The US Attorney General’s office recently released new guidelines saying the Federal Government will not pursue users and suppliers of medical marijuana under federal law, essentially turning over enforcement of medical marijuana laws to the states that have enacted them. Addiction Radio discusses some aspects.
Transcript:
CNS: Hi and welcome once again to the CNS addiction radio podcast. Im Howard LaMere here with Dr. Darryl Inaba. Darryl in the news today, this week a lot of marijuana, medical marijuana – a new policy statement from the Attorney Generals Office and also some kind of advance warning to the medical marijuana suppliers in Los Angeles city and county. What do you make of all this?
Darryl: Well, first of all Howard, it is a major shift and a dramatic one from the Federal Government, from the Obama administration, the Justice Department, and then there was a letter from the David Ogden, the Deputy Attorney General, clarifying that the US government and the federal prosecution will no longer be going after medical marijuana providers and users in those states which allow or have medical marijuana as a legal situation, as long as the people who are involved with it are in compliance, full compliance, with the state laws. And thats a remarkable change because prior to now, the federal government was saying each state can do what ever they want to and enact what ever they wanted to but its the Federal Supremacy Act and, and federally marijuana was illegal so it didnt matter what the states want to say, the federal government would come in and prosecute. Now theyre saying no, well leave it up to the states, to do their own, make their own laws and prosecutions about marijuana and where it is legal in those states, were not going to intervene and come in, so that in itself is remarkable and that makes a major change; as well as its a statement by the federal government saying that there is viable evidence, there is enough proof that in certain circumstances, in certain medical conditions – pain, nausea, maybe glaucoma – marijuana does seem to have some beneficial affects. I still feel that its not the smoking marijuana, its actually the chemicals in marijuana, THC; that we need to have a much healthier way of providing it, then just by people rolling up weed and smoking it. In Oregon, the physicians I talk to who are promoting or prescribing, if you are or however you say youre going to do it, suggesting medical marijuana to your patients are wisely suggesting that they not smoke it but that they actually bake it in cookies and in brownies and in substances like that and eat it so that they wont expose their lungs to the harmful effects of the tars and the other chemicals that can hurt your lungs.
CNS: Right, same, same kind of dangers of smoking cigarettes and actually Ive been experimenting with vaporizing tobacco here myself personally to grapple with my tobacco addiction, and a lot of people mention that as a possible alternative also.
Darryl: I think thats long over due where they not a smoke marijuana but they extract the chemicals in it, provide it in different forms and of course the major objection by many medical marijuana advocates to Marinol and other synthetic marijuana, is that the onset is so much slower if you take a tablet or even if you inject so I think somebody should come up with a more pure, cleaner anatomizer just like somebody with asthma, who has an asthma vaporizer can just inhale that and get the immediate results and get cleaner results and more reliable results than smoking a combination of four hundred and twenty different chemicals, sixty of which are psychoactive when you smoke marijuana. The other thing that you mentioned though Howard is kind of interesting also, and thats what the marijuana, medical marijuana advocates have always told me, was the real problem they saw in getting their product to be legalized for medical purposes, that the enemy or the pro-marijuana people that smoke marijuana, lets get high marijuana people who arent using it for medical affects at all, but really want to promote legalization of marijuana just to get loaded and just get high and the medical marijuana advocates have told me those are, thats their real enemy. It’s not the federal government, state government and Narcs, its really those pro-legal marijuana advocates and that seems to be the thing happening in Los Angeles. Los Angeles just astoundingly more than any other place in the nation has just sprung up with the medical marijuana issue, tremendous amounts of marijuana outlets, for sale marijuana and it looks like theyre even advocating for a for sale for profits. I think part of California stipulation had to be, had to be non-profit. You know you had to be almost non-cash basis of providing medical marijuana. But in LA, youve got, by some accounts, conservative counts, eight hundred marijuana outlets now and by other accounts, a thousand marijuana outlets for serving a much greater number than is projected being the number of patients who need access, need medical marijuana and so clearly there is some diversion from medical marijuana to legalize marijuana and provide marijuana and provide sales for it. Maybe theyre ahead of their time, because Governor Schwarzenegger, a little while back was proposing that marijuana be legalized and taxed so that California can make a lot of tax revenue on it. But because of the great outlets of marijuana in Los Angeles and greater than the medical need, theres a backlash or reaction from the city and the county and a lot of jockeying and positioning, thats saying that they recognize this is nothing more than just abusing marijuana. So what theyre going to do is theyre going to be cracking down on a lot of the outlets from the city and county jurisdiction point of view and warning all these marijuana advocates that youve got, outlets rather, that youve got to toe the line, youve got to, its got to be medical marijuana — if its not, were going to prosecute you to full letter of the law and were going to crack down on you from a local level. Were not worried about the federal government and what they say, were going to crack down on you from our local level. So thats an interesting reaction too.
CNS: Well, yeah thats definitely somethings that going to have to be looked into. The wording in the justice departments statement is that theyre not going to pursue federal actions, or theyre telling their federal attorneys not to pursue actions where the individual or the person thats supplying to the individual are in clear and unambiguous compliance with the existing state laws.
Darryl: The other thing that I worry about in terms of medical marijuana and maybe levelization of marijuana, or even legalization with taxation, is what are we going to do about driving under the influence. Some of the early research is showing that even small levels of marijuana impair abilities to drive and if we have an analogy to legalization of alcohol we definitely had a legal limit to drive, but Im not sure if thats ever been stated for marijuana. I know it could be tested in salvia and other things to see if you were at that legal limit but where are we going to be with DUI laws and marijuana, with marijuana and I think that has to be looked at because marijuana is I think, a hazard for somebody operating a automobile or even other hazardous machinery.
CNS: Yeah, especially if youre not used to it. I read something recently about it being actually not as dangerous as alcohol but perhaps troublesome in a different kind of way in, in this article it mentioned the drivers being extraordinarily cautious in driving you know, too slow just because their mind was working on other things. So I, I think thats a good point that you have there and Im not sure how we, how we codify it, codify it.
Darryl: Right, I think the early research, Reese Jones and others at UC show that very, even when their people were given low doses of marijuana where they felt that they didnt have any effects from it, they didnt feel anything, that their reaction time was slower, marijuana does slow time down. I mean anybody who smokes it, their reaction becomes slower and they do things slower. So that itself can be hazardous, but theres also depth perception is impaired to quite a degree and the ability to perform tasks which require multiple operations and driving might be considered that way. Certainly an airline pilot would be considered that way and we dont, we have to consider how the marijuana laws are going to affect them. But in order to do something thats going to take multiple actions and multiple thought process, I often use the analogy of programming a VCR so you get a new VCR or DVD and you want to record something you know for later on and show and youve got to go through these multiple buttons and press this — try smoking a joint and do that and I guarantee you, you start laughing instead of finishing. So, so we do have some concerns about operating vehicles while youre under the influence. Stereos, you know, just the stereos and your music choices and capacities while driving have just exploded and you know its hard enough just driving with out being under the influence or not even using the cell phone, to find the right buttons to get the right stations you want, just try that when youre distracted and I think youve got a big problem.
CNS: Or, or maybe youre trying to figure out your GPS system, to figure out where you are. Yeah, all kinds of complications that show up, without the additional complication of psychoactive drugs. Anyway this, this topic will certainly go on and on and on and well have more discussions about it. If anyone out there in radio podcast land has any comments or questions we would definitely like to hear them. We can respond to them if possible in a future program. Drop by our website which is cnsproductions.com and drop us an email from that point. Darryl thank you as always and well talk to you soon.
Darryl: Hey great talking to you, Howard.
CNS: That wraps our pod for today. Thanks for visiting the CNS pod cast. Please check back soon for the next in the series and visit our website www.cnsproductions.com.