I am honored and delighted to be able to publish here for the first time a new comprehensive piece written by Dr. Lester Grinspoon, Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, entitled “Cannabinopathic Medicine”. Dr. Grinspoon started writing this piece in 2012, when I was privileged to read an early draft and give editorial suggestions. He has been looking for a suitable venue for publishing it where it could be read widely. I am grateful that he agreed to allow me to use this blog space to share it. It is approximately 6,000 words and well worth a read.

First, a brief introduction. Dr. Grinspoon, who is in his eighties, is a great physician and researcher who has been a co-author, instructive mentor, and guide of mine. He is known for his pioneering work on the social and medicinal uses of cannabis, but before that, he made significant contributions such as introducing the use of lithium in the treatment of bipolar disorder, the starting of the Harvard Mental Health letter, and many other achievements such as senior psychiatrist at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center in Boston for 40 years, fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Psychiatric Association, founding editor of the The American Psychiatric Association Annual Review, and editor of the Harvard Mental Health Letter for fifteen years, to name a few. It is a wonderful turn of events that Dr. Grinspoon’s home state Massachusetts passed a voter initiative by wide margin to legalize the medicinal use of cannabis for patients with conditions that a physician believes may benefit from its use. That law went into effect this year and now, as of this month, Harvard Medical School-affiliated faculty, in collaboration with the Massachusetts Medical Society, are producing and editing AMA-certified continuing medical education online course series on the medicinal uses of cannabis, vindicating Dr. Grinspoon’s remarkable foresight from over 40 years prior.

(more…)

On her 30th birthday (March 19 in 2012), doctors discovered a cancerous mass in my sister’s right breast.  She was rushed to the emergency room for an emergency mastectomy and was newly pregnant at the time.  For a grueling year, she suffered extensive chemotherapy treatments , during which she secretly used cannabis to ease her anxiety and nausea instead of drugs proscribed by her doctors which were known to harm the fetus.   Her healthy and beautiful daughter Chloe was born via scheduled cesarean with no complications other than slight prematurity.  My sister lives in Virginia, where medical cannabis is barely a conversation.  Today, a year later on March 11th, a new mass was found in her left breast.  Unless we do something to help her, my sister will unnecessarily continue to suffer through her treatments.

I have always championed the medicinal properties of cannabis and believe it should be easy to obtain and available to whoever needs it.  But nothing drives that fact home harder than experiencing it on the front lines through a loved one’s suffering.  My sister is not alone.  There are so many people struggling with extreme pain, discomfort and agony on a daily basis.  Every single one of them deserves relief.

I joined ASA to not only end my story and voice to the fight for safe access to medical cannabis but to empower others to take action as well.  Today, I do so by urging you to join ASA.

(more…)

According to Matt Taibbi, in his latest Rolling Stone exposé on the banking and financial industry “Too Big to Jail,” HSBC “helped to wash hundreds of millions of dollars for drug mobs, including Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel,” and also “moved money for organizations linked to Al Qaeda and Hezbollah, and for Russian gangsters; helped countries like Iran, the Sudan and North Korea evade sanctions.”

Yet, as outrageous as these transgressions are, the Justice Department refuses to criminally prosecute the bankers committing federal crimes right under the nose of the U.S. government.

At a press conference where the Justice Department announced a settlement between the government and HSBC, in which the bank was forced to pay $1.9 billion, but without any individual being fined or prosecuted, Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer had this to say:

Had the U.S. authorities decided to press criminal charges, HSBC would almost certainly have lost its banking license in the U.S., the future of the institution would have been under threat and the entire banking system would have been destabilized.

So, the lesson we’re supposed to take from that is this:

if you’re a banker you can commit federal felonies and all you have to endure is a slap on the wrist. However, if you’re in any other line of business and you commit federal felonies, all bets are off.

If you’re a medical marijuana provider, for example, the Justice Department will not just look the other way as it did for years with HSBC. Instead, you can expect the government to come after you with the full force of the law.

(more…)

I spent the last three years working as an Executive Legislative Assistant to a ranking budget chair in the Washington State Legislature, so it should come as no surprise that a trip to the Nation’s Capitol has always been high on my  bucket list. I was this close to fulfilling my dream in 2008, after scrimping and saving for over two years on a relatively low salary. Unfortunately, prohibition happened.

I became a medical cannabis patient in ‘05 while living in Oregon. At that time, I did not know that I had a rare genetic disorder; only that I had long been suffering from chronic joint and muscle pain, extreme nausea and vomiting, disabling migraines and eventual insomnia. After an honest conversation with my doctor about the handfuls of pills I was taking to mask the symptoms – at the ripe ol’ age of 25, mind you – it was suggested that cannabis might relieve what ailed me. I was honestly taken aback when it worked so well and I was able to wean myself off every single pharmaceutical.

(more…)

Americans for Safe Access (ASA) opened the eyes of this thirty-three year law enforcement veteran. Caught in the whirlpool of drug prohibition policy, prohibitionist law enforcement folks as I once was, forget the importance of maintaining an open mind. Unfortunately, “ group-think” is where most of us tend to feel comfortable.

Until roughly four years ago, I knew virtually nothing of medical marijuana. I must say that I was somewhat skeptical of the claim for its medicinal properties. My knowledge of marijuana originated from two places, my experimentation as a teen in 1975 and from an enforcement perspective throughout my lengthy law enforcement career. Neither provided any meaningful insight to the medicinal properties or benefits of marijuana.

(more…)

Today in Congress, Representatives Earl Blumenauer and Sam Farr introduced legislation that would reclassify cannabis (marijuana) for medical use and provide federal defendants the right to use state law compliance as evidence in medical marijuana trials, a right that patients are currently denied. These bills, the H.R. 689 ”States’ Medical Marijuana Patient Protection Act,” and the H.R. 710 “Truth in Trials Act” have been introduced in previous sessions of Congress, but many are optimistic that the 113th Congress will take the issue more seriously than in years past. One reason for this optimism is the first major federal medical cannabis patient lobbying day, which will be held on February 25th in support of these two bills.

(more…)

Every year during medical marijuana week, I like to sit down and consider what I’m thankful about in the medical cannabis movement. After such a turbulent year fraught with raids, bad court decisions, and friends being sent to federal prison, I find I’m most thankful for the brave medical cannabis warriors who have lost their freedom for our cause. For this reason, the theme of ASA’s MMJ Week activities is “Have a Heart for our POWs.”

(more…)