Also, I never understood why “euphoria” is considered a negative side effect of cannabis. Since when is feeling happy a negative? Especially when you’re terminally ill?
Damn!
Another activist judicial decision – overriding the will of the electorate in the State of California.
When are those judges going to stop making law?
Sifu, that is some shit. Damn. Thanks for the story, bro. Now you know what I see at least once a week here in the hospital. The thing is, it’s not my best friend… but it still sucks total ass. Damn those bastards for handing this down.
It’s definitely sad that they’re so hell-bent on REMOVING personal freedoms. I also agree that marijuana should be legal. But what’s really sad is how anti-democracy this ruling is. There was a majority rule by the people of California to legalize for medicinal purposes, and the federal government - with the infinite wisdom of 6 judges to 3 - has decided to overrule that decision.
[quote]vroom wrote:
Damn!
Another activist judicial decision – overriding the will of the electorate in the State of California.
When are those judges going to stop making law?[/quote]
Exactly. An overactive judiciary is a bad thing regardless of your political stance.
It is good to see Clarence Thomas stick to his limited government beliefs rather than follow the conservative party line of “drugs are bad, mkay”.
Posted before I got to the end…
Thanks for the kind words guys it means a lot. That was hard to write.
It made me think about the personal risks that I took trying to make my boy comfortable.
I have a whole new appreciation of dead heads. They may not shave or bath like you or me so it wasn’t always easy to give them a hug, but it was certainly worth it to see the look in my boys eyes when I came back with some chronic. Unfortunately they couldn’t supply him on a regular basis.
Luckily one of the brotha’s at work introduced me to a guy who lived in an abandoned house in the very worst part of Detroit. This guy was nuts and well armed. Fortunately he liked me. But it was a bit of a paranoid scene, especially when one of his crew would keep asking me if I was a cop.
I feel sorry for a sick square who doesn’t have the neccesary street smarts.
People who work in hospitals and deal with this stuff on a daily basis have my admiration.
Pass the spliff, bro, I’ve got a sore back from deadlifts.
Fuck, the police!
[quote]vroom wrote:
Damn!
Another activist judicial decision – overriding the will of the electorate in the State of California.
When are those judges going to stop making law?[/quote]
That’s a little too simplistic, given it was a conflict of laws situation between state and federal law…
However, what the decision said was even more disturbing – a complete tossing away of the basic idea of our government that the federal government is actually limited by the fact it only has specifically delineated powers.
[quote]graphicsMan wrote:
It’s definitely sad that they’re so hell-bent on REMOVING personal freedoms. I also agree that marijuana should be legal. But what’s really sad is how anti-democracy this ruling is. There was a majority rule by the people of California to legalize for medicinal purposes, and the federal government - with the infinite wisdom of 6 judges to 3 - has decided to overrule that decision.[/quote]
It wasn’t anti-democracy – it was anti-federalism and anti-Constitutional.
Sorry to be nit-picky, but according to marriam-webster:
democracy 1 a : government by the people; especially : rule of the majority
Granted, the word isn’t really often used in this context any more, but it’s closer to the original meaning, being “direct exercise of power by the people”.
Agreed on the other two points.
[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
graphicsMan wrote:
It’s definitely sad that they’re so hell-bent on REMOVING personal freedoms. I also agree that marijuana should be legal. But what’s really sad is how anti-democracy this ruling is. There was a majority rule by the people of California to legalize for medicinal purposes, and the federal government - with the infinite wisdom of 6 judges to 3 - has decided to overrule that decision.
It wasn’t anti-democracy – it was anti-federalism and anti-Constitutional.[/quote]
Exactly. Can anyone tell me when the 9th and 10th Amendments were taken off the Constitution?
That doesn’t strike you as activist judges making law?
It makes for a plenipotentiary federal government and is possibly a slippery slope if it means the federal government no longer has to allow for the will of the people to be expressed differently within each state.
Oops. Looks like Shangri-la just got a big boost in centralized authority?
[quote]graphicsMan wrote:
Sorry to be nit-picky, but according to marriam-webster:
democracy 1 a : government by the people; especially : rule of the majority
Granted, the word isn’t really often used in this context any more, but it’s closer to the original meaning, being “direct exercise of power by the people”.
Agreed on the other two points.[/quote]
Graphics,
I was using it in its “rule by the majority” sense rather than specifically as “direct democracy.”
Obviously in this case you had two laws in conflict that both broadly qualify as democratic, thought he CA proposition was by direct democracy and the federal laws come via representative democracy.
[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
However, what the decision said was even more disturbing – a complete tossing away of the basic idea of our government that the federal government is actually limited by the fact it only has specifically delineated powers.
vroom wrote:
That doesn’t strike you as activist judges making law? [/quote]
No, for two reasons. First, they didn’t make up any new law. They decided a conflicts of law case based on the Supremacy Clause, and they did that just fine.
The problem in this decision came from their following their previous precedents on Commerce Clause authority, which are all screwed up thanks to judicial activism way back in the FDR days (beginning with Wickard v. Filburn, and extending all the way through that line of cases).
They had a chance to extend two more recent precedents in Lopez and the Violence Against Women Act case, but they didn’t – and even Scalia went the wrong way (he has a large commitment to precedential authority because of the stare decisis principle, and there’s a big body of it here).
[quote]vroom wrote:
It makes for a plenipotentiary federal government and is possibly a slippery slope if it means the federal government no longer has to allow for the will of the people to be expressed differently within each state.
Oops. Looks like Shangri-la just got a big boost in centralized authority?[/quote]
That seems to me to be, on balance, a bad thing. And definitely not Constitutional.
“Approving the application “would not be consistent with the public interest,” the DEA said.”
THis refers to the DEA declining a Professors wish to conduct a medical test on the benefits of Marijuana for medicinal purposes. How can it NOT be in the public interest to have some semblance of proof of what is already well known. That marijuana has many qualities, all of them positive.
What a country, a country which has the ‘ultimate’ democracy that it can force upon the rest of the world, yet of all western nations is the least free. All Americans ever talk about is their ‘freedom’ but things like this show that they are actually trying to remove your freedoms. Sure anyone has the right to own guns which kill thousands every year but you cant smoke a bit of dope in the privacy of your own home. You’re old enough to operate a vehicle which puts others lives directly in your hands at like 15, old enough to vote on who runs your country at 18, but you are not responsible enough to drink until 21. For what possible reason could Cocaine be able to be prescribed and not Marijuana?? I wanna know!
[quote]ConorM wrote:
For what possible reason could Cocaine be able to be prescribed and not Marijuana?? I wanna know![/quote]
Basically it’s an accident of history.
In the case of cocaine, medical research and practice got in there before the pols panicked. It turns out the stuff is almost uniquely useful as a local anaesthetic in certain ENT procedures, and this has been known for a long time. Low toxicity, long duration, it not only numbs but additionally is a powerful vasoconstrictor, so this is helpful in controlling bleeding in areas richly supplied with blood vessels.
With marijuana it went the other way and it got the political treatment before any medical uses were documented. Now of course in the war on drugs it is an article of faith that the stuff has no medical uses, and this is such a politically useful conclusion that nobody can get licensed to do any research to the contrary.
[quote]zeropointzero wrote:
Have any of you heard of xyrem?
That’s prescription GHB. The same GHB that is a schedule I drug, which means it has no medical value. Except FDA approved pharmaceutical GHB. Makes perfect sense, huh?[/quote]
Schedule 1 does not mean no medical value. There are several prescription drugs that are in schedule 1. Or rather, former prescription drugs. Apparently somebody has decided that GHB has abuse potential, but no unique medical usefulness, so it is now given the Schedule 1 treatment.
I tried hard to find a characterization of what the different schedules were supposed to mean, but in the end they are just lists.
The root of the scheduling thing is the World Health Organization Convention on Psychotropic Substances. When you look in there, it is clear they are anticipating that no medically useful stuff is in schedule 1, because there is no provision for carrying the stuff across borders for personal use as a prescribed drug. Nowhere does it state however that being a pharmaceutical exempts something from schedule 1. It’s merely that the convention makes no provision for exempting medical uses of schedule 1 drugs.
When you look at Federal law (which points directly at the above WHO treaty) the schedules are again just a bunch of lists, with no intrinsic characterization of what’s supposed to be on the list.
From Title 21 United States Code Controlled Substances Act part B, Section 811 Authority and Criteria for Classification of Substances, we find:
(c) In making any finding under subsection (a) of this section or under subsection (b) of section 812 of this title, the Attorney General shall consider the following factors with respect to each drug or other substance proposed to be controlled or removed from the schedules:
(1) Its actual or relative potential for abuse.
(2) Scientific evidence of its pharmacological effect, if known.
(3) The state of current scientific knowledge regarding the drug or other substance.
(4) Its history and current pattern of abuse.
(5) The scope, duration, and significance of abuse.
(6) What, if any, risk there is to the public health.
(7) Its psychic or physiological dependence liability.
(8) Whether the substance is an immediate precursor of a substance already controlled under this subchapter.
But nowhere does it say anything about whether the substance is medically approved. So even if the FDA concludes something is a legitimate pharmaceutical safe and efficacious, the DOJ can still list the stuff as Schedule 1.
[quote]endgamer711 wrote:
zeropointzero wrote:
Have any of you heard of xyrem?
That’s prescription GHB. The same GHB that is a schedule I drug, which means it has no medical value. Except FDA approved pharmaceutical GHB. Makes perfect sense, huh?
Schedule 1 does not mean no medical value. There are several prescription drugs that are in schedule 1. Or rather, former prescription drugs. Apparently somebody has decided that GHB has abuse potential, but no unique medical usefulness, so it is now given the Schedule 1 treatment.
I tried hard to find a characterization of what the different schedules were supposed to mean, but in the end they are just lists.
The root of the scheduling thing is the World Health Organization Convention on Psychotropic Substances. When you look in there, it is clear they are anticipating that no medically useful stuff is in schedule 1, because there is no provision for carrying the stuff across borders for personal use as a prescribed drug. Nowhere does it state however that being a pharmaceutical exempts something from schedule 1. It’s merely that the convention makes no provision for exempting medical uses of schedule 1 drugs.
When you look at Federal law (which points directly at the above WHO treaty) the schedules are again just a bunch of lists, with no intrinsic characterization of what’s supposed to be on the list.
From Title 21 United States Code Controlled Substances Act part B, Section 811 Authority and Criteria for Classification of Substances, we find:
(c) In making any finding under subsection (a) of this section or under subsection (b) of section 812 of this title, the Attorney General shall consider the following factors with respect to each drug or other substance proposed to be controlled or removed from the schedules:
(1) Its actual or relative potential for abuse.
(2) Scientific evidence of its pharmacological effect, if known.
(3) The state of current scientific knowledge regarding the drug or other substance.
(4) Its history and current pattern of abuse.
(5) The scope, duration, and significance of abuse.
(6) What, if any, risk there is to the public health.
(7) Its psychic or physiological dependence liability.
(8) Whether the substance is an immediate precursor of a substance already controlled under this subchapter.
But nowhere does it say anything about whether the substance is medically approved. So even if the FDA concludes something is a legitimate pharmaceutical safe and efficacious, the DOJ can still list the stuff as Schedule 1.[/quote]
-CITE-
21 USC Sec. 812 01/22/02
-EXPCITE-
TITLE 21 - FOOD AND DRUGS CHAPTER 13 - DRUG ABUSE PREVENTION AND CONTROL SUBCHAPTER I - CONTROL AND ENFORCEMENT Part B - Authority To Control; Standards and Schedules
-HEAD-
Sec. 812. Schedules of controlled substances
-STATUTE-
(a) Establishment There are established five schedules of controlled substances, to be known as schedules I, II, III, IV, and V. Such schedules shall initially consist of the substances listed in this section. The schedules established by this section shall be updated and republished on a semiannual basis during the two-year period beginning one year after October 27, 1970, and shall be updated and republished on an annual basis thereafter.
(b) Placement on schedules; findings required Except where control is required by United States obligations under an international treaty, convention, or protocol, in effect on October 27, 1970, and except in the case of an immediate precursor, a drug or other substance may not be placed in any schedule unless the findings required for such schedule are made with respect to such drug or other substance. The findings required for each of the schedules are as follows:
(1) Schedule I. -
(A) The drug or other substance has a high potential for abuse.
(B) [b]The drug or other substance has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States.[/b]
(C) There is a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug or other substance under medical supervision.
Isn’t it odd that cannabis is Schedule I while it’s main active ingredient (supposedly the one that makes it so “dangerous”) when added to sesame oil and put in a capsule is only Schedule III? Oh wait, I know why! It’s because a pill can be patented and sold ($$$$), while a plant cannot be patented!
Here’s an example of how much money:
If someone needs 3 pills a day (each lasting around 6 hours, I believe) every say, that’s $1080 every month.
Also, I’m not sure about the wisdom of taking a pill for severe nausea. It tends not to stay down.