The American Society of Addiction Medicine, which bills itself as “The Voice of Addiction Medicine,” has come out with a position paper regarind: State-level Proposals to Legalize Marijuana
About all one needs to do is look at the writing team to discover what this is about:
ASAM Writing Committee to Develop a Response to State-Level Proposals to Legalize Marijuana:
Robert L. DuPont, M.D., Co-Chair
Andrea G. Barthwell, M.D., Co-Chair
Mark Kraus, M.D.
Kevin Sabet, Ph.D.
Richard Soper, M.D.
Scott Teitelbaum, M.D.
Right off the bat, you’ve got two phenomenally discredited quacks as the co-chairs. DuPont was the White House Drug Chief in the 70s and has since made his living from getting people to pee in cups. He once equated marijuana legalization with legalizing speeding and drunk driving.
Andrea Barthwell has made a career out of lying, from her Illinois Marijuana Lectures, where she was caught red-handed falsifying sponsors, to her bogus Coalition to End Needless Death on our Roadways, which took NHTSA data and blatantly lied about the data before sending out to news media.
And Kevin Sabet — apparently a hired gun for anybody who needs him on the prohibition side. He’s not even a doctor.
The content is the standard prohibitionist nonsense, dressed up in footnotes and cherry-picked studies. As usual, Portugal and the Netherlands are dismissed because it’s not true legalization, while fantasy guesses plucked out of the air by RAND writers are considered fact. Every dishonest trick in the book is used from bemoaning drivers who “test positive” for marijuana, to marijuana being “associated with” all kinds of negative outcomes.
Here was the funniest statement in the whole document:
Increased incidence and prevalence of marijuana-related substance use disorders, including marijuana addiction, would lead to increased demand for treatment services. Today’s treatment systems are inadequate for meeting the current treatment needs in our nation.
Why is it, then, that I can’t seem to get rid of all the treatment ads on my site? I’ve listed dozens of treatment organizations on the blocked list for Google ads and more keep coming without end. I get contacted weekly by treatment organizations that want to pay me to stick links into my posts to improve Google rankings (I always turn them down). And treatment organizations offer me articles and infographics all the time. And I’m just one little blog.
Treatment is a hugely profitable industry. To the extent that current treatment needs are not met in our nation, it has nothing to do with marijuana treatment, but rather the fact that these addiction medicine “professionals” want nothing to do with the less profitable real addiction problems of poor people.
Dean Becker nailed it in comments:
Dean Becker 30 Jul
No surprise here, that doctors who make millions from marijuana addiction whether real or reefer madness would be opposed to marijuana legalization. This objection to the lack of science is a revelation of the failure of these same doctors and scientists to do the studies in the 40 years since the declaration of eternal drug war by Richard Nixon. Insofar as potential harms to users this study displays a glaring and ugly lack of recognition of the harms of the drug war itself. Because of ASAM’s failure to actually do their job, more than 20 million Americans have been arrested and their futures fractured for smoking marijuana like their President and his “Choom Gang” did in their youth. Claims of harm from marijuana use to the young and to the populace in general are frivolous at best and downright ugly when compared to the massive health problems of alcohol and tobacco use. Ignorance can only serve ASAM for so long and the end of reefer madness is fast approaching. Best get on the side of truth or your “stature” is soon to disappear.
ASAM = Absolute Stupidity Against Marijuana
The sooner these phoneys get exposed for the abysmal mess they have made out of this country, the sooner we can begin providing some real help for those that want and need it.
ASAM should help in the recovery of the lost 2 trillion dollars this country has spent fighting a war that has enslaved and destroyed millions thanks to them.
That will happen only with a Scopes-trial event, where their insanity is held up to the kind of public ridicule they’ve been able to avoid all these years, partly because of America’s infatuation with ‘alphabet soup’…the kind that follows some people’s names. Like ‘Ph.D.’
The assumption in this country has been that a degree confers wisdom and competency. The DrugWar is a perfect example of the opposite being the case. If anything, it exacerbates the quackery. If the quackery comes with an official-sounding ‘official’, the assumption is that official must know what they’re doing because they’re an official…when in fact they are usually more clueless than those they preside over.
And so, the Peter Principle proves itself useful in both academia and in public service; WRT drug policy, quacks rise to a level where their incompetency and stupidity affect an entire nation…with disastrous effect.
Plenty of drug treatment facilities are available to those who can afford them, or who have good health insurance policies to pay for them. What’s missing are sufficient numbers of free treatment facilities. Existing free facilities are typically available only through cult-like forums that people find unattractive, such as 12-step programs that are the functional equivalent of sacrificing goats on alters.
It’s obvious from the ASAM list alone that the medical profession doesn’t always attract the best qualified people to its ranks. Psychopathic doctors are abundant. The M.D.’s in the ASAM roster pursued their careers one step ahead of a medical malpractice lawsuit. In the real world of medicine, they wouldn’t have been so lucky. In fact, ASAM’s board of faux doctors resemble the 13 retired physicians who are current Republican members of Congress and who support climate denial: incompetent and unprincipled.
It’s about time our country recognized that a lot of Americans like to get high with something other than alcohol. If the government really wanted to make people safe then it would legalize every recreational drug that’s safer than booze.
That would keep alcohol as the most harmful recreational drug legally available while at the same time giving people the right to legally choose safer alternatives to alcohol.
If the government really wanted to keep us safe then why is it bending over backwards to make us unsafe?
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Correction: If the Government really wanted to protect our natural born right to equal protection under the law there’s no question that either anything safer than drinking alcohol needs to be legal or anything less safe than cannabis needs to be illegal.
Phelps seems to be doing well up in London!
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Doesn’t it seem totally whacked that we’re worried that a guy might not win Olympic medals, or it would somehow be a strike against choosing to enjoy cannabis? Christ on a cross, just making it onto the Olympic roster is an achievement reserved for a very, very small percentage of the population. Making the roster in 3 separate Olympics is a stunning achievement. I don’t care if all he did was be the team’s equipment manager. Mark Spitz only swam in 2 Olympics, 1968 and 1972. Mr. Phelps has been in 3, with Gold medals in each.
The world has surely gone mad if not winning Olympic Gold is a standard for saying that cannabis causes “amotivational” syndrome. How many Olympic Gold Medals do ASAM members hold? Z-E-R-O.
PETE im so proud of you!!! Im glad you told us about the treatment people contacting you and trying to pay you to advertise their bs. Im glad you called them out, ah, too bad you cannot tell us more specifics about who these pieces of crap are.
Addiction Medicine!?!?! GOD i hate these people, this whole list!! Addiction medicine?! LIKE WHAT?! THAT WASTE OF TIME METHADONE and that even WORSE horrific piece of trash, prohibition type wrongly glorified by pathetic ex junkies suboxone and then, even WORSE than bupe (subs etc) and methad1 is the recent people trying to cash in who were late to the dance oh yes, thats right im talking about you scumbags in your stupid naltroxone naloxone trials. You transparent, money hungry lying pieces of filth. WHY would any GENUINE person in the medical industry (HERES LOOKING AT YOU COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL on 168th street) even THINK for a MOMENT it would be WORTH even THINKING ABOUT for more than a moment to try out naloxone for opiate patients? NALOXONE is less effective than suboxone, and speaking as a drug user, it does nothing. gives nothing. not in the addiction medicine world. anti o.d drug? ok ive heard about that, narcan is fine. LOOK AT THE DROP OUT RATES!! All these naloxone tests, they are horrible failures, people with no experience in the opiate world get suckered into these trials, who knows how, and they leave without saying goodbye after the first day. Happens all over, look at the facts baby. Then to juice up their results, what do they do? OH, they start including a LITTLE bit of suboxone OR methadone OR both. DUDE it must be the pharm companies, idk, maybe not, but if we already have gone down the road of medicines that do nothing more than prevent the outset of withdrawal which coming from a decade plus opiate lover please dont even i have seen and gone thru it, my opinion is dont be a wuss man withdrawals arent that bad try kicking after years and years and years of regular heavy use then one day somethin bad happens these scumbags from prohibition ruin your life for a moment and your COERCED to kick in jail or w/e. DUDE even then wds aint bad at all. BUT MY POINT IS, we’ve gone down this road for decades and decades and guess what methadone is the absolute last resort of the junkie and i mean absolute last resort and even then most of us may just walk into the clinic for the next few days to straighten out the only genuine reason we’re there, MONEY REASONS because its 10 BUCKS A BAG for a 90 CENT A BAG PRODUCT, hello, prohibiton anybody?!! (isnt it funny how you see these lame pathetic so called ex users of opiates talkin amongst themselves and one will say, ah yea i ran out of money, i was stealing blablablablabla and the other guy goes well no i didnt have the money problem because i got mine by script WELL WHAT DO YOU KNOW!) so GIVE ME A BREAK! AND they’ve decided to concoct a GOVT version of methadone, the liquid handcuffs which arent even proper methadone, DONOT for a MOMENT buy any of what you hear about its all the same, its not homeboy i promise. dude i scratched til i bled and nodded out to the point of oblivion on proper methadone, liquid handcuffs, the govt methadone? dude what a sham, it totally absolutely does nothing xcept flood the receptors and curiously, it even seems to block other stuff like alcohol and caffeine, very strange.
And in having this waste of bloody time methadone we had these brits make a mistake in their labs, WOOPS and now we have suboxone which is bloody the same bloody damn thing as methadone HONESTLY and any junkie who tells you the otherwise is LYING FROM A junkie i will tell you the only reason any junkie would prefer bupe and thats because of the lenient compared to methadone prescribing rules. ALTHOUGH A GOOD DOCTOR DOESNT PAY ATTENTION TO THESE RULES ANYWAY – the vast majority of over educated, over schooled, therefore highly sheltered and socially oblivious doctors are too cowardly and too ignorant to know better so they follow this relic of a law which is that IN AMERICA lets be clear the UNITED STATES of AMERICA not everywhere else in the world but here a DR cannot prescribe a narcotic to the non existant entity the prohibitionists created called narcotic addict to treat the non existant, not real conditions again the prohibitionists invented despite decades and centuries of worldwide legal drug use and sales called drug addiction. HOWEVER some 30-40 years after the passing of this law it was ammended because a Dr. in Washington DC with clout and connections who was an expert on confiscated Nazi technology was able to blow the dust off an old Nazi project when the Nazis lost control of their poppy fields and no longer had morphine for its troops so they created their totally synthetic opiate, methad one, i would love to know what methad two or three wouldve looked like because as is usually the case im sure the first was the worst and second wouldve been best but unless its locked away in a vault somewhere well never know AH UNLESS of course the govt version of methadone is methad 2… you know, it would make sense that the Nazis would move in that direction.
NEVERTHELESS the DC Dr. got the laws adjusted for his methadone project which ended up working, lets be clear though, it was brand new, junkies hadnt encountered it for the most part and therefore there was bound to be some initial high rates of success ESPECIALLY considering the fact that his PATIENTS were mostly WITHDRAWING PRISONERS who had NO CHOICE anyway and were in jail and yes most junkies who go through withdrawal probably would kill their wives and children for a fix because most junkies live in fear of withdrawals, i dont get it, its not that bad, we have balls enough to do all sorts of psychotic law breaking things we’re forced to do because of prohibition from taking firearms into pharmacies and killing people and all sorts of other outrageous stuff but when it comes to withdrawals were the most pathetic lot youll see.
BACK TO THE point now that is that the guy got the ban lifted to mean that the narcotic could be DISPENSED from a location but not prescribed as take home, hey remember now this is in the 60s ok? the buprenorphine ACCIDENT happened in the late 80s early 90s ok and by then much had been learned sadly not enough. They were able to classify it differently so heres the deal, us junkies will go through hell and back every single day for our fix doesnt matter where or how we will travel 10 hours every day through hellacious circumstances to get heroin or pills or whatever. OK. BEAR IN MIND that the opiates were getting are proper opiates that do sensational, wonderful things for us. NOW methadone as ive told you, the proper kind, well it can but not the methadone most junkies get in the clinics, as suboxone, they DO NOTHING EXCEPT PREVENT THE OUTSET OF WITHDRAWALS AND PREVENT YOUR OPIATE RECEPTORS FROM BEING ABLE TO TAKE IN HEROIN/PILLS/W,E. THERE IS NO WAY that a junkie can sustain the desire to go through hell every day, as they were before for the stuff they wanted, to go to this stupid clinic and drink this crap that essentially does nothing. SO OF COURSE when offered an alternative like suboxone, which the key difference is nothing scientific, wholly legal – in that you can get a months precription to take home thats how it is. there isnt suboxone clinics, theyre prescription only and lots of methadone clinics resident Dr’s have the certification to prescribe it HOW DO I KNOW hey im a god forsaken junkie ive done it all baby ive been to every dang methadone clinc you can imagine, ive seen all the stereotypical crap you can imagine.
SIMPLY, if i can get a medication that will prevent withdrawals but do nothing else, if i can spare the cash as a junkie to buy this item and id only have to get it once or once a month, i will definitely buy it because any junkie knows that sometimes inevitably, circumstances are such where youve already stole all you can, you have already spent all you have, or just simply everything is totally dried up and there is totally nothing you can do and you will need that sub. The true point of the suboxone script is to sit in the closet as needed. Bottom line. Methadone? ha!! every single day? No way. (OH, I SHOULD POINT OUT THAT, *TENURE* at methadone clinics will get you some take homes. That is true. Nevertheless tenure takes a very long time)
so in closing, let me just say that this article pissed me off because this team is called the American Society of Addiction Medicine and all i heard about was marijuana. WTF does marijuana have to do with addiction medicine? ADDICTION medicine pertains to stuff like methadone and suboxone etc. WHY is this talking about pot? NO im not aiming that at Pete im aiming that at the people who are involved – I think Pete is right to call this article out and call them out. I DONT UNDERSTAND WTF weed has to do with addiction medicine? Medical Marijuana? NO. WTF? It makes no sense. JUST ANOTHER STUPID WASTE OF TIME ATTACK ON DRUGS AND USERS. BUT THIS ONE ESPECIALLY IS MESSED UP AND PISSES ME OFF because the fact is they are using a term and a platform that is already in use for their anti pot agenda – KEVIN SABET of all people all he does is bitch and moan about pot. POT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ADDICTION MEDICINE. I dont get it.
FURTHERMORE to conclude my nutty rant for you with a solution ill give it to you and its what ive said many many many times before there is only ONE true GENUINE solution if you want to keep in place this prohibition and help out addiction medicine and that is HEROIN ASSISTED TREATMENT and for the pain killer people with a society complex and your full of yourself and full of crap with your b.s ego and everything cause you think somehow that your better because you dont do heroin or you dont use needles just pills which are the same damn thing really as heroin just different form and different means of ingestion – for them hello its very easy hydromorphone, hydrocodone etc. maintenance. VERY SIMPLE. Being done already in England for decades and now Canada.
Thats the solution. DO NOT KID YOURSELF. if your a doctor, have some god forsaken dignity and take you stupid hands out of your money filled pockets, your a freaking doctor for gods sake you really need an extra 20 k from some shady pharm company to ruin our already messed up junkie lives with your shoddy medicines? give me a break man. Furthermore if your a JUNKIE dude what can i say, fight the fight baby its what we do and well have our day and if your one of those pathetic so called recovery junkie people well i wont even waste my time on you just keep your mouth shut head down go to your methadone clinics your AA meetings or get your script and stay out of my life and every decent junkies life and i promise we will stay out of yours.
thanks
cj
It’s good that these prohibitionists are in a group. This group needs to be seen for the trouble makers they are. Since, there is no good that comes from prohibition, it’s easier to see these people are up to no good when they flock together. Disreputable behavior by their cohorts doesn’t make them stronger as a group. It paints them all with the same nasty brush. As always, follow the money. Please, whomever knows these people, write an expose’ that reveals this group for what it is. This is a golden opportunity to turn their works back on themselves. I’m so tired of the nonsense that comes from the war on (some) drug users.