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Providing Medical Marijuana - The Importance Of Cannabis Clubs
(A Report In The April-June Issue Of 'The Journal Of Psychoactive Drugs'
By Harvey W. Feldman And R. Jerry Mandel, Who Conclude That,
Of The Various Methods So Far Proposed, Cannabis Clubs Afford The Best
Therapeutic Setting For Providing Medical Marijuana)
Date: Fri, 17 Jul 1998 20:57:54 -0400
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews)
Subject: MN: US: Providing Medical Marijuana:
The Importance of Cannabis Clubs
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Organization: Media Awareness Project http://www.mapinc.org/lists/
Newshawk: Harvey W. Mandel, with OCR support from Rolf Ernst
Source: Journal of Psychoactive Drugs
Issue: Volume 30(2), April-June, 1998, pp. 179-186
Pubdate: April-June, 1998
Author: Harvey W. Feldman, Ph.D.* and R. Jerry Mandel, Ph.D.*
* The National Association of Ethnography and Social Policy, Oakland, CA
PROVIDING MEDICAL MARIJUANA: THE IMPORTANCE OF CANNABIS CLUBS
NOTES: The authors would like to thank the Drug Policy Foundation for its
funding, which made this research possible. We would also like to thank
Elena Bridges for her help in arranging interviews with the Flower Therapy
patients.
Please address correspondence and reprint requests to Harvey W. Feldman,
Ph.D., The National Association of Ethnography and Social Policy, 24
Randwick Avenue, Oakland, California 94611.
Abstract - In 1996, shortly after the San Francisco Cannabis Club was
raided and (temporarily) closed by state authorities, the authors conducted
an ethnographic study by interviewing selected former members to ascertain
how they had benefited from the use of medical marijuana and how they had
utilized the clubs. Interviews were augmented by participant observation
techniques. Respondents reported highly positive health benefits from
marijuana itself, and underscored even greater benefits from the social
aspects of the clubs, which they described as providing important emotional
supports. As such, cannabis clubs serve as crucial support
mechanisms/groups for people with a wide variety of serious illnesses and
conditions. The authors concluded that of the various methods so far
proposed, the cannabis clubs afford the best therapeutic setting for
providing medical cannabis and for offering a healing environment composed
of like-minded, sympathetic friends.
Keywords - cannabis clubs, ethnography, medical marijuana, public policy,
social environment
The issue of whether marijuana has medicinal benefits no longer seems to be
in question. Hundreds of scientific studies and thousands of testimonials
from patients have established marijuana's effectiveness in controlling the
nausea of cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy and/ or radiation; in
enhancing appetites for AIDS patients who suffer a wasting syndrome or who
have adverse reactions to their new HAART (highly active antiretroviral
treatment) medications; in reducing intraocular pressure for persons with
glaucoma; in giving relief from spasms of muscular dystrophy; and for
relieving pain from dozens of other serious diseases (Ad Hoc Group of
Experts, National Institutes of Health 1997; Gieringer 1996). Voters in
California and Arizona confirmed their belief in these medical benefits
when they voted overwhelmingly in 1996 to make marijuana legally accessible
to qualified medical patients (in California this was achieved by passing
Proposition 215). Despite federal resistance to recognizing the medical
utility of cannabis, the remaining unresolved question for public policy
debate and scientific exploration is not whether marijuana can be a useful
tool in managing a range of diseases but simply how qualified patients can
acquire a medicine that they and their physicians believe will benefit
their treatment and alleviate suffering.
Of the several ways available for qualified patients to gain access to
medicinal cannabis, a frequent suggestion has been for patients to grow
their own supplies. While highly desirable, only a small minority of
medical marijuana patients have the wherewithal to grow their own plants.
Most city dwellers do not have outdoor yards or balconies; those who do
report greater danger from thieves than from the police. Indoor growing
requires a large initial investment for expensive equipment, which patients
who live on limited or fixed incomes simply cannot afford. Patients must
also be very skilled home gardeners to ensure a sufficient amount with the
proper potency in order not to run short.
Of special importance is knowing how to identify infestation and molds,
which, if inhaled, might exacerbate already compromised health conditions.
Some observers have suggested acquiring cannabis supplies through either
the medical/pharmaceutical professions or from the police. With regard to
the medical and pharmaceutical professions, no specific recommendations
have been forthcoming from either field (beyond limiting cannabis use to
prescribed THC/Marinol). Both professions seem content to allow the matter
of delivery to be settled elsewhere. Our past history of marijuana
prohibition has resulted in physicians seemingly knowing less about smoked
marijuana, the preferred route of ingestion among patients, than the
patients themselves. In California, most physicians who recommend patients
to cannabis clubs appear satisfied with only recommending cannabis and
monitoring patients while allowing cannabis buyers clubs (CBCs) to dispense
it. The problems (especially with regards to available sources, storage,
and assessing potencies) surrounding how pharmacies might dispense cannabis
have not even begun to be speculated upon by the pharmaceutical profession.
Since the passage of Proposition 215 in California, there has been some
discussion, especially in San Mateo County, about the feasibility of the
police providing confiscated marijuana to qualified patients. This new
police function would require a different kind of training for this new
quasi-medical role. From our discussions with CBC members, many would balk
at revealing confidential health information to their local police
departments. Constancy of supply in the San Mateo plan would depend on
police seizure activities. Would police increase their seizures in order to
meet the medical demands of patient consumers if their supplies ran out?
Would they turn away legitimate patients? Or, out of necessity, would the
police grow cannabis, or purchase it from the black market in order to meet
their medical responsibilities? The number of complications inherent in the
police option makes it a choice that offers amusing contradictions, but
given the historical role of police in our series of drug wars, such a plan
would be impractical and unworkable.
Prior to the passage of Proposition 215 and the advent of cannabis clubs,
all marijuana purchases in California were illegal. Although the black
market is still an option for legitimate patients to acquire cannabis, it
has a number of disadvantages for persons with serious medical conditions.
If other options are not available, it forces patients to risk arrest in
the process of purchasing medicine. Without necessarily defaming street
dealers or impugning their honesty, these illegal transactions seldom
involve discussions about the quality, freshness, purity, or even the
sources of the product. In these furtive sales, consumers might easily be
cheated, or simply sold bogus cannabis. For individuals with
life-threatening diseases, the total interaction of purchasing medicine on
the black market seems unnecessarily risky, inappropriate, and demeaning as
well as especially costly.
Of all the apparent available choices, purchasing marijuana through
cannabis buyers clubs, from the authors' perspective, is clearly the
soundest option. At this juncture, one might ask, "What are cannabis buyers
clubs?" "What functions do they serve?" "How do people get into them?" and
"What do members do there?"
BACKGROUND AND RESEARCH
Despite the media attention devoted to the cannabis clubs, which has
usually emphasized the public smoking aspect, to our knowledge there has
been almost nothing written about them by trained and qualified social
science observers, other than one oral presentation to the American
Anthropological Association (Roberts 1996) and a New York Times Magazine
article (Pollan 1997) which dealt more with the general implementation of
Proposition 215 than with cannabis clubs exclusively. This article is an
attempt to begin filling that gap in knowledge.
Beginning in February 1996, the authors, both experienced drug researchers,
were part of a research group that met biweekly at the San Francisco
Cannabis Buyers Club (SF CBC). The group was started and chaired by Dr. Tod
Mikuriya, who has been a leader in the medical marijuana field since he was
a consulting psychiatrist with the National Institute on Mental Health in
1967. At the end of July 1996, the Drug Policy Foundation awarded our
research group a small grant to analyze the 12,000 or so intake forms the
SF CBC required from all its members, with the goal of determining the
distribution of disease categories and the demographic characteristics of
its members. Less than a week later, however, on August 4, 1996, the
California State Attorney General's Office and agents from the California
Narcotics Enforcement Agency raided the club, shut it down (temporarily, it
tumed out) and removed all the records, which remain under court seal. With
permission from the Drug Policy Foundation, we revised our research plan
and decided to explore the ways members utilized the CBC and the impact of
its closing. Within two months, new but smaller cannabis clubs as well as
other delivery arrangements emerged to fill the void, some lasting only a
short time. The authors associated themselves primarily with Flower
Therapy, one of the new clubs which some of the former SF CBC employees
opened to meet the demand for cannabis of some of the 12,000 members who
were separated from their supply as a result of the Attorney General's raid.
Flower Therapy provided full cooperation with the research by providing a
setting for interviews and observations, and by allowing staff to refer
members to our research. We interviewed as broad a cross-section of the
membership as our budget would allow. Selection of respondents was made to
provide a broad representation of disease categories, gender, age, sexual
orientation, and race/ ethnicity. To assure standardization, we developed
an interview guide. The interviews were opened-ended, lasted between one
and two hours, were tape-recorded, and transcribed. The few interviews not
conducted at Flower Therapy were held in the respondents' residence. Some
of those interviewed had been both member and staff at the SF CBC prior to
the raid; others had been regular members. While the interviews were our
core data, they were backed up with hours of participant observation - the
ethnographer's stock-in-trade - at three clubs: the SF CBC before it was
raided; Flower Therapy over a 16-month period; and the Oakland Cannabis
Buyer's Cooperative.
WHAT ARE CANNABIS CLUBS?
The concept of a cannabis club is the invention of Dennis Peron, a San
Francisco marijuana dealer since 1973 who became converted to the cause of
medical use of cannabis when his gay lover, a young man with AIDS, found
relief from symptoms with regular marijuana use. Peron's concept was to
provide not only a cafeteria of cannabis products - including marijuana of
varying potencies, cannabis pastries, and smoking paraphernalia - but to
create a life space where persons with life-threatening or seriously
debilitating diseases could gather, relax, and consume their medications in
an accepting, friendly, and colorful surrounding. Some critics referred to
Dennis' place as a "circus," but considering that it was both staffed and
utilized by sick and dying people, more sensitive observers might conclude
that he had created a therapeutic atmosphere that encouraged relaxation,
friendly interaction, laughter and healing. It was lively without being
unnecessarily noisy, and had attractive furniture arranged to facilitate
small group conversation and discussion. With this as a model, other clubs
modified one feature or another - e.g., the Oakland club's rental agreement
did not permit smoking on the premises, and Flower Therapy gave more
emphasis to research and structured intervention - but the essential
concept of having a place where members could select from a range of
cannabis products and gather to socialize was Peron's original creation. As
a new social institution, the cannabis club provides a setting that is a
combination of a community center and settlement house (better known in
eastern and midwest cities), a hospice, a friendly cafe, and - given the
illegal nature of it prior to Proposition 215 - a kind of speakeasy which
had the approval and public support of San Francisco's Board of
Supervisors, Mayors Frank Jordan and Willie Brown, its Department of Public
Health, its District Attorney's Office, and the administration of the San
Francisco Police Department.
ROUTES OF ENTRY
The development of the SF CBC is attributable to three underlying currents
that seem peculiar to San Francisco: (1) its history of progressive
political activism, (2) its reputation for innovation, and (3) its
relatively small population, which allows for information to be
disseminated quietly and quickly by word-of-mouth.
The political background which brought like-minded people together in the
medical marijuana movement was given a substantial boost with Proposition
P, a local ordinance the San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed in 1992
that directed the San Francisco police department to make marijuana arrests
its lowest priority. This ordinance allowed Peron to come out of the
shadows and become more public in using his private residence for
commercial marijuana sales, and eventually to become the central San
Francisco figure around whom others gathered in order to advance the cause
of marijuana both as a political rallying point and as a legitimate
medicine. Dec, the fictitious name for one of the early recruits, explained
how her contacts with Peron introduced her to both the medical and
political aspects of marijuana:
"Oh, when I met Dennis, we'd sit around his living room and plan it
[organizing for the passage of Proposition P, a San Francisco initiative
requesting that police lower the priority of marijuana arrests]. I met him
almost six years ago through my ex-husband... I met him and I knew from the
minute I met him that he was coming from the heart as far as helping sick
people get marijuana. We just connected. And the second time I went to his
house, he just grabbed me and hugged me and kissed me and said, "Welcome
back." And I was a regular at his house from 1992 on, even though I had to
drive back and forth from Bakersfield... And then in 1994 my friends were
worried that I was dying (from multiple sclerosis). I was wheel-chair bound
and weighed about 100 pounds. I had gone to Los Angeles for a Medical
Marijuana Day in 1994, and they all saw me and realized how critically ill
I was. And they moved me to Santa Cruz and then I got moved to San
Francisco with Dennis' help."
Others came to the club through other word-of-mouth referrals; one, an
elderly woman with both glaucoma and breast cancer, was referred by a
member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors:
HWF: How did you initially learn about the club?
Hortense: From A [the elected Supervisor] sending me that note. I didn't
even know it existed before then.
HWF: How did you go about becoming a member?
Hortence; I just made a nuisance of myself. I went every week on Fridays
and Saturdays and talked to people. Then I decided my role was to listen,
and I did that for quite awhile. And then in July, Dennis asked if I would
do intake. There wasn't a lot of intake. We only had a hundred members or
something like that.
Regarding the original club, located on Church Street in much smaller
quarters than the one which has received national and international
attention, others heard from friends about a unique place where marijuana
could be openly purchased and consumed. While the early members joined
because they were personal acquaintances of Peron, a critical mass
developed so that word-of-mouth became the most common route into the club:
JM: How did you learn about the club?
Hector: The club? A friend of mine told me about it because access [to
medical marijuana] after HIV was still often awkward and expensive. Some
people you buy from have minimum amounts that you have to meet. Like an
eighth [ounce] for $60 or more. And limited hours. You don't know when they
are going to be home, or when it's going to be available. So when you run
out and when you want it, there was no guarantee that you were going to
have enough money or that it would be easily accessible. A friend of mine
knew about the club on Church Street, and took me, and introduced me. I had
my proper paper work.
HWF: How did you hear about the club?
Marie: From a care-giver. 1 was in the hospital, and I wanted to get out.
[A friend] told me about it.
HWF: Where was the club then?
Marie: On Market Street. And I couldn't believe it. It was like a piece of
heaven.... I went with my doctor's letter. I knew what I had to bring. I
was prepared. They walked me through it and introduced me around. It was
just wonderful.
JM: When did you first get involved in the club?
James: Way in the beginning because I had a low number [cell count]. At the
club on Church Street.
SM: How did you gravitate there?
James: My boss at the time brought me in because at the time you had to
have a member bring you in was the way it worked. You couldn't just walk in.
HWF: How did you initially learn about the club?
Donald: A good question. Hmmmm? I guess a friend told me about it.... That
there was a marijuana buyer's club that was right down the street from me.
At that point I was HIV-positive so 1 could become a member.
HWF: So, it was described to you as... ?
Donald: As a place to buy marijuana for people with AIDS.
HWF: Was it exclusively AIDS in the early days?
Donald: It wasn't. No, because Hortense had glaucoma. No, but that's what
they told me. Once I went, I found out it was for AIDS, cancer, glaucoma.
ACTIVITIES AND SOCIALIZATION WITHIN THE CLUB
Without question, the focal point of the CBCs was the distribution of
medical cannabis. What too often is either understated or ignored is the
variety of ways members utilized the club as a social and recreational
institution. Most of these social activities appear to come about as a
byproduct of the size of the facility and numbers of people in attendance
rather than through formally planned programs. Members and staff found that
marijuana itself produced a sense of well-being and that sharing both the
substance and experiences developed strong bonds of friendship. This became
especially true for members whose daily routines for dealing with their
illnesses had left them isolated, pained, and frequently deeply depressed.
The ways members went about enjoying their socialization varied. Some found
the club simply a sanctuary from loneliness, a place to go and just hang
out. Several respondents compared the cannabis club to the social setting
of the bar, a likely comparison since both served as places of
socialization and as a place where a mood-altering substance could be
purchased and consumed. In contrast to bars, members found the club more
suitable to sustaining friendships. Chuckles, a gay male with HIV/AIDS,
claimed to have found the CBC far superior:
"Oh, yes, there were lots of shared experiences. Lots of new social
contacts that I would not have made or would not have wanted to make in any
other place. The only other place for me to go, as a gay male, was to a
bar, which means drinking, which is much more deleterious to my health and
my behavior than is marijuana."
Kenny compared the relaxed atmosphere of the cannabis club to a bar that
might offer free beer:
"I saw very few problems of members because of marijuana and considering
that it was open to such a wide spectrum of different types of people, I
think that it was amazing that I never saw a fist fight in there. I heard a
few people had to be escorted out at times, but compared to say, a bar, I'd
hate to even think of what it would be like to have a place with free beer
given out to all customers.... Some people talk about being shy going into
a party, walking into a room... I never felt that. I'd go in, and the first
thing, look around the room to see who was there, and say "hi" to this
person and that person. It was very social. I can't stress that enough."
When the SF CBC moved to its larger (four-story) quarters on Market Street,
directly on the main business' and traffic artery in downtown San Francisco
- and with the ensuing increase in membership and media attention, and the
political move to make medical marijuana legal under Proposition 215 - a
new era began. A sense of excitement and destiny seemed to transform the
club. Historically, it became the facility where former hippie/
radical/marijuana devotees, some of whom were now debilitated with
legitimate medical conditions, blended with the rising number of people who
had never been part of the counter-culture and were, for the most part,
naive and resistant to using marijuana recreationally. With a sense of
"only in San Francisco," the factions came together in a common political
purpose, a satisfaction and relief of finding others in similar medical
situations, and a feeling of safety because the club was protected by the
local authorities. Though the first-time visitor might be wide-eyed, having
what appeared to be legitimate access to marijuana and the ability to
consume it in public without fear, regular members found that their
satisfactions were as much social as medical, maybe even more so. In
reflecting on their use of the club, members overwhelmingly described the
social benefits in glowing terms.
When asked the question, "What did you like best about the club?" almost
without exception respondents answered in one form or another, "the social
life." As with a community center or perhaps a hospice, members could find
or create activities that utilized their skills, abilities, or talents.
Sandy, a small woman who walked with two hand canes, described how she
would teach origami (the Japanese art of folding paper into flowers or
animals), and how her involvement served to improve her physical condition:
"Twice a week I'd go up there. Friday, and then Saturday, Saturday because
of the evening thing. Mainly do origami, the fellowship, and I'd bring a
little weed and everybody'd have a little bit of weed. We'd smoke, but
mainly we'd be sitting there shooting the breeze, folding stuff, singing
along with the radio. Heck, we'd go up and down the elevator, or up and
down the steps. I was walking up and down the steps on a regular basis. I
was. Yes, I was. Now, I'd do the elevator every now and then, you know, but
I was doing steps, man. It was great. It was old home week. You'd walk in
there, and it didn't matter what kind of day you had had. And it wasn't the
pot. If it was only the pot, I wouldn't be there, quite frankly."
For members with limited incomes or the homeless with qualifying illnesses,
the club provided oranges in containers placed strategically throughout the
facility. On weekend days, staff prepared a full home-cooked dinner for
members. Hector explained how he would schedule his visits to coincide with
the meals:
"Well, food. There was a time or two that I went knowing specifically it
was Saturday afternoon and I specifically expected food would be there, and
I was kind of broke, and I thought, I wouldn't wonder whether i'd get a
potato or a cherry pie from the store. I expect there would be something
decent to eat there."
Others, like Jamie, enjoyed the Saturday night entertainment, which was
provided by volunteer performers or members themselves in a kind of "open
mike" evening:
"I was there Saturday nights. They... had really great music. Saturday
nights they would put on some nice shows, and things like that. Put on some
bad shows, too. Put on shows. It was fun there. It really was."
FINDING SUPPORT GROUPS
When members were asked how they spent their time at the CBC or what they
liked best, the most common and repeated response related less to the
acquisition of cannabis and emphasized the supportive aspect of being with
like-minded people with similar medical conditions. For many of the
members, the clubs provided a kind of generalized support group: the social
interaction that took place was an important and significant component of
their treatment and/ or rehabilitation. For some individuals, the CBCs were
their primary source of socialization. Recently, Lester Grinspoon, the
Harvard psychiatrist and author of Marijuana Reconsidered (1994), one of
the best and most complete discussions of medical marijuana, turned his
attention to the subject of cannabis clubs. In an article which will appear
in the 1998 Summer issue of Playboy (Grinspoon In press), he notes that
recent studies by others have shown that having a social support network is
an essential ingredient for cancer patients and that " .. these kinds of
supports improve the quality of life... and that there is growing evidence
that [they] may also prolong life" [emphasis added]. He notes that in one
study "socially isolated women were found to be at five times higher risk
of death from ovarian and related cancers than the controls," who were not
reported to be isolated. In a second study, he stated, "women with breast
cancer were 50 percent less likely to die in the first months after surgery
if they said they had confidants, i.e. people they were close to."
Grinspoon (1998) goes on to report that the studies showed that patients
"...become less anxious and depressed, make better use of their time, and
are more likely to return to work than similar patients who are given only
standard care." These and several other examples discussed by Dr. Grinspoon
provide strong testimony for the social role that cannabis clubs can and
have provided.
Not all cannabis clubs make a concerted effort to capitalize on this
therapeutic possibility. But it is clear from the interviews that there
were beneficial aspects to mere attendance at the clubs. Seriously ill and
dying people can gather and enjoy the friendship of others in like
situations. They learn how others with similar medical and social
conditions cope. Hector again supplies one of many testimonials to the
therapeutic benefits of his attendance at the SF CBC:
"There's nothing else like it. There's no facility in town that offered a
comfortable social place to hang out and meet other people that are in your
same similar situation facing terminal illness... and trying to cope with
it, both physically and emotionally... Let me put it this way. I think that
depression is a real illness for some people. And as s major branch for
almost all people who suffer from HIV. Once you're facing a terminal
illness, you are bound to have a thousand ways of depression. And I think a
support group, wherever you find it, a fully functioning support group and
facility, is, can be a big booster and counter to serious depression... And
the option of having a place to go that provides medicine in terms of
marijuana but also medicine in terms of a real friendly network and
reliable support group has been really important. And I haven't jumped
into, or found a support group that was as comfortable and attracted to as
l was with the support group I found on a daily basis at that place."
Such sentiments were repeated often both spontaneously and in response to
direct questions regarding what they liked or didn't like about the SF CBC.
Frederick, a regular visitor to the club, actually downplayed the
importance of marijuana and emphasized the social aspects as the club's
primary significance even though he himself seldom used the club in that way:
"I never smoked at the club. I was never a big one to go hang out and
smoke. I would just get my stuff and would leave, which is what I thought
people should do. Although I do, I am aware that people stayed... They hung
out and smoked. I slowly started to see. I was just there Sunday night. I'm
starting more and more to see that the reason they are there isn't just
because, just that they want to sit there and smoke pot. It's because they
know each other. I think marijuana is a secondary issue... It's about
whatever it is that brings them, these people together, which is probably
more their illness itself. Well, they all have illnesses in common, and the
political issues that surround it [their illness]. That's what they are all
always talking about. That's how they became friends... So, the marijuana
itself to me is a small character in all this. Even with me personally, I
don't see marijuana as being the star of the show here."
Given the pervasiveness of terminal illness among the membership, managing
depression and grief was always an issue which arose both from trying to
adjust to having diseases where death was near and in dealing with the loss
of friends. Being an active member of the CBC helped many individuals who
had been living in isolation to reestablish a friendship network. Kendall,
another member with full-blown AIDS, underscored the social role the club
played in introducing him to a new set of friends:
"The mainstay of my friends now are the people that I met through the club.
Some [friends from the club] I've known way back, but a lot of them are
people I just met m the past couple of years. Course, also in the past 10
years 1've had a lot of friends die from AIDS. I could think of a whole
group of people I would have been out with, say, to dinner, or at a bar,
and I am the only one that's alive out of, say seven or eight people in the
group... I find it very hard to gauge how much benefit I should ascribe to
marijuana and how much to the club itself. Because just being around people
has really helped a lot. Like I said, I lost a great portion of my friends
to AIDS. Other people I just drifted apart from. So, this was a way back
into having a close circle of friends"
In keeping with the way the clubs provide a healing atmosphere, Jamie noted
how the social relations he had developed over time allowed him and others
to manage the grief associated with the death of close friends and helped
him find a new set of associates whose concerns he valued:
"We had wakes there. We had a wake for Jimmy when he died. Jimmy was one of
the original people from before it was Church Street... That's how long
Jimmy was a member... He was one of the original I'd say 10 people in the
beginning. And when he died, they had a wake... I've been a part of the
club because I was there everyday. I became a part of the
club, one of the faces that belongs there. When 1 went away for a week,
everybody said, "Where'd you go?" It's a social thing to do, every day of
your life. Well, almost everyday.
THE ETHOS OF "LOVE AND COMPASSION"
One of the remarkable consequences of having established the clubs as a
place where members could expect help was the way the notion of helping
others permeated member interaction, so that group esteem and status was
often connected to performing kind, compassionate acts. One might say that
there emerged an unstated expectation that rewards and recognition could be
accrued through acts of helping other members. As a result, several
respondents reported how they consciously set out to be of service to other
members, which they viewed as being consistent with the club's mantra and
slogan of "love and compassion." This aspect of helping was a route to both
recognition and acceptance. Sidney, whose medical diagnosis did not include
physical infirmities, explained how he created a helping role for himself
in an attempt to become an official volunteer:
"I hung around every day that I could because I wanted to help people who
had problems with neuropathy, palsy, sclerosis, dystrophy. They can't roll
[joints]; they can't clean [remove stems and seeds from marijuana]. They're
shaking, trembling... A friend of mine has glaucoma and also has spasticity
and arthritis. She'll come in and literally hand me her bag [of marijuana],
and I would sit and roll her entire bag. And she would hand me a cigarette.
And I would say, "No, thanks." And she would say, "Okay, just light it.""
For Marie, a 40-year-old African-American women who was wheelchair bound
because of muscular dystrophy, and a lifetime resident of San Francisco
before moving to an adjacent county when special housing for her medical
condition became available, her three visits a week to the club were her
rationale for leaving her apartment. As a knowledgeable observer of San
Francisco scenes while growing up in the Haight-Ashbury district, and as a
child seeing the development of the counter-culture during its heyday in
the mid-sixties, she summed up her view of the SF CBC by putting it in the
context of San Francisco as a city of civility:
Marie: I went Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.
HWF: Did you go there only to buy or did you hang around?
Marie: I went there to buy but I'd always run into someone I knew who I'd
sit around and smoke a joint with and talk about how cool it [the club] was
.. The club was life! The club was what San Francisco was all about. People
were there sharing, talking, loving, just having a good time. And it was
all kinds of people from all walks of life... It reinforced what San
Francisco was all about I looked forward to it. Wednesdays is Farmer's
Market Day [on Market Street near the SF CBC]. It was perfect. I could go
to the club and then get my fruits and vegetables on my trip to the city.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
Our approach in assessing the functions of cannabis clubs, particularly
what was formerly called the San Francisco Cannabis Buyers Club, was an
ethnographic examination of how members themselves perceived the benefits
of their membership. While the acquisition of medical marijuana for
specific diseases (as recommended by their physicians) was the members'
major rationale for seeking membership, almost without exception they
expressed greater satisfaction in the social interaction and activities
they found. Most of the members learned of the club through friends or
acquaintances who were either members themselves or who knew of the club
through other friends. Without advertisement or recruitment, members heard
through word-of-mouth that Dennis Peron had created a facility where
persons with serious and/or terminal illnesses could purchase and smoke
marijuana. With the apparent success of Dennis' place, others with
imagination and administrative skills opened similar, if somewhat unique,
clubs throughout the state - in Marin, Eureka, San Jose, Oakland, Hayward,
Los Angeles, Orange County, and other areas - after becoming acquainted
with the SF CBC. Each may have had a somewhat original twist, but the
notion of having a facility where cannabis could be purchased (and
sometimes ingested onsite) was patterned after the original club created by
Dennis Peron.
Members who probably would have been content to find only a legitimate
source of medical marijuana were even more pleased to discover that the
setting itself served therapeutic purposes for them by providing a natural
environment in which to socialize with others who were struggling not only
with serious disease but who were frequently isolated, frightened, and
depressed. As a result, members often stated that the socialization they
encountered and the friends they made at the clubs were health producing.
Most frequently members referred to these friendship circles as "support
groups" because they offered mutual help in a number of critical emotional
areas: adjusting to a terminal illness, or managing the grief which
accompanies the many deaths an epidemic like HIV/AIDS leaves in its wake.
At the time of this writing, two legal actions are underway in attempts to
close the clubs: (a) action by the California State Attorney General's
Office, which claims that cannabis clubs do not qualify as primary
caregivers under their interpretation of Proposition 215; and (b) a federal
civil suit against six California clubs - including the San Francisco
Cannabis Cultivators' Cooperative, Flower Therapy (which closed because of
federal action against the club's landlord), and the Oakland Cannabis
Buyers' Cooperative. The federal case seems the simplest since it drew on
the Controlled Substances Act of 1972, which classified marijuana as a
Schedule I drug (a classification specifying that marijuana has no
legitimate medical use).
The federal action - taken by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)
under the Department of Justice - simply does not recognize the many
studies and reports on marijuana which have demonstrated its medicinal
usefulness. Perhaps the anticipated report from the Institute on Medicine
(whose members visited the Bay Area cannabis clubs in December, 1997) on
its investigation of possible medical uses for marijuana will help bring
the Department of Justice and the DEA more into line with the available
scientific evidence. At the moment, the DEA simply ignores all scientific
and medical evidence, and with apparent blindness continues to argue that
marijuana has no legitimate medical use. With that as their foundation for
determining public policy, from the DEA's perspective all marijuana use
remains illegal. And they saw fit to take civil - not criminal action -
against six of the better known clubs. The remedy for the federal position,
which in all likelihood is forthcoming, is to reschedule cannabis and
recognize what thousands of Americans and hundreds of physicians already
know - that cannabis is a remarkable, naturally grown substance with wide
utility in the treatment of a variety of diseases. The authors concur with
the New England Journal of Medicine, which stated in its editorial of
January 30, 1997 (Kassirer 1997) that "...a federal policy that prohibits
physicians from alleviating suffering by prescribing marijuana for
seriously ill patients is misguided, heavy-handed, and inhumane."
The California Attorney General's case is somewhat different, since under
Proposition 215 the use and recommendation of cannabis for severe medical
conditions is legal. In California, the suit against the SF CBC attempts to
clarify Proposition 215 by implying that the law does not authorize or
consider the role of cannabis clubs in providing marijuana to legitimate
patients. While the Attorney General's Office has not developed its own
plan for distribution, it does seem to support the police option suggested
in San Mateo County, which (as discussed earlier) would blur the lines
between law enforcement functions and medical practice. Having the police
as distributors of medical cannabis would have a chilling effect on how
medical patients, fully aware of how police departments in the past viewed
marijuana consumers, might utilize or abuse this new distribution route.
After almost two years of investigation into the functions of cannabis
clubs, witnessing how members participate in the socialization that takes
place in them, and formally interviewing a selected sample of patients, as
social scientists the authors conclude that the cannabis clubs are not only
a desirable method but a preferred method for the distribution of medical
marijuana. Without question, of the available ways of providing cannabis,
the CBCs provide the safest and least expensive commercial method for
patients to purchase medical marijuana. Moreover, the existing
relationships are trusting ones that have been developed over the years,
and they would be difficult to transfer. Of greatest importance is that the
clubs provide a therapeutic setting which patients themselves find
gratifying, socially supportive, and congenial.
Rather than attempting to shut down cannabis clubs, public policy makers at
the federal and state level should move toward supporting the clubs'
existence, and thus function the way the health, law enforcement, and
elected political officials in San Francisco have done over the past six
years. As a new and promising strategy, the cannabis club concept is boldly
imaginative and; according to our investigations, highly effective in
providing its sick and terminally ill members both a medicine and a social
setting which has improved the quality of their lives.
REFERENCES
Ad Hoc Group of Experts, National Institutes of Health. 1997. Report to the
Director: Workshop on the Medical Utility of Marijuana. February 19-20.
Available on the Internet at www.nih.gov/news/medmarijuana/MedicalMarijuana.
Gieringer, D. 1996. Review of Human Studies on Medical Use of Marijuana.
San Francisco: California NORML.
Grinspoon, L. In press. A perspective on buyers' clubs. Playboy.
Grinspoon, L 1998. Personal communication.
Grinspoon. L. 1977 (1971). Marihuana Reconsidered. Cambridge,
Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
Kassirer. J. 1997. Federal foolishness and marijuana. [Editorial] New
England Journal of Medicine 336 (5): 366-67.
Pollan, M. 1997. Just say "sometimes." New York Times Magazine July 20: 21-48.
Roberts, T. 1996. Life crises create situations for communitas. Paper
presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological
Association, San Francisco, November 22.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
High On A Lie - Funded By Billionaires, The 'Medical Marijuana' Movement
Is Blowing Smoke In Our Eyes (Erroneous Propaganda From 'Reader's Digest')
Date: Tue, 24 Mar 1998 17:52:05 -0500
From: "R. Lake"
Subject: MN: US: Reader's Digest: High on a Lie
To: DrugSense News Service
Organization: The Media Awareness Project of DrugSense
Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Newshawk: The Society for the Correction of Erroneous Propaganda
Source: Reader's Digest
Author: Daniel Levine
Pubdate: April, 1998
Contact: readersdigest@notes.compuserve.com
Mail: Reader's Digest, Box 100, Pleasantville NY 10570-0100
Fax: 914-238-6390.
Website: http://www.readersdigest.com/
Graphic: Behind the Pot Vote - George Soros $550,000 - Peter Lewis $500,000
- John Sperling $200,000 -- Californians for Medical Rights Campaign for
the Compassionate Use Act" to legalize medical marijuana.
Photo caption: "All marijuana use is medical," claims Dennis Peron, the
outspoken owner of California's largest pot club.
Editor's note: Reader's Digest has a circulation of over 22 million copies in
19 languages. It is the world's largest circulation magazine.
***
Funded by Billionaires, the "Medical Marijuana" Movement is Blowing Smoke in
our Eyes
HIGH ON A LIE
One Saturday last September, 50,000 people, most of them teen-agers, crowded
into the Boston Common for the eight annual Freedom Rally. Its organizers
billed it as the largest marijuana-legalization event on the East Coast.
Strolling through the crowd, holding a joint, was a 17-year-old high-school
senior who said his name was Bill. "If they allow sick people to use it," he
said, "it can't be that damaging."
Sharing a marijuana pipe with two friends, a 15-year-old named Nicole
agreed. "Pot is harmless," she said. "It should be legalized because there
are so many medical benefits. It helps you with a lot of things. It's the
best."
An increasing number of young Americans agree. They have gotten this idea
from a well-funded movement to legalize the "compassionate" use of
marijuana. While every legitimate drug requires rigorous testing by the FDA
before being approved, marijuana advocates are opting for medicine by
popular vote. This year signatures are being gathered for medical-marijuana
initiatives in a half-dozen states and the District of Columbia.
Marijuana's main active ingredient, THC, is effective in relieving nausea
and inducing weight gain in cancer and AIDS patients. That is why the FDA
has approved Marinol, a synthetic pill form of THC. But marijuana in its
smoked form has never been shown in controlled scientific studies to be safe
or effective. In fact, marijuana smoke contains over 2000 chemicals, many of
which produce psychoactive reactions, cause lung damage and - in cancer and
AIDS patients - increase the risk of pneumonia and weaken the immune system.
Inhaling the smoke also disrupts short-term memory and leads to changes in
the brain similar to those caused by heroin, cocaine and other highly
addictive drugs.
"There is no conclusive scientific evidence that marijuana is superior to
currently available medicines," says Dr. Eric Voth, chairman of the
International Drug Strategy Institute in Omaha. "Medical marijuana is a scam
that takes advantage of sick and dying patients."
Says Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey (Ret.), director of the Office of National Drug
Control Policy, "Medical marijuana is a stalking-horse for legalization.
This is not about compassion. This is about legalizing dangerous drugs."
"Daddy Warbucks" of Drugs. - The legalization of marijuana and other drugs
has been debated for more than 30 years, with a vast majority of Americans
standing in opposition. Legalization supporters have used the argument that
drugs are necessary for medical reasons. But now, for the first time, they
have significant financial backing.
In the last six years a handful of America's wealthiest people have
contributed $20 million to groups that promote medical marijuana or other
radical drug-policy reforms. Billionaire financier George Soros is the
biggest giver, donating more than $16 million. Others include Peter Lewis,
CEO of Cleveland-based Progressive Corp., the nation's sixth-largest auto
insurer, and John Sperling, president of the Apollo Group, a holding company
that controls for-profit universities and job-training centers.
In an interview with Reader's Digest, the 76-year-old Sperling said he
believes doctors should be allowed to prescribe all drugs, including heroin
and LSD. Lewis declined to be interviewed.
A spokesman for Soros said he does not support drug legalization.
Nonetheless, Soros has donated millions since 1992 to groups led by people
advocating it. Former Health, Education and Welfare Secretary Joseph A.
Califano, Jr., calls him the "Daddy Warbucks of drug legalization."
Soros created a drug-policy institute called The Lindesmith Center and has
funded it with $4 million. Its director, Ethan Nadelmann, Soros's point man
on drug policy, has said he wants to "legalize the personal possession of
drugs by adult Americans."
Soros has also given $6.4 million to the Drug Policy Foundation (DPF), a
leading advocate for medical marijuana. Its stated mission is "publicizing
alternatives to current drug strategies." Its founder, attorney and college
professor Arnold Trebach, calls himself a "flat-out legalizer" who advocates
the repeal of current drug laws.
Richard J. Dennis, a 49-year-old Chicago commodities trader and member of
DPF's board of directors, supports both medical marijuana and legalization
in general. In fact, says Dennis, "I'd like to see legalization for adults
for all drugs, including heroin."
On DPF's advisory board is Harvard Medical School psychiatrist Lester
Grinspoon, a leading advocate of medical marijuana for over 25 years. He
compares marijuana's potential benefit to that of penicillin, predicting,
"It will be the wonder drug of the new millennium."
Soros, Lewis and Sperling gained their biggest victory in November, 1996
when California voters passed Proposition 215, also knows as the
Compassionate Use Act. It allows pot to be grown and smoked for "any illness
for which marijuana provides relief." There are no age restrictions.
"Illness" is loosely defined and can include headaches, chronic pain and
arthritis. A doctor's oral recommendation is all that is required.
The principal author of the California initiative was 52-year-old Dennis
Peron, a San Francisco "medical pot club" owner who's been arrested 15 times
on marijuana charges. Peron says he worded the initiative vaguely because he
believes "all marijuana use is medical."
Peron's Cannabis Cultivators' Club is the state's largest pot club, taking
in over $20,000 a day. One day last fall, Peron wandered the club greeting
patrons and handed one a bulging quarter-pound bag of marijuana.
Standing in line at Peron's smoke-filled club to buy an eighth of an ounce
of high-grade Mexican marijuana was a 39-year-old named Anthony. Under
California's law, Anthony is consider a "seriously ill patient" who can
purchase and smoke pot. He tokes up four or five times a day.
When asked about his ailment, Anthony answered: "Officially, hernia
discomfort from overstrenuous intercourse. Actually, I can't feel it." He
said the club admitted him without any medical referral. A self-described
"potaholic," Anthony has smoked dope since he was 16. My problems, he
conceded, "are related to a general life-style kind of thing."
Peron's club has operated for years, despite violating state and federal
drug laws. In August 1996, state drug agents raided it, seizing 86 pounds of
pot and $62,000. "The club was running a sophisticated illegal
drug-distribution network," said a spokesman of California Attorney General
Dan Lungren. A grand jury indicated Peron, and he awaits trial on felony
drug charges. Meanwhile, Peron is running for governor of California.
Peron's initiative never would have made it to the ballot without the help
of Soros, Lewis and Sperling. California requires 433,269 valid petition
signatures before a "citizen's initiative" can be placed on the ballot. As
the deadline neared, Peron and his unorganized group of volunteers had
collected only 40,000.
That is when Ethan Nadelmann of Soros's Lindesmith Center stepped in. He
helped create Californians for Medical Rights, a sophisticated campaign
organization that pushed the medical-marijuana initiative. Soros and Lewis
pored $400,000 into the group, which paid professional signature gatherers
who, in 90days, obtained more than 700,000 signatures.
Once the measure was on the ballot, Soros, Lewis and Sperling contributed
$450,000 for advertising. Commercials featured emotional appeals for relief
through the use of marijuana. The ads never mentioned that Proposition 215
would allow marijuana to be smoked for any condition, without age
restriction and without a prescription.
One of the numerous medical-marijuana clubs that opened as a result of
Peron's measure was the Dharma Producers Group in San Francisco, which
bragged that it offered "medical marijuana with a Tibetan touch." The club's
"medical director," a pony-tailed 52-yar-old named Lorenzo Pace, laughed
when he explained his medical-marijuana credentials: "I did preliminary
research all through the '60s.:
California for Medical Rights has since changed its name to Americans for
Medical Rights. Today it is leading a campaign to place medical-marijuana
initiatives on state ballots across the country.
Rx: LSD. - While Californians were voting on medical marijuana, their
neighbors in Arizona were considering an even more radical initiative. The
Drug Medicalization, Prevention and Control Act of 1996 proposed to legalize
not only marijuana but also more tan 100 other drugs - including heroin, LSD
and PCP (angel dust) - for medical use.
Arizona's initiative was sold to voters as a way to get tough on violent
criminals. How? Open up jail space by paroling all first- and second-time
drug offenders. This ignored the fact that virtually all of the 1200 inmates
affected had plea-bargained down from more serious charges or had prior
felony records.
In Arizona, Sperling spearheaded the campaign. He, Soros and Lewis
contributed a total of $1.2 million; the DPF gave $303,000. This accounted
for 99 percent of the initiative's total funding. As in California, much of
this money paid for a massive media campaign. Opponents of the initiative,
caught unprepared, did not run a single advertisement.
The measure passed, but a post-election survey revealed that Arizona voters
had been badly misled. Seventy-four percent did not believe doctors should
be able to prescribe drugs such as heroin, PCP and LSD, as he proposition
allowed; 70 percent agreed that the initiative would give children the
impression that drugs were also acceptable for recreational use. The state
legislature subsequently passed a statute that effectively overrode the
initiative.
Fighting Back. - The organizers of Arizona's initiative moved to place a
similar measure on the ballot in Washington State. Sperling, Lewis and Soros
contributed a total of more than $1.5 million.
Despite being outspent more than ten to one, opponents of the Washington
initiative were not about to be caught unprepared. They took every
opportunity to stress that the measure was not about compassion, but about
legalizing dangerous drugs. Last November voters rejected the measure.
The defeat in Washington has not sidetracked plans for similar
medical-marijuana initiatives in other states. Battlegrounds include Hawaii,
Florida, Kansas, Main and Alaska. An Oregon initiative would not only
legalize use of many drugs but also permit the sale of marijuana in state
liquor stores. In Washington, D.C., Initiative 59 would allow up to four
caregivers, including "best friends," to cultivate pot for a "seriously ill"
person. Organizers are hoping that passage of these initiatives will spur
Congress to legalize medical marijuana under federal law.
Says Dr. Robert DuPont, a former director of the National Institute on Drug
Abuse: "Never in the history of modern medicine has burning leaves been
considered medicine. Those in the medical-marijuana movement are putting on
white coats and expressing concerns about the sick. But people need to see
this for what it is: a fraud and a hoax."
***
Let us know what you think about this topic at www.readersdigest.com
Copyright 1998 Reader's Digest Association, Inc.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Richard Cowan's Critique Of 'High On A Lie' (From 'Marijuananews.com')
Date: Mon, 30 Mar 1998 16:17:39 -0800 (PST)
From: Randy Chase
To: hemp-talk@hemp.net
Subject: HT: Richard Cowan's Critique of 'High On A Lie" (HUGE) (fwd)
Sender: owner-hemp-talk@hemp.net
This is a big article, but if your parents are like mine they have read
the readers digest article and it is nice to have answers.
Expect these same arguments from others.
Randy
Newshawk: The Media Awareness Project of DrugSense
Source: marijuananews.com - A Personal Newsletter on the Cannabis
Controversies
Author: Richard Cowan, Editor and Publisher
Contact: cowan@marijuananews.com Website: http://www.marijuananews.com/
Pubdate: March 29, 1998
Editor's Note: This is a very rare exception to our policy of not
distributing items that are only web published. In response to the
significant discussion of the April Reader's Digest article Dick has
written a superb critique. His comments are in (parentheses) that start
with 'Ed. note.' At some points his critique links to other web based
articles. I have made the links visible. The original item is in our
archives at: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n209.a06.html
- Richard Lake - Sr. Editor, DrugSense News Service
(Ed. note: For more than twenty years the Reader's Digest has been a major
source of anti-marijuana prohibitionist propaganda. The late Peggy Mann
wrote a series of articles which popularized the work of Dr. Gabriel Nahas.
Given the Digest's enormous circulation and its reputation, these articles
undoubtedly played a large role in the resurgence of "reefer madness"
prohibitionism. (Reader's Digest has a circulation of over 22 million
copies in 19 languages. It is the world's largest circulation magazine.)
Also, they went virtually unanswered. In the age of the Internet, their
free ride is over. It is ironic that this article appears in the same month
with the Journal of the American Medical Association's review of Marihuana,
the Forbidden Medicine.
http://www.marijuananews.com/journal_of_the_american_medical_.htm The JAMA
review says, "It is difficult to see how the growing tide of acceptance of
medical marijuana might be stemmed much longer by accusations of "covert
legalization tactics." This article is an attempt to do just that.
Please note that they use the word "lie" in the title and the main point of
the article is to attack the motives of the supporters of medical
marijuana. In fact, the most striking thing about the article is its very
poor intellectual level, and its apparent indifference to the truth.
Appropriately, reprints of the article were distributed at William
Bennett's anti-medical marijuana hate-fest put on by Empower America
earlier this month. See Only Forty People Show Up For Bill Bennett's
Anti-Medical Marijuana Hate-Fest
http://www.marijuananews.com/only_forty_people_show_up_for_bi.htm
The Digest can certainly afford better, and its readers should feel
insulted that the editors think them such fools, but it is just what one
would expect of Bennett, the former drug-addicted drug czar and
multi-millionaire hypocrisy entrepreneur.
However, the article does offer the opportunity to examine the principle
prohibitionist arguments, so bear with me. Prepare your anti-emetics.)
The Reader's Digest April 1998 "High On A Lie" By Daniel Levine
Contact: readersdigest@notes.compuserve.com
Mail: Reader's Digest, Box 100, Pleasantville NY 10570-0100 Fax: 914-238-6390.
Website: http://www.readersdigest.com/
The article is accompanied pictures that give a sinister appearance to the
article's arch-villains. " Behind the Pot Vote - George Soros $550,000 -
Peter Lewis $500,000 - John Sperling $200,000 --> Californians for Medical
Rights Campaign for the Compassionate Use Act" to legalize medical
marijuana. Photo caption: "All marijuana use is medical," claims Dennis
Peron, the outspoken owner of California's largest pot club. Funded by
Billionaires, the "Medical Marijuana" Movement is Blowing Smoke in our Eyes
(Ed. note: It never bothers to explain why these very rich men, who have
nothing to gain from this, are pursuing what is clearly a thankless course.
The article is largely about denigrating the motives of the medical
marijuana supporters, but it never ventures an explanation for them. Why do
we want to do what they see as such a horrible thing? What is the nature of
our depravity? Certainly, Levine is not bashful in commenting on motives.)
HIGH ON A LIE
One Saturday last September, 50,000 people, most of them teen-agers,
crowded into the Boston Common for the eight annual Freedom Rally. Its
organizers billed it as the largest marijuana-legalization event on the
East Coast. Strolling through the crowd, holding a joint, was a 17-year-old
high-school senior who said his name was Bill. "If they allow sick people
to use it," he said, "it can't be that damaging."
(Ed. note: A previous article by Levine used the same technique, beginning
with a "troubled adolescent," thereby framing the marijuana issue simply in
terms of teenage use. Even if that were the proper measure of "drugs
policy," and it has been a disastrous failure for us, this would be
irrelevant to the medical marijuana issue. As the prohibitionist
psychiatrist Sally Satel observed in the prohibitionist Wall Street
Journal, "Just as addictive morphine has medical uses, so might marijuana..."
If some teenager in the park made a similar statement about morphine, would
that then be the basis for the Digest to crusade against all pain relievers?)
Sharing a marijuana pipe with two friends, a 15-year-old named Nicole
agreed. "Pot is harmless," she said. "It should be legalized because there
are so many medical benefits. It helps you with a lot of things. It's the
best."
(Ed. note: Again, it would seem that the confusion between medical use and
recreational use is being fostered by the prohibitionists. )
An increasing number of young Americans agree. They have gotten this idea
from a well-funded movement to legalize the "compassionate" use of marijuana.
(Ed. note: Blaming the medical marijuana movement for the increase in
teenage marijuana use is not supported by any survey data. Teen marijuana
use began increasing before the medical marijuana movement got significant
publicity.)
While every legitimate drug requires rigorous testing by the FDA before
being approved, marijuana advocates are opting for medicine by popular
vote. This year signatures are being gathered for medical-marijuana
initiatives in a half-dozen states and the District of Columbia.
(Ed. note: Of course, this ignores the fact that the very expensive FDA
approval process was designed for patented pharmaceuticals, not for a plant
that no one can own. Moreover, the FDA process was designed to prevent the
marketing of these products prior to being proven "safe and effective," not
to justify arresting sick people who find that a plant helps them relieve
their suffering. You will not find any mention of the arrest and
prosecution of seriously ill people anywhere in this article.)
Marijuana's main active ingredient, THC, is effective in relieving nausea
and inducing weight gain in cancer and AIDS patients. That is why the FDA
has approved Marinol, a synthetic pill form of THC.
(Ed. note: First, one would think that even at this level of prohibitionist
propaganda they would recognize that a person who is vomiting would have
difficulty taking a pill. After all, the subject is nausea! Also, this
ignores the fact that THC is not the only therapeutic or palliative agent
in marijuana.)
But marijuana in its smoked form has never been shown in controlled
scientific studies to be safe or effective.
(Ed. note: This is untrue. It is not necessary to do "controlled studies"
to know that marijuana has no lethal dose. Marijuana has been called "one
of the safest therapeutically active agents known to man" by the DEA's own
Administrative Law Judge. This is a matter of public record that a reader
of this article would never know. Also, this ignores the role that the
government has played in delaying research. Dr. Donald Abram's research was
delayed for more than five years. See The Scientist Magazine Does A
Reverent Interview with the Head of NIDA.
http://www.marijuananews.com/scientist_magazine_does_a_revere.htm )
In fact, marijuana smoke contains over 2000 chemicals, many of which
produce psychoactive reactions, cause lung damage and - in cancer and AIDS
patients - increase the risk of pneumonia and weaken the immune system.
Inhaling the smoke also disrupts short-term memory and leads to changes in
the brain similar to those caused by heroin, cocaine and other highly
addictive drugs.
(Ed. note: This paragraph is so densely packed with lies that it is
necessary to refer the reader to Marijuana Myths; Marijuana Facts -
http://www.marijuananews.com/marijuana_myths.htm - by Zimmer and Morgan to
deal with them fully. As the JAMA review of Marihuana, the Forbidden
Medicine points out: "Grinspoon and Bakalar's summary of the safety and
toxicology data is clinically and logically unassailable. Undoubtedly there
are batches of mold-contaminated marijuana; coordination and motor reflexes
are impaired during acute intoxication; chronic use of marijuana subtly
affects cognitive function and produces upper respiratory problems.
However, for the amount being smoked, it is reassuring that no deaths
directly resulting from marijuana overdose have been reported, nor have
there been documented cases of lung cancer even in heavy chronic smokers."
However, there are certain non-technical and common sense observations that
illustrate how bad this really is. First, it is largely irrelevant, because
it is possible to vaporize whole cannabis by heating it to just below the
combustion point. This liberates the active ingredients in it, while
minimizing the risks of smoking. Second, the risks in every medicine are
dose-related. The amount of cannabis required for chemotherapy induced
nausea is very small.
Moreover, the comparison of the effects on the brain caused by marijuana,
cocaine and heroin is irrelevant for several reasons. First, it is
essentially meaningless. This sounds scary, but it means nothing. Second,
opiates and other highly addictive drugs are medically available. If
marijuana has a similar effect, so what? Third, if a person is seriously
ill or in great pain, what difference does it make?)
"There is no conclusive scientific evidence that marijuana is superior to
currently available medicines," says Dr. Eric Voth, chairman of the
International Drug Strategy Institute in Omaha. "Medical marijuana is a
scam that takes advantage of sick and dying patients."
(Dr.Voth is a well-known prohibitionist propagandist, but never mind. It is
not necessary to prove that marijuana is "superior to currently available
medicines." Under the law, all that is necessary is to prove that it is
relatively safe and effective for some patients for whom conventional
medications are not. Both of these points are implicit in the recognition
of the medical value of THC in Marinol. That is all that is required.)
Says Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey (Ret.), director of the Office of National
Drug Control Policy, "Medical marijuana is a stalking-horse for
legalization. This is not about compassion. This is about legalizing
dangerous drugs."
(Ed. note: Hardly a disinterested party.)
"Daddy Warbucks" of Drugs. - The legalization of marijuana and other drugs
has been debated for more than 30 years, with a vast majority of Americans
standing in opposition. (Ed. note: Surveys show that a substantial majority
are in favor of medical access to marijuana, which is the question at
hand.) Legalization supporters have used the argument that drugs are
necessary for medical reasons.
(Ed. note: Gosh, "drugs are necessary for medical reasons?" What an amazing
concept. Maybe someone should start a pharmaceutical industry!)
But now, for the first time, they have significant financial backing.
(Ed. note: In contrast to the prohibitionists who have always had
"significant financial backing." If this really is a relevant issue, then
someone should do an examination of the funding levels and sources of both
the prohibitionist and anti-prohibitionist movements. It is important -- as
a matter of public policy -- to know that huge sums of public money are
being used to support prohibitionism, but it is irrelevant to the merits of
the arguments.)
In the last six years a handful of America's wealthiest people have
contributed $20 million to groups that promote medical marijuana or other
radical drug-policy reforms. Billionaire financier George Soros is the
biggest giver, donating more than $16 million. Others include Peter Lewis,
CEO of Cleveland-based Progressive Corp., the nation's sixth-largest auto
insurer, and John Sperling, president of the Apollo Group, a holding
company that controls for-profit universities and job-training centers.
In an interview with Reader's Digest, the 76-year-old Sperling said he
believes doctors should be allowed to prescribe all drugs, including heroin
and LSD.
(Ed. note: This does not sound like a libertarian plot to "legalize all
drugs.")
Lewis declined to be interviewed.
A spokesman for Soros said he does not support drug legalization.
Nonetheless, Soros has donated millions since 1992 to groups led by people
advocating it. Former Health, Education and Welfare Secretary Joseph A.
Califano, Jr., calls him the "Daddy Warbucks of drug legalization."
(Ed. note: A very well-funded prohibitionist propagandist doesn't like the
fact that someone is spending his own money to disagree with him.)
Soros created a drug-policy institute called The Lindesmith Center and has
funded it with $4 million. Its director, Ethan Nadelmann, Soros's point man
on drug policy, has said he wants to "legalize the personal possession of
drugs by adult Americans."
(Ed. note: This is what is known as decriminalization and is not what the
Digest seems to mean by legalization.)
Soros has also given $6.4 million to the Drug Policy Foundation (DPF), a
leading advocate for medical marijuana. Its stated mission is "publicizing
alternatives to current drug strategies." Its founder, attorney and college
professor Arnold Trebach, calls himself a "flat-out legalizer" who
advocates the repeal of current drug laws.
Richard J. Dennis, a 49-year-old Chicago commodities trader and member of
DPF's board of directors, supports both medical marijuana and legalization
in general. In fact, says Dennis, "I'd like to see legalization for adults
for all drugs, including heroin."
On DPF's advisory board is Harvard Medical School psychiatrist Lester
Grinspoon, a leading advocate of medical marijuana for over 25 years. He
compares marijuana's potential benefit to that of penicillin, predicting,
"It will be the wonder drug of the new millennium."
(Ed. note: This may be the low point of the article. It would have been so
easy to identify Dr. Grinspoon as the author of the book Marihuana, the
Forbidden Medicine, that not doing so indicates a fear that the readers may
find out that someone can get information that disagrees with the article.
Instead, he takes one sentence out of context.)
Soros, Lewis and Sperling gained their biggest victory in November, 1996
when California voters passed Proposition 215, also knows as the
Compassionate Use Act. It allows pot to be grown and smoked for "any
illness for which marijuana provides relief." There are no age restrictions.
(Ed. note: There are also no age restrictions on morphine or other very
powerful drugs that a doctor can legally prescribe. If a child is
suffering, should an effective medication be withheld?)
"Illness" is loosely defined and can include headaches, chronic pain and
arthritis.
(Ed. note: Does he really mean to imply that "headaches, chronic pain and
arthritis" are not serious conditions which require medication? This is
really bizarre.)
A doctor's oral recommendation is all that is required.
(Ed. note: Of course, the Digest would never acknowledge the reason for
this. Doctors cannot legally "prescribe" marijuana, and are being
threatened with the loss of their ability to prescribe legal pain-relievers
if they even give an "oral recommendation" for marijuana.)
The principal author of the California initiative was 52-year-old Dennis
Peron, a San Francisco "medical pot club" owner who's been arrested 15
times on marijuana charges. Peron says he worded the initiative vaguely
because he believes "all marijuana use is medical."
(Ed. note: Dennis specifically said "adult use," which is a very important
distinction in this context.)
Peron's Cannabis Cultivators' Club is the state's largest pot club, taking
in over $20,000 a day. One day last fall, Peron wandered the club greeting
patrons and handed one a bulging quarter-pound bag of marijuana.
Standing in line at Peron's smoke-filled club to buy an eighth of an ounce
of high-grade Mexican marijuana was a 39-year-old named Anthony. Under
California's law, Anthony is consider a "seriously ill patient" who can
purchase and smoke pot. He tokes up four or five times a day.
When asked about his ailment, Anthony answered: "Officially, hernia
discomfort from overstrenuous intercourse. Actually, I can't feel it." He
said the club admitted him without any medical referral. A self-described
"potaholic," Anthony has smoked dope since he was 16. My problems, he
conceded, "are related to a general life-style kind of thing."
Peron's club has operated for years, despite violating state and federal
drug laws. In August 1996, state drug agents raided it, seizing 86 pounds
of pot and $62,000. "The club was running a sophisticated illegal
drug-distribution network," said a spokesman of California Attorney General
Dan Lungren. A grand jury indicated Peron, and he awaits trial on felony
drug charges. Meanwhile, Peron is running for governor of California.
(Ed. note: This is the only reference to the use of the criminal law to
suppress medical marijuana. If anyone has ever been to any of these clubs,
but he will quickly meet people with very serious medical conditions. This
is cruelest part of the article. It pretends that there are no seriously
ill people using marijuana. This is both dishonest and inhumane.)
Peron's initiative never would have made it to the ballot without the help
of Soros, Lewis and Sperling. California requires 433,269 valid petition
signatures before a "citizen's initiative" can be placed on the ballot. As
the deadline neared, Peron and his unorganized group of volunteers had
collected only 40,000.
That is when Ethan Nadelmann of Soros's Lindesmith Center stepped in. He
helped create Californians for Medical Rights, a sophisticated campaign
organization that pushed the medical-marijuana initiative. Soros and Lewis
pored $400,000 into the group, which paid professional signature gatherers
who, in 90days, obtained more than 700,000 signatures.
Once the measure was on the ballot, Soros, Lewis and Sperling contributed
$450,000 for advertising. Commercials featured emotional appeals for relief
through the use of marijuana. The ads never mentioned that Proposition 215
would allow marijuana to be smoked for any condition, without age
restriction and without a prescription.
(Ed. note: The contents of Prop 215 were not a secret.
http://www.marijuananews.com/proposition_215_compassionate_us.htm )
One of the numerous medical-marijuana clubs that opened as a result of
Peron's measure was the Dharma Producers Group in San Francisco, which
bragged that it offered "medical marijuana with a Tibetan touch." The
club's "medical director," a pony-tailed 52-yar-old named Lorenzo Pace,
laughed when he explained his medical-marijuana credentials: "I did
preliminary research all through the '60s.:
California for Medical Rights has since changed its name to Americans for
Medical Rights. Today it is leading a campaign to place medical-marijuana
initiatives on state ballots across the country.
Rx: LSD. - While Californians were voting on medical marijuana, their
neighbors in Arizona were considering an even more radical initiative. The
Drug Medicalization, Prevention and Control Act of 1996 proposed to
legalize not only marijuana but also more tan 100 other drugs - including
heroin, LSD and PCP (angel dust) - for medical use.
(Ed. note: This section is entirely irrelevant to the argument about
medical marijuana. There are very good libertarian and technocratic
arguments why other drugs should be legalized or made medically available,
but they are not the same as the arguments for medical marijuana.)
Arizona's initiative was sold to voters as a way to get tough on violent
criminals. How? Open up jail space by paroling all first- and second-time
drug offenders. This ignored the fact that virtually all of the 1200
inmates affected had plea-bargained down from more serious charges or had
prior felony records.
In Arizona, Sperling spearheaded the campaign. He, Soros and Lewis
contributed a total of $1.2 million; the DPF gave $303,000. This accounted
for 99 percent of the initiative's total funding. As in California, much of
this money paid for a massive media campaign. Opponents of the initiative,
caught unprepared, did not run a single advertisement.
The measure passed, but a post-election survey revealed that Arizona voters
had been badly misled. Seventy-four percent did not believe doctors should
be able to prescribe drugs such as heroin, PCP and LSD, as he proposition
allowed; 70 percent agreed that the initiative would give children the
impression that drugs were also acceptable for recreational use. The state
legislature subsequently passed a statute that effectively overrode the
initiative.
Fighting Back. - The organizers of Arizona's initiative moved to place a
similar measure on the ballot in Washington State. Sperling, Lewis and
Soros contributed a total of more than $1.5 million.
Despite being outspent more than ten to one, opponents of the Washington
initiative were not about to be caught unprepared. They took every
opportunity to stress that the measure was not about compassion, but about
legalizing dangerous drugs. Last November voters rejected the measure.
The defeat in Washington has not sidetracked plans for similar
medical-marijuana initiatives in other states. (Ed. note: As he just got
through complaining, the Washington and Arizona initiatives were not
medical marijuana initiatives. These others are, and most are much more
restrictive than Prop 215.)
Battlegrounds include Hawaii, Florida, Kansas, Main and Alaska. An Oregon
initiative would not only legalize use of many drugs but also permit the
sale of marijuana in state liquor stores.
(Ed. note: This is not a medical marijuana initiative.)
In Washington, D.C., Initiative 59 would allow up to four caregivers,
including "best friends," to cultivate pot for a "seriously ill" person.
Organizers are hoping that passage of these initiatives will spur Congress
to legalize medical marijuana under federal law.
(Ed. note: Initiative 57 is not being funded by the AMR group. On the
contrary, it is being backed by Act-Up the militant AIDS group that has
vocally denounced AMR and has distanced itself from the drug reform
movement in general. Again, it is dishonest not to recognize this, but it
doesn't fit with his simple scenario. AIDS groups are among the major
supporters of medical marijuana, but no one would learn that from this
article.)
Says Dr. Robert DuPont, a former director of the National Institute on Drug
Abuse: "Never in the history of modern medicine has burning leaves been
considered medicine. Those in the medical-marijuana movement are putting on
white coats and expressing concerns about the sick. But people need to see
this for what it is: a fraud and a hoax."
(Ed. note: Just when in modern history has arresting sick and dying people
been considered medicine? An article about medical marijuana that does not
mention the New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet, the DEA's
administrative law judge, or the prosecution and imprisonment of seriously
ill people is worse than a "fraud and hoax," it is complicity in murder.
This is a blood libel. Yes, Mr. Levine, I know what that means. Do you?)
Let us know what you think about this topic at www.readersdigest.com
(Ed. note: Please do!)
Copyright 1998 Reader's Digest Association, Inc.
'Willamette Week'
Portland, Oregon
'500 Words'
Staff Editorial
http://www.wweek.com/html/500words040198.html
NO DIGNITY The Oregonian reacts badly
to Oregon's first physician-assisted suicides.
Context:
Saturday's New York Times editorial page
offered a more moderate - and more
thoughtful - response: "She died in bed, with
her family around her, half an hour after taking
pills and drinking brandy. As an
alternative, it seems preferable to life
extended by blind medicine, or death by
Dr. Kevorkian."
***
On Tuesday, March 24, an elderly Oregon woman, acting
with the aid of a doctor, dosed herself with potent chemicals and
died. The woman had lived with breast cancer for more than 20
years. By all accounts her final hours were private and peaceful,
as she became one of the first people in American history to
end her life lawfully with the aid of a physician.
The next day, Barbara Coombs Lee, a leader in Oregon's death
with dignity movement, invited Colin Fogarty, a radio reporter
for OPB, as well as local members of the Associated Press, to
her office. Fogarty and a trio from AP arrived around 2 pm and
were told then of the woman's suicide. Fifty-five minutes later,
Fogarty filed the story from his car. At 3:04 it was on the air.
OPB radio, rarely one to break news, had a scoop of significant
proportions. It was, as Fogarty says, "a great radio story." And
Coombs Lee had managed to keep the largest daily newspaper
in the Pacific Northwest in the dark about one of the biggest
stories of the year.
By the next morning, of course, The Oregonian had the story,
blaring it across the top of Page 1. The Death With Dignity
Act, it seemed, had worked just as it was supposed to. No
vomiting, no convulsions, no lingering death - in short, none of
the awful consequences Portland's newspaper of record had
threatened us with last year during the rerun of the Death With
Dignity campaign.
There was, however, a lot of gagging and convulsing at The
Oregonian, which spelled out its reaction in an editorial that
appeared Friday morning: "Even if you support the right to
assisted suicide, you should be troubled that a single advocacy
group is the first source of information about this use of
Oregon's law." The same editorial also said, "The doctor who
attended the woman...cannot be considered a truly independent
source, either." The overall message was: Don't trust anyone
involved with the death with dignity movement.
Such skepticism only adds to the difficulty of ending life. The
Oregonian's editorial was an unusually mean-spirited attack on
people in this state who are attempting to help terminally ill
patients play out their lives in a humane and civilized fashion.
It's hard to explain such small-mindedness from the paper that
prides itself - weekdays at least - for being "The Largest
Newspaper in the Pacific Northwest." Did The Oregonian rail
against news sources in public simply because it had been
beaten on a significant story? Or was Portland's daily still
smarting after its defeat last year when it went for broke in an
attempt to defeat Oregon's ground-breaking Death With Dignity
Act? The paper had not experienced such humiliation since the
capture of the Bob Packwood story by The Washington Post.
Although Oregon's first physician-assisted suicides evidently
were textbook cases of how the procedure should work,
something is bound to go wrong sometime in this process.
Given The Oregonian's leadership role in the state, the paper
should now be using its journalistic resources to make the new
law work, not tear it down at every opportunity.
to 1998 Daily News index for March 26-April 1