by Phillip Smith / StopTheDrugWar.org
California’s largest doctors’ group is calling for marijuana legalization. The trustees of the California Medical Association (CMA) adopted the position at their annual meeting in Anaheim Friday. The call came after the group last year decided to study the issue and make recommendations.
The group, which represents more than 35,000 physicians statewide, called for legalization even as it acknowledged health risks and questioned the medical value of pot.
The CMA’s policy recommendations on marijuana included rescheduling marijuana in order to encourage further research, regulating recreational marijuana “in a manner similar to alcohol and tobacco,” taxing marijuana, and facilitating information about the risks and benefits of marijuana use.
Dr. Donald Lyman, a Sacramento physician who authored the new policy, wrote that the new policy was inspired by frustration with California’s medical marijuana law. The law permits marijuana use with a physician’s recommendations, even though marijuana remains illegal under federal law. That puts doctors in an untenable position, Lyman argued.
“It’s an uncomfortable position for doctors,” he told the Los Angeles Times. “It is an open question whether cannabis is useful or not. That question can only be answered once it is legalized and more research is done. Then, and only then, can we know what it is useful for.”
But despite questioning marijuana’s medical efficacy, the CMA made it clear that it sees pot prohibition as a failure. “The California Medical Association (CMA) has recognized that the criminalization of cannabis is a failed public health policy,” Lyman wrote in the white paper. “Based on the growing momentum of medical cannabis decriminalization nationally (16 states and the District of Columbia have decriminalized medical cannabis), there may also be growing public support in several states for decriminalization of the cultivation, transport and use of cannabis.”
The CMA said it was the first state medical association to call for marijuana legalization.
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Maybe I WILL see this costly law done away with in my life time. Out of all the laws on the books, this one I think has cost the tax payer more $ than all the rest put together to enforce.
If, as the Feds state, Marijuana has no medical value why do they
hold a patent on “Cannabinoids as antioxidants and neuroprotectants”
http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/6630507.html
If there were any reporters in the mainstream media wouldn’t this
question be asked at least a few times?
Since our government holds the patent, don’t we all own it too?
35,000 doctors can’t be wrong. I will never be alright as long as legislation regulates health care. Doctors go to medical school to learn about the human body and the herbs/minerals/nutrition/etc. it needs. where do legislators go? the bowels of Washington, DC. ~ that, imho, does not qualify them to determine what is okay for my medical care.
This two part plan is the only action the citizens of the US need to take to end federal marijuana prohibition
1) EVERYONE that sees these links sign up at both sites and weigh in on the debate
http://pvox.co/CdiFqY
http://wh.gov/gDQ
2) Propagate those two links and ensure that everyone that sees them go to both those sites.
Too many people are blaming the President for enforcing the federal marijuana prohibition. Contact Congress (the LEGISLATIVE branch [that’s the important one when it comes to law]) via the first link. Contact Obama (the EXECUTIVE branch [until Obama vetos a passed H.R. 2306 it’s on Congress – but tell Obama anyway]) via the second link. It really is THAT easy. Participate in democracy!
Please! Hurry & click & sign petition http://wh.gov/gP1
to END MARIJUANA PROHIBITION
at White House, deadline Oct. 22
Cannabis is a medical miracle waiting to be fully utilized, and has been proven to kill cancer cells in lab tests without harming the healthy cells present.
Dave Triplett (and others) have used cannabis oil (topically) to cure melanoma as he shows in this short movie. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tghUh4ubbg
There is much more. Many people with widely varied illnesses have seen similar results, including a number of stage 4 cancer sufferers given ‘hemp oil’ by Rick Simpson in Canada, who discovered this cannabis oil methodology. They were cured by ingesting it. (Rick said there was about a 70% recovery rate in the stage 4 folks that came to him after being told that there was nothing else to be done, and they should go home and get their affairs in order; the rest died as their prognosis forecast.) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0psJhQHk_GI http://phoenixtears.ca/
If you’re willing to sign a White House petition regarding cannabis, go to this link: https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#!/petitions
Select the drop-down menu for ‘search’, (on the little gray banner), type in the word ‘cannabis’, and you can review and sign a number of petitions, (there are ten at the moment), that may grab the attention of the White House. The ‘legalize cannabis like alcohol’ petition has over 58000 signatures (and counting until Oct 22) at this point, and only needed 5000 to get a formal answer from the White House.
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