By Marco Torres

Guest Writer for Wake Up World

The U.S. Government has flipped more than their lid when it comes to getting their facts straight on Cannabis use. Irvin Rosenfeld, a 61-year old investment specialist from Ft. Lauderdale, Fla has received over 130,000 cigarettes of medical cannabis, approx 300 at a time, one shipment every 25 days since 1983. This is all courtesy of the U.S. Federal Government to treat a rare form of bone cancer. Ironically, in 2011, the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) said that cannabis “has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States” and “lacks accepted safety for use under medical supervision.” So which one is it?

After numerous operations and all types of medicines which had marginal results, Rosenfel discovered in 1971 the medical benefits of cannabis and was lucky enough to become one of the elite Federal Medical Cannabis Patient’s in the fall of 1982.

When Rosenfeld began receiving marijuana from the federal governmen, he became the second patient to benefit under a narrowly defined “compassionate protocol” that supplied glaucoma and cancer patients with cannabis until the Federal Drug Administration’s Investigational New Drug Program was disbanded a decade later.

Today, Rosenfeld is one of only four patients who continue to receive weed from the federal government. He is the longest surviving member of the program.

He uses the marijuana to treat two conditions — one called multiple congenital cartilaginous exostosis, the other pseudohypo-parathyroidism. They cause painful tumors to grow on his bones. His experience, he said, has led him to become one of the nation’s most vocal proponents of medical marijuana use.

He has testified before the legislatures of several of the 13 states that have legalized cannabis for medicinal purposes and has for nearly three decades fought the federal government to allow him to continue to use pot.

Every month Rosenfeld receives 300 joints from the government, sealed in large tins and delivered to his local pharmacy. The marijuana comes from cannabis plants grown by the government on a small farm at the University of Mississippi. The plants are sent to Raleigh, N.C., where the National Institute of Drug Addiction dries them and prepares the cigarettes.

No Medical Use According To The DEA

The government that supplies Rosenfeld with medical marijuana has for decades denied the drug’s efficacy, penalized those states that legalized medicinal cannabis and has actively prosecuted suppliers in those states.

In a June, 2011, DEA Administrator Michele M. Leonhart said marijuana “has a high potential for abuse,” “has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States” and “lacks accepted safety for use under medical supervision.” The letter and 37 pages of supporting documents were published in the Federal Register.

That was the third time that petitions to reclassify marijuana had been spurned. The first was filed in 1972 and denied 17 years later. The second was filed in 1995 and denied six years later. Both decisions were appealed, but the courts sided with the federal government.

The Coalition for Rescheduling Cannabis filed its petition in October 2002. In 2004, the DEA asked the Department of Health and Human Services to review the science. The department recommended in 2006 that marijuana remain classified as a dangerous drug. Four and a half years then elapsed before the current administration issued a final denial.

The Drug Enforcement Agency does not refer to medical marijuana on its Web site without putting the word “medical” in quotes, and insists there is little science to support the use of smoking marijuana for medicinal purposes.

Legalizing Cannabis Across The U.S. Is Inevitable

In a historic and significant moment in American history, in November 2012, Colorado became the first US state to legalize marijuana for recreational use. The impact of the decision will soon ripple across the entire country with vast opportunities to educate millions on the top health benefits of marijuana.

With the passage of I-502 in the 2012 Washington State election, marijuana also became legal in Washington–not just for medical use, but also for recreational use–and Alaska, California, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Nevada, New York, Nebraska, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, and Vermont have all decriminalized marijuana.

Consumption and sale of marijuana is still illegal in all other states, though some cities and towns have passed local laws decriminalizing it or making it a low priority for law enforcement officers.

There are also movements in many states to legalize pot, including legalization bills introduced in many other states.

The Age of Deception is Ending

In 2003, the U.S. Government as represented by the Department of Health and Human Services filed for, and was awarded a patent on cannabinoids. The reason? Because research into cannabinoids allowed pharmaceutical companies to acquire practical knowledge on one of the most powerful antioxidants and neuroprotectants known to the natural world.

The U.S. Patent 6630507 was specifically initiated when researchers found that cannabinoids had specific antioxidant properties making them useful in the treatment and prophylaxis of wide variety of oxidation associated diseases, such as ischemic, age-related, inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. The cannabinoids are found to have particular application as neuroprotectants, for example in limiting neurological damage following ischemic insults, such as stroke and trauma, or in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and HIV dementia. Nonpsychoactive cannabinoids, such as cannabidoil, are particularly advantageous to use because they avoid toxicity that is encountered with psychoactive cannabinoids at high doses useful in the method of the present invention.

Besides the top 10 health benefits below, findings published in the journal PLoS ONE, researchers have now have now discovered that marijuana-like chemicals trigger receptors on human immune cells that can directly inhibit a type of human immuno-deficiency virus (HIV) found in late-stage AIDS.

Recent studies have even shown it to be an effective atypical anti-psychotic in treating schizophrenia, a disease many other studies have inconsistently found it causing.

Kills Cancer

Cannabis is one of the most powerful healing plants in the world and it makes cancer essentially disappear. Cannabis compounds are responsible for halting the growth factors that are responsible for metastatic growth.

Cannabinoids, the active components of marijuana, inhibit tumor growth in laboratory animals, and also kill cancer cells. Western governments have known this for a long time yet they continued to suppress the information so that cannabis prohibition and the profits generated by the drug industry proliferated.

THC that targets cannabinoid receptors CB1 and CB2 is similar in function to endocannabinoids, which are cannabinoids that are naturally produced in the body and activate these receptors. The researchers suggest that THC or other designer agents that activate these receptors might be used in a targeted fashion to treat lung cancer.

An investigational cannabinoid therapy helped provide effective analgesia when used as an adjuvant medication for cancer patients with pain that responded poorly to opioids, according to results of a multicenter trial reported in The Journal of Pain, published by the American Pain Society.

Irvin Rosenfeld has now written a book on how he convinced the U.S. Government to provide his marijuana and helped launch a national movement.

Article Sources:

abc.com

preventdisease.com

irvinrosenfeld.com

Previous articles by Marco:

About the author:

Marco Torres is a research specialist, writer and consumer advocate for healthy lifestyles. He holds degrees in Public Health and Environmental Science and is a professional speaker on topics such as disease prevention, environmental toxins and health policy.

This article was reposted with the permission of the kind crew at preventdisease.com