The FDA Celebrates 4/20...

Tim Cavanaugh | April 20, 2006

...with a warning that "no sound scientific studies support[s] medical use of marijuana for treatment in the United States."

FDA is the sole Federal agency that approves drug products as safe and effective for intended indications. The Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic (FD&C) Act requires that new drugs be shown to be safe and effective for their intended use before being marketed in this country. FDA's drug approval process requires well-controlled clinical trials that provide the necessary scientific data upon which FDA makes its approval and labeling decisions. If a drug product is to be marketed, disciplined, systematic, scientifically conducted trials are the best means to obtain data to ensure that drug is safe and effective when used as indicated. Efforts that seek to bypass the FDA drug approval process would not serve the interests of public health because they might expose patients to unsafe and ineffective drug products. FDA has not approved smoked marijuana for any condition or disease indication.

Whole press release.

Comments

|4.20.06 @ 8:25PM|#

"Soros saw in America's drug war many of the same political and intellectual traits that had made him hate Communism and fascism: political indoctrination substituted for education; bureaucratic apparatchiks disfiguring scientific evidence to serve the state's agenda; massive deployment of police agents and their informants in ever more intrusive ways; politicians mouthing stupid cliches without the slightest hint of embarassment; official spokesmen responding to substantive criticisms of government policy not in kind but instead by the motivations and characters of their critics; and the arrest and incarceration of millions for engaging in personal tastes and vices, as well as capitalist transactions, prohibited by the state for reasons it can no longer clearly recall." Ethan Nadelmann, National Review, Sept 27 2004.

And the disfiguration continues. More here.

|4.20.06 @ 8:56PM|#

Efforts that seek to bypass the FDA drug approval process would not serve the interests of public health because they might expose patients to unsafe and ineffective drug products.

Whereas drug products that make it through the process are guaranteed to be only unsafe or ineffective?

|4.20.06 @ 9:00PM|#

"Efforts that seek to bypass the FDA drug approval process would not serve the interests of public health because they might expose patients to unsafe and ineffective drug products."

For crying out loud, how many fucking people have been "exposed" to marijuana? A zillion? Unsafe, perhaps under certain circumstances (driving). But ineffective? Hell no!

|4.20.06 @ 9:06PM|#

In what possible, conceivable way does this FDA statement bypass 4:20? You're dreaming, and really you're lying to us....

|4.20.06 @ 9:07PM|#

I had no idea that 420 has matured from giggly stoner joke to full fledged tin foil hat status:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/04/20/420_conspiracy/

"If this doesn't get your conspiracy alarm bells ringing, you need to smoke some more pot."

Tim Cavanaugh|4.20.06 @ 9:34PM|#

In what possible, conceivable way does this FDA statement bypass 4:20? You're dreaming, and really you're lying to us....

Bypass? Please explain.

|4.20.06 @ 9:38PM|#

...now, the active ingredient in marijuana, that's fine. We wholly indorse that. It's all the chlorophyll that we're worried about.

http://www.marinol.com/

(Unless you're in Maine. Then THC is toxic.)

|4.20.06 @ 9:41PM|#

What they fail to mention is that it has been impossible to actually conduct clinical trials because .... you need DEA approval to work with the stuff.

The welfare queens who call themselves DEA agents refuse to allow such tests to be conducted, claiming that is would send the wrong message and confuse people about the dangers of marijuana. Frankly, prosecuting people for marijuana trafficking is the bread and butter of those aforementioned welfare queens, and they have no incentive to actually permit anything that might erode the foundations of lies upon which their programs are built.

So we have a nice piece of circular reasoning; marijuana is not approved for medicinal use because it is untested, and it is untested because no one has ever shown it to have useful properties so it is not worth testing.

|4.20.06 @ 9:46PM|#

Okay, I'll demonstrate my complete cluelessness and hopeless nerdom. What is the deal with 4/20?

|4.20.06 @ 9:48PM|#

It's too bad some drug company can't patent THC. Then marijuna would be prescribed for everything from depression to PMS to social unease. And Paxil would be outlawed because it leads to insanity and jazz music.

|4.20.06 @ 10:09PM|#

More bold-faced lies from our government about marijuana.

The fact that they can't blatently lie like that, and not be ridiculed, sued, etc is way beyond anything my mind can comprehend.

And terran, while you are correct, humans have been smoking marijuana for centuries and no one has ever died from it. Ever. So how they can say it is somehow a dangerous drug is simply a complete and utter lie.

This shit pisses me off more than anything, because it just shows that the government doesn't give a shit about any of us, and will gladly lie to our faces. Not to mention the huge amounts of money being made by the drug war...the folks in power sell us out daily, and nobody says a goddamn word.

Sheesh.

|4.20.06 @ 10:38PM|#

"the folks in power sell us out daily, and nobody says a goddamn word."

Well, I'd love to, but I have to keep quiet about it, being incompatible with my job and all. So I subscribe to Megavote, I get emails from the anti-prohibition groups like DRC and NORML, and try to get others to do the same. They send emails for you to your senator and rep.
Unfortunately, all I've gotten is canned replies. and none of it's good.

|4.20.06 @ 10:41PM|#

Here's a typical reply excerpt. This one's from Jay Inslee (D-WA):

'While I support leaving the government out of medical decisions, any federal legalization of medical marijuana must have strict guidelines on its use. In spite of the fact that public opinion may become more accepting of the medical use of marijuana, I do not support legalizing marijuana for recreational purposes.'

|4.20.06 @ 11:19PM|#

It's also Hitler's birthday. Make of that what you will...

chris joseph|4.20.06 @ 11:27PM|#

the FDA has not approved smoked marijuana...

brownies, anyone?

|4.21.06 @ 12:01AM|#

Getting the DEA to approve a marijuana study ought to be easy: Hand the DEA official a gun, and after he shoots himself in the foot tell him that you won't call an ambulance until he approves your study.

|4.21.06 @ 12:25AM|#

thoreau,

Know how we can cajole em to aim higher?

Timothy|4.21.06 @ 12:47AM|#

Rick: They work at the DEA, it's not like they have aspirations.

|4.21.06 @ 1:36AM|#

I'm amazed no-one has pointed out that April 20 was also Barney Gumble's birthday... shame on you libertoids!

|4.21.06 @ 2:23AM|#

Didn't the IoM release a study back in the 90s saying smoked mj was occasionally on occasion a decent medicine in some situations? Isn't the IoM a government agency?

Also, this release may have something to do with www.maps.org lawsuit to get better weed from the feds for research cause the swag they grow in Mississippi is, well, swag.

|4.21.06 @ 8:44AM|#

thoreau,

Know how we can cajole em to aim higher?

Comment by: Rick Barton at April 21, 2006 12:25 AM

---

Rick: They work at the DEA, it's not like they have aspirations.

Comment by: Timothy at April 21, 2006 12:47 AM

---------------------------------------


For some reason the above exchange is the funniest thing I have seen all week.

|4.21.06 @ 10:19AM|#

I'm a nonuser who supports legalization for political reasons. Which probably makes me a minority here :) My big beef with the FDA is this increasingly typical politicization of science. They want a result, therefore, they'll monkey with science to get it. Bad idea. Really bad idea. Makes one wonder what other government "science" is similarly but not so obviously biased. This sort of thing is one of my principal objections to people who assert that research belongs in the hands of government--they are ignoring how truly political government research is.

|4.21.06 @ 8:25PM|#

Karen, check out www.snopes.com for all the possible origins of 4/20.