Anti-marijuana claims dubious

Another great letter from my close friend and fellow reformer Dawn Palmer. Way to go Dawn!

Montgomery Advertiser

Anti-marijuana claims dubious

July 10, 2009

The Food and Drug Administration and the Drug Enforcement Agency agree that smoked marijuana has no medicinal value, yet they have approved a pharmaceutical pill, Marinol, derived from the active ingredient in marijuana.
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According to the DEA's Web site, it even helped facilitate the research for Marinol. Since the DEA's mission is to enforce the controlled substances laws and regulations, why would it be facilitating research on a drug it considers illegal with no medicinal value?

The DEA said there are no FDA-approved medications that are smoked. Smoking is a poor delivery system for medicine. However, smoking marijuana is not the only delivery system that can be used. It can be made into tea, cooked in a variety of foods and now there is a vaporizer that takes most of the harmful carcinogens out.

The FDA doesn't approve of smoking opium either, so it has a pharmaceutical drug derived from opium called morphine. However, once morphine is prescribed and the patient gets it home, the FDA has no control over what type of delivery system the patient uses. He could snort it or inject it intravenously. I think the FDA and the DEA are insulting our intelligence with their excuses about why marijuana can't be approved for medicine.

Dawn Palmer
Tarrant

Taxing Marijuana Potential Alternative

My close friend and champion letter writer Dawn Palmer had a letter published in today's Montgomery Advertiser in response to one from Frank Winkler who was responding to me. Mr. Frank Winkler is the Executive Director of SAYNO Inc. an anti-drug group that focuses on youth. Funny, he never mentions that in his letters to the editor. Also funny, if prohibition were working his group would have no reason to exist. In that sense he is about as trustworthy as the cops and Sharon the bail bonds person in Talladega when it comes to anything prohibition related. Without prohibition they would have no jobs. Therefore you can believe nothing they say.

Y'all go leave a comment on Dawn's letter and speak a word or two at Sharon (she is really in need of psychotherapy...thinks pot is responsible for her father killing her mother then himself and claims he had no other issues before he smoked taht 'evil joint') over on the Talladega forums. Then write your own letters. Keep the momentum building folks. That's how we will win!!

GREAT WORK DAWN!!

Montgomery Advertiser Opinion

Taxing marijuana potential alternative

A letter to the Montgomery Advertiser said that Loretta Nall threatened all politicians with financial downfall if they didn't support her platform of legalizing marijuana. She didn't threaten any politicians; she merely suggested legalizing, regulating and taxing marijuana as a potential financial alternative, just like several statesmen have suggested.

The letter said that marijuana was the No. 1 drug of choice requiring treatment at the Montgomery Addiction Program. Marijuana is the most-used illegal drug, so it only stands to reason that marijuana would be the No. 1 drug requiring treatment in a court-mandated program like the Montgomery's Addiction Program.

As for the statement about us being better off wondering if the bus driver, pilot, etc., was puffing on a legal substance, how do we know if he or she isn't under the influence of a legal prescription drug?

Dawn Palmer
Tarrant

Legalize Drugs

My friend and fellow activist Dawn Palmer had a great letter published in today's Anniston Star.


Legalize drugs

There seems to be a feud going on with the Department of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and the National Rifle Association concerning whether or not the guns in Mexico are coming from the United States and arming the drug cartels.

There is a possible solution to both of their grievances as well as getting a hold on our drug-abuse problem — legalize all drugs.

Sounds horrible, doesn't it? However, legalizing all drugs would stop the cartels in their tracks and the flow of guns into Mexico, as well as taking the drug-abuse problem out of our criminal-justice system and putting it into the health-care system where it belongs. Then we could focus on the biggest drug pushers of them all, the pharmaceutical companies.

Dawn Palmer
Tarrant

Go Dawn Go!!

Double Whammy!

Today the Birmingham News printed my LTE and Dawn Palmer's LTE about the hydro operation busted in BHAM a little over a week ago.

MARIJUANA:

Riddled with misinformation

This is in response to The News article "Busted indoor pot farm" (Oct. 11), which was riddled with marijuana misinformation.

Authorities said growing marijuana hydroponically makes it more potent. Hydroponics is simply a growing method. It in no way increases the potency of marijuana or any other plant. Breeding and genetics can increase potency and quality, but the growing method itself has no bearing on the potency of the final product.

Authorities also claimed hydroponic marijuana is responsible for organized crime, home invasions, armed robberies, arsons and homicides. So, the growing method is responsible for all that? Now, I have heard it all. Why not throw child molestation and wife beating in there, too? Doing so couldn't possibly make that statement any less believable.

Prohibition is the reason for the majority of crime around any illicit substance. If you support prohibition, you support crime. You support the drug dealers. Refusing to control and regulate the drug market enables all of this crime.

If Jefferson County Sheriff Mike Hale wants to talk about gateway theories, prohibition is the gateway to crime.

Hale said of the operation, "It would be impressive if it was a legitimate business." So, why not legitimize it and collect taxes to build the dome, pay off the sewer debt and use police resources to go after all those murderers in the Birmingham area? Why not grow marijuana for those suffering from cancer, HIV/AIDS, chronic pain, multiple sclerosis and a whole host of other painful conditions that marijuana is good medicine for?

Loretta Nall

Executive director

Alabamians for

Compassionate Care

Alexander City

Why not make marijuana legal?:

I'm writing in response to The News' article about the indoor marijuana operation police recently discovered. The article said an operation like that could generate $1 million a year. Jefferson County Sheriff Mike Hale said, "It would be impressive if it was a legitimate business."

Well, why not make it a legitimate business?

There has been a bill submitted every year since 2004 to the Alabama Legislature calling for the legalization of medicinal marijuana. There are many people who could benefit from this legitimate business.

People who use marijuana as a medicine could benefit from it, just like they do in 12 other states. This legitimate business could create jobs and revenue. This revenue could help pay off our enormous sewer debt, and it could possibly get Hale more officers to go after real criminals.

The violent crimes the article mentioned, such as home invasions, arsons and homicides (they forgot to mention kidnapping), are the results of prohibition and the money being made from the black market, not the results of someone who has ingested the herb.

Dawn Palmer

Tarrant

Marijuana Has Medicinal Purpose

My great friend and fellow activist Dawn Palmer had a wonderful letter published in today's Birmingham News. Go Dawn!

Birmingham News

Marijuana has medicinal purpose:

There was a wonderful essay in The Birmingham News written by Dr. Steven Rudd ("Weigh pros, cons of pot for medical purposes," Commentary, March 23).

Rudd wrote about Michael Phillips, who suffered from seizures. Rudd said Phillips was arrested twice for using marijuana, which was suggested by his doctor to help control his seizures. Rudd asked us to do research and weigh the pros and cons about medical marijuana.

The research shows there has not been one documented death as a result of marijuana use. How many pharmaceutical drugs can we say that about?

When we create laws that send people like Phillips to jail for using a plant that can ease their suffering, it makes us look ignorant and hypocritical with no sense of compassion. Especially when we have a legal drug (alcohol) that causes some 85,000 deaths a year and is sold for recreational use in every convenience store.

With laws like these, what kind of message are we sending about ourselves as a society - one of ignorance and hypocrisy, or one of compassion?

Dawn Palmer

Tarrant

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