> Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2007 13:27:26 -0700
> From: R Givens <rlgivens@...>
> Subject: MAP: How can you tell when a drug crusader
> is lying?
>
> THEIR LIPS ARE MOVING.
>
> Corny, but true. A DEA agent once claimed that
> Anslinger did not
> ALWAYS lie to Congress by reminding everyone that
> Harry occasionally
> used the proper botanical names for opium poppies
> (Papaver
> somniferum) and coca plants (Erythroxylum coca) in
> Congressional
> testimony. Queries for more examples of truth in
> "Honest Harry's"
> drug sermons were unanswered.
>
> The only time drug warriors tell any part of the
> truth is when the
> facts are so patently obvious that denial is not
> possible.
>
> In Britain right now, the drug crusaders are trying
> to get cannabis
> rescheduled as a more dangerous drug with greater
> penalties (they
> recently lowered the schedule for cannabis in
> Britain and the narcs
> want the old laws back). Claims of psychosis,
> emphysema and insanity
> worthy of Harry Anslinger himself are getting big
> play in the British
> press.
>
> Date: Sun, 3 Jun 2007 13:40:38 -0700
>
> 'My lungs are damaged beyond repair'
> By Zoe Smeaton
> BBC News
>
> The holes in Samantha Wilson's lungs are getting
> bigger. There is no
> cure for her illness and if it continues to get
> worse it will
> eventually kill her.
>
> Samantha is 37 and has emphysema, a progressive
> condition normally
> associated with older people who have smoked tobacco
> regularly
> throughout their lives.
>
> Samantha's doctor, Dr Onn Min Kon, a consultant
> physician of
> respiratory medicine at St Mary's Hospital in
> London, believes her
> cannabis smoking may be to blame for her condition.
>
> Dr Kon said he had several other young patients who
> smoke cannabis
> and have lung diseases normally seen only in older
> tobacco smokers.
>
> He said: "I've got a collection of young people who
> have lungs that
> look like they're 65-year-olds."
>
> Such case studies have prompted Dr Kon to plan a
> study comparing the
> lungs of patients who smoke cannabis with those who
> smoke only
> tobacco.
>
> If I don't stop smoking I won't be around much
> longer... there should
> be adverts showing people like me.
>
> Samantha Wilson
> When Samantha, of Maida Vale, London, was diagnosed
> with emphysema at
> the age of 34 she had been smoking cannabis for 20
> years.
>
> She had begun by smoking two joints a day, but was
> eventually smoking
> up to 10 a day.
>
> According to the latest figures from charity Action
> on Smoking and
> Health, the average tobacco smoker smokes between 13
> and 14
> cigarettes every day.
>
> Samantha believes she is living proof of the effects
> cannabis can
> have on lungs.
>
> She said: "If I don't stop smoking I won't be around
> much longer -
> there is no cure for emphysema, the holes in my
> lungs are getting
> bigger.
>
> "There should be adverts showing people like me."
>
> When smoked, cannabis produces many of the same
> chemicals as a
> tobacco cigarette, but may damage the airways to a
> greater extent.
>
> In a 2002 report, the British Lung Foundation
> estimated that three to
> four cannabis cigarettes a day were associated with
> the same amount
> of damage to the lungs as 20 or more tobacco
> cigarettes a day.
>
> So far though, it has been difficult to separate the
> effects of
> cannabis smoking from those of tobacco smoking in
> patients, as many
> users smoke both.
>
> In his study, Dr Kon will use lung function tests
> and CT scan
> pictures to look for lung damage.
>
> Such a study using CT scans has not been done before
> and Dr Kon said
> even people with apparently normal lung function
> could have problems,
> such as holes in their lungs, which would show up on
> these scans.
>
> He said these people may have no symptoms but could
> still have
> respiratory diseases.
>
> EMPHYSEMA
> Emphysema is a normal feature of ageing. The
> alveoli, or small lung
> cells, become damaged. The condition develops
> progressively, causing
> "holes" in the lungs
>
> The lungs lose their elasticity and breathing is
> difficult. Smoking
> accelerates the ageing process in lungs In some
> people the damage
> becomes noticeable in their lifetime.
>
> Previously the link between emphysema and cannabis
> smoking has been
> difficult to prove, and the risks are often
> overlooked by people, who
> are generally concerned only about lung cancer.
>
> Samantha said: "I'd never even heard of emphysema
> when I was
> diagnosed, and I don't think people know there is a
> risk of getting
> it."
>
> The British Lung Foundation also called for more
> awareness of the issue.
>
> A spokesperson said: "Research carried out by the
> British Lung
> Foundation found that smoking cannabis alone can
> cause severe lung
> damage.
>
> "It is vital that people are fully aware of the
> dangers so they can
> make an educated choice and know the risks fully."
>
> Story from BBC NEWS:
>
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/health/6551327.stm
>
> Published: 2007/06/03 00:34:38 GMT
>
> The problem with this ranting is that none of it is
> any more true
> than the reefer madness claims used by Anslinger to
> get marijuana
> outlawed in the first place.
>
> "Marihuana influences Negroes to look at white
> people in the eye,
> step on white men's shadows and look at a white
> woman twice." (Hearst
> newspapers nationwide, 1934)
>
> "There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the
> U.S., and most are
> Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers.
> Their Satanic music,
> jazz and swing, result from marijuana use. This
> marijuana can cause
> white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes,
> entertainers and
> any others."
>
> "The primary reason to outlaw marijuana is its
> effect on the
> degenerate races."
>
> "Marijuana is an addictive drug which produces in
> its users insanity,
> criminality and death."
>
> "Marijuana is the most violence-causing drug in the
> history of mankind."
>
> "[Smoking] one [marihuana] cigarette might develop a
> homicidal mania,
> probably to kill his brother." (see US Government
> Propaganda To
> Outlaw Marijuana -
>
>
http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/hemp/taxact/t3.htm)
>
> Contrast this hysteria with the observations of a
> Harvard professor-
>
> Pubdate: Fri, 5 May 2006
> Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
>
> Author Lester Grinspoon is an emeritus professor of
> psychiatry at
> Harvard Medical School and the author of
> "Marijuana, the Forbidden
> Medicine" (Yale University Press, 1997).
>
> PUFFING IS THE BEST MEDICINE
>
> THE FOOD AND Drug Administration is contradicting
> itself. It recently
> reiterated its position that cannabis has no medical
> utility, but it
> also approved advanced clinical trials for a
> marijuana-derived drug
> called Sativex, a liquid preparation of two of the
> most
> therapeutically useful compounds of cannabis. This
> is the same agency
> that in 1985 approved Marinol, another oral
> cannabis-derived medicine.
>
> Both Sativex and Marinol represent the
> "pharmaceuticalization" of
> marijuana. They are attempts to make available its
> quite obvious
> medicinal properties -- to treat pain, appetite loss
> and many other
> ailments -- while at the same time prohibiting it
> for any other use.
> Clinicians know that the herb -- because it can be
> smoked or inhaled
> via a vaporizer -- is a much more useful and
> reliable medicine than
> oral preparations. So it might be wise to consider
> exactly what
> Sativex can and can't do before it's marketed here.
>
> A few years ago, the British firm GW Pharmaceuticals
> convinced
> Britain's Home Office that it should be allowed to
> develop Sativex
> because the drug could provide all of the medical
> benefits of
> cannabis without burdening patients with its
> "dangerous" effects --
> those of smoking and getting high.
>
> But there is very little evidence that smoking
> marijuana as a means
> of taking it represents a significant health risk.
> Although cannabis
> has been smoked widely in Western countries for more
> than four
> decades, THERE HAVE BEEN NO REPORTED CASES OF LUNG
> CANCER OR
> EMPHYSEMA ATTRIBUTED TO MARIJUANA. I suspect that a
> day's breathing
> in any city with poor air quality poses more of a
> threat than
> inhaling a day's dose -- which for many ailments is
> just a portion of
> a joint -- of marijuana.
>
> Further, those who are concerned about the toxic
> effects of smoking
> can now use a vaporizer, which frees the cannabinoid
> molecules from
> the plant material without burning it and producing
> smoke.
>
> As for getting high, I am not convinced that the
> therapeutic benefits
> of cannabis can always be separated from its
> psychoactive effects.
> For example, many patients with multiple sclerosis
> who use marijuana
> speak of "feeling better" as well as of the relief
> from muscle spasms
> and other symptoms. If cannabis contributes to this
> mood elevation,
> should patients be deprived of it?
>
> The statement that Sativex, "when taken properly,"
> won't cause
> intoxication hinges on the phrase "when taken
> properly." "Properly"
> here merely means taking a dose -- by holding a few
> drops of liquid
> under the tongue -- that is under the level required
> for the
> psychoactive effect. As with Marinol, people who
> want to use Sativex
> to get high will certainly be able to do so.
>
> One of the most important characteristics of
> cannabis is how fast it
> acts when it is inhaled, which allows patients to
> easily determine
> the right dose for symptom relief. Sativex's
> sublingual absorption is
> more efficient than orally administered Marinol
> (which requires 1 1/2
> to two hours to take effect), but it's still not
> nearly as fast as
> smoking or inhaling the herb.
>
> That means "self-titration," or self-dosage, is
> difficult if not
> impossible. Further, many patients cannot hold
> Sativex, which has an
> unpleasant taste, under the tongue long enough for
> it to be absorbed.
> As a consequence, varying amounts trickle down the
> esophagus. It then
> behaves like orally administered cannabis, with the
> consequent delay
> in the therapeutic effect.
>
> Cannabis will one day be seen as a wonder drug, as
> was penicillin in
> the 1940s. Like penicillin, herbal marijuana is
> remarkably nontoxic,
> has a wide range of therapeutic applications and
> would be quite
> inexpensive if it were legal. Even now, good-quality
> illicit or
> homegrown marijuana, which is, at the very least, no
> less useful a
> medicine than Sativex, is less expensive than
> Sativex or Marinol.
>
> The "pharmaceuticalization" of marijuana has
> promise. No doubt the
> industry could produce unique analogs of the
> naturally occurring
> cannabinoids that would be useful in ways smoked
> cannabis is not. But
> for now, medicines such as Sativex provide only one
> advantage over
> the herb: They're legal.
>
> I have yet to see a patient who preferred Marinol to
> smoked
> marijuana. Similarly, the commercial success of
> Sativex will largely
> depend on how vigorously the marijuana laws are
> enforced. It is not
> unreasonable to believe that drug companies have an
> interest in
> sustaining the prohibition against the herb.
>
> Geoffrey Guy, who founded GW Pharmaceuticals, claims
> his aim was to
> keep people who find marijuana useful out of court.
> There is, of
> course, a way to do this that would be much less
> expensive -- both
> economically and in terms of human suffering.
>
> More than 100 years of prohibitionist lying proves
> that the public is
> dumber than a door knob.
> R Givens
>
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