We often wonder what seems to keep otherwise educated opponents of immediate legalization from at least surveying the depth and breadth of existing medical cannabis literature in the PubMed archives, but here we find USSG Jerome Adams wiling to hold up federal reform over things like fears of an epidemic of lung cancer when….
….a) repeated studies have failed to find any link between cannabis use (when not combined with cigarette smoking) and serious lung disease, including lung cancer, and
b) no one has to smoke cannabis in order to get the benefits of of the medicine, which is available via many routes of ingestion.
Excerpt:
“Adams, the former Indiana state health commissioner sworn in as surgeon general in September, acknowledged his post has typically opposed tobacco smoking, a position that fits into his opposition to recreational use.
‘How am I going to tell you not to smoke a cigarette but I am going to tell you to pick up a joint? I can’t do it, can’t do it,’ he told about 125 people at the National Black Caucus of State Legislators annual conference.
‘So while I want to make sure we can get the ingredients of medical marijuana appropriately derived so that folks can access treatment, I also have concerns about us encouraging folks to go out and smoke because there’s unintended consequences.
‘I don’t want 10 years down the road where we’re seeing an epidemic of lung cancer among folks who are smoking medical marijuana,’ Adams said.”
TRUCE Note: We remember fear of “unintended consequences” being used to help to shoot down the closest Utah has come to implementing medical cannabis to date after the state Senate passed a bill in 2016.
And the real unintended consequences of that decision, besides unnecessary suffering for tens of thousands, has been no let up in the number of opioid crisis deaths evidence shows medicinal cannabis could have been helping to lessen.
How do opponents place a value on those lost lives….??
The USSG also falls prey to the notion that the FDA knows all and is justified in its obdurate refusal to even consider recognizing the medicinal value of plant-based treatments, despite their being the backbone of medicine for millennia until the last 80 years.
The Surgeon General’s remarks come as a pharmaceutical executive has just been appointed to be the new Secretary of HHS and many high ranking staff at the FDA – including commissioners – have also come out of the industry.
No foxes-guarding-henhouses potential for conflict of interest there…..
See full article – U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams supports studying medical marijuana
