REEFER MADNESS!!!!!!

[LMNO]

Delivered to you by the Here-We-Go-Again Department.

[AFK]

Well, I'm tainted now anyway, given that I'm working with the DEA.  So I'm not going to bother. 

[ñͤͣ̄ͦ̌̑͗͊͛͂͗ ̸̨̨̣̺̼̣̜͙͈͕̮̊̈́̈͂͛̽͊ͭ̓͆ͅé ̰̓̓́ͯ́́͞]

Well, I'm tainted now anyway, given that I'm working with the DEA.  So I'm not going to bother. 

Go ahead and slink out of the reefer madness thread with your tail between your legs.

[AFK]

It's more to do with not wanting to engage in a fruitless combat with a belief system.

[ñͤͣ̄ͦ̌̑͗͊͛͂͗ ̸̨̨̣̺̼̣̜͙͈͕̮̊̈́̈͂͛̽͊ͭ̓͆ͅé ̰̓̓́ͯ́́͞]

It's more to do with not wanting to engage in a fruitless combat with a belief system.

How about if you read my posts in Richard Simmons' voice?

[BabylonHoruv]

Well, I'm tainted now anyway, given that I'm working with the DEA.  So I'm not going to bother. 

Go ahead and slink out of the reefer madness thread with your tail between your legs.

WTF?

RWHN is doing the kind of work that should be done, whether drugs are legal or illegal.  Trying to help people get over addiction and lead healthier lives.  He's set in his mind that pot's bad and you aren't going to convince him otherwise, why try to bait him into a fruitless debate?

[LMNO]

Well, I'm tainted now anyway, given that I'm working with the DEA.  So I'm not going to bother. 

Go ahead and slink out of the reefer madness thread with your tail between your legs.

WTF?

RWHN is doing the kind of work that should be done, whether drugs are legal or illegal.  Trying to help people get over addiction and lead healthier lives.  He's set in his mind that pot's bad FOR KIDS and you aren't going to convince him otherwise, why try to bait him into a fruitless debate?

If you're going to speak for RWHN, you might as well be accurate.

[ñͤͣ̄ͦ̌̑͗͊͛͂͗ ̸̨̨̣̺̼̣̜͙͈͕̮̊̈́̈͂͛̽͊ͭ̓͆ͅé ̰̓̓́ͯ́́͞]

Well, I'm tainted now anyway, given that I'm working with the DEA.  So I'm not going to bother.  

Go ahead and slink out of the reefer madness thread with your tail between your legs.

WTF?

RWHN is doing the kind of work that should be done, whether drugs are legal or illegal.  Trying to help people get over addiction and lead healthier lives.  He's set in his mind that pot's bad and you aren't going to convince him otherwise, why try to bait him into a fruitless debate?

Did I say anything about RWHN's work? Do you think I don't understand how entrenched his worldview is?

Fuck off. This thread is for discussing marijuana and RWHN posted in it.

And if you can't take a joke, as RWHN seems to be able to handle just fine, then you can eat a bag of dicks.

[BabylonHoruv]

Well, I'm tainted now anyway, given that I'm working with the DEA.  So I'm not going to bother. 

Go ahead and slink out of the reefer madness thread with your tail between your legs.

WTF?

RWHN is doing the kind of work that should be done, whether drugs are legal or illegal.  Trying to help people get over addiction and lead healthier lives.  He's set in his mind that pot's bad FOR KIDS and you aren't going to convince him otherwise, why try to bait him into a fruitless debate?

If you're going to speak for RWHN, you might as well be accurate.

Perhaps "not good" would be a better way of putting it.  Since he's also argued against possible benefits every time they've been mentioned.

And to Net, I keep looking for  bag of dicks, sounds tasty, but they don't seem to have them for sale anywhere.

[Telarus]

Well, the original version did mention "possible direct antitumor effect".  So even in the original there was no definitive statement that medical marijuana has that impact.  

I would wager that without definitive science, they perhaps erred on the side of caution and removed the passage.  Which I think is perfectly reasonable.  Especially when you are talking about an addictive substance.  Otherwise you may have people seeking the medication solely for the anti-tumor effect.  But I would also wager that lawyers were involved in altering the language, to protect themselves from any action from patients who used medical marijuana and didn't experience any improvements in tumors.  

I believe this info was removed because it could have been cited directly and easily by patients or collective owners that are currently in federal court as evidence that the Scheduling is currently incorrect (considering the mass MMJ collectives busted in Colorado and Montana and California recently.. like this month recently). Now they will have to make a more complicated argument. The verbiage would have been cleared by a scientist and a lawyer before being posted in the first place. The fact that they retracted the clearest statement that cannabis can be used as an alternative treatment (and not just for symptom management) speaks loudly.

This

In the practice of integrative oncology, the health care provider may recommend medicinal Cannabis not only for symptom management but also for its possible direct antitumor effect.

which includes "possible" next to anti-tumor effect, was changed to this

Though no relevant surveys of practice patterns exist, it appears that physicians caring for cancer patients who prescribe medicinal Cannabis predominantly do so for symptom management.

But only after bloggers linked a statement by a federal agency to the Scheduling criteria and the idea got attention.

Look at the verbiage. It's directed at medical practitioners not patients, and it just gives permission to recommend cannabis for possible anti-tumor effect. Which is perfectly reasonable, and doesn't carry liability (which is why I'm sure it was already looked at by a lawyer once before originally posted).

In fact, under the "Anti-Tumor Effects" subsection they go into detail on the possible mechanisms, and that was left alone:

"Cannabinoids may cause anti-tumor effects by various mechanisms, including induction of cell death, inhibition of cell growth, and inhibition of tumor angiogenesis (new blood vessel growth) and metastasis cannabinoids appear to kill tumor cells but do not affect their non-transformed counterparts and may even protect them from cell death."

So this edit wasn't done just to shore up the possibility that the statements aren't backed up by hard science. The fact that this suddenly throws the Scheduling of the substance into doubt seems the primary motivation for the edit to me.

[AFK]

I really don't think it has anything to do with scheduling and has more to do with tamping down false hope. 

[Telarus]

I have a 3rd hand rumor that a CDC member has filed a FOI request to get the memos involved in the edit. I'll update if I get any more information.


Edit: http://www.muckrock.com/foi/view/united-states-of-america/national-cancer-institutes-cannabis-and-cannabinoids-pdq/502/

Apparently, they have 20 days to respond.

[East Coast Hustle]

Well, the original version did mention "possible direct antitumor effect".  So even in the original there was no definitive statement that medical marijuana has that impact. 

I would wager that without definitive science, they perhaps erred on the side of caution and removed the passage.  Which I think is perfectly reasonable.  Especially when you are talking about an addictive substance.  Otherwise you may have people seeking the medication solely for the anti-tumor effect.  But I would also wager that lawyers were involved in altering the language, to protect themselves from any action from patients who used medical marijuana and didn't experience any improvements in tumors. 

I was under the impression that all available science points to marijuana NOT being physically addictive? (obviously, ANYTHING can be psychologically addictive)

not poking with a stick, just honestly curious whether you have something that contradicts that.

[East Coast Hustle]

I really don't think it has anything to do with scheduling and has more to do with tamping down false hope. 

OK, waittaminute...


you REALLY think the feds care more about "tamping down false hope" than they do about keeping the current schedule of a drug that, if deemed medicinally useful at the federal level, could be grown at home in an unregulated manner which COMPLETELY cuts "big pharma" (aka "big campaign donor") out of the profits?

nothing to do with whether or not you believe in the medicinal usefulness of pot, I just can't believe your default position would be to assign the most altruistic motive possible to the people in charge of this sort of decision, especially given how much money is at play.

[Laughin Jude]

Especially when you are talking about an addictive substance.

[citation needed]