American Medical Association reversing its marijuana policy

Newsweek: More than 100 million Americans have smoked pot. Thirteen states have medical marijuana laws on the books, and a dozen more are considering legislation. Studies have shown that the substance can stimulate appetite, ease muscle spasms and numb pain.

Yet since 1970, when Richard Nixon signed the Controlled Substance Act into law, the time-slowing green plant known as marijuana has been a Schedule 1 controlled substance: classified alongside drugs like heroin and PCP—and deemed more harmful than cocaine, meth, and Ketamine. Pot advocates call that reality the Schedule I Lie —referring to the drugs federal classification as the most potent of drugs, considered, by law, to have no accepted medical use.


The idea that a few tokes every now and then is more harmful than the recreational use of dog tranquilizer seems a bit, well, bogus, considering its mainstream acceptance. Barack Obama has openly admitted to smoking pot; Michael Phelps has tried it (and still managed to bring home eight gold medals); and earlier this year, attorney general Eric Holder discouraged U.S. attorneys from prosecuting retailers in medical marijuana states. There are pot TV shows and cities (like Oakland) that are now taxing the drugs medicinal use to bring in extra revenue.

Yet despite how the culture around pot has changed, defenders of the current federal policy have clung to a prominent, and trusted, ally to back them: the American Medical Association, which the justice department often cites when enforcing marijuana policy.

So it it might have come as a surprise on Tuesday when the AMA announced that, after 72 years, it was reversing its pot policy—and urged the federal government to do the same. Precipitated by a similar decision by the groups Medical Student Section, the AMA resolved that that marijuanas status as a federal Schedule 1 controlled substance be reviewed, with the goal of facilitating clinical research, and presented a new medical report, conducted by its Council on Science and Public Health, laying out the drugs various medical benefits.

The AMA hopes the resolution will make clinical research on cannabis—long a roadblock in proving that the substance was ill-classified—a more-easily obtained reality. At present, getting the necessary clearance to study a Schedule 1 drug is a near-impossible bureaucratic nightmare that involves multiple government agencies, and purchase of notoriously low-potency pot from the governments only legal growth facility, at the University of Mississippi. As a result, only a small number of randomized, controlled trials have been conducted on smoked cannabis, physician (and AMA board member) Edward Langston told the Los Angeles Times earlier this week.

Tthe AMA move is a powerful symbolic gesture—"a huge shift in medical ideology," says the medical student who spearheaded the resolution—and demolishes the long-held pot prohibitionist claim that "no sound scientific studies have supported medical use of smoked marijuana.

Realistically, however, the future looks hazy. This is symbolic if nothing else because the AMA is abandoning this flat-earth policy it's held for decades," says Paul Armentano, the deputy director of the National Organization for Reform of the Marijuana Laws and the coauthor of Marijuana Is Safer; So Why Are We Driving People to Drink?. But does the AMA have the power to reschedule marijuana, or even get the ball rolling so that those who have the power will do it? I highly doubt it.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Marijuana
• Cannabis

[keytoothed]

Wow. Are they actually going to use science? I got to see this to believe it.

[lucrene1112]

The DEA...are not Doctors...

[freedomination2]

governments control the drug trade and the bankster launder the money. It will stay that way until there is a revolution. Ron Paul for President 2012

[brpadington]

You could fill an entire encyclopedia with knowledge that the DEA doesn't know. Why do we need so much proof to legalize it when there was zero proof needed to make it illegal? It was made illegal due to lobbying by the logging industry to prevent hemp competition.

[9493760]

THE LAWS OF IMPOSITION , SUCH AS MARIJUANA , ARE AN INSULT , TO OUR INTELLIGENCE , OUR RITES TO USE NATURAL SUBSTANCES , AND OUR FREEDOM. BY MAKING CRIMINALS OF US, WHILE THE REAL CRIMINALS IMPOSE ON AND STEAL OUR LIVES . GIANFRANCO FRONZI AUGUST /14/2011

[Medcanpoet]

DEA = DEALING EASY ALCOHOL. SWAT = SUPREMACIST WARLORDS APPLYING TERRORISM. COPS = CORPORATE ORGANISED PROTECTION SQUADS. SLAVE = SUPREMACIST LEGAL APARTHEIDISTS VIOLATE EVERYBODY....Everybody that doesn't bow down & submit to Ethane hydroxide,Tri-Methyl-Xanthine,­nicotine & TOXIC pharmaceutical druglord SUPREMACY & COMPETITION ERADICATION policy,that is. It's time people realised the truth - Drug users,abusers & addicts wield apartheid discrimination policies to persecute drug heretics.

[bigpowerfulpeople]

The DEA has a systemic (institutionalized) paranoia over Marijuana. They are probably the first organization that has widespread disorder: paranoid skitsophrenia and I wish the AMA would treat the DEA. The DEA are not healthy and we cannot continue to allow these unhealthy, sick individuals to dictate our rights anymore. Cure the DEA, please.

[GatmanReviews]

the reason the dea try to cover it up is so they can keep all there buddys imployed. like the scare campaign in the 50's saying weed makes u evil and sadistic. pfft DEA is just another organization in the u.s. poor guys are now fighting the taliban in afghanistan : >( god damn heroin everywhere now caz of the war on taliban...

[Highentology]

looks like it took them another year... this is a really big deal...

[2edsajdmsa]

"to help settle once and for all, is there medical use for marijuana?", JFC, the AMA are decades behind the rest of us

[somegirl7982]

What goes on between my Doctor and myself is no one elses business, not even Uncle Sam in my opinion so if my Doctor tells me it will help me better than all of the pain pills, muscle relaxers, anti-depressants, sleeping aids and anti-nausea pills all in one then I'm all for it......

[dcacnc]

notice how the doctors say its safe and the people who make a job off of it say "ITS BAD" god dammit people...the DEA is'ent there to comment on the law its there to enforce it...