicine. Based on Nixon lies and yet they are swept under the carpet over and over by the same DEAth Merchants. Dung Worriers and their bread and buttah. Legalizers controlled opposition, even using the vulgar “M” word along with thousands of volunteers who don’t get the salaries. It’s just a plant. Get over it. ~ DdC

    • primus says:

      Your question is “Are Americans Too Stupid to End Prohibition?” It appears that the answer is “YES”. There are perfectly logical reasons why.

      In the beginning, when North America was ‘discovered’ by the Europeans, they decided to set up ‘colonies’. Most colonies were in the area now called the US. This gave these colonial powers a wonderful opportunity to divest their countries of the stupid, lazy, the malcontents such as the Pilgrims, Mennonites and Quakers. Many of the early colonies were extremely intolerant of others (example; Pilgrims did not tolerate any other religions and even killed some Quakers who defied them.) In other words, the early colonists were the dregs of Europe; the stupid, the lazy, the intolerant. Is it any wonder that several colonies failed?

      When these colonists arrived, they found a new land with nothing but a lot of hard work facing them, so many decided to get slaves to do this work. They turned to the slave traders, mostly Arabs, who went to Africa and bought slaves from the chiefs of various villages. The chief did not sell the smart, the hard working, the ‘good’ ones, no, they sold off their dregs as well.

      Meanwhile, we have the Acadians in Canada who were causing all kinds of trouble following the war over Canada between England and France, so the British moved the worst of them down to Louisiana, where they are now called ‘Cajuns’ which is a bastardization of ‘Acadian’. Again, adding the laziest, stupidest ones to the ‘mix’.

      So now, we have a group of stupid colonists with stupid slaves who decide to have a revolution and form a country with the ‘right to bear arms’. Many of the smartest (mostly white) citizens looked at this situation and realized that it was a recipe for disaster. The United Empire Loyalists went to Canada to get away, taking many of the smartest with them.

      What remained was the dregs of the dregs, the stupid and lazy all gathered together in one country. The powerful see this as a feature, not a bug, because the stupid and lazy are easier to govern. By keeping them ignorant the powerful have it easier. They therefore set up ‘education’ systems so that most will not learn, so that most will remain ignorant and pliable. Any evaluations I have read regarding the US education system, compares it unfavourably with those found in the rest of the world, yet nobody in the US seems to mind.

      Now, we have the lazy, the stupid and the ignorant all rolled into one.

      I sense a degree of doubt about my analysis. I offer proof; When the US wanted to launch rockets into space, they lacked the ability, so they allowed a bunch of Nazi rocket scientists to emigrate, even though the did not qualify for immigration under the rules of the day. These Nazis are the ones who put the US into space. Then, when they wanted to put a man on the moon, they scooped a bunch of Canadian and British scientists from the aborted AVRO Arrow project and it was these scientist who put Neil Armstrong on the moon. IOW the US didn’t do it, they merely paid for it.

      Another proof is that the UN has evaluated all the countries in the world for quality of living there, and the US is never in the top group. Often, Canada has been number 1 or 2. Why? Our country was not set up the way yours was, we think before we act, (because we can) which is why we have such a low rate of murder, especially with guns, and one of the most peaceful places in the world to live.

      So in summary, the answer to your initial question is YES the US is too stupid, ignorant and gullible to end prohibition. Now you know the reasons why.

      • Duncan20903 says:

        .
        .

        primus, how about another piece of evidence supporting that premise? One word: Australia.

        Oops, I almost forgot, yesterday yet another comments column genius told me he was going to have me put in prison because he didn’t like my opinion. It was actually another one doing the same that made me retire my Rodney Dangerfield
        avatar. That particular genius said that he had forwarded my posts and “my” picture to the Wichita local and the Kansas State police. I just couldn’t bear the thought of poor Rodney’s cadaver being dug up and prosecuted for my sins.

        Don’t ever let anyone fool you into believing that there’s any such thing as too stupid to be alive.

      • divadab says:

        There’s one fatal flaw in your “analysis”, primus – the original settlers in both Canada and the US were the same people. The rejects (yes, as you note – the lazy and the habitual criminals), but also the adventurous, the younger sons who inherited nothing, the ambitious poor, and most importantly, those impatient of the restrictions on freedom in their societies.

        I’d put the problem more recently – and more insidious – it’s a corporate greed conspiracy of bad food (causing malnutrition, obesity, and diabetes, cancer, etc.), and parasitic pharmaceutical industry that wants more addicts for its products.

        Producing fat useless drones. It’s the wages of non-virtue = greed.

        • primus says:

          Actually, no, they did not come here under the same system. Ours was a series of commercial enterprises, founded on wood, fish and fur. The companies who came to exploit these resources were inspired by greed, and viewed wars, Indian troubles and so on as impediments to trade and not to be tolerated. The Mounties preceded settlement and we had no wild west. Everything was handled in an orderly fashion, and that is still a Canadian characteristic. We have lots of guns but we use them appropriately.

          You have taken some of the most magnificent geography, virtually limitless natural resources and the concept of the most wonderful system of government ever developed and are proceeding to turn it into a pile of dung, whereas we have some of the toughest geography, albeit some stunningly beautiful, but of almost no commercial value and a system of government which was adapted inappropriately to approximate the British model, and have turned it into one of the most highly regarded countries in the world. QED.

        • Windy says:

          I blame the public school system which is more about indoctrination than education. If I were ruler of the world, children would NOT begin school until the age of 6, they would attend public schools only until they have learned to read, write and do basic math. At that point I would end formal schooling and set them free to learn whatever interested them from the libraries, museums, internet, and other people. Expecting that when children ask their parent(s) “what?” or “why?” or “how?”, the parent(s) would respond with “well let’s go find out” for the first year or so after formal schooling; then, once the child is familiar with the sources and responsible enough to go to the library or museum on their own, the parent(s) would respond with “you can find out if YOU go look it up”. I also favor returning to apprenticeships in the trades along with vocational classes remaining available to anyone of an age to be able to use the tools of whichever trade s/he finds of interest. I believe that we would have a nation full of creative innovative and well educated entrepreneurs, scientists, engineers, doctors, etc., and a sufficient number of artists, musicians, dancers, and other entertainers/performers (not to mention athletes/competitors in all the sports), and tradesmen for the dirty jobs (mechanics, carpenters, plumbers, electricians, farriers, etc.) to make the nation as prosperous as it used to be and with a populace that is a whole lot happier and more content, as well. Studies have shown that our form of schooling stifles the creativity and joy in learning that are inherent in humanity at birth. Freedom makes a better world, and freedom in where and how and even when one gets an education is an engine of prosperity and breeds even more freedom.

        • allan says:

          heh… yeah Windy, I’ve smoked that particular pipe myself. After my daughter took a year off after HS she went to community college and loved it. The difference for her was she was free to come or go. Wanting to be there was key. Public HS sucks, always has. Yes to apprenticeships for teens! Yes yes yes! Learn a skill and develop social and work skills, it’s OJT for life. HS is for being put out to pasture.

          Literacy is fundamental. Understanding the things gleaned from reading takes hands-on application… grokking beats rote learning every time. The key commonality among our incarcerated population is reading level.

          Oh… saw tonite in my news cruise that congress has an approval rating greater than something! new Rassmussen poll says only 4% of the 1,000 polled believes the drug war is working. 88% said it’s not. That means only 12% haven’t figured it out yet.

    • darkcycle says:

      DdC, you waste time looking for coverage of Hempfest, since it is a massive, peaceful, well organized event at which nothing bad ever happens. Rest assured, if at some point something awful, or even sorta bad happened, they would be all over it. After all, it has the built in salaciousness of Marijuana.

      • Citizen Teus says:

        Exactly. Same with any of the well organized rallies and festivals. If you have a license and are non-violent it’s a yawn as far as the MSM is concerned. You’re not going to see anything on the Boston rally next month either and that’s 2 days for the first time.

  26. Victoria says:

    I strongly believe that marijuana is more safer than alcohol. Yeah i once a drug addict (not marijuana though) and it doesnt mean my side is on marijuana coz of this. Just based on my experience, alcohol brings people to death. Why? Well, just search for the top reason why most people died in US… it will be alcohol’s fault. One reason is driving while drunk. Well just telling my side.. ^^

Comments are closed.