In preparation for a parliamentary hearing scheduled for October 15, a coalition of German health organizations, including the German AIDS Support Society, the German Society for Pain Therapy, and the German Epilepsy Association, have issued a statement calling on the government to facilitate access to medical cannabis for patients without threat of prosecution. The Berlin Declaration, as it's called, is in German, but the International Association for Cannabis as Medicine has provided the following…

On Saturday, New Bedford Standard-Times columnist Jack Spillane weighed with an eminently sensible and amusing take on the opposition to Question 2 , the marijuana decriminalization initiative on the November ballot in Massachusetts. He quotes some funny/scary dialogue from the press conference held by prosecutors and other opponents that managed to escape the notice of other reporters. The silliness begins with Bristol County District Attorney Sam Sutter: And "I don't want to hear," he said, those…

Medical marijuana advocates often hear that marijuana can't be a real medicine because it hasn't been approved by the FDA. One common response to this is that the Drug Enforcement Administration continues to block the only avenue that could produce the research needed to seek FDA approval for medical marijuana, over a year and half after an administrative law judge ruled that the project should go ahead.  But that's just the start. The Journal of the American Medical Association recently published…

MPP-TV has released a Marijuana Policy Presidential Video Voter Guide.  Want to see and hear what the candidates' positions on marijuana policy are?  Here's your chance.  Head on over to MPP-TV and check it out.

It's been known for a while that some cannabinoids, the active components in marijuana, have antibacterial properties (one of many useful facts you won't find on ONDCP's Web site). Now, as noted by stories in the New York Times and Web MD, five cannabinoids, including THC, have been shown to be active against a particularly worrisome form of staph infection that's resistant to conventional antibiotics. It took these major media outlets a while to catch up with the study, published August 6 in the…

Noting that his just-announced vice presidential pick, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, has acknowledged having smoked marijuana, MPP is urging Sen. John McCain to respect states' rights to set their own marijuana policies if he is elected president. On Aug. 6, 2006, the Anchorage Daily News reported: Palin said she has smoked marijuana -- remember, it was legal under state law, she said, even if illegal under U.S. law -- but says she didn't like it and doesn't smoke it now.  'I can't claim a Bill Clinton…

The sometimes-chaotic medical marijuana situation in California has spurred a fair amount of sensationalized and unbalanced press coverage, even in the esteemed New Yorker. Yes, there have been some problems and some misuse of the law, but an editorial in today's L.A. Times hits the nail on the head as to the real source of the problems: Most of the negative consequences [of Proposition 215] can be attributed to the gap between state and federal marijuana laws. The fact that even sellers considered…

While some medical uses of marijuana remain controversial, a new study of marijuana and HIV-related neuropathy published online in early August by the journal Neuropsychopharmacology closes the case regarding one important indication: neuropathic pain.  Neuropathic pain -- pain from damage to the nerves -- can be caused by any number of conditions, including HIV (as in this study), diabetes, and multiple sclerosis. And it is notoriously resistant to conventional pain drugs, as the article notes.…

Jacob Sullum at Reason.com published an interesting piece today on medical marijuana and federalism.  Sullum points out the irony in conservative presidential candidate John McCain’s opposition to state medical marijuana laws and his liberal opponent, Senator Barack Obama’s, acceptance of them. Waving the flag of federalism as a political tool – rather than a firm ideological standpoint – is nothing new and is not limited to medical marijuana, but it is still surprising to see such a dramatic role…

Okay, "must" may be a bit strong, but before heading off on vacation for two weeks (and leaving you in the capable hands of my fellow bloggers), I want to mention two new books that deserve attention from anyone interested in marijuana and marijuana policy. Despite the awful title, "Dying to Get High"  is one of the most interesting books yet written about medical marijuana. Authors Wendy Chapkis and Richard J. Webb focus on the Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana (WAMM), a patient-run collective…