Testimony Against "Marijuana As Medicine" Referendum

Janet D. Lapey, MD
Concerned Citizens for Drug Prevention, Inc.
PO Box 2078
Hanover, MA 02339

Even though marijuana has never been scientifically shown to be a safe effective medicine, as required by federal consumer protection laws, and even though marijuana is a very harmful substance which endangers both ill and healthy persons, referenda permitting its use as a so-called  "medicine" passed in both Arizona and California. This was because the well-funded marijuana lobby, like the tobacco lobby, carried out a multimillion dollar media blitz which deceived the populace. Persuasive fraudulent TV ads were funded by the drug legalization lobby.

Just as the greatest fear of those involved in highly profitable tobacco industry is that their product be made illegal, the greatest hope of those in the underground marijuana industry is that their product be made legal. They aspire to be respectable businessmen with no fear of the law. The deceptive techniques of both industries are identical. Just as physicians connected to the tobacco lobby claimed for years that tobacco was not addictive and did not cause cancer, physicians connected to the marijuana lobby make the same false claims about marijuana. Marijuana legalization groups, such as the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), went to court to try to reschedule marijuana as medicine, but the US Court of Appeals (DC Circuit) ruled against them on February 18, 1994. The Court noted that the pro-marijuana parties, including physicians connected with NORML, were unscientific, relying merely on anecdotes. On the other side, highly credentialed scientific experts testified that marijuana has never been shown scientifically to be a safe effective medicine. It is of interest that the tobacco industry similarly tried to advertise tobacco as a medicine until the Federal Trade Commission halted the practice in 1955. Kools were said to prevent the common cold, and Camels were said to relieve fatigue and aid digestion. 

In 1979, the director of NORML, told an Emory University audience that they would be using the issue of medicinal marijuana as a "red herring" to give marijuana a good name. On December 30, 1996, General Barry McCaffrey stated at a news conference that the California pro-marijuana physicians were pushing marijuana for twenty-six conditions, including writer's cramp, corn removal, and recalling forgotten memories. During the California and Arizona  campaigns, color TV advertisements fraudulently promoting marijuana as a medicine were permitted, even though scientific evidence does not support such claims. No warnings were given delineating marijuana's dangers. Marijuana damages the heart, brain, lungs, and immune system, and worsens many diseases, such as multiple sclerosis. It does not prevent blindness due to glaucoma. In Massachusetts, the pro-marijuana groups passed legislation facilitating the use of marijuana cigarettes for asthma, even though smoking causes asthma!