END WAR ON MARIJUANA

Allow Research on Endocannabinoid System

The American Academy of Cannabinoid Medicine rejects the failed U.S.
drug war and the Feds' refusal to recognize the medicinal value of
cannabis and cannabinoids.

Forty years ago this year, Richard Nixon declared a war on drugs
(WOD). The WOD is now the longest running "war" in American history
and a great failure. After four decades years of government waste,
anti-science rhetoric, millions of shattered lives, and the
expenditure of hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars, it is time
to recognize, as more than 70 percent of Americans do, that the WOD
has failed. The WOD has turned out to be a war on minorities and the
U.S. Constitution.

In June of this year, the 19-member Global Commission on Drug Policy
(including several former heads of state, former Secretary of State
George Schultz, former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volker, and
former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan) released their
report, which states that "political leaders and public figures
should have the courage to articulate publicly what many of them
acknowledge privately: that the evidence overwhelmingly demonstrates
that repressive strategies will not solve the drug problem, and that
the war on drugs has not, and cannot, be won."

The many unintended negative consequences of our current drug laws
include (but are not limited to) putting barriers in the way of
legitimate medical use of Cannabis and medical research that can help
in treating cancer pain, seizures, migraines, Crohn's Disease, and a
host of other conditions. Our government is putting road blocks in
the way of gaining a better understanding of the workings of the
central nervous system and the role of the endocannabinoid system.

President Obama has said that science should be the determining
factor regarding the medicinal use of cannabis, yet his
administration has acted in exactly the same anti-science fashion as
the Bush administration. The AACM requests that President Obama be a
man of his word and follow the consensus of cannabinoid scientists
and drug policy reform activists both nationally and internationally
concerning the endocannabinoid system; that consensus is the
inappropriateness of scheduling Cannabis as a schedule I drug. The
President should support and promote clinical and basic research on
Cannabis and its active constituents (cannabinoids). This would lead
to both medical and economic benefits for the U.S.

There are many reasons to support the clinical application of
cannabis but two of the most compelling are (1) that so many
sufferers of advanced cancer get relief from the symptoms of pain
from the medicinal use of cannabis. (2) Many sufferers of
post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) find cannabis provides the best
PTSD symptom relief. Last year the Pentagon estimated 33% of our
service men and women will return from Iraq and Afghanistan with
PTSD. Don't we as their fellow Americans owe them the full array of
proven therapeutic options? They have earned the right to be treated
as heroes, and with compassion, and not as criminals.

In fact, the VA Medical Director has recently recognized the fact
that many veterans suffering from PTSD use cannabis and the National
Cancer Institute recently noted the medical benefits of cannabis for
cancer patients.

It is well past time for the federal government to stop ignoring the
public support for drug policy reform and the medicinal use of
cannabis. Presently 16 states and the District of Columbia have
legalized medicinal cannabis. There are well over 100 medical
organizations calling for the rescheduling of Cannabis from schedule
I to schedule II or higher. These include the American Nurse
Association (ANA), American Public Health Association (APHA),
American College of Physicians (ACP), and the American Medical
Association (AMA).

The AACM therefore strongly recommends, after more than 40 years of
the WOD, that: 1) It is time to reject the failures of the past and
let loose the engine of American industry, 2) it is time for the
President to be a man of his word; look at the science, support
rescheduling cannabis, and have the federal government fund clinical
studies using both whole plant cannabis and its active constituents;
and not just British grown cannabis and/or cannabis from the federal
marijuana farm at the University of Mississippi but various American
strains. The government should follow the recommendation of Chief DEA
Administrative Law Judge, Judy Bittner, and allow University of
Massachusetts Botany Professor Lyle Craker, an expert on botanical
medicinals, the opportunity to do research on cannabis as one would
any other botanical medicinal.

The AACM joins with over 100 medical/scientific organizations to
oppose the War on Drugs and the federal government's monopoly on
cannabis for clinical and basic research. We request the opportunity
to meet with the Drug Czar and appropriate FDA and DEA officials to
educate them on the medicinal uses of cannabis and the potential
savings of tens of billions of taxpayer dollars.

In summary, a quote from the Institute of Medicine, which, in a
federally financed report in 1999 concluded, like all scientific
organizations that has examined these issues, that "Marijuana is an
effective medical treatment and is neither addictive nor a gateway drugs."