Global Ganja Report

In response to public comments made against marijuana reform by former Rhode Island Rep. Patrick Kennedy, patient advocates wrote to Kennedy inviting him to attend a national conference on medical marijuana scheduled for Feb. 22-25 at the Mayflower Renaissance Hotel in Washington DC. Kennedy announced on Jan. 9 the formation of a new group, Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM), which claims to take a different approach than either legalization advocates or government drug warriors. However, advocates argue that SAM's supposed pro-public health approach ignores the therapeutic benefits of the cannabis plant and is simply using a new narrative to make the same arguments used by marijuana opponents for years.

Less than a week after oral arguments in the landmark federal case to reclassify cannabis for medical use, the plaintiffs filed an additional brief Oct. 22 at the request of the court. In the case Americans for Safe Access v. Drug Enforcement Administration, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals issued an order last week seeking details on the harm sustained by plaintiff and disabled US Air Force veteran Michael Krawitz as a result of the federal government's policy on medical marijuana.

For the first time in nearly 20 years, a US Court of Appeals is set to hear oral arguments in a lawsuit challenging the federal government's classification of cannabis as a dangerous drug with no medicinal value: Americans for Safe Access v. Drug Enforcement Administration. This historic case will force a federal court to finally review the scientific evidence regarding the therapeutic efficacy of cannabis. During a press briefing Oct. 4, plaintiffs in the case, along with leading medical researchers and clinicians, spoke by conference call about the necessity of the federal government recognizing current scientific data supporting marijuana rescheduling. Cannabis is currently classified in the same category as heroin despite calls from scientists, medical professionals, and policy makers to reschedule the plant for medical use.

A government-sponsored study published recently in The Open Neurology Journal concludes that cannabis provides relief to some chronic pain sufferers and that more clinical trials are needed—directly challenging DEA classification of the drug under "Schedule I," that reserved for substances with no medical uses. The study, sponsored by the State of California and conducted at the University of California Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research, calls the Schedule I placement "not accurate" and "not tenable."

Patient advocacy group Americans for Safe Access (ASA) has discovered that a second patient at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center has been denied a transplant in the past year because of medical marijuana use. In response, ASA sent a letter June 11 to the Cedars-Sinai Transplant Center on behalf of Toni Trujillo, a qualified medical marijuana patient who was removed from the kidney transplant list earlier this year. Trujillo has had kidney problems for most of her life and has been on dialysis for the past five years, since an existing kidney transplant began failing. The letter urges the world-renowned hospital to promptly re-list Trujillo and change its policy on medical marijuana.

Israeli scientists have developed a non-psychoative cannabis variety, in what is being portrayed as a boost for medical marijuana. According to Israel's Maariv newspaper, the new variety looks, smells and even tastes "the same" as psychoactive varieties. "It has the same scent, shape and taste as the original plant—it's all the same—but the numbing sensation that users are accustomed to has disappeared," said Tzahi Klein, head of development at Tikkun Olam, the firm that developed what an AFP account calls "the species." Klein adds: "Many of our patients who tried the new plant come back to us and say: 'You tricked me'"—because they assumed they had been given a placebo.

Smoking cannabis can help relieve spasticity (muscle tightness) and pain in people who suffer from multiple sclerosis, a new study suggests. Study leader Dr. Jody Corey-Bloom, director of the US San Diego Multiple Sclerosis Center, looked at 30 multiple sclerosis patients with muscle tightness who weren't helped by conventional medicines, and discovered they found relief from smoking cannabis. "Smoking pot reduces the spasticity by about a third compared to patients on placebo," she said. Those who smoked cannabis also had a 50% decrease in pain scores. The study is published in the May 14 issue of the Canadian Medical Association Journal. (Huffington Post, Health Day, May 14)

The enactment of state medical marijuana laws is associated with reduced instances of suicide, according to a discussion paper published recently by the Institute for the Study of Labor in Bonn, Germany. Researchers at Montana State University, the University of Colorado, and San Diego State University assessed rates of suicide in the years before and after the passage of medical marijuana laws. Authors of the discussion paper, entitled "High on Life: Medical Marijuana Laws and Suicide," found: