President Obama released his budget requests for fiscal 2011 today, requesting $3.5 million less for the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign than he did in fiscal 2010.

The media campaign, which is run by the drug czar’s office, has for years emptied its coffers on absurd anti-marijuana advertisements that veer so far from the truth they’re laughable. Take, for example, this ad, which insinuates that marijuana use can lead to rape. This is a particularly dishonest approach considering that alcohol, a legal drug, is a factor in a huge majority of sexual assaults. Yet no one at the drug czar’s office will say publicly that we should put responsible drinkers in jail.

The president spoke of tightening the belt in Washington, D.C. during the State of the Union address last week. He missed an opportunity today to cut $45 million (the current budget for the media campaign) that’s being wasted on ineffective advertising. The media campaign has never been anything but reefer madness, and the new administration should simply eliminate it. If you agree, you can e-mail the White House and let the president know how you feel.

We told readers a few weeks ago that MPP would update them on how the government was responding to the American Medical Association’s new policy on marijuana. To refresh everyone’s memory, the AMA’s new policy is:

Our AMA urges that marijuana’s status as a federal Schedule I controlled substance be reviewed with the goal of facilitating the conduct of clinical research and development of cannabinoid-based medicines, and alternate delivery methods. This should not be viewed as an endorsement of state-based medical cannabis programs, the legalization of marijuana, or that scientific evidence on the therapeutic use of cannabis meets the current standards for a prescription drug product. (source)

So they don’t go as far as we do, but they are calling for a review of marijuana’s Schedule I status (Schedule I drugs being defined as having no medical value). Now, lets look at how the drug czar is characterizing it. [Read more →]

Another Justice Department Web site with a cute name is hanging on to misinformation about the American Medical Association’s position on medical marijuana.

From JustThinkTwice.org:

The American Medical Association has rejected pleas to endorse marijuana as medicine, and instead has urged that marijuana remain a prohibited, Schedule I drug, at least until more research is done.

It’s false, and it needs to change. Please join me in sending an e-mail to AskDOJ@usdoj.gov and asking them to update this language.

Also of note is the relative silence from the drug czar’s office. You would think the Office of National Drug Control Policy would have something to say about a new marijuana position from the nation’s largest medical association, right? Wouldn’t that warrant a press release or blog post? It certainly has whenever the AMA said something negative about marijuana.

I guess they’re showing their true colors. The drug czar’s office isn’t about bringing you up-to-date, factual information on drugs and drug policy. Their job is to make sure you don’t question the laws we have in place — even when it puts them at odds with reality. So when the nation’s largest group of doctors breaks from the government talking points, all we hear is silence.

In its official response to the AMA’s recent call for a review of marijuana’s status as a Schedule I drug (barring any medical use) under federal law, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy stated that it would defer to “the FDA’s judgment that the raw marijuana plant cannot meet the standards for identity, strength, quality, purity, packaging and labeling required of medicine.”

While we’re not used to factual accuracy from ONDCP, in this case they’re wrong not once, but twice.

First, there is absolutely no reason that plant medicines can’t be standardized and controlled for purity and potency. Indeed, the Netherlands has been doing just that for years, with medical marijuana distributed in Dutch pharmacies that is “of pharmaceutical quality and complies with the strictest requirements,” according to the Dutch government.

Second, the FDA has never said that a natural plant product can’t be a medicine. Indeed the agency has a lengthy “Guidance for Industry: Botanical Drug Products,” specifically designed to aid developers of plant medicines. The document not only doesn’t rule out plants as medicines, it even states, “In the initial stage of clinical studies of a botanical drug, it is generally not necessary to identify the active constituents or other biological markers or to have a chemical identification and assay for a particular constituent or marker.” Given that the active components of marijuana are already well-known and extensively researched, marijuana is well ahead of where the FDA says plant products need to be to start the process of seeking FDA licensing.

Yes, the FDA did put out a press release in 2006 saying that “smoked marijuana” had not been shown to be a safe and effective medicine. That statement was utterly unscientific, as we pointed out at the time, but it was absolutely not a declaration that the plant could never be a medicine.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve had several opportunities to attend Q & A sessions with the Obama administration’s drug czar, Gil Kerlikowske. Increasingly, the audiences are asking him about the cartels in Mexico.

A typical question goes something like this: “Wouldn’t ending marijuana prohibition in the U.S. wipe out the drug cartels like the 21^st amendment wiped out the illegal liquor trade in the 1930s?” [Read more →]