Free Talk Live

According to a report in The New Orleans Times-Picayune, funds from NIDA helped create the dangerous marijuana alternative known as "Spice" and "K2."

The funds were disbursed in the mid-1990s to a Clemson University researcher named Dr. John W. Huffman. It was while searching for a cure to marijuana "addiction" that Huffman developed the formula for Spice:

"[M]ore than half the babies from mother rats fed GM soy died within three weeks. This was also five times higher than the 10% death rate of the non-GMO soy group. The babies in the GM group were also smaller (see photo) and could not reproduce.
"In a telling coincidence, after Ermakova's feeding trials, her laboratory started feeding all the rats in the facility a commercial rat chow using GM soy. Within two months, the infant mortality facility-wide reached 55%."

Nearly 7 percent of Americans ages 12 and older used marijuana in 2010 -- an increase of 3 million from about 10 years ago, according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health. And where these smokers are located will be even more surprising to you: California -- the birthplace of medical marijuana -- is only the 10th most stoned state.

For a muscular agency that combats vicious drug criminals, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration acts like a terrified and obstinate toddler when it comes to basic science. For years, the DEA and the National Institute for Drug Abuse have made it all but impossible to develop a robust body of research on the medical uses of marijuana.

A lot of studies have shown marijuana is not good for you. It can fry the brain and contribute to psychosis. The latest one finds "convincing evidence" that marijuana smoke damages the genetic material DNA in ways that could increase the risk of cancer.

In a recent Open Neurology Journal article, four University of California at San Diego researchers review the evidence concerning marijuana's medical utility and conclude that its continued classification as a Schedule I drug is "not tenable." But the DEA's classification of marijuana has been destroyed many times in the past. Twenty-four years ago, an administrative law judge, responding to a legal challenge initiated in 1972, recommended that marijuana be taken off Schedule I, calling it "one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man."

The GAO has released its conclusion on a study commissioned to study a Pentagon study on its own studies. The study's conclusion was that the study of studies was ineffective. The taxpayer-funded cost for the worthless studies was not released, however.

The results of a series of randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trials assessing the efficacy of inhaled marijuana consistently show that cannabis holds therapeutic value comparable to conventional medications, according to the findings of a 24-page report issued earlier today to the California state legislature by the California Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research (CMCR).

CANNABIS CULTURE - In a case with wide-ranging implications, an Ontario Superior Court judge struck down Canada's laws prohibiting the possession and production of marijuana on Tuesday, giving the federal government 90 days to fix the country's medical marijuana program before the ruling comes into effect and effectively legalizes cannabis.