Marijuana use for medicinal purposes has taken a few public tokes backwards in the last few weeks as the Federal government dropped the hammer on alleged corrupt pot growers and distributors polluting the entire medicinal marijuana debate.\nDespite the historical prevalence of marijuana use by world citizens and within communities across the globe for the last 5,000 years, smoking "reefer" to ease human psychological, emotional and physical pain is a common pasttime of some bipolar candidates, cancer victims, HIV/AIDS patients and American neighbors who are otherwise terminally ill among an extended list of others.\nAmerica's lethargic sway from marijuana prohibition to possible pot decriminalization requires fact-finding missions based on hard scientific data about the pros and cons of ingesting marijuana to reduce short term or lifelong human pain.\n"Three interrelated factors have fostered the definition of marihuana (sic) as a major national problem," Pres. Richard Nixon's 1972 National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse (NCMDA) declared. "First, the illegal behavior is highly visible to all segments of our society. Second, the use of the drug is perceived to threaten the health and morality not only of the individual but of the society itself. Third, and most important, the drug has evolved in the late '60s and early '70s, as a symbol of wider social conflicts and public issues."\n \nMARIJUANA AS A DRUG\nThe NCMDA, also called the Stafford Commission, reported that until the last part of the 19th Century, the only drugs used to any significant extent for non-medical purposes in the U.S. were alcohol and tobacco. From Colonial times through the Civil War, alcohol was sometimes associated with foolish, uncontrollable and dangerous behavior and tobacco was sometimes linked to delirium, perverted sexuality and insanity.\nThe "recreational" use of otherwise medicinal narcotics at the beginning of the 20th Century sparked increased American addiction to opium, morphine, heroin and cocaine before federal-governed medicine labeling required the full-disclosure of all bottled ingredients. The Federal government legislated the Harrison Narcotics Act in 1914, as a result, to prohibit all non-medical production, distribution or consumption of narcotics. \nNational alcohol prohibition, legislated by Congress, began in 1919 but "the experiment failed to achieve its declared purpose: elimination of the practice of alcohol consumption," the Stafford Commission reported. The use of alcohol and tobacco was "indigenous American practices," while the intoxicant use of narcotics was not native and the users of these drugs were "alien" or perceived to be "marginal members" of society. \n"The legal scheme was designed to cut off supply, not to punish the consumer. Demand could be eliminated effectively, if at all, only through educational efforts," Stafford Commission members stated. "... By the early 1930s, the abstentionist thrust against alcohol and tobacco had diminished -- the two drugs had achieved social legitimacy."\nMarijuana, on the other hand, never received social legitimacy because it was labeled a narcotic in scientific literature and local statutory provisions aimed at curbing the marijuana smoking of Mexican immigrants and West Indian sailors throughout the southeast, according to the Stafford Commission. Marijuana use across the nation was prohibited in 1932 when the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws included marijuana as a narcotic drug, and the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 granted federal jurisdiction over state marijuana laws. \nSimilar to the 1936 propaganda film "Reefer Madness," marijuana use was often associated with psychological dependence, criminal deviance, hypersexuality and insanity despite a gaping lack of academic, scientific and health research to support such claims at that time. The Stafford Commission reported many opponents of marijuana feel compelled to establish a "causal connection" between marijuana use and crime, psychosis and the use of other drugs, while their adversaries focus the dispute on negating such relationships.\nBecause the Supreme Court ruled in 1969 that many provisions of the Marihuana Tax Act were unconstitutional, the Senate legislated the 1970 Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act which labeled marijuana a Schedule I narcotic -- similar to heroin and most hallucinogens -- that has "no current accepted medical use" and a "high potential for abuse." Schedule II medicinal narcotics included cocaine, PCP, morphine and Demerol while "medium abuse" potential opiates, Vicodin and some forms of codeine were listed as Schedule III.
MARIJUANA USE BEHAVIOR\nAlthough marijuana use was common practice at mining camps, railroad construction sites, farm labor camps, "bohemian" communities of artists and jazz musicians and other groups "outside mainstream American society" at the turn of the 20th century, the Stafford Commission reported marijuana use by young, white, middle class groups increased since that time, especially to high school and college-aged populations. \n"With this historical overview in mind, it is not surprising that the contemporary marijuana experience has been characterized by fear and confusion on one side and outrage and protest on the other ... Where such fears are real, they must be confronted directly; where they are imagined, however, they must be put in perspective and, hopefully, laid to rest," the Stafford Commission reported. "Since the mid-'60s, American society has been increasingly agitated by what has been defined as a marihuana problem. The typical sequences of 'a national problem' have resulted: exaggeration, polarization and the inevitable demand for a solution."\nCommon topics of constant debate include the perception of marijuana acting as an addictive drug, the perception of increased pot smoking by teenagers in decriminalized cultures and the effectiveness of marijuana use in alleviating minimal anxiety to moderate nausea to severe pain. Both sides of the partisan isle, however, generate health experts and articulate scientific data only to reinforce their limited political points of view. \nFor example, tolerance, dependence and withdrawal are often presumed to imply abuse or addiction, but this is not the case, according to a 1999 Institute of Medicine report published by the National Academy of Science. Tolerance and dependence are normal physiological adaptations to repeated use of any drug. The correct use of prescribed medications for pain, anxiety and even hypertension commonly produces tolerance and some measure of physiological dependence. \n"There has always existed a subset of users out of the general population of nonusers -- certain types of people have always made, manufactured or ingested intoxicants," said Nancy Stockton, director of counseling and psychological services for the IU Health Center. "Some people are more neurologically equipped to deal with stressors: some are vague, like plague, disease, barbarians or threats to crops; some are natural phenomena, like a tsunami or political governments; and some are man-made, like the challenge of getting along with other human beings within the family or work environment." \nThe closest truth to discovering the reality of marijuana use might lie in each individual user rather than vague generalizations about the perceived personal benefits versus the perceived societal ills.\n"There is no 'typical' marihuana user, just as there is no typical American," the Stafford Commission noted. "The most notable statement that can be made about the vast majority of marihuana users -- experimenters and intermediate users -- is that they are essentially indistinguishable from their non-marihuana using peers by any fundamental criterion other than their marihuana use." \n \nMARIJUANA AS A SYMBOL\nMarijuana is often projected by government officials as the star witness testifying to the success or failure of the U.S. "War on Drugs," despite the fact pot smoking constitutes the number one form of illicit drug use in the nation and across the globe. \nDrug Enforcement Administration Law Judge Francis Young ruled in 1988, on the other hand, that: "Marijuana, in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man. By any measure of rational analysis marijuana can be safely used within a supervised routine of medical care." \nThe Stafford Commission further noted: "Chemical substances are not inherently good or bad. All substances, including medicines and foods, which man has chosen to consume have certain desired effects -- whether therapeutically beneficial or pleasurable -- and undesired effects -- whether detrimental or unpleasant. \nYoung concluded: "Nearly all medicines have toxic, potentially lethal effects. But marijuana is not such a substance. There is no record in the extensive medical literature describing a proven, documented cannabis-induced fatality ... By contrast aspirin, a commonly used, over-the-counter medicine, causes hundreds of deaths each year."\nStockton said students should process nonjudgmental facts about factional advice to investigate the perceived benefits and dangers of all drug use for medicinal purposes. She recommended students make "adult" decisions about the potential for narcotic and substance abuse.\nThe Stafford Commission concluded that "no valid evidence" exists to support the thesis that marijuana by itself, either inevitably, generally or even frequently causes or precipitates the commission of a crime, including acts of violence, or juvenile delinquency. A careful search of the literature and testimony of the nation's health officials has not revealed a single human fatality in the U.S. proven to have resulted solely from ingestion of marijuana.\nSmoking marijuana does possess health risks similar to smoking tobacco, but typical nicotine addicts consume their drug at a higher rate. However, until the U.S. government, Senate and American public agree to fund further academic and scientific testing of the medicinal properties of marijuana use, the Stafford Commission and other scientific studies reported, hundreds of thousands of ill Americans might continue to suffer from conditions beyond modern medicine or from medications not suited to specific individual users.\n"The nation tries very hard to instill in its children independence, curiosity and a healthy self-assurance. These qualities guarantee a dynamic, progressive society. When drugs are concerned, however, we have relied generally on authoritarianism and on obedience," the Stafford Commission noted. "Drug education has generally been characterized by overemphasis of scare tactics. Some segments of the population have been reluctant to inform for fear of arousing curiosity in young minds. Where drugs are concerned, young people are simply supposed to nod and obey"
