NORML Warms Up Medical Marijuana Proposal in Missouri

“It’s a real human tragedy to find a safer alternative” to pharmaceuticals “and then to be hit so hard by a legal system that doesn’t understand”

Source: Columbia Daily Tribune (MO) 11-10-09 —  In a panel discussion yesterday in Ellis Auditorium, nine patients described a dizzying array of illnesses ranging from epilepsy to a rare joint disorder known as Larsen syndrome.  Two sat in wheelchairs, and one young man told the audience he was there to speak on behalf of his father, who is bedridden with multiple sclerosis.

All panelists said they had found one drug that significantly calms the symptoms: marijuana.

The Missouri conference of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws gathered yesterday at the University of Missouri, and advocates say they are gearing up for a renewed push to pass medical reform legislation in the state.

In a daylong roster of speakers, none was more powerful than the sufferers of chronic illnesses who say smoking marijuana calms their nerves, decreases nausea and eases pain.  And, they say, they’re tired of being treated like criminals for using it.

“It’s a real human tragedy to find a safer alternative” to pharmaceuticals “and then to be hit so hard by a legal system that doesn’t understand,” said a Columbia resident and marijuana user who was charged with a felony in South Dakota for growing cannabis.  The man, who asked not to be named, said he smokes to treat pain associated with a urological condition.

Brian Chitwood of Farmington said that when he was being treated for Hodgkin’s lymphoma he was given chemotherapy drugs that left him with a nonstop feeling of nausea.  He found that smoking a joint could restore his equilibrium.

There were other cancer patients that asked me, ‘How come you go out back and you come back smiling?’ ” Chitwood said.  “So I took two of them out back, and they came back smiling, too.”

In 2004, Columbia became the first municipality in the state to allow patients with a doctor’s written permission to possess less than 35 grams of marijuana.  At the conference, one patient proudly displayed her written doctor’s recommendation, and others discussed creating a database for the public of sympathetic Columbia physicians.

But advocates said Columbia laws don’t go far enough, that they put medical users in a bind by stipulating that they cannot legally grow their own crop and forcing them onto the streets to enter into a criminal transaction to make a purchase.

Over the past year, Columbia has had two murders associated with robberies during marijuana transactions.

“I can’t buy it.  I wish I could grow it on my porch, and then I would know exactly what I was getting,” said Christy Welliver, an MS sufferer who has a medical recommendation from a Columbia physician to use marijuana to prevent muscle spasms.  “But I can’t do that, so I do have to rely on people giving it to me because I won’t break the law.”

A House bill introduced during the last legislative session in Jefferson City would have legalized medical marijuana for a long list of afflictions such as MS, cancer, fibromyalgia and AIDS.  NORML advocates plan to urge the bill’s sponsor, Rep.  Kate Meiners of Kansas City, to file it again in the upcoming session.

But Paul Armentano, the deputy director of the national NORML organization, urged advocates to push for a bill that gives doctors the widest possible latitude in prescribing cannabis.  As a cautionary example, he cited the medical marijuana law in Vermont, where strict qualifications have limited marijuana treatment to only 35 people.

Filed under: Missouri, NORML

AMA Ends 72-Year Policy, Says Marijuana has Medical Benefits

New Policy Marks Historic Shift From Prior Stance

Press Release November 10, 2009

In a move considered historic by supporters of medical marijuana, the American Medical Association’s House of Delegates today adopted a new policy position calling for the review of marijuana’s status as a Schedule I drug in the federal Controlled Substances Act. The old language in Policy H-95.952 had previously recommended that “marijuana be retained in Schedule I,” which groups marijuana with drugs such as heroin, LSD and PCP that are deemed to have no accepted medical uses and to be unsafe for use even under medical supervision.

The revised policy, adopted today, states, “Our AMA urges that marijuana’s status as a federal Schedule I controlled substance be reviewed with the goal of facilitating the conduct of clinical research and development of cannabinoid-based medicines, and alternate delivery methods.” It goes on to explain that this position should not be construed as an endorsement of state medical marijuana programs.

“This shift, coming from what has historically been America’s most cautious and conservative major medical organization, is historic,” said Aaron Houston, director of government relations for the Marijuana Policy Project, who attended the AMA meeting. “Marijuana’s Schedule I status is not just scientifically untenable, given the wealth of recent data showing it to be both safe and effective for chronic pain and other conditions, but it’s been a major obstacle to needed research.”

Drugs listed in Schedule II, for which medical use is permitted with strict controls, include cocaine, morphine and methamphetamine. A pill containing THC, the component responsible for marijuana’s “high,” is classed in Schedule III, whose looser requirements allow phoned-in prescriptions.

Further information:

Executive Summary of AMA Report

Recommendations of AMA Report

American College of Physicians resolution

 

Also check out NORML’s blog post

Filed under: AMA

PTSD and Cannabis: A Clinician Ponders Mechanism of Action

See Also:

*Rat Study: Marijuana May Ease PTSD
*Marijuana Vs. Anti-Depressants for PTSD Marijuana Wins Hands Down
*Could Medical Marijuana Benefit Fort Hood Trauma Victims?

By David Bearman, MD

One often intractable problem for which cannabis provides relief is post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). I have more than 100 patients with PTSD.
Among those reporting that cannabis alleviates their PTSD symptoms are veterans of the war in Vietnam, the first Gulf War, and the current occupation of Iraq. Similar benefit is reported by victims of family violence, rape and other traumatic events, and children raised in dysfunctional families.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder —once referred to as “shell shock” or “battle fatigue” — is a debilitating condition that follows exposure to ongoing emotional trauma or in some instances a single terrifying event. Many of those exposed to such experiences suffer from PTSD. The symptoms of PTSD include persistent frightening thoughts with memories of the ordeal. PTSD patients have frightening nightmares and often feel anger and an emotional isolation.
Sadly, PTSD is a common problem. Each year millions of people around the world are affected by serious emotional trauma. In more than 100 countries there is recurring violence based on ethnicity, culture, religion or political orientation.
Men, women and children suffer from hidden sexual and physical abuse. The trauma of molestation can cause PTSD. So can rape, kidnapping, serious accidents such as car or train wrecks, natural disasters such as floods or earthquakes, violent attacks such as mugging, torture, or being held captive.
The event that triggers PTSD may be something that threatened the person’s life or jeopardized someone close to him or her. Or it could simply be witnessing acts of violence, such as a mass destruction or massacre. PTSD can affect survivors, witnesses and relief workers.

Symptoms
Whatever the source of the problem, PTSD patients continually relive the traumatic experience in the form of nightmares and disturbing recollections. They are hyper-alert. They may experience sleep problems, depression, feelings of emotional detachment or numbness, and may be be easily aroused or startled. They may lose interest in things they used to enjoy and have trouble feeling affectionate. They may feel irritable, be violent, or be more aggressive than before the traumatic exposure.

Triggers
Seeing things that remind them of the incident(s) may be very distressing, which could lead them to avoid certain places or situations that bring back those memories. Anniversaries of a traumatic event are often difficult.
Ordinary events can serve as reminders of the trauma and trigger flashbacks or intrusive images. Movies about war or TV footage of the Iraqi war can be triggers. People with PTSD may respond disproportionately to more or less normal stimuli —a car backfiring, a person walking behind them. A flashback may make the person lose touch with reality and re-enact the event for a period of seconds, hours or, very rarely, days. A person having a flashback in the form of images, sounds, smells, or feelings experiences the emotions of the traumatic event. They relive it, in a sense.
Symptoms may be mild or severe — people may become easily irritated or have violent outbursts. In severe cases victims may have trouble working or socializing.

Symptoms can include:
• Problems in affect regulation —for instance persistent depressive symptoms, explosion of suppressed anger and aggression alternating with blockade and loss of sexual potency;
• Disturbance of conscious experience, such as amnesia, dissociation of experience, emotions, and feelings;
• Depersonalization (feeling strange about oneself), rumination;
• Distorted self-perception —for instance, feeling of helplessness, shame, guilt, blaming oneself, self-punishment, stigmatization, and loneliness;
• Alterations in perception of the perpetrator —for instance, adopting distorted beliefs, paradoxical thankfulness, idealization of perpetrator and adoption of his system of values and beliefs;
• Distorted relationship to others, for instance, isolation, retreat, inability to trust, destruction of relations with family members, inability to protect oneself against becoming a victim again;
• Alterations in systems of meaning, for instance, loss of hope, trust and previously sustaining beliefs, feelings of hopelessness;
• Despair, suicidal thoughts and preoccupation;
• Somatization —for instance persistent problems in the digestive system, chronic pain, cardiopulmonary symptoms (shortness of breath, chest pain, dizziness, palpitations).

Cannabis
Ample anecdotal evidence suggests that cannabis enhances ability to cope with PTSD. Many combat veterans suffering from PTSD rely on cannabis to control their anger, nightmares and even violent rage. Recent research sheds light on how cannabis may work in this regard.
Neuronal and molecular mechanisms underlying fearful memories are often studied in animals by using “fear conditioning.” A neutral or conditioned stimulus, which is typically a tone or a light, is paired with an aversive (unconditioned) stimulus, typically a small electric shock to the foot. After the two stimuli are paired a few times, the conditioned stimulus alone evokes the stereotypical features of the fearful response to the unconditioned stimulus, including changes in heart rate and blood pressure and freezing of ongoing movements. Repeated presentation of the conditioned stimulus alone leads to extinction of the fearful response as the animal learns that it need no longer fear a shock from the tone or light.

Fear Extinction
Emotions and memory formation are regulated by the limbic system, which includes the hypothalamus, the hippocampus, the amygdala, and several other structures in the brain that are particularly rich in CB1 receptors.
The amygdala, a small, almond-shaped region lying below the cerebrum, is crucial in acquiring and, possibly, storing the memory of conditioned fear. It is thought that at the cellular and molecular level, learned behavior —including fear— involves neurons in the baso-lateral part of the amygdala, and changes in the strength of their connection with other neurons (“synaptic plasticity”).
CB1 receptors are among the most abundant neuroreceptors in the central nervous system. They are found in high levels in the cerebellum and basal ganglia, as well as the limbic system. The classical behavioral effects of exogenous cannabinoids such as sedation and memory changes have been correlated with the presence of CB1 receptors in the limbic system and striatum.
In 2003 Giovanni Marsicano of the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Munich and his co-workers showed that mice lacking normal CB1 readily learn to fear the shock-related sound, but in contrast to animals with intact CB1, they fail to lose their fear of the sound when it stops being coupled with the shock.
The results indicate that endocan-nabinoids are important in extinguishing the bad feelings and pain triggered by reminders of past experiences. The discoveries raise the possibility that abnormally low levels of cannabinoid receptors or the faulty release of endogenous cannabinoids are involved in post-traumatic stress syndrome, phobias, and certain forms of chronic pain.
This suggestion is supported by our observation that many people smoke marijuana to decrease their anxiety and many veterans use marijuana to decrease their PTSD symptoms. It is also conceivable, though far from proved, that chemical mimics of these natural substances could allow us to put the past behind us when signals that we have learned to associate with certain dangers no longer have meaning in the real world.

What is the Mechanism of Action?
Many medical marijuana users are aware of a signaling system within the body that their doctors learned nothing about in medical school: the endocan-nabinoid system. As Nicoll and Alger wrote in “The Brain’s Own Marijuana” (Scientific American, December 2004):
“ Researchers have exposed an entirely new signaling system in the brain: a way that nerve cells communicate that no one anticipated even 15 years ago. Fully understanding this signaling system could have far-reaching implications. The details appear to hold a key to devising treatments for anxiety, pain, nausea, obesity, brain injury and many other medical problems.”
As a clinician, I find the concept of retrograde signaling extremely useful. It helps me explain to myself and my patients why so many people with PTSD get relief from cannabis.
We are taught in medical school that 70% of the brain is there to turn off the other 30%. Basically our brain is designed to modulate and limit both internal and external sensory input.
The neurotransmitter dopamine is one of the brain’s off switches.The endocannabinoid system is known to play a role in increasing the availability of dopamine. I hypothesize that it does this by freeing up dopamine that has been bound to a transporter, thus leaving dopamine free to act by retrograde inhibition.
By release of dopamine from dopamine transporter, cannabis can decrease the sensory input stimulation to the limbic system and it can decrease the impact of over-stimulation of the amygdala.
I postulate that exposure to the PTSD-inducing trauma causes an increase in production of dopamine transporter. The dopamine transporter ties up much of the free dopamine. With the brain having lower-than-normal free dopamine levels, there are too many neural channels open, the mid-brain is overwhelmed with stimuli and so too is the cerebral cortex. Hard-pressed to react to this stimuli overload in a rational manner, a person responds with anger, rage, sadness and/or fear.
With the use of cannabis or an increase in the natural cannabinoids (anandamide and 2-AG), there is competition with dopamine for binding with the dopamine transporter and the cannabinoids win, making a more normal level of free dopamine available to act as a retrograde inhibitor.
This leads to increased inhibition of neural input and decreased negative stimuli to the midbrain and the cerebral cortex. Since the cerebral cortex is no longer overrun with stimuli from the midbrain, the cerebral cortex can assign a more rational meaning and context to the fearful memories.
I have numerous patients with PTSD who say “marijuana saved my life,” or “marijuana allows me to interact with people,” or “it controls my anger,” or “when I smoke cannabis I almost never have nightmares.” Some say that without marijuana they would kill or maim themselves or others. I have no doubt that cannabis is a uniquely useful treatment. What remains is for the chemists to determine the precise mechanism of action.

Filed under: Dr. David Bearman, Medical Cannabis, Medical Marijuana, PTSD, Patients out of Time, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

Lies About Marijuana Drive People to a Much More Harmful Drug — Booze

By Steve Fox, AlterNet – Monday, November 9 2009

Anti-pot propaganda drives most people to drink alcohol instead. But booze is far more dangerous than marijuana.

 

Professor David Nutt didn’t play the game. As the chief drug policy advisor in the British Government, an unspoken part of his job description was to help maintain a public fiction about marijuana – or cannabis, as it is known in the U.K. and other parts of the world.  Specifically, he was expected to further the misperception of cannabis as a substance worthy of being classified and prohibited in a manner similar to more dangerous drugs like heroin and cocaine.

He made a big mistake at the end of last month. In a lecture at King’s College in London, he spoke honestly – and truthfully – about the fact that cannabis is less harmful than alcohol and urged the government to factor the relative harms of substances into their policy-making.  Moreover, he accused the British government of ignoring the evidence about the true harms of cannabis in order to reclassify the drug and increase penalties for possession.

Reacting with the logic and reason of pub patron after last call, Home Secretary Alan Johnson immediately demanded that Prof. Nutt resign as the head of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. He said Prof Nutt had “crossed the line between offering advice and … campaigning against the government on political decisions.”

More accurately, Prof. Nutt crossed the line between deceiving citizens and being honest with them.  The home secretary, a former member of Parliament, is no doubt comfortable with a little verbal jousting over public policy decisions. What he could not abide by was a top ranking official threatening the anti-cannabis mythology embraced at the very top level of government. Based on Nutt’s fateful bout of truthfulness, Johnson said he had “lost confidence” in Nutt as an advisor.

In a letter to Professor Nutt, Mr. Johnson explained how the system is supposed to work. He said: “As Home Secretary it is for me to make decisions, having received advice from the [Council] … It is important that the Government’s messages on drugs are clear and as an adviser you do nothing to undermine the public understanding of them … I am afraid the manner in which you have acted runs contrary to your responsibilities.”

The Home Secretary’s chief medical officer Sir Liam Donaldson put a similar spin on this hostile reaction to fact-based statements to the public.  “These things are best sorted out behind the scenes,” he said, “so that the government and their advisers can go to the public with a united front.”

In the real world, what this means is that advisors are free to provide research or reports based on an honest assessment of the scientific evidence, but when this research is completely ignored in setting policy, they are expected to keep their mouths shut and move on as if nothing ever happened.

This is all part of the game the government plays in order to maintain marijuana prohibition.  In the United States, there are many examples of significant advisory opinions related to marijuana being completely ignored – even where the opinions were part of a decision-making process that should have led to action by the federal government.

In 1970, Congress established the National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse to study marijuana and make recommendations about how to control its use.  The Commission’s final report suggested removal of criminal penalties, noting, “The actual and potential harm of use of the drug is not great enough to justify intrusion by the criminal law into private behavior.”  President Nixon ignored the Commission’s findings and launched and all-out war on marijuana users.

In 1988, Francis Young, an administrative law judge at the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), following hearings to determine whether marijuana should be placed into a less restrictive category under the Controlled Substances Act, wrote that marijuana should be moved from Schedule I (the most restrictive category) to Schedule II and it would be “unreasonable, arbitrary and capricious” to conclude otherwise.  More than 20 years later, marijuana remains a Schedule I drug.

A recently as February 2007, an administrative law judge at the DEA issued an opinion concluding that it would be in the public interest for the agency to grant a license to the University of Massachusetts to grow a limited amount of marijuana to be used to study its potential therapeutic benefits.  Faced with this seemingly rational opinion, the political powers at the DEA sat on it for nearly two years and then rejected it by formally denying the University the license in the very last days of the Bush administration.

Of course, ignoring fact- and evidence-based advice about marijuana is just one part of the game our government has played over the past four decades.  It has also gone out of its way to promote and spread myths about the drug – from the “gateway” theory to marijuana’s supposed connection to cancer to the notion that “potent pot” is somehow more dangerous than “your father’s marijuana.” Each one has been debunked or proven wrong or misleading, but there is no doubt that they have helped keep marijuana illegal.

Yet there is one myth more insidious than the rest.  And it is one that is as devastating as it is subtle.

You see, whether intentional or not, the government’s greatest achievement when it comes to keeping marijuana illegal has been its ability to convince a majority of Americans that marijuana is as harmful as, if not more harmful than, alcohol.  By doing so, it has secured alcohol’s place as the recreational substance of choice for the vast majority of the public.

Influenced by the government’s anti-marijuana propaganda, a large segment of our population is comfortable with a system that bans the use of marijuana but allows – and even celebrates – the use of alcohol, despite the fact that alcohol is objectively far more harmful.

Let’s consider just a few facts about the two substances.  For starters, alcohol is far more toxic than marijuana.  Just ten times the effective dose of alcohol can be fatal.  Yet there has never been a recorded marijuana overdose death in history.  The highly toxic nature of alcohol is also what leads to the all-too-frequent occurrences of nausea and vomiting from over-indulgence.

Over the long-term, alcohol consumption is also far more likely to lead to the death of the user.  According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, between 33,000 and 35,000 Americans die annually from the effects of alcohol.  The comparable number for marijuana?  Zero.  The supposed cancer-causing properties of marijuana?  Non-existent.

Perhaps most disturbingly, as almost anyone who has been exposed to the two substances could tell you, alcohol is far more likely to produce dangerous and socially destructive behavior.  It is cited as a contributing factor in 25-30 percent of violent crimes in this country and in about 100,000 sexual assaults on college campuses annually.  These kinds of negative associations simply don’t exist with marijuana.

As mentioned at the beginning, facts like this were quite familiar to Professor Nutt.  Even after his firing, he endeavored to spread the truth about the relative harms of marijuana and alcohol and urged parents to be especially wary of the one that posed the greatest potential for damage.

“The greatest concern to parents,” he said, “should be that their children do not get completely off their heads with alcohol because it can kill them … and it leads them to do things which are very dangerous, such as to kill themselves or others in cars, get into fights, get raped, and engage in other activities which they regret subsequently. My view is that, if you want to reduce the harm to society from drugs, alcohol is the drug to target at present.”

Our nation’s leaders might think this is a game, but it isn’t.  There are children and adults seriously suffering and even dying because of alcohol, and it is time our leaders started being honest and realistic about how it compares to marijuana – both in terms of public education and public policies.  Neither propaganda nor policy should be used to steer adults – or teens, for that matter – toward alcohol instead of marijuana.  This does not mean that marijuana is harmless; it simply means, and all of the evidence indicates, that it is less harmful than alcohol.

And no one should be fired for saying that.

See Also “Smoking Pot is Safer than drinking Alcohol… Period.“

Filed under: Alcohol, David Nutt, drug war

Montel Williams show – Marijuana – Illegal Drug or Medical Treatment

Includes testimonies from patients, leading medical marijuana researcher Dr. Donald Abrams, and Irv Rosenfeld, one of the 5 remaining recipients of the government’s monthly canisters of medical marijuana.

 

Filed under: Medical Cannabis, Medical Marijuana, Montel Williams, videos

Cooking with Cannabis – Cannabutter

The Art and Science of Cooking With Cannabis – click to read The first step in cooking magical cannabis-laced foods is extracting the cannabinoids (THC, CBD, and many many more) from the plant matter, usually in an oil/fat/butter-based solution, since the cannabinoids do not readily dissolve in water.  The oil protects the product from the oxygen while the heat activates the cannabinoids.

From “The Art and Science of Cooking with Cannabis” – by Adam Gottlieb

Cannabutter:

The procedure is very simple.  Gottlieb brings a pot of water to a rolling boil, then puts a small amount of butter in the water. Quickly, the butter melts, and mixes in with the water because the whole mixture is at a rolling boil. Then he puts the Cannabis in and boils it. (Of course, he separates all the seeds first so he can plant them in the nearby park.) Now all the Cannabis is rolling around with the water and butter.  The cannabinoids dissolve into the butter, while most of the nasty flavors and gook dissolve into the water.  He stirs the mixture regularly for about a half an hour and then strains out the spent plant matter, squeezes all the juice out of it, and puts the liquid in the fridge.  A few hours later, the mixture is cool enough that the Cannabutter has solidified on the surface.  He scoops it out and retains it in a bowl or a jar.  The  water is thrown out. The Cannabutter can be used just like butter, in brownies, on garlic bread, or mixed with honey on your finger!

Although this method takes longer than the usual saute-n-strain method (without the water), it has several advantages:

* As explained above, the unwanted constituents of Cannabis are separated and removed with the water, leaving only the cannabinoids.

* You can make stronger Cannabutter than by sauteing, because you can cook more Cannabis in the same amount of butter, due to the extra volume of the water.

* There is no danger of burning the precious, price-inflated, hard and dangerous to obtain herb, as there is when you saute’, because the water keeps the whole mixture at boiling temperature!

Many thanks to Erowid Psychoactive Vaults

Poor Richard’s Cannabutter

If one has a collection of fine twigs culled from his marijuana siftings, these can also be used to prepare cannabutter.  If larger stems are all that are available, a preparation can be made using oil instead of butter as the solvent.  Pour a cup of salad oil or coconut oil into a blender.  Turn it on to “Chop” speed.  Cut up or break stems to lengths not exceeding two inches.  Add these to the spinning blender a pinch at a time.  When no more stems can be added to the oil without clogging the rotors, pour everything – the oil and stem pulp – into a saucepan and heat for ten minutes.  Strain the oil and return it to the blender.  Repeat the process using new stems and a little more oil to compensate for that which was lost in the first extraction.  It is possible to repeat this process several times until the oil is totally saturated.  The final preparation is strained and kept under refrigeration in a bottle or jar.  It can be used in most recipes which call for cannabutter.  If you have rich friends who use a lot of Cannabis, ask them to save their seeds and stems for you.

Filed under: Cannabis and Cannabinoids, Cannabutter, Cooking with Cannabis, Medical Cannabis, Medical Marijuana, medical edibles

Smoking pot is safer than drinking alcohol… Period.

Former Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper discusses the highly acclaimed new book, “Marijuana Is Safer: So why are we driving people to drink?”, to which he contributed the foreword.

An interview with the author:

(Source Denver Post 11.01.09) Medical marijuana dispensaries are popping up across Denver as an average of 400 people each day apply for permits to legally smoke pot. With state lawmakers talking about approving further regulations on the mushrooming industry, Denver Post Editorial Page Editor Dan Haley sat down last week with Mason Tvert, the state’s leading advocate for the legalization of marijuana.

Tvert is executive director of Safer Alternative for Enjoyable Recreation (SAFER), a group that has passed two pro-pot measures in Denver since 2006. He also is a co-author, along with Steve Fox and Paul Armentano, of “Marijuana Is Safer: So Why Do We Drive People to Drink?“.

Dan Haley: How did the legalization of pot become your mission in life?

Mason Tvert: My senior year in high school, I went to a country music festival and drank to the point where I nearly died. I woke up and was handed a bill and told, “Hey, you crazy kid, get on out of here.” No police officer was there saying, “Who served you enough beer to kill you?” (Yet) as a freshman in college, I was scrutinized by a multi-jurisdictional drug task force for allegedly using marijuana — not even allegedly selling it. We’re making alcohol use more acceptable when it’s more harmful.

DH: Last week, the Obama administration said it won’t prosecute medical marijuana cases in states where the practice is legal, leaving it up to states and municipalities to regulate its use. How should Colorado handle it?

MT: Colorado already has a system of regulations in place. We have limited the amount (of marijuana) they can possess. We’ve forced them to get a license and update their licenses every year. Just like with alcohol, if localities have “community standards” on where they allow businesses to operate … they can say we’ll only have medical marijuana dispensaries on these streets. But are they restricting access for people who are guaranteed under the state constitution the use of this medicine? In Greeley, they’ve banned dispensaries outright. If you live in Greeley . . . where do you go?

DH: Why shouldn’t government regulate medical marijuana much like it regulates alcohol and pharmaceuticals?

MT: They should. All marijuana being grown for medical purposes, if they’re following state law, is being grown in Colorado by a licensed caregiver. Every person is registering with the state of Colorado — that’s regulation. Every patient is getting a license.

We don’t even require people who use Oxycontin on a daily basis to get a license with the state. These are people whose kids could get that Oxycontin and die.

Opponents will say so many young men are using medical marijuana. That’s not a negative consequence of medical marijuana. That’s an aspect of it. Do they care how many young men are being prescribed narcotics for pain issues? Colorado is one of a handful of states where prescription drugs outweigh traffic accidents as the No. 1 cause of accidental deaths. Why isn’t [Attorney General] John Suthers concerned about that?

DH: Do you really think everyone who has a medical marijuana permit actually has a chronic illness or debilitating disease?

MT: They do according to a licensed physician. When voters approved this, they said if a licensed physician believes that marijuana will improve your quality of life in dealing with one of these conditions, you are entitled to use it, and he’s entitled to recommend it to you. In every circumstance I’m aware of, a physician has recommended it.

DH: But isn’t there a chance that some doctors believe in legalizing marijuana and are just using this law as an end-run toward legalization?

MT: There are doctors who believe in marijuana being legal because they’re aware of the physical effects of it and the science surrounding it. Whether they perceive this as an end-around, I disagree. They don’t have a vested interest in legalizing it because in theory, if you have doctors specializing in medical marijuana recommendations, those only exist when it’s medical. There are these news stories that sensationalize that X percent [of permits] are written by these five doctors. If a doctor says “I don’t want to” [give you medical marijuana], where do you go? To a physician that you know agrees that this could be beneficial to you. So it’s not that strange.

DH: Why is public sentiment shifting toward legalization?

MT: People are becoming more aware that marijuana is far safer than alcohol and poses very little if any serious consequences for our society and those who use it.

DH: You mean it has nothing to do with pot-smoking baby boomers coming of age and having children and changing social norms?

MT: There’s been more public discussion of late than ever before. There’s more medical research into marijuana than any other substance in the world. We know the effect it has on the lungs and we know the effect it has on the brain. The only area where there’s still some uncertainty is the effect it has on a young person’s developing brain. There’s no conclusive evidence that it could be harmful. It could be, but we do know it doesn’t have long-term effects on the adult brain or lungs.

DH: It doesn’t seem like a good idea to inhale anything into your lungs, so why not put marijuana into a pill form or a brownie?

MT: Anytime you consume marijuana orally or as an edible, you don’t know when it’s going to take effect. If you smoke it, it’s immediately in your blood stream. You can tell how much you’ve had, whether you need more or if you’ve done too much. If you eat it, it takes hours to feel the effects and at that point it might be too much.

The future is vaporization. You basically heat marijuana to the point where it releases the chemicals and you inhale vapors. It never combusts so there’s no smoke. There’s never been a documented case of a marijuana- only smoker acquiring lung cancer as a result. Never. Not one.

DH: With the growing number of dispensaries, do you worry about people getting low-quality marijuana?

MT: We have PBR [Pabst Blue Ribbon] drinkers and scotch drinkers.

DH: Yeah, but people choose that.

MT: Just like with alcohol, there’s beer, there’s wine, there’s spirits, there’s different types of beer from low quality to high quality. With marijuana, there’s all sorts of different varieties.

DH: Do people in dispensaries know what they’re doing?

MT: They want to help out the people who are coming there. One way to do that is self regulation and quality control. These people are doing their own research. They ask patients, “How did this make you feel? Did this help your condition? Did this help with nausea?” They document this so when someone new comes in, they can give them something that has worked for someone else.

DH: Do you have a medical marijuana permit?

MT: I am not a medical marijuana patient. [But] I don’t think I should have to have a doctor’s recommendation to saddle up to a bar to get a beer. I don’t think as an adult I should have to have a recommendation to use marijuana.

If I can legally purchase a case of beer, there’s no reason I shouldn’t be able to use a less harmful substance to relax and recreate.

DH: What do your parents think of your job?

MT: They’re incredibly supportive. My mother, much like many parents, would rather I used marijuana as a college student than binge drink. My parents had my grade school DARE essay about the dangers of drug use framed for me after legalizing marijuana in Denver.

DH: Are Denver cops following that law, which makes marijuana use a low priority arrest?

MT: Yes and no. We did see a drop in marijuana citations in 2008, but the fact is one is too many. The people of this city have made it abundantly clear adults should not face penalties for using a substance that’s safer than alcohol.

DH: What would you tell your own kid about marijuana use?

MT: I will say you’re not allowed to have sex yet, you’re not allowed to drink yet or to sign contracts. You are my child and I’m being honest, this is not a substance you should be using. It could harm development of your brain. It could result in you doing worse in school should you start abusing it. But I will also say this substance is safer than alcohol and if you drink too much, it will kill you. You can’t go wrong with the facts, and that’s not what’s going on right now.

DH: Would legalization help the economy?

MT: Absolutely. Alcohol is a $131 billion industry and marijuana is projected at $113 billion, which I think is conservative. Just like with alcohol, we would need people to produce the raw product, we would need truck drivers to drive it from one place to another. There are so many jobs. I’m starting to get calls from all of these lobbyist sharks. They’re seeing it’s a business.

DH: Are you going to run for office?

MT: Who knows? We’ll see.

DH: Do you drink?

MT: Absolutely. I drink recreationally. For the most part, small amounts at a time. People think we’re against alcohol because we talk about the dangers of it.

DH: Do you smoke pot often?

MT: “Often”? You jumped to “often” instead of “do I smoke at all”? I think it’s ridiculous that I’m allowed to consume alcohol and unable to use a far safer substance. That’s all I’ll say about it.

DH: We’ll just assume you do it anyway … .

MT: A lot of people think I don’t. I never talk about it. I’m not one to stand in front of the Capitol smoking joints and think I’m doing something for the cause.

Filed under: Marijuana safer than alcohol, Mason Tvert, SAFER