Monday, June 27, 2005

Illinois MS patient Julie Falco applies for Sativex prescription Those who have followed Drug WarRant for awhile may remember me talking about Julie Falco, an MS patient in Illinois who testified on behalf of medical marijuana in the Illinois hearings. I got a chance to meet her then, and she's quite an amazing young woman. (Here's a great article about her by Steve Young. Well, Julie and her doctor, Dr. Anthony Reder, are applying for access to the liquid form of marijuana called Sativex®. According to Americans for Safe Access: "The introduction of Sativex® to Canadian markets vindicates what patients, doctors, and medical associations have been saying for centuries: marijuana is a safe and effective medication, "said Steph Sherer, Executive Director of Americans for Safe Access, the largest medical marijuana advocacy group in the country. "The bottom line is marijuana MUST be rescheduled so that we can have a real conversation about the best uses of marijuana as medicine, including the introduction of Sativex® to the US market." (ASA information on Sativex®) Americans for Safe Access will be assisting a number of MS patients and their doctors through this application process, while they continue in their quest to change the schedule of marijuana from its current status, in the same category as heroin, to another category that recognizes the medicinal value of marijuana. Federal law allows for promising drugs that have been approved in another country, but not yet in the United States, to be used under the direction of a physician, pending special permission. The Investigational New Drug program (IND) is the means through which the sponsor (either a physician or pharmaceutical company) technically obtains this authorization from the FDA. The federal government has had a Compassionate Use IND program that has provided medical cannabis to patients for nearly 30 years. Only a handful of patients were ever approved to use NIDA's University of Mississippi-grown marijuana. Seven of these patients are still surviving and receiving their monthly allocations of medical cannabis. Of course, I've talked about the IND program as well. And it seems likely to me that the government will deny this application. But once again they're going to look bad doing it. This is what it takes. Keep chipping away. Good luck, Julie. You deserve to get the medicine you need without having to be a criminal. A press conference will be held on Wednesday at 11 am at the Kluczynski Federal Building, 230 S Dearborn St, Chicago. 9:32:47 PM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []

Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2005 Action Alert! Contact your Representatives. Via NORML: NORML is pleased to announce the introduction of H.R. 3037, the Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2005, sponsored by Reps. Sam Farr (D-CA), Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), Jim McDermott (D-WA), George Miller (D-CA) and Ron Paul (R-TX). This legislation is the first bill ever to be introduced in Congress to repeal the federal ban on the cultivation of industrial hemp as a commercial crop. If passed, H.R. 3037 would allow states the legal authority to license and regulate hemp cultivation without conflicting with federal law. To date, several states have passed legislation authorizing the cultivation of industrial hemp for research and commercial purposes. However, farmers in these states can not legally grow hemp without federal permission to do so. House Bill 3037 would remove this federal hurdle by granting states "exclusive authority" to regulate the growing and processing of industrial hemp. Currently, the United States is the only developed nation that fails to cultivate industrial hemp as an economic crop, according to a 2005 Congressional Resource Service (CRS) report. Hemp is a distinct variety of the plant species cannabis sativa that contains only minute (less than 1%) amounts of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the primary psychoactive ingredient in marijuana. Farmers worldwide grow hemp commercially for fiber, seed, and oil for use in a variety of industrial and consumer products, including food. There really is no reason to deny farmers this additional crop, and the economic options that it gives. The drug warriors will resist this, of course, and here are the ridiculous arguments they'll give (be ready for them): This will interfere with law enforcement's ability to eradicate marijuana and prosecute marijuana growers. Drug kingpins will hide marijuana grows inside so-called industrial hemp fields. (Of course, this has no validity. The worst thing you can do is mix marijuana and industrial hemp -- cross-pollination destroys the value of both. As far as prosecuting... well, I assume that the prosecutor would need to test the seized marijuana. Aren't they doing that now?) What about the message that this sends to children? (Politicians should no longer be allowed to say those words -- it's the clearest indication that exists that they're about to lie to you. The message we're sending to children is that farmers are going to grow a crop that will be able to make a bunch of things, and that you can't get high from it.) 9:13:53 PM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []