Free Talk Live

LANSING — On Nov. 30, the Drug Enforcement Agency raided a facility in Meridian Township. Along with ground forces, the Michigan National Guard provided two Blackhawk helicopters to assist in the operation. The facility was a joint growing operation by several registered patient caregivers. The caregivers decided to rent the facility to grow medical marijuana for their patients, and remove the drug from their homes.

10) MARIJUANA USE HAS NO EFFECT ON MORTALITY:
A massive study of California HMO members funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) found marijuana use caused no significant increase in mortality. Tobacco use was associated with increased risk of death. Sidney, S et al. Marijuana Use and Mortality. American Journal of Public Health. Vol. 87 No. 4, April 1997. p. 585-590. Sept. 2002.

Like some cancer patients in states where it’s allowed, Mykayla Comstock uses cannabis as part of her treatment. Comstock is seven-years old. Her mother, a long time advocate for medical use of the illegal drug, has been giving her a gram of oral cannabis oil every day. Despite the fact that medical marijuana is legal in Oregon, where Comstock lives, the idea of giving it to a child still gives pause to many adults who associate the drug with recreational use that breaks the law.

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.

As marijuana “pot” smokers gather beneath Seattle’s Space Needle to celebrate the fact that the drug was legalized in the state of Washington, the DEA continues to warn youth that legalization doesn’t make something “right” or good for you. According to the DEA, when marijuana is smoked the drug THC moves into the user’s lungs and then into their bloodstream, where it is then moved into all the organs in the body, including the brain.

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:

Marijuana: It's Nowhere Near As Scary
As They Want Us To Believe

"The concern with marijuana is not born out of any culture-war mentality, but out of what the science tells us about the drug’s effects.

And the science, though still evolving, is clear: marijuana use is harmful. It is associated with dependence, respiratory and mental illness, poor motor performance, and cognitive impairment, among other negative effects.

Community station KMUD, based in southern Humboldt County, the unofficial capital of marijuana cultivation in California, says its reports are an essential tool in protecting the community from police abuse.

The broadcasts grew from a citizens' monitoring project that began after the Reagan Administration in 1983 launched the huge, wasteful and ineffective "marijuana eradication campaign" known as CAMP, or Campaign Against Marijuana Planting.

Michele Leonhart, the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, ducked a tough line of questioning from Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) on Wednesday, refusing to answer a number of questions about the comparative health impacts of marijuana and other, harder drugs. Leonhart was testifying before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security.