Month: February 2017

A bill to end the prohibition of marijuana on the federal level has been filed in Congress with bipartisan support.

The Ending Marijuana Prohibition Act of 2017 was filed by Representatives Tom Garrett (R-VA) and Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI). It would remove marijuana from the federal list of controlled substances, which would end its prohibition on the federal level, allowing states to decide what marijuana policies they want to follow.

The proposal is identical to a measure filed in 2015 by Senator Bernie Sanders.

“I have long believed justice that isn’t blind, isn’t justice”, Representative Garett said in press release about the bill’s introduction. “Statistics indicate that minor narcotics crimes disproportionately hurt areas of lower socio-economic status and what I find most troubling is that we continue to keep laws on the books that we do not enforce. Virginia is more than capable of handling its own marijuana policy, as are states such as Colorado or California.”

Garrett continued; “this step allows states to determine appropriate medicinal use and allows for industrial hemp growth, something that will provide a major economic boost to agricultural development in Southside Virginia. In the coming weeks, I anticipate introducing legislation aimed at growing the hemp industry in Virginia, something that is long overdue.”

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During a recent interview with the UK version of Esquire, famed actor Patrick Stewart said he uses cannabis to treat a problem with his hands.

To start the interview, Stewart, who’s 76, was asked if his role in the upcoming movie Logan made him confront his fears about aging (in the movie Stewart plays a frail and aging Professor Xavier)

“I think about it everyday. Not all the time. I’m not brooding on it, but I’ve come to a point where the numbers are against you”, says Stewart. “Physical things (make me feel old). You get to an age where you go to the doctor, you tell him how old you are and he just shrugs his shoulders and says: ‘Oh, is that it?’”

Stewart goes on to state that his main problem is that his “hands don’t work very well”, but “thanks to cannabis they work much better than they used to.”

Stewart then notes that he uses cannabis legally, and as a spray; “Thanks to the law in California now, it’s just a spray that I put on.”

When asked what he does when in the U.K., where such a spray is illegal, Stewart said; “I can’t answer that question.”

The full interview can be on the website for Esquire UK by clicking here;

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During today’s National Association of Attorneys General Winter Meeting, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions expressed doubts that marijuana can help reduce opioid abuse, something science has continually found to be true.

“I see a line in the Washington Post today that I remember from the ’80s. This one was, if you smoke marijuana, it’s a cure for opiate abuse. Give me a break”, said Sessions. “This is the kind of argument that’s been made out there to just almost a desperate attempt to defend the harmlessness of marijuana or even its benefits. I doubt that’s true.”

Sessions may doubt it to be true, but numerous studies just over the past few years have found that marijuana – and a liberalizations of the laws surrounding it – can have a drastic impact on opioid abuse and the growing opioid epidemic.

For example, a study just published by the International Journal of Drug Policy found that a majority of medical cannabis patients use cannabis in replace of prescription drugs, mainly opioids.

A study published last year in the Journal of Pain found that those using medical cannabis to control chronic pain reported a 64% reduction in their use opioids.

A separate study, also published last year in the Journal of Clinical Pain and by the National Institute of Health, found that the daily, long-term use of cannabis is associated with reduced opioid use in patients with treatment-resistant chronic pain conditions.

A study published in 2015 by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that states that have legalized medical cannabis dispensaries have a significantly lower rate of opioid addictions and overdose deaths.

A similar study published in 2014 by the Journal of the American Medical Association Internal Medicine found states that have legalized medical cannabis have seen as much as a 50% decrease in opioid overdose deaths (with an overall average of around 25%).

These are just a few of the multitude of studies that have been released recently on the benefits of marijuana on opioid abuse.

Clearly Sessions needs to do his research, and leave the drug war rhetoric behind.

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