I've been reading this exciting new book called "The Medical Uses of Cannabis and Cannabinoids" (2004) - put out by GW Pharmaceutical. It contains many of the lies, untruths, obfuscations, ommisions and other skankyness you might expect from a group of flower monopolists.

These lies are echoed in other places ... newspaper articles, blogs and lists and forums, websites and corporate press releases. They all share a distrust of individual medical autonomy and a desire for monopoly.

Here are some examples:

"CMA's Chief Medical Officer says that while this is a "more acceptable" approach, the CMA is still "fundamentally opposed because of the lack of [scientific] evidence. Physicians should not be gatekeepers to an unproven product," says Dr. Isra Levy."

"Cannabis, once used as a phytomedicine, was outlawed, but it is now being RE -EVALUATED as a truly remarkable and safe prescription medicine, from a renewable source." - "The medical use of cannabis and cannabinoids", p. 463

> From Health Canada's point of view, I suspect that issues of > standardization, safety and adequacy of documentation all come into play > with respect to herbal cannabis. ... These guidelines are very rigorous, and

include the necessity of consistency, repetitive biochemical monitoring, demonstration of clinical efficacy, and freedom from toxicological damage from whatever components. .......Various cannabis extracts were marketed in the USA prior to 1937, but were removed from the formulary in 1941.

> Ethan Russo, MD

1. It's not true that there isn't enough "scientific" evidence.

Firstly, controlled experiments were not needed to recognize the therapeutic potential of aspirin. The "safety and efficacy" testing came as a result of harsh synthetics - herbalists have never needed them because they try everything out on themselves.

Secondly, as Dr. Grinspoon says so well: "Today, the medical establishment takes the position that ther is no scientific evidence to demonstrate that cannabis has medical usefulness, based on the fact that there is a paucity of double-blind controlled studies addressing this. This scarecity is likely to persist for some time; because the costs of such studies are generally underwritten by pharmaceutical firms who stand to gain if they can demonstrate the therapeutic usefulness of a patented drug and win FDA approval for it, and because marijuana is a naturally occuring herb that cannot be patented, these firms will simply not invest the more than $200 million necessisary to perform such studies." - Grinspoon, Forward to "Marijuana Medicine", Ratsch, 2001

Like Dr. Charles Harris states: " ... the medical profession has a tendancy to discard out of hand, and disparagingly, 'anecdotal' information. Digitalis, morphine, atropine, and the like are chemical derivatives that stem from anecdotal folklore remedies. After all, one anecdote may be a fable, but 1,000 anecdotes can be a bibliography."

And there's plenty of anacdotal evidence - cannabis has more of a bibliography than most - or all - synthetic drugs have. So it's not true that there's no "scientific" evidence - just no "expensive scientific evidence" - just a "mountain" of anecdotal evidence, according to Grinspoon.

2. It's not true that it's being re-evaluated as a PRESCRIPTION medicine ... the vast majority of "reevaluation" is happening in Compassion Clubs - which do not operate by doctor's prescription. GW fails to leave any role for either the Compassion Clubs or autonomy in their vision of the future of medical cannabis - not because of any heath concerns, but rather because of monopoly concerns.

3. It's true that cannabis was removed from the American pharmacopia in 1941, but these corporate pharmacized cannabis product pushers won't tell you how or why.

If you do want to know why, it's because Rockefeller and Carnegie comissioned a study called the "Flexner Report" - it was issued in 1910, as a way to keep Rockefeller's medical investments in patent medicine safe from natural substitutes. Then came Rockefeller's pal Andrew Mellon and his 1937 Marijuana Tax Stamp (both Rocky and Mellon were in business with Hearst, and Rockefeller's Standard Oil was partners with Bayer and IG Farbin, who in turn was partners with the Mellon bank's favorite depositors ... the DuPont family. In short, the "cannabis substitute industries" were all business partners, and each one did their bit to make cannabis illegal and the other herbs mistrusted or forbidden. The details are here:

www.cannabisculture.com/news/gwbayer

David Malmo-Levine Herb School Vansterdam