The suppression of the medical use of cannabis and the consequent arrest of the sick, dying and disabled is frequently justified by citing the Thalidomide tragedy as necessitating an abundance of bureaucratic caution in approving substances for medical use.

In a December, 1996 press conference the US Drug Czar also used what the IoS called "this remarkable comparison" with Thalidomide to attack the passage of Proposition 215 in California.

To anyone familiar with the relative safety of marijuana this comparison may seem so absurd as to be unworthy of a response. However, it is really even worse than it seems. Consider the following:

1. Thalidomide was a new pharmaceutical product. Marijuana is a traditional remedy used for thousands of years with side effects that are minor in comparison with most pharmaceuticals -- and certainly no known history of producing birth defects.
2. The most common cause of substance-abuse-related fetal damage is fetal alcohol syndrome.
3. The Archives of Disease in Childhood reports that Dr Rodney Ford, of the community Pediatric Unit in Christchurch, New Zealand, said that "Reducing heavy caffeine intake during pregnancy could be another way to lessen the risk of SIDS" (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome). Ford and his colleagues surveyed parents of 393 victims and 1,592 parents of healthy children in the nationwide study in New Zealand. They found that the infants whose mothers drank a lot of coffee, tea or cola had a significantly increased risk of SIDS. The researchers think the high concentrations of caffeine may alter the fetal respiratory center. "The subsequent withdrawal of caffeine after birth might then leave the infant with an inadequate respiratory drive when later exposed to respiratory stressors," they concluded. In other words, the most commonly used drug in our society, available without restriction to children, may be a contributing factor in infant death.
4. If a "gateway drug" was anything other than a statistical artifact – and it is not, caffeine would be the real "gateway" -- simply because it is the first drug used by most children, and therefore "leads to" everything else terrible that happens in life.
5. Caffeine is ranked above marijuana in its addictiveness, which is a faint damn, but the need for caffeine in the morning -- and the "coffee nerves" that come from its overuse are a basic part of folk wisdom at any Starbucks.
6. While pregnant women are well advised to be careful about any "drug" use, the fact that a drug may be inappropriate for pregnant or lactating women -- or for children -- says nothing about its medical utility. For example –
7. Thalidomide – yes – Thalidomide has recently been approved for medical use by the FDA, because it has been found to have unique value in the treatment of certain severe disorders. One of the people testifying in favor of making it available was a man who was deformed by his mother’s use of the drug. He did not want his tragedy to be used to deny relief to those who might be helped by this drug.
8. While the government was blocking research into the medical use of cannabis for AIDS related weight loss, the FDA approved the study of Thalidomide for this purpose – even though the fastest growing cohort of AIDS patients consists of -- you guess it -- women of child-bearing age, the one group for which Thalidomide could never be used.
9. And now for the punchline: What was the original use of Thalidomide that caused the terrible tragedies? The relief of "morning-sickness," the nausea that is associated with pregnancy. What is the most common medical use of cannabis? Relief of nausea. That’s right. If our protectors had not suppressed the medical use of cannabis, there would not have been a Thalidomide tragedy in Europe nor any need for the FDA to have protected us from Thalidomide in the first place.