Reschedule Cannabis

Many people across America are not aware how medical marijuana is accepted and viewed in California.

Most researchers agree that the value of the U.S. marijuana crop has increased sharply since the mid-nineties, as California and twelve other states have passed medical-marijuana laws. A drug-policy analyst named Jon Gettman recently estimated that in 2006 Californians grew more than twenty million pot plants. He reckoned that between 1981 and 2006 domestic marijuana production increased tenfold, making pot the leading cash crop in America, displacing corn. A 2005 State Department report put the country’s marijuana crop at twenty-two million pounds. The street value of California’s crop alone may be as high as fourteen billion dollars.

Californians love their pot, and grow it generously throughout the state. To prove how popular this plant is to grow, it has displaced corn as America’s leading cash crop.

According to Americans for Safe Access, which lobbies for medical marijuana, there are now more than two hundred thousand physician-sanctioned pot users in California. They acquire their medication from hundreds of dispensaries, collectives that are kept alive by the financial contributions of their patients, who pay cash for each quarter or eighth of an ounce of pot. The dispensaries also buy marijuana from their members, and sometimes directly from growers, whose crops can also be considered legal, depending on the size of the crop, the town where the plants are grown, and the disposition of the judge who hears the case.

I am a member of Safe Access and support these types of patient/grower relationships. Any American who needs or uses medical marijuana should have safe access to it.

California’s encouragement of a licit market for pot has set off a low-level civil war with the federal government. Growing, selling, and smoking marijuana remain strictly illegal under federal law. The Drug Enforcement Administration, which maintains that marijuana poses a danger to users on a par with heroin and PCP, has kept up an energetic presence in the state, busting pot growers and dispensary owners with the cooperation of some local police departments.

In the past five years, an unwritten set of rules has emerged to govern Californians participating in the medical-marijuana trade. Federal authorities do not generally bother arresting patients or doctors who write prescriptions. Instead, the D.E.A. pressures landlords to evict dispensaries and stages periodic raids on them, either shutting them down or seizing their money and marijuana. Dispensary owners are rarely arrested, and patient records are usually left alone. Through trial and error, dispensary owners have learned how to avoid trouble: Don’t advertise in newspapers, on billboards, or on flyers distributed door to door. Don’t sell to minors or cops. Don’t open more than two stores. Any Californian who is reasonably prudent can live a life centered on the cultivation, sale, and consumption of marijuana with little fear of being fined or going to jail.

Just the way Thomas Jefferson (hemp farmer) intended our land to be. Have the congress and police forgotten these famous words… “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” If there was ever a topic that deserved the passion of those seeking life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness being oppressed by the tyrants, it is now.

The most famous line of our Constitution should be the main charge or motive behind The Stand we take against those that stand in our way.

To help highlight the reason I started this web site as my personal medical cannabis support site - I show you everyday web sites we use are active in squashing public discourse regarding certain things - my only concern of course, “medical marijuana.”

Why would a social network site like Digg, bother wasting time trying to quell discussion on a topic such as medical marijuana, I have no idea, but one thing for sure - it does.

Here is a screenshot of the error message I just got trying to submit an article on our favorite topic, medical marijuana…

I can understand blocking certain topics that may encourage illegal activity or the breaking of laws, but considering medical marijuana is in fact legal in many of the United States of America, I find it embarrassing that sites like Digg are actively discouraging the sharing of info related to the medicinal use of marijuana.

This is exactly the reason I launched this site - if it was up to those controlling the air waves this topic would have went away a long time ago. Either way, I just got this error and felt like sharing this find with you.

What article was I trying to share?

I was expanding my previous thoughts on how many plants a patient is allowed, as well as daily cannabis amount allowance on this page called: 71 Ounces Of Medical Marijuana Barely Enough.

Never relent.

The latest in medical marijuana research… or is it “selling pills” in disguise?

Research exploring new ways of exploiting the full medicinal uses of cannabis while avoiding unwanted side-effects will be presented to pharmacologists on July 15 by scientists attending the Federation of European Pharmacological Societies Congress, EPHAR 2008.

A big part of “avoiding side effects” is using a vaporizer, and I really hope these doctors go into how effective vaporizers are at delivering the active ingredient THC (plus many other cannabinoids) without the bad side effects of “smoking.” Part of the negative campaign against medical marijuana touts the effects of “smoking cannabis.” By using a vaporizer you minimize all of the carcinogenic effects of burning the plant matter. As medical marijuana supporter, I support the use of vaporizers over smoking the cannabis.

Cannabis is a source of compounds known as cannabinoids, one of which, THC — the main chemical responsible for the ‘high’ — has long been licensed as a medicine for suppressing nausea produced by chemotherapy and for stimulating appetite, for instance, in AIDS patients.

Don’t forget Migraine

More recently, the cannabis-based medicine Sativex was licensed both for the symptomatic relief of neuropathic pain in adults with multiple sclerosis and as an adjunctive analgesic treatment for adult patients with advanced cancer. Sativex contains approximately equal amounts of THC and the non-psychoactive plant cannabinoid, cannabidiol.

While a company putting out pills that use THC to relieve pain is good in a way in that it will help people. The problem with much of this research is that it seems as if instead of just promoting the use of cannabis as medicine, these doctors are actually aiming to fund “drugs” made from marijuana, so they can patent, market, advertise, and profit from the sales. However, medical marijuana goes much deeper than that.

One of the best things about medical marijuana is it can be grown relatively free of charge - no need to pay extremely high costs of THC-based pills from the drug store. Some of these pills costs $20 and up a piece! Patients need to take at least 5 a day, and a prescription of twenty pills would be $500+ - for a 4 day supply? Sorry, but you can by a bag of legal medical cannabis for cheaper than that. At that price you can see why the drug companies want in on this “cannabis medicine” so bad.

Allowing a person to grow their own medical marijuana will eliminate this huge profit-driven pouncing on sick patients. This strikes at the heart of this debate regarding “how many plants a patient can grow?” In order to get the same amount of THC as a prescription of Sativex or Marinol, a patient needs 71 ounces for 2 months. This has been discussed already, this proves that states or counties only allowing six plants is not enough - a patient needs at least 10g a day - a patient who uses daily can easily go through 20g of medicine in a day. Not to mention many cancer patients choose to “cook” the cannabis into brownies or something edible to help them eat or fight off nausea. This easily consumes 10g-20g in a day.

These companies want to push their own agenda which is actually selling medications for the pharmaceutical companies that fund this research.

I do not aim to detract from the research, but one must note how the “brand names” of these “marijuana pills” constantly come up in the research vs all-natural medicinally grown Humboldt, California pot. Pills created in a lab made from synthetic THC do not contain the “many other cannabinoids” that actually work together in combination with each other to provide the pain relief associated with medicinal cannabis. THC is not the only active ingredient in cannabis, and the drug companies cannot synthesize them all for pill-form. The cost of these medicines make them not readily available when compared to the low cost of growing for yourself, or even just buying from a medical marijuana dispensary.

“THC works by targeting molecules in our bodies called cannabinoid receptors” said Roger Pertwee, Professor of Neuropharmacology at the University of Aberdeen, who is co-chairing the cannabis symposium.

“So some current research is focused on designing drugs that only target cannabinoid receptors in the part of the body relevant to the disease in question and not the receptors in the central nervous system involved in the unwanted effects of cannabis.”

(more…)

As usual I was looking up some info on medical marijuana and migraine’s and I came across this article called: Marijuana Vs. Migraines: Modern Medical Miracle

What I always find interesting is the lack of info out there regarding this topic. Medical marijuana is the best for migraine’s and I am glad more and more doctor’s and patients are coming out about it. As someone who has suffered with migraine for decades, I can tell you cannabis works!

Migraine headaches are possibly one of the most misunderstood maladies of man. The Merck Manual states “The cause is unknown and the pathophysiology (mechanism) is not fully understood.” Except that it has something to do with brain blood vessel dilation/constriction; nobody seems to know what is going on here. If I’m wrong about this I’m sure I will hear plenty.

To save myself professional embarrassment, I checked the Merck Manual. One would think some mad scientist produced the highly diverse pot pourri of drugs which have been used to alleviate these severe and paralyzing headaches, with nausea and vomiting, which affect some 10 million people in the U.S.

To start with, migraines are headaches but not all headaches are migraines. Many headaches can be successfully treated with aspirin or Tylenol but, if my patients are correct, they don’t touch migraines. Because of the extremely wide variety of non-effective medicines, which have been used, I take a dim view of any new medicine being heavily advertised on TV.

In my own regular medical practice I discovered that an injection of Demerol with Benadryl was effective but the patient was out of action for at least 24 hours.

When I stared seeing patients for Medical Marijuana permits, I was surprised when the first migraine patient showed up. I knew that marijuana worked for severe pain, nausea and vomiting and I knew that it also causes vasodilatation but I couldn’t quite put the two together, pharmacologically, for migraines.

The light bulb over my head lit up and I said to myself “if the patient says marijuana works for this, and they were willing to pay the $300 clinic and State fee, it must work”.

I ended up with about 30 migraine patients out of 4,000. I have since heard that the California Marijuana doctors, with some 300,000 patients, have the same experience.

I hope readers of this series will write in their own experiences about this.

A few of my personal opinions of cannabis in regards to medicating debilitating migraine headaches:

1. Unlike traditional medicine medical cannabis (when consumed through a vaporizer) produced a very fast release from the pain associated with the inflammation in the head.

2. It’s natural, unlike anything the Big-Pharma companies are selling these days. You can grow your own!

3. And unlike other medicine, it gets rid of nausea not causes it!

The reason I started this site is because of the lack of web sites on the internet about using medical marijuana for Migraine headaches. Hopefully by helping spread the word others who suffer the same may find relief through medicinal cannabis.

We will begin our picture archive of medical marijuana. Starting with the “Bubba Kush” image above. Taken in a legal medical marijuana dispensary.

The “Bubba Kush” name can cover a few different strains of kush. This is some really good medicinal marijuana. The leaves should be extremely sticky covered with crystal coating. The flavor is smooth and intense. The Bubba Kush should have a nice long lasting high, it is really potent when grown correctly and one of the finest medical marijuana plants you can buy.

To really experience the flavor of the plant - use a Vapor Brother Vaporizer. When using medical grade cannabis you should not operate heavy machinery.

If you haven’t seen this DVD yourself - you need to order Grass DVD now.

Grass is one of my favorite DVD documentaries on our favorite subject - “cannabis.” I encourage all my friends to see it (even if they do not smoke pot) and encourage you to do the same. View it, and get others to watch it so that their mind can be opened to some of the things that have gotten us where we are today. “Why is marijuana illegal?” And other topics are covered, and it is presented in a humorous manner that is appealing and educational.

“Grass, narrated by actor/activist Woody Harrelson, takes a highly spirited and innovative look into one of America’s most deeply rooted cultural myths: the evils of “pot”, “cannabis”, “weed.” From the story of America’s first drug czar, to the absurd scare tactics behind propaganda films like Reefer Madness, and Marijuana: Threat or Menace, director Ron Mann (Comic Book Confidential, Twist) poignantly and humorously exposes the social, political and economic facts behind this enduring weed, and the extent to which it has profoundly shaped our culture.”

Many people are surprised by the info on this DVD and maybe you will be too. It is time for “stoners” to get more involved in the fight for medical marijuana, and/or cannabis legalization. Start by educating those around you, and trying to change the public perception of “marijuana.”

We need your support for medical marijuana on the internet. Please link this site and/or image to show your support for medical use of cannabis.

Patients in every state are fighting for their right to use a natural plant as pain relief, whether it is from cancer, or debilitating migraine’s - if you have a blog or web site - put a link to Reschedule Cannabis to show your support.

Any American citizen who needs to use marijuana as medicine should be allowed to do so which is why we put together this site to help spread the message that “Cannabis is medicine and should be rescheduled so that it may be used legally for medicine.”

Humboldt California is known for it’s biggest export. High grade marijuana.

In the biggest pot bust in Humboldt County history, authorities seized more than 134,000 marijuana plants worth an estimated $469 million, law enforcement officials said.

The plants, ranging from one to three feet tall, were discovered on federal and private timberland along the county’s eastern edge north of Dinsmore, according to the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Department.

The plants, which were spotted during surveillance flights, were eradicated over the past week by county, state and federal officers.

No arrests were made during the raid, but investigators believe a Mexican drug cartel was behind the massive growing operation.

From BBC:

A man has been shown leniency after explaining he was growing cannabis to use the drug to tackle a genital itch.

Gregor Spalding admitted cultivating the drug at his home in Blairgowrie.

Perth Sheriff Court heard the 30-year-old was arrested in April after police picked up the crop’s smell while at his home looking for someone else.

Sentence was deferred for six months for Spalding to be of good behaviour. He was assured that if he maintained this he would be treated “leniently”.

Relieving pain

The court was told his “amateurish attempt” to cultivate cannabis was provoked by chronic pain he had suffered for three years.

Spalding said prescription medicine had failed to tackle pain caused by constant itching around his genitals.

He had decided to try using the drug as a painkiller, after reading about it on the internet, and wanted to grow cannabis himself, instead of buying it from a drug dealer.

His doctor wrote a letter to the court confirming Spalding had suffered chronic pain from an itching condition known as pruritus for three years.

The doctor added: “It is quite reasonable that he thought cannabis might help his condition as there have been reports in the press of cannabis relieving pain in multiple sclerosis and other conditions.”

The court heard Spalding had not been in trouble with the authorities before and had now been referred to Dundee’s Ninewells Hospital.

Sheriff Derek Livingston said: “It does strike me that this isn’t a case where someone is growing the plant to supply it to others.

“It was a stupid amateurish attempt. I am prepared to give you a chance. As long as it remains proscribed, you cannot grow cannabis plants in your house.”

The rescheduling of cannabis in the United States is the proposed removal of cannabis from a Schedule 1 of the Controlled Substances Act, which is one of the most tightly restricted category of drugs. The effort to reschedule cannabis has been underway since the 1970s.

From wikipedia:

Former director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws Jon Gettman has argued that marijuana does not fit each of the three statutory criteria for Schedule I. Gettman believes that “high potential for abuse” means that a drug has a potential for abuse similar to that of heroin or cocaine.[1] Gettman argues further that since laboratory animals do not self-administer marijuana, and because marijuana’s toxicity is less than that of heroin or cocaine, marijuana lacks the high abuse potential required for inclusion in Schedule I or II.

Gettman also contends: “The acceptance of cannabis’ medical use by eight [now thirteen] states since 1996 and the experiences of patients, doctors, and state officials in these states establish marijuana’s accepted medical use in the United States.”[2] Specifically, Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington have enacted legislation allowing the medical use of marijuana by their citizens.[3] A minimum of 35,000 patients are currently using medical marijuana legally in these states, and over 2,500 different physicians have recommended it for use by their patients.[4]

In his petition, Gettman also argues that marijuana is an acceptably safe medication. He notes that a 1999 Institute of Medicine report found that “except for the harms associated with smoking, the adverse effects of marijuana use are within the range of effects tolerated for other medications.” He points out that there are a number of delivery routes that were not considered by the Institute, such as transdermal, sublingual, and even rectal administration, in addition to vaporizers, which release marijuana’s active ingredients into the air without burning the plant matter.[5]

A study published in the March 1, 1990 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences stated that “there are virtually no reports of fatal cannabis overdose in humans” and attributed this safety to the low density of cannabinoid receptors in areas of the brain controlling breathing and the heart.[6][7] Gettman claims that the discovery of the cannabinoid receptor system in the late 1980s revolutionized scientific understanding of cannabis’ effects and provided further evidence that it does not belong in Schedule I.

More: Cannabis Rescheduling in the United States