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Federal chokehold on marijuana stymies studies on epilepsy, autism

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Re: Federal chokehold on marijuana stymies studies on epilepsy, autism

#81
post #5

Pardon me if this sounds naive, but I'm slightly confused as to how recreational marijuana is legal in 9 states but the DEA still heavily controls cannabidiol as if it were still illegal?

Not naive at all. The issue is typically framed as States Rights and it's wrapped around the 10th amendment: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. This has been an issue since the 1780s, so it will take more than a couple of sentences to give the whole rundown but it's like this. A few states ar…

OxyContin ranked less dangerous than Cannabis... as someone who experienced withdrawals from less than a week of prescribed oxy use, that ranking is just pathetic.

Re: Federal chokehold on marijuana stymies studies on epilepsy, autism

#83

Everyone confused about the fucked up laws around drug control and the like in the united states: It is about locking up poor people in order to keep them from voting. It is about filling our prisons with non-violent offenders so we can force them to work for slave wages, and line the owners of the prisons and the politicians they fund's pockets. It's about political suppression, not about some moralistic crusade to…

I think you're being both too cynical and not cynical enough here, in that the more important causes are stupider and more petty than you're making out.

Nixon did very much like that he was screwing over black people and hippies with the war on drugs but the main reason he pursued this was that rising crime rates were freaking out voters. They wanted to vote for people with a plan to fix this but crime was mostly a state and local issue. By claiming that cracking down on drugs would solve crime Nixon was able to claim that he had a solution to crime.

But the reason we have such weird laws about marijuana in particular is that "marijuana induced insanity" was a popular criminal defense in some places prior to criminalization and that led most people at the time to think of marijuana primarily in terms of inducing violent crime.

Re: Federal chokehold on marijuana stymies studies on epilepsy, autism

#84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No need to hypothesize. The rampup of the drug war under Nixon was largely to attack blacks, hippies (antiwar), and other counterculture figures. [0] "We could arrest their leaders. raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did." (John Ehrlichman, Nixon's domestic policy chief) In the interim, it became a w…

Being that I dont trust CNN, do you have any other first hand sources, a video or a recording of this interview? Its my understanding that Ehrlichman never actually said this.

Hey, feel free to go fuck yourself. Ignorant racist troll.

Re: Federal chokehold on marijuana stymies studies on epilepsy, autism

#85
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not naive at all. The issue is typically framed as States Rights and it's wrapped around the 10th amendment: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. This has been an issue since the 1780s, so it will take more than a couple of sentences to give the whole rundown but it's like this. A few states ar…

Wait, peyote is schedule 1? How do they deal with native Americans taking that as part of religious ceremonies?

For ceremony it's legal. [0]

[0] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/1996a

Edit: wrong subject

Re: Federal chokehold on marijuana stymies studies on epilepsy, autism

#87
post #32

> In March, Insys launched a multinational study of 190 children to evaluate cannabidiol as a first-line therapy for infantile spasms. We are eager to see how well the compound performs when given in the first days and weeks of the condition. If it turns out to be effective, cannabidiol would represent a substantial improvement over current drugs, all of which have serious side effects: One, for example, causes irrev…

This shows the derangement of the people in charge. Why is this? Why this derangement on the subject of cannabis? I've read a fair amount, and every time I've brought it up, I get downvoted to hell. So, I'll ask: Anyone have a hypothesis on why a large number of our leaders, who happen to be older white men, are insanely against this plant?

Besides the external reasons already mentioned by several commenters here, often these older white men are people who made a decision to ignore their morals and values and make sociopathic decisions for the sake of power and financial gain. Marijuana and psychedelics are drugs that induce introspection, the opposite of alcohol. A sociopath that introspects usually has a bad time. These drugs represent a threat to their mental fortresses.

Re: Federal chokehold on marijuana stymies studies on epilepsy, autism

#88
post #5

Pardon me if this sounds naive, but I'm slightly confused as to how recreational marijuana is legal in 9 states but the DEA still heavily controls cannabidiol as if it were still illegal?

Not naive at all. The issue is typically framed as States Rights and it's wrapped around the 10th amendment: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. This has been an issue since the 1780s, so it will take more than a couple of sentences to give the whole rundown but it's like this. A few states ar…

And compare with serious studies trying to rank drug harm, e.g.

https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2010/11/02/scoring-...

Re: Federal chokehold on marijuana stymies studies on epilepsy, autism

#89
post #78
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, while the above are all disgusting side effects of the shitty implementation of American drug law, I think good old fashioned American Puritanism is to blame for the original targeting.

Wasn't it the cotton industry lobbying against industrial hemp?

Exactly follow the money. At the time of the federal marijuana stamp tax act, a flood of propaganda was distributed through the media including infamous propaganda films (such as Reefer Madness). The word hemp was never used or uttered, instead the Mexican slang Marihuana. This was done to confuse the public who never would have outlawed hemp (after all it was a crop the founding fathers grew and the US government accepted as a form of tax payment).

Looking back on the propaganda people do come to the more in your face conclusion it was about anti-Mexican immigration, but that was just a catalyst for the for winning the PR war and muddying the waters, as the American public already had medicine cabinets full of cannabis tinctures and a positive history with hemp.

Re: Federal chokehold on marijuana stymies studies on epilepsy, autism

#90
post #26

> Federal law vs. state law: While the DEA was insisting on thoroughly vetting everyone who came into contact with the tiny amount of marijuana product used in our study, the reality was that less than a mile from the hospital, anyone could walk into a boutique shop or dispensary and buy it. Why does a drug have to be legalized to be studied? If it can be purchased down the road, why are you involving the DEA at all?…

When studying a drug for medical purposes you want to know it is pure. Down the street how knows how much active ingredient you actually get (this is the problem with herbs in general - they do not all contain the same amount of active ingredient, and it is possible something unknown in half the samples is the real active ingredient) Marijuana has been studied overseas.

Cannabis sold in WA State lists THC and THCa percentages. Most are in the 20%-25% range. Vape cartridges are 60%-90% THC.
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