...Just put in to withdraw if you don't like it after that.
[two weeks later]
Flap, flap, flap, flap, flap, flap
Yes, Joe.
[Joe stands up]
Yeah, I've been here two weeks, I don't like it, I want to withdraw myself.
[group laughs loud and sarcastically led by staff]
Public Health Group Endorses Marijuana Farm Proposal
The National Association for Public Health Policy has announced its support for the UMass Amherst proposal to create an independent facility to produce marijuana for use in federally approved and privately funded medical research.
(PRWEB) October 6, 2005 -- On September 26, 2005, Terence Carroll, President of the National Association for Public Health Policy wrote to the Administrator of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) lending NAPHP's support to the effort to establish a privately funded source of marijuana for medical research. In doing so, NAPHP joined a number of other organizations including the American Medical Students Association, California Medical Association, Lymphoma Foundation of America, and United Methodist Church. Others who have declared their support for this position also include Senators Edward Kennedy and John Kerry and at least twenty other members of Congress.
At present, the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) has a monopoly on the supply of marijuana that can be used in research. Unfortunately, NIDA provides low-potency material and only makes it available to projects it approves. NIDA made a policy decision a number of years ago that, since providing marijuana to researchers was provision of a resource, all requests for such material should be subject to NIDA's lengthy grant review process. So far, no researcher proposing to study the medical benefits of marijuana has received approval through that process. In at least two instances NIDA has refused to supply marijuana to FDA approved clinical studies.
The federal government's drug policymakers have repeatedly opposed medical use of marijuana on the grounds that there is insufficient research demonstrating the efficacy of marijuana as medicine. But the federal government has been the principal barrier to conducting such research. This obstructionism has continued unabated despite the recommendations in 1999 of the Institute of Medicine (in the report of a study commissioned by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy) that clinical research on marijuana as medicine should be supported by the federal government. The NIDA monopoly on the supply of marijuana for medical research continues to be the primary way in which such research is prevented.
For more than four years the DEA has blocked the proposal of the University of Massachusetts to operate a second, and independently funded, facility to produce marijuana exclusively for federally approved and privately funded research. In June 2001 Professor Lyle Craker, Director of the Medicinal Plant Program of the Department of Plant, Soil and Insect Sciences, University of Massachusetts Amherst, submitted an application to the DEA for a license to operate such a facility. In December 2001, DEA claimed it was lost. Dr. Craker subsequently resubmitted a photocopy of the original application but was informed in February 2002 that the photocopied application was invalid since it lacked an original signature. In July 2002, the original application was returned, unprocessed, with a DEA date stamp showing it had been received in June 2001.
Dr. Craker resubmitted the original application to DEA on August 20, 2002, which DEA finally acknowledged receiving. Almost a year later, on July 24, 2003, DEA finally filed a legally required notice in the Federal Register about Prof. Craker's application, with a public comment period ending on September 23, 2003. The only comment filed was by Prof. Mahmoud ElSohly, director of the existing NIDA-funded marijuana farm at the University of Mississippi.
On July 21, 2004, MAPS, Prof. Craker filed a lawsuit (Craker v. DEA, Docket # 05-16) against the DEA seeking to compel the agency to act on his application. In November 2004, a Federal District Court ordered DEA to respond by December 22, 2004. On December 10, 2004, DEA finally rejected the application. Since that time, Dr. Craker has pursued an appeal of that decision through DEA's internal review system. Our letter supports Dr. Craker in this effort.
Dr. David F. Duncan
National Association for Public Health Policy
http://www.naphp.org/
270-796-6713
Email us Here http://www.prweb.com/emailmember.php?prid=293893
We will make mistakes. Learning from them doesn't make us heros. It only gives us a passing grade on the evolutionary scale.
Anonymity Anonymous
