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Medical marijuana
documentary sparks bigger debate
November 14, 2007 - northwestern.edu
Grass, pot, weed, bud, dope,
cannabis - it’s a drug with many
names. In some cultures it is considered a portal to another
realm of
consciousness, and vilified in others as a gateway drug to a life of
addiction. But treatment for symptoms of diseases like AIDS,
Multiple
Sclerosis and other neurological disorders? Can it be that
this
illegal party drug is…a cure?
The film
These are questions the documentary “Waiting to
Inhale” explores.
From a brief history of marijuana through its current status as an
illegal substance by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, the film looks
at benefits the drug may have that have long been overlooked.
The documentary, currently screening across North America, met
with
cheers from the audience at Roosevelt University last Thursday evening.
With interviews of doctors, patients, marijuana growers,
advocates,
opponents, and government officials, the documentary goes beyond a
pro-drug propaganda piece. It becomes a convincing argument
for how
pot can help those in pain who have explored every pharmaceutical drug
available.
The cycle
An overarching theme of the documentary is the current
catch-22 for
medical marijuana. It is classified as a schedule 1 substance
under
the Controlled Substances Act, labeled as having a high potential for
abuse and no current accepted medical use in treatment in the
U.S.
As a schedule 1 substance, cannabis can be researched only
with
federal approval and using a supply provided by the National Institute
on Drug Abuse. This government monopoly on access to
marijuana for
medical testing has made clinical trials next to impossible to get off
the ground. Because clinical trials are not undertaken, it is
difficult to prove that marijuana could have beneficial
properties.
And so the cycle continues.
The panel
A panel of experts and patients led by the film’s
director, Jed
Riffe, convened after the screening to discuss medical
marijuana’s
status in limbo.
The patient
The non-profit marijuana advocacy group Americans for Safe
Access,
estimates that 300,000 Americans use medical marijuana.
Marijuana has
become a treatment for those suffering pain from MS, nausea and loss of
appetite from AIDS, spasms from neurological disorders and many other
ailments that have no set cure. Medical marijuana users
report fewer
side effects than those associated with legal prescription medications.
Panelist Julie Falco, a patient suffering from MS, described
years
of pain and frustration trying every pharmaceutical treatment
available, most of which made her worse.
“Every time I took a medication, it was just so
severe and
depressing and discouraging that nothing was
working.” Falco started
using cannabis in 2004, ingesting it three times daily, and it
alleviated the symptoms of her illness to such an extent that she is no
longer on any other medication.
“This is the drug that works for me,” she
said, even though her treatment of choice is currently illegal.
The doctor
Dr. Bruce Doblin, an internist and medical ethicist in
Chicago,
described the difficulty physicians face when patients could be helped
by marijuana, but doctors are unable to prescribe it.
“The frustrating thing about being a physician is
that you take an
oath dedicated to help people. There’s something
right out there and
it’s not available. What is available are a lot of
pain medications
that have all sorts of complications – those are very
available, but
complicated to take and complicated to prescribe.”
A U.S. Department of Justice-appointed judge ruled in May that
the
DEA end its forty-year government monopoly on the supply of
research-grade marijuana available for Food and Drug
Administration-approved studies. With the monopoly broken,
new medical
studies could lead to accepted medical proof that marijuana has
benefits in treatment.
This is good news for physicians, but may not be the lynchpin
needed
to legalize medical marijuana across the U.S. For Doblin, the
current
status of medical marijuana as a banned substance is not based on its
unproven effectiveness in medicine.
“There’s decades of good
experience showing that medical cannabis works.
There’s really no
debate about whether it works or not.”
The law
James Gierach is a former Cook County prosecutor and current
member
of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, a non-profit organization of
criminal justice professionals advocating the end of drug
prohibition.
Gierach described his former viewpoint that drug use was akin
to
violence, and he prosecuted offenders to the full extent of the
law.
But, over the years, after “seeing what the drug was has done
for us,”
he changed his mind.
“The war on drugs not only doesn’t
accomplish what it is designed to
do - to keep drugs away from young people and save them - it is the
heart of nearly any crisis that you can name in
America.” Gierach
listed issues such as guns, gangs, crime, health care and funding for
terrorism as such problems enhanced by prohibition, and stated that
“the good guys are on the same side as the drug dealers, and
the reason
is economics.”
Gierach argued that the underground market for drugs
drastically
increases their value, to the point that marijuana has more value than
gold. Legalizing the drug would remove the economic benefit
and make
it easier to regulate.
“We must as a nation start discussing the harm
that’s being done by
the war on drugs, even though it was intended as an altruistic program
to save our kids,” Gierach said.
The politics
Lobbyist John Walker echoed this sentiment, and asked the
audience
if they were angry in the wake of the documentary screening.
He
requested that they channel that anger into action, and that they
petition Congress to pass legislation legalizing the use of medical
marijuana. “We’re at a tipping
point…we are going to pass a medical
marijuana bill here in Illinois this year. We’ve
got to.”