Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Smoked Medicine Remember how all the drug warriors always harp on the fact that marijuana can't be medicine because it's smoked? It's been their way of glossing over the fact that there are so many studies that definitely demonstrate that marijuana has accepted medical value (and that would, by definition, remove marijuana from Schedule 1). So they say "Well, there's no such thing as smoked medicine" (conveniently ignoring that you can ingest it in numerous ways, while dismissing the fact that smoked marijuana is more effective than Marinol, in part due to its fast delivery system). In fact they try to make it sound ludicrous: At a DEA site: There are no smoked medicines. Have you ever heard of anyone who smoked medicine? After all we know about the dangers of cigarette smoking, why would the scientific community approve smoked marijuana? John Walters: I don't support decriminalizing marijuana use. I do not support assertions that marijuana is a proven-effective medicine. We have the most sophisticated medical system in the history of humankind in Western civilization. Not a single one of the medicines used in that system is a smoked medicine. But now, we have this enthusiastic press release of a Reuters news story: "Smokable" pain drugs promise faster action For Alexza Pharmaceuticals Inc., which is developing drugs for migraine, pain, panic and agitation, "fast" has to mean "within seconds." The Palo Alto, California-based company is developing drugs that can be "smoked," and, like nicotine in cigarettes, pass through the lungs and into the bloodstream almost instantly. Investors like the idea. So maybe smoked medicine is only medicine if it's promoted by a pharmaceutical company... "What makes this an exciting story is how broadly applicable the technology could prove to be," said Charles Duncan, an analyst at JMP Securities, which helped take the company public for $8 a share a year ago. The "technology"? Alexza was formed by biotechnology entrepreneur Alejandro Zaffaroni, who also founded nicotine-patch developer Alza. His latest venture is not the only company that is developing inhaled therapies: Nektar Therapeutics and Alkermes Inc. develop powdered insulin. But Alexza's idea of heating up a drug to create a vapor, or smoke, is unique. [emphasis added] WTF!?? You mean like what this company has been doing for 10 years? Or what this study was trying to accomplish for years while being blocked by the DEA and NIDA? The fact that the Reuters article doesn't even mention marijuana is downright ridiculous. Is reporter Toni Clarke completely clueless? Has she never heard of marijuana, or is she working for the pharmaceuticals? When is a major reporter going to connect the rather obvious dots, and ask John Walters to explain how smoked medicine is OK for Alexza, but not for marijuana? I'll wait. [Thanks to Brian and Jay] 8:38:20 PM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []

Drinking Licenses This is slightly off-topic, but I wanted to address this bizarre suggestion by Mark Kleiman in his mostly sensible article If someone is convicted of drunken driving, or drunken assault, or drunken vandalism, or repeatedly of drunk and disorderly conduct--if, that is, someone demonstrates that he is either a menace or a major public nuisance when drunk--then why not revoke his (or, much more rarely, her) drinking license? Of course, the "personal prohibition" imagined here, like the current age restriction, would have to be enforced by sellers of alcoholic beverages, who would have to verify that each buyer has not been banned from drinking, just as they now have to verify that each buyer is of legal age to drink. Obviously, such a ban could not be perfectly enforced. But reducing the frequency and flagrancy of drinking behavior by problem drunks somewhat is far better than not reducing it at all. A ban on drinking by bad drinkers (unlike the current ban on drinking by those under 21) would have an obvious moral basis. Evading it, for example by buying liquor for someone on the "Do Not Drink" list, would be clearly wrong and worth punishing. Moreover, offenders would not easily be able to drink in bars, restaurants or other public places, which means they would be less likely to drink and then drive or cause public disturbances. Out of all the good stuff in Mark's article, it was this bit of nonsense that attracted Matthew Iglesias, who, in an otherwise sensible post calls Kleiman's license proposal "clearly on point." Just take a moment to think through the logistics. Mark admits that it could not be "perfectly enforced," but the question is rather how it could be enforced at all. With a driving license, since the licensing agency checks for age when issuing it, the license become a reasonably good proof of age for most purposes. And when people check it to see if you're old enough to do something, they don't know (or care) whether that driving license has been revoked. If it has been revoked, that doesn't change what your age is, so it doesn't matter. On the other hand, if you get pulled over by a cop on the highway, he's not going to just look at your license -- he'll enter it into a computer to see if, among other things, your license has been revoked. So picture a drinking license regime. Everybody who wants to drink or buy alcohol has to have a drinking license. And not only does every grocery store and liquor store checkout line, plus every bar and restaurant have to check to see if someone has a drinking license with them, but they also need to verify that it hasn't been revoked (or the whole point of the system is worthless). This means that they have to compare it against a national database, most likely involving an expensive network of terminals placed in all those locations (including, of course, the beer vendors at football games and street fairs and the flight attendants on airlines, and....) Or, alternately, they have to use some kind of system of recording all purchases (like the registry in pharmacies) with your name and address to be later verified so you can be arrested later if you purchased alcohol on a revoked drinking license. Does anybody really think that a system like this makes sense for alcohol? 9:33:05 AM |  drug policy | Links | permalink | comment []