New Pathways in Cannabis Research
By Prof Tim
One of the greatest ironies of Harry Anslinger’s Reefer Madness truth regime has been the federal government’s dogged insistence that cannabis has zero redeeming medical value. This curious and scientifically-false belief is enshrined in the Drug Enforcement Administration’s official drug schedule. The DEA lists cannabis among its “most dangerous” Schedule One drugs:
Schedule I drugs, substances, or chemicals are defined as drugs with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse. Some examples of Schedule I drugs are heroin, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), marijuana (cannabis), 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (ecstasy), methaqualone, and peyote. Source: Drug Scheduling
The DEA argues that Schedule One drugs are more dangerous than other drugs because they have “no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.” Given that definition, it is puzzling that the DEA would fail to include the two most lethal drugs on its Schedule One list: tobacco and alcohol. In the US alone, tobacco kills hundreds of thousands of people each year, and alcohol kills tens of thousands more. By contrast, cannabis kills zero people, but somehow cannabis has remained a fixture on the DEA’s Schedule One list.
Why?
For the answer, we need look no further than Harry Anslinger’s diabolical truth regime. Like dogs chasing their tails, truth regimes perpetuate themselves by answering questions in a way that reinforces their basic assumptions. To illustrate: In addition to being nonlethal, cannabis advocates have clamored for decades about cannabis’ myriad medical benefits. While the DEA refuses to address the baffling exclusion of tobacco and alcohol from its Schedule One drug list, the DEA rejects claims about cannabis’ medical virtues by asserting that cannabis has “no currently accepted medical use.” Though millions of cannabis-users would doubtless testify that they derive innumerable medical benefits from ingesting cannabis, the DEA considers all such anecdotal evidence invalid. When it comes to the medical benefits of cannabis, the only opinion that the DEA will consider is the FDA’s. There are two reasons for this:
(1) The DEA and FDA are bureaucratic siblings and bureaucrats always protect their own (Weber, 1978).
(2) The FDA relies on clinical trials—which are widely regarded as “the gold standard” (Kaptchuk, 2001) —to test new drugs.
Unfortunately, the above conditions create an impasse. The FDA won’t dispute the DEA’s jaundiced view of cannabis until the FDA conducts clinical trials that yield indisputable evidence of cannabis’ medical virtues. However, the FDA refuses to approve clinical trials for cannabis until the DEA deschedules cannabis and, thus, deems cannabis safe for clinical consumption. But, of course, the DEA won’t deschedule cannabis until the FDA instructs the DEA to do so. And on it goes. Reefer Madness irrationality feeds back on itself in perpetuity. The DEA defers to the FDA because the FDA defers to the DEA and the DEA defers to the FDA because…etc., etc.
Remember that dog chasing its tail? The DEA’s insistence that cannabis must remain a Schedule One drug is what Joseph Heller (1999) would call a Catch-22.
In spite of unrelenting official animosity to cannabis research, scientists like Dr. Hinanit Koltai, Dr. Doron Friedman, and Dr. Dvora Namdar remain committed to exploring the medicinal attributes of cannabis—as they explain in their chapter, “Towards Medicalization of Cannabis sativa.” Though Harry Anslinger would roll over in his grave, scientists like Koltai, Friedman, and Namdar remain persuaded by overwhelming evidence that cannabis is a plant with significant medical value. The challenge for researchers like Koltai, Friedman, and Namdar is to overcome Anslinger’s irrational myths so that scientists, medical doctors, and ordinary citizens can get back to the business of deriving life-saving medical benefits from cannabis.
Operating from the perspective of an engineer, Jane Fraser pushes back against Anslinger’s anti-cannabis truth regime in her chapter, “Engineering a Sustainable Future.” Fraser’s chapter applies the concept of sustainability to the cannabis industry as a framework for impacts, policies, and politics. First, as a framework for impacts, sustainability helps identify the positive and negative effects that may result as the cannabis industry develops. The identification of impacts leads, second, to a consideration of policies that can be used to promote the positive impacts and mitigate the negative impacts. Third, each of the three spheres of sustainability is contested territory, with advocates seeking power to bring about different outcomes.
Some of the most intense anti-cannabis sensitivities involve the relationships between kids and cannabis. In his chapter, “Cannabis and Schools,” Tim Peters addresses the emergent need for new data that will shed light on the impact that cannabis legalization has had on student use. Peters argues that even though most studies show no increase in use among high school students use in places where cannabis has been legalized, student use trends need to be closely monitored and new data needs to be collected from students, schools, and law enforcement about any new developments in student cannabis use. In particular, Peters argues that schools in Colorado should adopt more sophisticated cannabis prevention education programs that are informed by SAMHSA (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration) and the Colorado Department of Education.
In his chapter, “Are THC Concentrations Appropriate Predictors of Psychomotor Performance?” Paul Armentano argues that the recent relaxation of medical and adult-use cannabis laws in the United States has prompted concerns about impaired driving and traffic accident risk. Legislators have taken steps to criminalize drivers possessing trace quantities delta-9-THC, even though there are no direct correlations between specific THC concentrations in blood and driving impairment. Armentano argues that legislators need more and better information about cannabis impairment before passing laws that criminalize it.
Rachel Giraudo examines the curious new phenomenon of cannabis tourism. Giraudo argues that to understand the contemporary social relevance of cannabis tourism, one must also explore the motivations of people who are on the move for cannabis and what their experiences are like. It is also important to examine the impacts of cannabis tourism on the hosts and the places where cannabis tourism takes place.
In “From Cells to Societies,” Robert Melamede explores the implications of Nobel laureate Ilya Prigogine’s work as an alternative foundation for understanding physics and life. According to Melamede Prigogine’s work explains how flowing energy can naturally organize matter to create flow-dependent structures that are thermodynamically stabilized by sufficient entropy production. Evolving complexity from this seminal thought provides a physical foundation for the emergence of life and evolution, which is driven by the creative nature of nature.
References
Drug Enforcement Administration, https://www.dea.gov/druginfo/ds.shtml
Heller, Joseph. 1999. Catch-22: A Novel. Vol. 4. Simon and Schuster.
Kaptchuk, Ted J. 2001. "The Double-blind, Randomized, Placebo-controlled Trial: Gold Standard or Golden Calf?" Journal of Clinical Epidemiology 54.6 (2001): 541-549.
Weber, Max. 1978. Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology. Vol. 1. Berkeley, California: University of California Press.
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