The San Diego Union-Tribune published opposing op-eds yesterday, one from Alex Kreit, an assistant professor and director of the Center for Law and Social Justice at the Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego, and another from Ralph W. Partridge, the special agent in charge of the San Diego Field Division of the Drug Enforcement Administration.

I helped get Kreit’s op-ed published, but we were not able to directly refute the comments by DEA agent Partridge. Unexpectedly, Partridge recycles the same old tired claims about the danger of medical marijuana and the lack of evidence of its therapeutic value. Unfortunately, the DEA continues to ignore the mountain of evidence from studies around the world and even in the United States.

And yet, as these op-eds are printed, a new policy is emerging; one in which compassion for our most vulnerable citizens is given priority over political expediency. ASA is working with the Obama Administration and Congress to craft both short and long term strategies for ending federal raids on state-sanctioned medical marijuana dispensaries, expanding research into this promising medicine, and a comprehensive federal policy to establish access for all of the sick Americans that would benefit from its medical qualities.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 9th, 2009 at 2:41 pm and is filed under Americans for Safe Access (ASA), ASA Activism, California, Congress, DEA, Dispensaries, FDA/HHS, Federal, Law Enforcement, Legal, Media, Medical Cannabis, Raids, Research. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.