The memorandum on
Scientific Integrity was issued by the Obama administrationin March of 2009, almost 2 years ago. In the memo, President Obama stated this: "Science and the scientific process must inform and guide decisions of my Administration."
I guess there were exceptions they didn't tell us about.
Two years later, here is the status of medical marijuana research under the Obama administration as
reported by Paul Armentano, deputy director of NORML:
Those of us involved in marijuana law reform welcomed the memo -- which came just months after the American Medical Association called for "facilitating ... clinical research and development of cannabinoid-based medicines" -- and we hoped that it would stimulate the commencement of long-overdue human studies into the safety and efficacy of medical cannabis.
Those hopes were snuffed, however, when a representative from the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), the agency that oversees 85 percent of the world's research on controlled substances, reaffirmed its longstanding "no medi-pot" policy to The New York Times. "As the National Institute on Drug Abuse, our focus is primarily on the negative consequences of marijuana use," a spokesperson told the paper in 2010. "We generally do not fund research focused on the potential beneficial medical effects of marijuana."
A review of the U.S. National Institute of Health website clinicaltrials.gov shows that NIDA's kibosh on medical marijuana trials continues unabated. Though an online search of ongoing FDA-approved clinical trials using the keyword "cannabinoids" (the active components in marijuana) yielded me 65 worldwide hits, only six involved subjects's use of actual cannabis. (The others involved the use of synthetic cannabinoid agonists like dronabinol or nabilone, the commercially marketed marijuana extract Sativex, or the cannabinoid receptor blocking agent Rimonabant).
Two of the studies are completed and 4 are still in the recruitment phase. (See article for specific studies.) Of those 4 remaining studies, one is on detecting cannabinoids on drug screens and the other looks at the effect of marijuana on risk-taking behavior, i.e. one that assumes harms due to marijuana. That's it.
That's the extent of American research on humans.
I agree with Paul, who wrote: So much for the AMA's demand for clinical cannabis research.
Animal studies continue at "a record pace."
PA goes on to note just some of the diseases that early research indicates cannabinoids might "halt the development of": cancer, diabetes, Lou Gehrig's disease and multiple sclerosis.
As someone has a disease that's already wrecked my life and which could possibly be halted in its tracks so I don't end up debilitated to the point where I can no longer live on my own, I can't tell you how much I resent this. What, I have to go out and get it illegally, not knowing what it's been laced with and risking arrest and jail time for trying to save myself? Thanks a whole effing lot.
My god, if someone I loved had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS; Lou Gehrig's disease) and I knew that there was something that had the potential to keep my loved one alive and my government refused to study it or legalize it? Hell, if someone I knew had ALS, screw the illegality -- I'd find hopefully where to get a steady stream of it. And it sure as hell wouldn't make me feel all warm & fuzzy about the politicians who had blocked studying that drug.
They'll okay opioids but they won't okay marijuana? Give me a fucking break.
I resent the hell out of this.
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