Ca. Med Assn. Demands Legalization for Marijuana

The State of California’s chief physician group is in strong support of the legalization of marijuana, even while it claims cannabis may have limited to questionable medical value.

The trustees from the California Medical Assn., which represents a lot more than 35,000 doctors state-wide, adopted the positioning at their annual meeting in Anaheim Ca. late last year. It’s the initial medical association within the nation to urge the full legalization of marijuana seeds.

Dr. Jesse Lyman, the Sacramento physician who authored the group’s new policy, credited the change to growing frustration over California’s medicinal marijuana law, which allows cannabis use if you have a doctor’s recommendation. That, he stated, has produced an untenable situation for doctors: determining whether or not to give patients an medical marijuana —which happens to be illegal under federal law.

“This is an uncomfortable position for doctors,” he stated. “It’s an open question as to whether cannabis seeds are helpful or otherwise. That question is only able to be clarified once it’s legalized and more scientific studies are done on marijuana grown under different conditions. Then, and just then, are we able to know what it’s helpful for.”

The Ca Med Assn’s new stance seems to possess just as much related to politics as science. The group has declined the primary arguments of medicinal marijuana advocates, proclaiming the substance has couple of proven health advantages and evaluating it to some “folk remedy.”

The CMA appreciates some health risks connected with marijuana use and proposes it be controlled like alcohol and tobacco. However it states the effects of criminalization over-shadow the risks.

Lyman states current marijuana laws and regulations have “shown to be a unsuccessful public health policy.” He reported elevated prison costs, the result on families when marijuana customers are jailed and racial inequalities in drug-sentencing cases.

The organization’s announcement triggered some angry response.

“I question what they are smoking,” stated John Lovell, spokesperson for that California Police Chiefs Assn. “Given everything that we understand concerning the physiological impacts of marijuana – the way it affects youthful brains, the amount of accidents connected with driving while impaired – it is simply an unbelievably irresponsible position.”

The CMA’s view can also be questionable within the medical community.

Dr. Robert DuPont, an M.D. and professor of psychiatry at Georgetown School Of Medicine, stated the association’s demand for marijuana (collectives) legalization demonstrated “a reckless disregard from the public health. I believe it is going to result in more use, which, in my experience, is really a public health concern. I am unsure they have considered exactly what the implications of legalization could be.