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May 16, 2006
Unfortunately, because the subtleties and implications of both messages seem also to have eluded many drug policy reformers, they aren't yet taking full advantage of the wonderful political possibilities offered by their opponents’ desperation.
The FDA's 4/20 'announcement' was actually a restatement of Barry McCaffreys' almost illogical response to the (weakly stated, yet decisive) finding of the 1999 IOM report that pot is medicine.My real time analysis of McCzar's statement was written 2 days after his spin first appeared (click on 'feature article).
Parenthetically, his 1999 'support' of 'deep lung delivery (via) aerosol' could be devastatingly compared to contemporary hypocrisy if only the involved reformers were aware of what McCzar had said back in 1999. The hypocrisy I refer to is the DEA’s fight to uphold NIDA's denial of an application to grow the pot which would allow its aerosolized delivery to be studied in more detail. I’ve read a lot about that case, have yet to see one reference to McCzar's damning statement.
You can bet neither NIDA nor the DEA will ever mention it.
Several main stream columnists were far quicker than ‘reform’ icons to point out the out the intellectual absurdity of FDA’s position-- and its telling violations of the canons of science... yet, clinical data supplied by applicants in California casting doubt on many never-confirmed drug war assumptions has been stubbornly ignored by many ‘reformers’ for three years.
With respect to the 'new' claims linking pot to mental illness, an interesting paper by Morral, et al in 2002, offered elaborate
mathematical 'proof' that positing some 'common factor' other than a gateway' effect actually provides a better explanation of MTF data collected since 1975.
Interestingly; after some initial furor, that paper has been largely ignored. The most obvious explanation of my own data
(pointed out in 2004) that the 'common factor' hs been the large scale self-medication by juveniles with pot; a phenomenon which can now be precisely traced to its historical origins in the late Sixties...
The drug warriors can't be hoisted on their own petards if their political opponents are unwilling to light the appropriate fuses; to do that, one must first know that such fuses exist— and where to find them.
Tom O'Connell
Posted by tjeffo at May 16, 2006 10:10 PM