From: lamontg@u.washington.edu (Lamont Granquist)
Newsgroups: alt.drugs,talk.politics.drugs,alt.hemp
Subject: Idiot DEA Agent from Hell in the Seattle P-I
Date: 10 Dec 1994 02:41:36 GMT
Message-ID: <3cb4h0$cso@nntp1.u.washington.edu>

(...do get the bloody attribution correct so no one thinks i wrote this, 'k?
 better yet, just remember to erase the attribution line...)

Seattle P-I, Friday, Dec 9, 1994, A16

Marijuana:  There is no medical use for the drug

Your Dec 5. editorial advocating marijuana as medicine is insupportable.
Marijuana has been rejected as medicine by the American Medical Association,
the American Cancer Society, the American Academy of Ophthalmology and the
National Multiple Sclerosis Association.  Not one American health association
accepts marijuana as medicine.

For the past 50 years, drug evaluation experts at the US Food and Drug
Administration have been responsible for protecting Americans from unsafe
and ineffective new medicines.  Relying on the same scientific standards
used to judge all other drugs, FDA experts rep[eatedly have rejected
marijuana for medical use.

Donald H. Silberberg, M.D., is chairman of the Department of Neurology,
University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.  He is also president of the
National Medical Advisory Board for the NAtional Multiple Sclerosis Society.
He has testified, "I have not found any legitimate medical or scientific
works which show that marijuana is medically effectivve in treating
multiple sclerosis or spasticity.  The longe-term treatment of the symptoms
of multiple sclerosis through the use of marijuana could be devastating.
The use of (marijuana), especially for long-term treatment would be worse
than the original disease itself."

We have put "snake oil" salesman out of business by requiring proof of
safety and efficacy for new drugs.  Marijuana passes none of those tests...

A petition to put marijuana in a less restrictve schedule of the Controlled
Substance Act was rejected by the DEA, after public hearings.  The US Court
of Appeals upheld the ruling unanimously.

Frank D. Rodriguez
DEA, Seattle

--
Lamont Granquist (lamontg@u.washington.edu)
Q: How many economists does it take to change a light bulb?
N: None!  If it needed fixing, the market would take care of it!