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Psst... Government-Supplied Marijuana Program Turns 30

alternet.org — That program marks its 30th anniversary May 10. That's right, our government has been supplying medical marijuana to a small number of patients -- the program peaked at 34 approved participants in 1991 -- for three full decades.

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  • tjClassic82, on 05/09/2008, -7/+8Baby Steps..
    • mrsteveman1, on 05/09/2008, -0/+5Yea, by age 30 that baby should be ***** out of college and running a full fledged pot business.....
    • sugarazor, on 05/09/2008, -0/+1No baby steps, the program is shut down and there's only like seven people still alive that receive the packages and once they're all dead, you'll never hear about this program again.
  • alcimedes, on 05/09/2008, -1/+37I like how they haven't done any studies since nothing terrible happened to these patients due to marijuana use.
  • NikoKun, on 05/09/2008, -0/+53Yet the DEA continues to claim that the federal government doesn't recognize medical cannabis. HAH
    Here's the proof that they DO. 30 years of medical marijuana being sent to the patients, who battled with the federal government long and hard to prove their medical NEED to have it. They PROVED IT and that's why the federal government is forced to give it to them.
    Yet the DEA, in their ultimate ignorance, just denies this... turning a blind hypocritical eye to it... Why is this allowed to continue?
    • AustinMandi, on 05/09/2008, -0/+37Because then they would be forced to admit they were wrong and have withheld medication from literally millions of sick and dying patients. Lawsuit, anyone?
      • NikoKun, on 05/09/2008, -0/+11Well, they brought it on themselves, and they deserve the lawsuit. They deserve a lawsuit for withholding medicine, AND for jailing millions of people over the last 70s years for this prohibition. I just hope it's personally targeted at the people running this prohibition, rather than the government overall... because that would just eat into our tax money.
      • kinghajj, on 05/09/2008, -0/+2You can't sue a government agency for following the law. Well, you could try, but it'd just get thrown out.
    • EatingPie, on 05/09/2008, -1/+10Just an FYI. These particular patients received the medicinal marijuana due to a lawsuit. It looks like the government was legally mandated to supply the people with the drug, and doesn't *necessarily* mean the government recognized marijuana's medicinal value. The courts said give these people pot, the government gave them pot. End of story.

      :(

      -Pie
      • NikoKun, on 05/09/2008, -0/+6But they had to prove medical necessity in those lawsuit cases... The government was shown proof, and the courts/part of the government found in favor of these patients. Is that not the same thing, as the government recognizing medical marijuana? If they truly didn't, then that court case would never have succeeded.

        When the government wont believe it on it's own, it has to be forced and proven, in court.
    • starmanfalls, on 05/09/2008, -0/+1Whatever happened to equal protection under the law?
      • GoteamVenture, on 05/09/2008, -0/+1Sure the DEA is going to bury their head in the sand because many who prosecute people for possession of marijuana would lose their jobs, they wouldn't be needed anymore. In addition, I'm sure pharmaceutical companies are fighting it tooth and nail. They want to sell patients they're meds (that don't work worth a damn) for top dollar. They can't have those patients growing/buying their own marijuana for practically nothing.
    • mrsteveman1, on 05/09/2008, -0/+7Why is it allowed to continue? Because there are idiots in charge who think doing drugs is immoral. It is wrong to get high according to some people. Those people are typically hypocrites though, and are the same ones who drink at night to drown out the wife, then get up in the morning and drink 16 oz of coffee because they don't feel like getting up without chemical assistance. So yea, the DEA and a good portion of the rest of the government, and of course the mainstream media have been pushing the idea that one should not be legally permitted to get high, and this is the SOLE reason pot has remained illegal for so long, it has nothing to do with health, danger to users, medical necessity or anything else.

      There are more dangerous drugs that are still legal, but most of them aren't fun. There are fun but safe drugs that are highly illegal. You do the math.
    • isaactwito, on 05/09/2008, -0/+5Maybe if we don't have mandatory classes in schools where they slander marijuana and teach false information about drugs we might not have such a foolish majority. In the end it's just that people are too ***** proud to accept fact. It's like people ignoring scientific proof in place of religious myth, pure *****, perpetuated by the people.
      • mrsteveman1, on 05/09/2008, -0/+4Good point, D.A.R.E is nothing but propaganda, i remember it well. Some of the stuff they told me was complete crap, and was obviously made up without even a shred of consideration for logic or evidence.
  • EatingPie, on 05/09/2008, -11/+5I'm for medicinal marijuana distributed in this manner -- not in the BS way it's done in my home state, California. It's too bad the government never ran a study. It's also too bad that the study that WAS run has totally dubious results. There weren't enough people to get a large sampling, and there was no "double blind" involved, standard issue for any clinical trial.

    I don't know why nobody has pursued medicinal marijuana with standardized clinical trial procedures. I wish they would, as I do truly believe it has medicinal purposes. And I believe it should be a prescribed and regulated drug, just like my asthma medication. Too much politics here, though, obviously. And it's sad because there *is* evidence that medicinal marijuana works, particularly in Cancer treatment involving chemotherapy.

    -Pie
    • EatingPie, on 05/09/2008, -0/+1Sometimes I'm surprised I'm dugg up, sometimes I'm surprised I'm dugg down. This one boggles my mind.

      Running a REAL clinical trial of medicinal marijuana is what should happen. We need to know what it works for, and what it doesn't. And that with all the evidence that marijuana is helpful to Cancer and AIDS patients, it's a tragedy there's no clinical trials having been run.

      Now why is that idea unpopular to Diggers? (Not that I care so much about my comment popularity, I'm just surprised on this one.)

      -Pie
  • wynja, on 05/09/2008, -0/+2330 years of government sanctioned research and we still don't know how safe it is........... I call BS.
    • starmanfalls, on 05/09/2008, -1/+640 years of smoking every day, no health issues. It is safe. Trust me, I am not the government. BS confirmed
    • mrzisme, on 05/09/2008, -0/+5Im with you. They know exactly how harmless it is, and the pharmaceutical companies know exactly how much it would tap into their 80 billion a year anti-depressant market if it was legalized. As long as the drug companies hold all the monopoly money, the politicians will always side with them. Since Marijuana and its active ingredient THC comes from nature, they are not allowed to patent it, claim it as their own and sell it. So they will continue to keep it illegal and continue peddeling their weak attempts to create chemical copycats of THC which they call anti-depressants, and sell their garbage to the public at inflated prices.
    • lrdntwnd, on 05/09/2008, -1/+2but, there wasn't really any research by the government....
      • wynja, on 05/12/2008, -0/+1Mmmm, these people have been in studies for 30 years now......... yes there was research.
  • Simonft, on 05/09/2008, -7/+31"The reason marijuana is having such a hard time becoming legalized is nobody can remember where they left the petitions."
    --George Carlin
  • dizilbdog, on 05/09/2008, -0/+7You know on side with these cops who love to arrest people for pot an stuff. If you were to ask any officer would you rather deal with 30 guys drinking all night long at a bar and there is a disturbance, or would you rather go to a house of 30 people smoking pot. I think most cops would take the latter.
    • starmanfalls, on 05/09/2008, -0/+2proves they are smarter than they can admit publicly
    • BikerDude69, on 05/09/2008, -0/+3Chances are they would have no reason to go to the stoners' house. They'd all be mellow and hungry instead of obnoxious and violent.
  • DirtPile, on 05/09/2008, -1/+8God bless President Jimmy Carter.
  • arsonist18, on 05/09/2008, -6/+1they've been hitting that stuff monthly for 30 years...
    how can they afford so much munchies?!
    • Royall, on 05/09/2008, -0/+1Federal government deficit?
    • wishninja, on 05/09/2008, -3/+1for ***** sake we are talking about people getting ***** by the government because they are sick and many are dieing and you are cracking a joke?
    • NYankee2003, on 05/09/2008, -0/+1don't worry, there's probably a federal subsidy for that too.
  • mrzisme, on 05/09/2008, -2/+12Shh, dont tell the sheeple about this program, they still believe their refer madness propaganda that told them the devil put that plant here. When you combine this article with the one that said they found almost zero correlation with marijuana and lung cancer, you have to wonder how its even fathomable that this is illegal, I can only guess that if they legalized it, they fear its going to dig in to their 80 billion a year overpriced anti-depressant market, all containing more dangerous side effects. Go United States!- the land that never ceases stealing from its residents.
    • RanIntoTheDevil, on 05/09/2008, -3/+4Buried at sheeple. I think you are a sheeple for using the word sheeple.

      And I did read the whole post and justified my bury even more.
      • mrzisme, on 05/09/2008, -1/+3Buried at your notion of bringing sheeple to the forefront as a bad thing in attempt to feel special for having read comments that contained sheeple which you didnt enjoy. I dont care what words you dont like, keep your vocabulary preferences which you strangely consider negative to yourself.
    • starmanfalls, on 05/09/2008, -0/+2right on. The stealing is just getting warmed up. 6 more months and we may be fighting for our very freedom in this ***** oppressive system
    • BikerDude69, on 05/09/2008, -0/+3Genesis 1:12 - The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit with seed in them, after their kind; and God saw that it was good.
  • RST1123, on 05/09/2008, -0/+10My tax money goes to fund these people's pot, but I'll get arrested for possession of it. I love the system.
    • lookb3hindu, on 05/09/2008, -1/+1Its just like people that dont pay to go to school or the ones who dont pay taxes at all.....
  • RanIntoTheDevil, on 05/09/2008, -0/+9So many problems would be solved if we just legalized it. I mean hemp can be used for anything and everything and is easy to grow, pot has many medicinal uses, and not to mention the huge boost it would give our dying economy.
    • accelleron, on 05/09/2008, -0/+1Actually, we may get legalization on those very grounds. The prohibition on alcohol, at least, ended when the government was facing a lot of pressure to stimulate the economy, so they had little choice in the matter. Let's hope the same happens here.
  • Jforsyth89, on 05/09/2008, -1/+2I laughed when they described the government's marijuana as "crude, low-grade product." They can't do anything right.
    • mrzisme, on 05/09/2008, -0/+1Yea, what the hell, and if it was a low-grade product, that means these guys gotta smoke more to get the needed effect. So basically the government, by using low-grade product, is harming the people they're trying to help because now they physically have to smoke more to receive their needed dosage, and yes they do smoke it, there is a documentary on one of the guys in this program, he receives a coffee can sized container filled with rolled joints, Penn and Teller did a documentary on marijuana and they covered one of the people on this government program, check it out if you got the time.
      • RyanP, on 05/09/2008, -0/+4Didn't that guy on P&T light up a huge joint in front of the White House?
        • mrzisme, on 05/09/2008, -0/+1Yes he did, and I've been envious of him ever since.
    • lookb3hindu, on 05/09/2008, -0/+2Thats the truth.....you would think with all those scientists they could grow some descent pot....
  • mCanada, on 05/09/2008, -1/+4Dear Sir or Madam, I am VERY interested in your program. Please find enclosed an application regarding the aforementioned organization. I am fully qualified to be involved with your group and would put every effort forward to roll things forward. I never believe the grass is greener on the other side. thxbye
  • wishninja, on 05/09/2008, -0/+6OF all the evil nasty drug war policies out there this is the worst. These are sick people, people that are going to die or are living their live in unspeakable pain and the DEA crushes them with their knee high black boots.

    Not only should these vile laws be repealed but the police DEA and everyone involved should be the ones filling the prisons for what they have done. These drug war cowards are not Americans they are treasonous occupiers that use children to justify their blood lust and I hope they burn.
    • mCanada, on 05/09/2008, -0/+3+10^10
    • aidave, on 05/09/2008, -0/+2It's shameful to realize we are in the midst of one of the most evil wars ever waged upon humanity: the Drug War. History will look back at this in horror. Yet many people are oblivious and think we are living in some type of utopia.
  • soulonfire928, on 05/09/2008, -0/+2For all the really serious crimes that go on, we're completely wasting space throwing people in jail for pot. Legalize it and free up room in the prisons for rapists, murderers, child molesters, and all the other really f-d up criminals out there.
    • accelleron, on 05/09/2008, -0/+1Nah, we can just keep letting them out early so that it inflates our crime statistics, making it look like there's a crime problem. Also, potheads are probably easier to manage than rapists, murderers, and psychos.
  • ryanhayn, on 05/09/2008, -5/+1Don't do it, people. Weed is bad. The government really WANTS you to do it, whether legally or illegally. Once you're hooked, you become slaves to the system. Stay away!
    • mrzisme, on 05/09/2008, -0/+2I disagree completely, when weed was at its peak of popularity in the 70's, there has since never been so much anti-government protesting, especially coinciding with Vietnam, most of them were smoking, your parents were smoking, and collectively they went against the system more than any time since then. I do believe the government doesnt mind when its citizens willingly intoxicate themselves and dont notice the crap their doing, but marijuana isnt like being drunk, sometimes its a squeegee for your third eye and gives you a pattern break from reality to remind you how your being f**ked on a daily basis, its had a history of waking people up as well as putting them to sleep.
      • NikoKun, on 05/09/2008, -0/+2Didn't the government blame LSD for those anti-gov protests? Cause now, if your caught with too much LSD, they charge you with conspiracy to overthrow the US government... XD It's really sad that that's true...
        • accelleron, on 05/09/2008, -0/+1What drug it blamed, specifically, is irrelevant. The government has a long history of using drugs as a scapegoat for problems that have nothing to do with drugs, including problems caused by the government.
  • aruhi, on 05/09/2008, -1/+3Follow the Money. Can you say "Pharmaceutical Company"? You can't patent Cannabis.
    "We have the best politicians money can buy"
    • mrzisme, on 05/09/2008, -0/+0Yep, you cant patent it, but they can make half ass attempts to make a chemical version of THC which they call anti-depressants, with more negative side effects than the source they copy, and sell that garbage to the masses at inflated prices.
    • NYankee2003, on 05/09/2008, -0/+1your argument makes no sense. you can't patent sunflower seeds either, but they're not illegal.
      • accelleron, on 05/09/2008, -0/+1sunflower seeds aren't an alternative to $100/month anti-depressant treatments. They're not really known for replacing expensive cancer-related drugs, either. Sunflower seeds don't threaten the textile industry or the alcohol industry, and we didn't spend hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars over the last 70 years lying to the people about how bad they are.
  • NormaCluster, on 05/09/2008, -0/+230 years that they have been giving it to patients for medical reasons. Yet, in Seattle this week, a musician named Tim Garon died of liver failure after being denied a place on an organ donor recipient list due to his marijuana usage, which had been prescribed by a physician and was legal under Washington State law.
  • Iztikeit, on 05/09/2008, -0/+2People get busted with marijuana doing everyday things, like being a juror. Do heroin, meth, and other such "hard" drug users get caught NEARLY as often as these "less than discreet" smokers? The people have spoken, both the drug and the plant are useful for multiple purposes and specific money wielding propaganda machines don't want it. Lobbyists FTW!!!

    There won't be another 30 with this next generation in charge.
    • accelleron, on 05/09/2008, -0/+1... unless they go the way most baby boomers did and sell their values as they grow up, becoming as bad (if not worse) than their parents.
  • CurtisLow101, on 05/09/2008, -0/+4Urge your Congressional Representative to Support Medical Marijuana Legislation
    A small bi-partisan coalition of members of Congress has introduced H.R. 5842, the Medical Marijuana Patient Protection Act. If passed, this legislation would, among other things, reschedule marijuana from a Schedule I to Schedule II drug according the Controlled Substances Act and provide clearer protections for qualified patients, caregivers, and regulated safe-access sites. Write your U.S. Representative now and urge support for Patient Protection Act!

    Visit http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/182/campaign. ...
    write Congress now! Tell your U.S. Representative to support the Patient Protection Act!
  • Chronoped, on 05/09/2008, -1/+1Happy Birthday!

    I say it's about time we kicked this program up a few notches. FREE GANJA FOR ALL!
  • nubbz51, on 05/09/2008, -1/+7420th digg
  • scamper22, on 05/09/2008, -4/+2Have they moved to cocaine yet?
    It is a gateway drug last I heard.
    • eavesdrop, on 05/09/2008, -0/+2alcohol is the gateway drug. Everyone has tried alcohol first. Either way, if weed is a gateway drug, I should have overdosed on crack by now.
      • scamper22, on 05/09/2008, -0/+0yes.
        alcohol can also impair one's detection of satire/sarcasm.
  • EricCiccone, on 05/09/2008, -0/+3While the Feds are busy figuring out their *****, I'll get my prescription from one of 10 states that are brave enough to go ahead with a program that gets marijuana to me and others that benefit from it.
  • dildoolielly, on 05/09/2008, -2/+4and after 30 years, deaths = 0

    But they still criminalize literally tens of thousands of Americans each day for having a plant

    Unnerving tyranny
  • newbis, on 05/09/2008, -0/+2Here's my only problem. Say we do legalize marijuana for medical purposes. Does that mean I have to actually get cancer?

    Alcohol wasn't legalized by having legal "medical alcohol." The nation just jumped right back into the swing of things.
    • Chronoped, on 05/09/2008, -0/+2Prohibition has failed both times anyways...
  • eavesdrop, on 05/09/2008, -0/+1Interesting article, I guess it makes the allegation that G-13 was created by the government, questionable. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G-13 . Quote from article: "given that investigators found the government's marijuana to be a "crude, low-grade product."
  • LoneRanger85, on 05/09/2008, -0/+1The government also supplies free alcohol to alcoholics. Your point?
  • atact88, on 05/09/2008, -1/+1If you browse the American Chemical Society archives, you'll see that there is a long list of research dealing with making stable homologues of marijuana, eliminating the need to smoke weed. I suspect this is what the government is waiting on. Instead of promoting smoking by giving everyone a joint and telling them to light up (400+ chemicals in marijuana smoke, harsh on lungs), making cannabinoids based on THC would be a much healthier alternative. Why not just isolate and use THC? Because it may require such a large concentration in the blood for it to be effective that it would be problematic, interfering with native bodily functions, so structural analogs might be more effective at lower dosage. THC does have an observed lethal dosage in test animals, as anything does.
    • waydee, on 05/09/2008, -0/+1Already here - Sativex. Not sure if it has FDA approval yet, is prescribed in UK and Canada afaik though.
  • normlsparky, on 05/10/2008, -0/+1more proof that the government has their own agenda for keeping weed illegal. we can't have the privatized prison system losing profits by having empty cells.
  • Metalheadfitz, on 05/10/2008, -0/+1Watch "The war on Drugs" from season 2 of Penn & Teller Bullsh!t for a way better story on the program
  • cg4et, on 05/12/2008, -0/+1It is a crime against humanity that our government makes criminals out of sick people who desperately need the relief that medical marijuana can provide.
  •  

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