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Why care?
Let's start at the beginning and ask why you should care about the restrictions
on the use of cannabis for medicinal purposes. We have a simple answer, one that
more and more people nationwide agree with: cannabis is a safe and beneficial
medication that has been used for thousands of years. In some cases it is the
most effective way to treat an illness. We believe that patients and their physicians
should have the right to choose the most effective treatments.
TODAY
According to a recent Zogby poll, 80% of Americans approve of the use of medical
marijuana (cannabis).
Twelve states have already passed legislation to legalize the use of
cannabis for medical use (CA, ME, OR, WA, NV, CO, AK, HI, VT, MT, RI, NM),
and 35 states plus the district of Colombia have passed legislation recognizing
cannabis's medicinal value.
However, since 2001, the Bush administration has denounced the state laws,
using the Federal Controlled Substance and Drug Abuse Act of 1970 as its legal
precedent. In the Federal statute, cannabis is designated a Schedule I drug,
which is defined as "having a high-potential for addiction and no known medicinal
value." In its zeal to enforce this law, the Drug Enforcement Agency has raided
medical cannabis clinics and co-operatives, arrested doctors, providers, and
patients who were licensed by their respective states, and put legally-sanctioned
growers on trial in Federal court as "drug dealers."
NATIONWIDE, OUR GOVERNMENT IS WAGING A WAR ON MARIJUANA
Police arrested 723,627 persons for marijuana violations in 2001, according to
the Federal Bureau of Investigation's annual Uniform Crime Report. The total
is the second highest ever recorded by the FBI, and comprises nearly half of
all drug arrests in the United States. This is a 110% increase in arrests since
1992 (342,314). (source: NORML)
RACE ISSUES AND THEIR RELATION TO INCARCERATION & ARREST RATES
- "Ninety percent of drug offenders admitted to prison in Illinois are African-American." (Drug Policy Alliance)
- In Illinois, African-Americans comprise 90% of drug offenders admitted into prison, making the state the worst offender in the national scandal of racial disparities in drug offender incarceration. While rates of illegal drug involvement cut evenly across racial lines, a black man in Illinois is 57 times more likely to be sent to prison on drug charges than a white man. (Human Rights Watch, Punishment and Prejudice, Racial Disparities in the War on Drugs, May 2000)
- "Evidence developed in the ACLU's lawsuit charging the Illinois State Police's drug interdiction unit with racial profiling [Chavez v. Illinois State Police] demonstrates that Hispanics comprise less than 8 percent of the Illinois population (and take fewer than 3 percent of the personal vehicle trips in the state), and yet comprise approximately 30 percent of the motorists stopped by ISP drug interdiction units over a five-year period for discretionary offenses (including failure to signal a lane change or driving one to four miles above the posted speed limit). Evidence from the same lawsuit shows that although African-Americans comprise only 24 percent of the population in Cook County, they were targeted for 63 percent of all vehicle searches conducted by ISP drug interdiction officers in the County over a four-year period." (American Civil Liberties Union, Press release, January, 2000)
- The rates of admission of drug offenders to prison per 100,000 adult residents vary from a low of 6 per 100,000 in Maine to a high of 91 in California. At 89 per 100,000, Illinois has the second highest rate of drug offender admissions relative to population. (Human Rights Watch)
- Nationwide, drug offenders are sent to prison at a rate, relative to population, that is 13 percent higher than the rate for violent offenders. (Human Rights Watch)
- In one half of the states reporting to NCRP, the admission rates for drug offenders exceeded those for persons convicted of violent crimes. At 47 people per 100,000, Illinois sends drug offenders to prison at rate 98 percent higher than the rate for violent offenders. (Human Rights Watch)
DRUG ARREST HISTORY - ILLINOIS
- 4.2% of all prison admission in Illinois are for Marijuana. (Human Rights Watch, 1996)
- In 2001, total drug arrests were 112,457, Cannabis Control Act arrests were 44,178, and Controlled Substances Act arrests were 51,740.
- Marijuana offenses have consistently accounted for 75 percent of drug arrests in rural Illinois counties since the 1970s. (NDIC)
- "Marijuana abuse is not normally tied directly to violent behavior." (NDIC)
|
1991 |
2001 |
% Change |
| Controlled Substances |
34,800 |
51,740 |
49% |
| Hypo Syn Needle |
527 |
1,001 |
90% |
| Cannabis |
12,967 |
44,178 |
241% |
| Drug Paraphernalia |
35 |
15,538 |
44,294% |
"Success Rate for Indexed Crime in Illinois: 1991-2001"
Source: Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority; compiled by Illinois NORML
COST ANALYSIS
The 2002 budget for the Illinois Department of Corrections is $1,206,607,900. It
costs $20,929 per year to incarcerate one offender ($65,236 per year for
juveniles). Twenty-five percent of the adult population and 12% of the juvenile
population are incarcerated for drug offenses. The State of Illinois spends nearly
a quarter of a billion dollars each year to incarcerate drug offenders. (Illinois
Department of Corrections Department Data FY03 (June 30, 2003))
http://www.idoc.state.il.us/subsections/reports/fact_sheets/FY2003.pdf
In addition to its efficacy as a medicine, medicinal cannabis has the benefit of
extremely low cost in comparison to prescription medicines. Many of those opposed
to legalizing medical cannabis point to prescription options such as Marinol as
"alternative" approach. But according to a 1994 report in the Journal of the
International Hemp Association: "the cost of a single dose of Marinol ranges
between $4.00 and $8.00 and the average patient cost ranges from $12.00
to $32.00 per day. Since Marinol is expensive, narrowly prescribed and often
less effective than crude Cannabis preparations, potent sinsemilla-type (seedless)
marijuana remains the most viable form of Cannabis medicine, despite the fact that
its illegality artificially inflates its cost." (Clarke, Robert C. and David W.
Pate. Medical Marijuana, 1994. Journal of the International Hemp Association 1: 9-12.)
In the new edition of Marijuana: The Forbidden Medicine, by Lester Grinspoon, M.D.,
Harvard Medical School, there is a list of about 30 medicinal uses for cannabis.
For example, the new anti emetic drug ondansetron costs $120 to $160
for oral administration but, because of nausea and vomiting, often requires IV
administration which raises the cost to $600. If cannabis were legal and available
for use with chemotherapy, you could prescribe someone to smoke a cannabis cigarette
about 20 minutes before their cancer treatment -- at a cost of $0.30. That would
prevent nausea just as well. Even if cannabis therapy was reimbursable under a patient
assistance program, the extreme low cost would hardly endanger payment for other
treatments.
Medicinal cannabis has the potential to provide effective alternative drug treatments
at greatly reduced cost. Additionally, with a regulated, legal system for growing and
distributing medicinal cannabis, an additional potential for legal tax-paying jobs would
arise to replace the non-tax-paying illegal market from which patients must now
purchase medicinal cannabis.
MARINOL
The Drug Enforcement Agency, part of the Federal Justice Department, has approved
the use of Marinol as a legal means for patients to obtain the medical benefits
of cannabis. Marinol is a pill that contains Delta-9 THC, a synthetic cannabinoid
and only one of the therapeutic elements found in the cannabis plant. However, Marinol
does not deliver the same therapeutic benefits found in the natural plant and is associated
with an array of negative side effects not found with cannabis. Whereas smoked cannabis
permits the patient to function in a relatively normal fashion, Marinol can have a
drastic, debilitating effect which renders its users incapacitated for a number of
hours. And, while Marinol has only been proven effective treating the anorexia associated
with digestive disorders, it does not produce the benefits of smoked cannabis in reducing
ocular pressure for patients with glaucoma, or limiting muscle spasms in MS sufferers.
Inhaled cannabinoids readily cross the blood-brain barrier to reduce ocular pressure
and alleviate many symptoms of other diseases that digested THC (Marinol) simply does
not affect. Differences in efficacy are a function of drug delivery and absorption.
PEOPLE WHO COULD BENEFIT FROM MEDICAL CANNABIS
In 1978 the federal government created the Investigational New Drug (IND) compassionate
access research program to allow patients to receive cannabis from the government to
treat certain medical conditions that responded well to this medication. The IND was
halted access to this program in 1992 after cannabis was found to be an effective
appetite stimulant to help reverse AIDS wasting syndrome, and subsequently the program
was flooded by applications from AIDS patients. Eventually, patients were forced to sue
the Federal government on the basis of "medical necessity" to obtain access to this
medicine. Today, surviving patients continue to receive medical cannabis from the
federal government. Despite this successful medical program, cannabis is still classified
as a Schedule I controlled substance, defined as having a high potential for abuse and
no medicinal value, despite a 1988 ruling by the DEA's chief administrative law judge
that stated "Marijuana, in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active
substances known . . . It would be unreasonable, arbitrary and capricious for the DEA to
continue to stand between those sufferers and the benefits of this substance."
HIV/AIDS: Since 1981, Illinois has ranked seventh in the nation in HIV
infection, with 28,000 cases reported (DPA).
CANCER: There are approximately 59,500 incidents of cancer in Illinois
each year (a rate of 477 per 100,000) with an average of 25,000 deaths (Cancer.gov). Each of
these could benefit from medicinal cannabis during chemo and radiation treatment.
MS: There are an estimated 450,000 - 900,000 MS sufferers in the
US and perhaps 18,000 cases in Illinois. The variance is due to the accepted belief
that many MS sufferers are unaware of their diagnosis. MS is increasing at a reported
rate of 200 new cases a week (www.about-ms.com/whatisms.htm)
GLAUCOMA: Nationally, more than 2,000,000 people suffer from
glaucoma, with over 4,000 going blind each year (Ill Society for Prev of Blindness).
There are an estimated 100,000 glaucoma sufferers in Illinois alone.
(www.preventblindness.org/vpus/glaucoma.pdf.)
MORE HELPFUL AND INFORMATIVE SOURCE MATERIAL
Press Archive for IDEAL Patient Brenda Kratovil
Other Drug Policy Reform News Sources
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