Over the past few days, there's been 3 different inter-related items that have caught my attention: the PBS documentary on cannabis science, the new DEA proposal to declare marijuana pills a medicine but marijuana plants still a crime (thus legitimizing every conspiracy theorist out there), and a science link about endorphins/cannabinoids [which I juxtaposed in my diary on biking earlier this week, not knowing that the two would pop up again in this study).
I've seen 'sceptical observer' comment and link to the DEA story; this diary will simply present all three of these links for your peruse-ment.
UPDATE: ugh. obama and calderon's drug warfest was gross. Obama wants to speed up the funding for the failing Merida Initiative.
UPDATE II: I made an important addendum to section regarding the DEA, which is in italics.
update 3: new Pew Research Poll out on re-legalization....http://stopthedrugwar.org/...
(flip)
Clearing the Smoke: The Science of Cannabis [PBS] : http://video.pbs.org/... [So long as Bill O'Rally doesn't know how or why the tides go in or out, our country has no business de-funding PBS. There are way too many children that deserve to grow up less idiotic than Falafel Bill is. Let's preserve PBS]
Notice the debate over whether marijuana is 'medicine' or not, a topic that I've diaried a few times. The only thing that PBS leaves out in this doc is how users can vaporize marijuana in order to avoid the effects of inhaled smoke, not to mention marijuana edibles. Also, in past diaries I've quoted DEA Administrative Judge Francis Young, who is quoted in this documentary as well. It's becoming clear that on the long, historical curve of Cannabis Prohibition, the arc is bending towards truth more quickly now. I mean, hey--the DEA might be listening to its own man? Which ties into this next link...
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Now, many folks across the decades have pointed out the idiocy of our drug scheduling. Weed is as dangerous as meth and crack cocaine, by US govt law. Pretty stupid, obviously, to regulate something safer than alcohol as such. Anyway, there's been hope that one day a President and/or Congress would come along and take a common-sense approach to re-scheduling cannabis. And for the last two decades, the Feds and wingers have been adamant that marijuana is NOT medicine.
Well, looks like they changed their minds. But only for Big Pharma?
The United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is considering reclassifying plant-derived THC, the primary psychoactive compound in marijuana, from schedule I to schedule III controlled substance under the federal Controlled Substances Act, according to a report published last week in The Daily Caller.
http://norml.org/...
Now, there's nothing wrong with plant-derived THC medicine. Sativex has been around in Canada and UK for some time, and a couple of years ago some of us started wondering if that was something that might end up here. After all, having marijuana recognized as a medicine should help allow universities to do research on cannabis, which has been stymied and stifled nonstop by the DEA. Also, how can the Feds say that herb has no medical value if they are letting Big Pharma make it?
UPDATE: What the DEA is proposing would be an ass-backwards, ultra-conservative version of what canada and the UK have--which is a govt-recognized classification of pot, and not just its active ingredient, as medicine..not as a 'dangerous" substance of "no medical value". This regulation itself, however, could be literally considered as a "poison pill", to borrow a political term. What I mean is that the DEA is coupling a 'good' proposal (reclassifying cannabis and designating it as an official medicine) with a shitty proposal, which is to continue prosecuting cannabis plants in citizens' homes as a Schedule I drug like crack or meth.
As cannabis prohibition arguments lose meaning and decay, it creates a ever-deepening chasm between science and policy, reality and government claims, and local vs state vs federal laws. To be quite honest, it's madness. There's federal prisoners doing hard time for medical marijuana because their own attorneys were banned in court from using a state medical defense. Same goes for legitimate medical growers. [Did I mention that it should be legal for all adults to grow? Ok, moving on...]
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Is it endorphins or is it endocannabinoids?
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/...
Now an emerging field of neuroscience indicates that an altogether-different neurochemical system within the body and brain, the endocannabinoid system, may be more responsible for that feeling.
In a groundbreaking 2003 experiment, scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology found that 50 minutes of hard running on a treadmill or riding a stationary bicycle significantly increased blood levels of endocannabinoid molecules in a group of college students. The endocannabinoid system was first mapped some years before that, when scientists set out to determine just how cannabis, a k a marijuana, acts upon the body. They found that a widespread group of receptors, clustered in the brain but also found elsewhere in the body, allow the active ingredient in marijuana to bind to the nervous system and set off reactions that reduce pain and anxiety and produce a floaty, free-form sense of well-being. Even more intriguing, the researchers found that with the right stimuli, the body creates its own cannabinoids (the endocannabinoids). These cannabinoids are composed of molecules known as lipids, which are small enough to cross the blood-brain barrier, so cannabinoids found in the blood after exercise could be affecting the brain.
Since that 2003 study, a flurry of research has been teasing out the role that endocannabinoids play in the body’s reaction to exercise.
So is it endocannabinoids or endorphins? Just to be safe, I usually take my mag lens with me on bike rides....
-ctb