Another brick in the wall, removed.
AMA Urges the FEDS to Stop Calling Marijuana Dangerous
the powerful prestigious doctor's group, the American Medical Association has now changed its weed policy saying it would like to promote clinical research on it, and perhaps develop cannabis-based medicines.
I always discourage people from trying to relate "why marijuana was originally made illegal" with how and why it remains illegal after 40-some yers of efforts to correct the very bad law.
It matters not why it was made illegal almost 80 years ago.
It matters most why it would remain so illegal and so demonized in this modern, more scientific time, replete with better communication and such.
It remains illegal partly due to reefer madness - the frothing-at-the-mouth propaganda constantly regurgitated by the GOP and the ONDCP (on your tax dollar) - and a huge foundation of this propaganda is the LIE that marijuana is "dangerous".
There is no end to the awfulizing some people continue to do about marijuana - most of them republicans, the rest just ignorant. Yes, there is a HUGE overlap, but I digress.
The AMA, way back in 1937, was NOT part of the illegalization but got on board later.
The salient point from this is that the AM, which became hugely supportive of reefer madness has all of a sudden begun to recant.
Mostly because they are educated in science.
AMA board member Dr. Edward Langston points out at least one reason for their change is that there have only been a few studies of the drug, and those were insufficient to base any decisions on. The organization took a big step forward at a recent meeting in Houston, when it was noted that weed was at one time linked by the federal government to homicidal mania. But in 1996, California voters approved the use of medical marijuana, and that began the steady but sure movement of weed into mainstream society.
The "insufficient to base any decisions on"-bit is much more important than it sounds.
All those government-funded studies diligently trying to show that marijuana was exactly the menace the ever-evolving anti-marijuana propaganda made it to be, failed miserably. There is no consequential study to say it's "dangerous" but plenty of studies showing vast promise of medical use.
No, this doesn't mean go out and start smoking pot: government propagnada has trained you to make that connection whenever the public discourse on cannabis becomes too intelligent. The republicans and other anti-reform forces (the usual suspects) have a thousand red herrings to toss out as the discourse becomes rational.
No, your kids won't immediately become addicted to heroin: that's just something republicans and other stupid people like to say.
The sky won't fall. Kittens won't die. The oceans might boil someday, but that's global warming and pollution. If you ask republicans NOTHING is worse than marijuana. Dennis Hastert and George W. Bush were linking marijuana to the WTC attacks before the fires were even out.
Democrats, of course, aid and abett the GOP every step of the way for fear of being called "Soft on crime" by the repubs, but the Dems do not have anything like reefer madness at their core. It's a religion for the GOP.
One more important brick has been removed from the Great Green Wall of American Marijuana Prohibition.
It is long past time to fix this unintelligent crap and move on.