Former Head Of NIDA Sort
of Calls For Medical Marijuana Tests in Washington Post Op-ed.
Taking Care Of the Prohibitionist Party Line. Not the Patients.
(Marijuananews note: This is a blatantly
dishonest piece by a man who certainly is in a position to know the facts. Of course, the
fact that he is writing for the Post means that his audience is not notably concerned
about intellectual integrity.
See
Tale of Two Capital
City Newspapers:
The Washington Post and The Ottawa Citizen On Medical Marijuana
-- Maybe We Should Apologize To King George.Perhaps
this Op-ed is best understood as serving a political purpose – showing the readers
how to avoid dealing with the substance of the medical marijuana issue, while pretending
to do so.
In the late Soviet Union there were people in charge of maintaining the party line.
This piece can best be understood in that context.)
April 27, 1999
Medicine—Not Pot
From The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com
By Robert L. DuPont
The writer was director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse from 1973 to 1978. He
is now a clinical professor of psychiatry at Georgetown Medical School.
Last month the Institute of Medicine released a report in response to the two-year-long
wave of ballot initiatives supporting medical marijuana.
See
Will The Titanic Of
Marijuana Prohibition Be Sunk By The Ice Cube Of The IOM Report?
-- Analysis.
and links
It assessed the scientific base of the claim that suffering
terminally ill people are unnecessarily deprived of a useful treatment by drug laws that criminalize smoking.
(Marijuananews note: This is unusual in recognizing the use of the
criminal law, but it does not acknowledge that sick people are actually arrested, nor is
there any further reference to that fact.)
There has never been controversy about the use of purified chemicals in smoke to treat any
illness, as witnessed by the availability of synthetic tetrahydrocabinol (THC) since 1985.
See
Gettman Rejects DEA’s Effort
To Reschedule Marinol Without A Hearing,
While Leaving Marijuana In Schedule One.
and
Perhaps The
Single Most Damning Article On Medical Marijuana Fiasco I Have Ever Read – Without
Intending To Be
The only dispute between the drug-law hawks and doves is the place of smoked marijuana in
medical treatment.
(Marijuananews note: Here he affects a tone of objectivity, as
though he has not been a partisan.)
The institute’s report, balanced and firmly rooted in three
decades of scientific research, reached this conclusion:
(Marijuananews note: Actually, there has been very little research
over the last three decades, because it has been blocked by the Federal government.)
See
The Scientist
Magazine Does A Reverent Interview with the Head of NIDA
"Although smoke delivers THC and other cannabinoids to the body, it also delivers
harmful substances, including most of those found in tobacco smoke. In addition, plants
contain a variable mixture of biologically active compounds and cannot be expected to
provide a precisely defined drug effect. For those reasons, the report concludes that the future of cannabinoid drugs lies not in smoked marijuana but in
chemically defined drugs that act on the cannabinoid systems that are a natural component
of human physiology. Until such drugs can be developed and made available for medical use,
the report recommends interim solutions."
Here are the details of its interim solution:
"Short-term use of smoked marijuana (not more than 6 months) for patients with
debilitating symptoms (such as intractable pain or vomiting) must meet the following
conditions:
"failure of all approved medications to provide relief has
been documented;
"the symptoms can reasonably be expected to be relieved by rapid-onset cannabinoid
drugs;
"such treatment is administered under medical supervision in a manner that allows
for assessment of treatment effectiveness;
"and involves an oversight strategy comparable to an institutional review board
process that could provide guidance within 24 hours of submission by a physician to
provide marijuana to a patient for a specified use."
The best hope for a resolution of this medical conflict would be
for the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) to fashion definitive clinical trials
of smoked marijuana vs. other standard treatments for the indications the Institute of
Medicine identified (anxiety reduction, appetite stimulation, nausea reduction and pain
relief). This was how a similar call for legal heroin for terminal cancer pain was
disposed of a decade ago. A controlled trial conducted at Sloan-Kettering, (funded by
NIDA), showed that heroin offered no advantages compared with standard pain treatments.
If new trials were to show superiority for smoked marijuana,
and if there was no way to identify and deliver purified chemicals with less toxicity than
smoke, then I would have no objection to a carefully monitored, medically supervised use
of smoked marijuana in settings that discouraged diversion.
There is no controversy in the United States today about the medical use of opiates
(including those derived from natural opium, as is heroin) or cocaine. The concern now is that smoked marijuana has not been shown to be
superior to other treatments for any illness.
(Marijuananews note: Notice the emphasis on showing the superiority of
smoked marijuana over other medications. "Superiority" over other medications is
not required under FDA regulations, only relative safety and efficacy for some patients.
The IOM report specifically recognizes a point which DuPont evades, that there are
people for whom the standard medications do not work.
Their solution, a limited six month access, is unethical, unscientific and inhumane,
but at least they were honest enough to recognize the problem. DuPont is not.
In fact, there is every reason to believe that marijuana is superior to other
treatments for many patients. So we should call DuPont’s hand on this, but we should
not let the rules be changed.)
Most supporters of medical marijuana do not understand three facts that were made
clear in the Institute of Medicine’s report:
(Marijuananews note: What he does not understand is that this
sort of condescending drivel is why people don’t trust the medical establishment.)
See
Column By
Authors of the IOM Report On Medical Marijuana
Shows Why The Public Does Not Trust The Medical Establishment –
And Why They Should Not! With Analysis by Richard Cowan
(1) "The effects of cannabinoids on the symptoms studied are generally
modest, and in most cases, there are more effective
medications." In other words, do not look for anything
dramatic from this class of chemicals. This may explain why marijuana’s
chemicals have produced little enthusiasm from pharmaceutical companies.
(Marijuananews note: Oh, really?)
See
Marijuana
Derivative Blocks Irreversible Brain Damage After Accidents; Another Way Marijuana
Prohibition Kills
and
Could Medical
Marijuana Have Prevented Gulf War Syndrome? Derivative Combats Nerve Gas, Say Israeli
Reports
and
"Cannabis
could form the basis for an entirely new approach to pain."
"Why marijuana is emerging as such a panacea." UK Report
(2) Modern medicine does not burn leaves and ask sick patients to
inhale the smoke. It identifies individual chemicals and delivers them in purified,
often synthetic, form to treat specific illnesses.
(Marijuananews note: Isn’t that nice. If anyone really believes
this, the best response would be that "modern medicine" should be concerned with
what works best for the patient, rather than pretending that "purified" means
"safe.")
See
Counterblaste to DEA: Fallacious
Pharmacology.
"The contention that smoking cannot possibly be an acceptable route for the
administration
of a therapeutic substance is morality dressed up as science." by Peter Webster
(3) Marijuana smoke is not only unstable but toxic, like tobacco
smoke. These characteristics make smoked marijuana unsuitable as a medicine.
(Marijuananews note: Never mind that the DEA’s Chief
Administrative Law Judge said that marijuana is "one of the least toxic agents
known," the fact is that many valuable medicines are highly toxic. Thousands of
people per year die from legal medications.)
See
Adverse
Pharmaceutical Reactions Major Cause of Death; Marijuana Does Not Kill But Must Be
Approved By FDA?
and
Painkillers
Put Millions At Risk Of Ulcers; Hospitalize 76,000 & Kill 7,600 Annually; One That
Doesn’t Kill Is Illegal
Clinical trials will take several years, and they are expensive.
The most regrettable aspect of this process is that scarce medical research money will be
wasted on tests of the chemicals in smoke that have little medical value.
(Marijuananews note: Someone in Washington is concerned about
wasting money! Is he also concerned about what it costs to prosecute sick people? Is he
concerned about the cost of all these wonderful pharmaceuticals in a country in which tens
of millions of people have no health insurance? And again, the IOM proposed these
"tests" precisely because they recognized that there are people for whom legal
treatments do not work. Smoking is not a test of the chemicals in smoke, the utility of
which he began by acknowledging, but a test of delivering all the chemicals together
immediately. The IOM also recognized this point. Did DuPont actually read the report?)
Nevertheless, the political momentum created by the marijuana advocates has made it
essential that these clinical trials go forward to demonstrate to a
skeptical public how smoked marijuana stacks up against standard treatments.
I hope that the people who now are advocating a science-based approach
(Marijuananews note: "Science-based is one of their new
buz-words. Learn it and you too can sound ever so sophisticated.) to this politicized problem, (Marijuananews note:
When the people rebel against the arbitrary power of the prohibitionist establishment to
arrest sick and dying people, it becomes a "politicized problem.")
including the Institute of Medicine, understand that these efforts, even if
completely successful, will have little impact on the pro-marijuana
forces, whose only interest is free access to the drug. They do not want clinical
trials, and they do not want purified or synthetic cannabinoids. They want smoked
dope.
(Marijuananews note: Are the only advocates of medical
marijuana people who want to legalize marijuana?
See
Chairman of the House
of Lords Science and Technology Committee
Criticizes UK Government’s Rejection Of Report On Medical Marijuana
– 2 Articles With 2 of the Worst Prohibitionist Arguments
Have we been blocking clinical trials for years?
See
Government Health
Officials Deny Marijuana and Pain Study, Again -- NORML Press Release
He is insulting the integrity of the marijuana reform movement, but
he is also insulting the intelligence of anyone who has been following this issue. He
obviously knows that there are many people outside of the marijuana reform movement who
are calling for immediate access to medical marijuana. However, this is the party line.
Anyone who reads this now knows what they are supposed to say, and how they can say it and
sound "above it all."
In any case, will someone explain to me how making marijuana medically available will
advance the cause of legalizing marijuana?
Medical access has not resulted in the legalization of morphine, or other Schedule 2 or
3 substances.
There is only one way that medical access – per se -- would lead to the
legalization of marijuana, and that is for it to be proven safer than the legal drugs,
which it will be.
One of the greatest advantages that we have over the prohibitionists is that we
don’t have to lie about what they are saying. I want people to hear what they are
saying, so I regularly run the full text of their comments. I certainly feel the
obligation to comment, and to provide links to added material, but anyone can read what
they are saying and decide who is right. The Washington Post is yet to report on the Swiss
call for legalization or the Canadian call for decriminalization, or the Canadian medical
marijuana debate, etc.)
See
How The Washington
Post Tells Its Readers
About The House of Lords Report On Medical Marijuana -- With Great Subtlety!
and
Swiss Proposal To
Legalize and Regulate Sale of Cannabis
Driven By Realism, Not Libertarianism
and
Decrim Bill
Introduced In Canadian Parliament – By Member of A Conservative Opposition Party!
and
Transcript Of Recent
Medical Marijuana Debate In Canadian Parliament
Shows Real Concern About The Issues, In Contrast To The DEAland Congressional Record.
But Doctor Spouts Party Line.
© Copyright 1999 The Washington Post Company
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