U.S. war on drugs claims medical victims, too ============================================= People suffering from AIDS, cancer and some other painful diseases are being victimized by the Bush administration's war on drugs, according to organizers seeking reform of the nation's marijuana laws. Late last month, the National Organization to Reform the Marijuana Laws (NORML) held a three-day lobbying session in Washington to convince legislators of the values of the illicit plant. [Aside from Cockburn's columns, the Nation, ITT, etc, usually don't think to include group's addresses/tels -HB] Robert Randall, founder of the Alliance for Cannabis Therapeutics (ACT), has argued for a decade that marijuana is of great medicinal value and should be made available in appropriate cases. An estimated 30 million Americans consume the drug on at least on occasional basis, even though its possession is treated as a crime in most of the 50 states. At present, only five persons [!] in the U.S. are legally permitted to smoke marijuana. One of them, a bone cancer patient, uses it as a muscle relaxant, while another find it helpful in reducing the severity of his spasmodic seizures. The three remaining individuals, all afflicted with glaucoma, are able to take advantage of marijuana's documented ability to alleviate pain associated with this eye disease. Randall, who is among the three glaucoma patients, was the first American to win the right to use marijuana as a therapeutic agent. Through ACT, he now assists others engaged in the arduous and protracted effort to gain legal access to the drug. Randall's Washington-based organization came close two years ago to achieving a major breakthrough. Ruling on a suit brought by the alliance, an administrative judge with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) agreed that marijuana's legal status should be changed. Judge Francis Young concluded that marijuana ought to be removed from the DEA's "Schedule One," which includes drugs regarded as addicting and entirely lacking in medicinal properties. LSD and heroin are also proscribed under the same category. Young ruled in favor of ACT's contention that marijuana should be place on Schedule Two, which lists addicting drugs that do have therapeutic uses. Cocaine is included on that roster. [Note: I remember my 10th grade social studies teacher telling us of cocaine having been used as a pain killer for her following eye surgery -HB] Such action would allow physicians to prescribe marijuana while retaining the current prohibition against its general use. In announcing his decision, Young described the drug as "one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man." In December 1989, however, the DEA's overseers decreed that marijuana would remain on Schedule One despite Young's ruling. ACT is appealing that order, but many observers believe that the federal government will strongly resist any attempt to ease restriction on marijuana use. "It would be a big public-relations loss for DEA to admit that marijuana has nay therapeutic value," says John Dunlap, a spokesman for NORML. "They're going to keep fighting very hard." The publicity barrage accompanying the war on drugs is part of what makes it difficult to gains official approval for use of marijuana as a medicinal agent. "Doctors are very leery about openly recommending marijuana use because of the whole atmosphere created by the war on drugs," says Mary Lynn Mathre, head of NORML's council on marijuana and health. "They're afraid they'll be suspected of being lenient about illegal drugs." Still, pressure continues to mount for liberalization of the government's attitude toward therapeutic marijuana use. Recently, for example, a researcher at a university in Florida reported that the active ingredient in Cannabis destroyed the herpes virus in test-tube experiments. Because millions of Americans are afflicted with some form of herpes, that finding may potentially be of great political significance. ------------------------------------------------------------------ [Article by Kevin Kelley in In These Times, Sept. 19-25, 1990] Call or write your representatives and let them know how you feel about this! Email me if you'd like the address to write to to get a free issue of In These Times (ITT). Please email me the address/tel of NORML (or other "serious") related groups, to be added to the Activist Mailing List's (AML) resource file "groups" ****************************************************************** Below are excerpts from AML resource file "govt.tels" ****************************************************************** Toll-free number for U.S. Congress switchboard (800) 852-3446 Local number of U.S. Congress switchboard (202) 224-3121 [When you reach the Capitol Hill switchboard, simply ask to be connected to the office of the Member, Senator or committee you want to reach. Please call during normal business hours on the East Coast.] White House: (202)-456-7639 ================================================================== Senator ____ ____ Representarive ____ ____ United States Senate U.S. House of Representatives Washington, D.C. 20510 Washington, D.C. 20515 ******************************************************************