William S. Eidelman, M.D.

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William S. Eidelman, M.D.?

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Dr. Eidelman's Office: 1654 Cahuenga Blvd
Los Angeles CA 90028
corner of Hollywood Blvd
entrance in middle of International Newsstand

(323) 463-3295
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Get Real About Drugs

Medical Marijuana and the Recent Appeals Court Raich Ruling

1.  We are a pro-drug culture.  The anti-drug attitude is schizophrenic.
     We are a pro-drug culture, in spite of all the anti-drug rhetoric.  We are all for drugs to cure diseases or diminish symptoms of disease or injury.  We are encouraged in all the media to ask our doctor about the latest, greatest drug for this or that.  Particularly popular is the invitation to get a good night sleep.  The pharmaceutical industry is one of the largest, most profitable industries, comparable only to defense and banking!  Legal drugs are marketed, bought and sold, and used.  Huge profits are made.
     Alcohol is a socially accepted drug used for other-than-medical purposes.  Even though it is a dangerous drug, in many ways, we are encouraged to recreationally drink alcohol almost ubiquitously, often by beautiful, scantily clad girls on television or in print.   
     The anti-drug idea, ostensibly to protect people from dangerous drugs, has gone disastrously off course. Use of unapproved (illegal) or unprescribed-to-you (illegal for you) drugs is now a crime.  You can go to jail.  You can use a prescribed amphetamine to treat Attention Deficit Disorder, and it is okay.  But even if you have ADD, if you get the same drug on the street, and are caught, to jail you go.  You can use opiates to treat pain when the doctor prescribes it, but if you get it outside of official medical channels, you are a criminal.
     Drugs are wonderful, a medical miracle.  You are cajoled and encouraged to ask your doctor to prescribe you a drug for sleeping, to reduce anxiety, to make you feel less depressed, to give you a better erection, to reduce your cholesterol, etc - okay.
     Drugs are a horrific scourge.  Use marijuana and you can go to jail.
     Drugs are wonderful/Drugs are horrible.  This is social schizophrenia in plain sight.  The solution is to realize that the whole anti-drug hysteria is itself worse than the drugs themselves. 
     The anti-drug hysteria makes it much more difficult to deal with actual realities of abuse of dangerous drugs such as methamphetamine, cocaine, opiates, alcohol, and tobacco.  The anti-drug hysteria has allowed us to seriously believe that a war on people who use unapproved drugs is the right thing to do.  As a result of this, many otherwise innocent people are jailed, fined, and punished in other direct and indirect ways.  Much more harm has come to citizens of the United States from anti-drug laws and their applications than from actual negative effects of drugs.  

2.  The War on Drugs is actually The War on Citizens-Who-Use-Unapproved-Drugs.
     The War on Drugs is not a war on drugs.  It is a war on people, on citizens who use unapproved drugs. This distinction is very important.  Police do not pull guns on drugs.  They pull guns on citizens.  Judges do not put drugs in prison, they put citizens in prison. 
     Because it is a War on Citizens and not a war on drugs, this violates the US Constitution.  The Constitution defines Treason as "Levying war on the United States." Who is the United States?  The citizens!  The War on Citizens is a bad thing.

3.   While some drugs are addictive, it is possible to cure the addiction, gracefully, without withdrawal symptoms or cravings.  Addiction is not necessarily a life-long condition.  See www.BeAddictionFree.com. 
     Addiction is a metabolic and bio-electromagnetic imbalance.  Using simple, natural modalities currently available, the physical part of addiction can be cured.  Ask Julie!
     We have shown that when you harmonize the brain’s microcircuitry, replenish important stocks of micronutrients, and detoxify all the fried cells in the brain and the rest of the body, withdrawal symptoms and cravings are neutralized.  They don’t happen. When the body is harmonized, one CAN control urges. 
     The uncontrollable nature of addiction is mainly a metabolic abnormality.  Social, psychological and spiritual issues play crucial roles.  However, current approaches to treating addiction, in the absence of the metabolic and bio-electromagnetic therapies, are generally not very successful, based on evidence of recidivism. 
     While our approach has not yet gone through the rigors of clinical testing, we are certain that outcome studies underway will show its effectiveness, and show that people can be free of addiction without necessarily submitting to a 12-step program. 

4.  Marijuana/Cannabis is not a dangerous drug.  Cannabis is certainly not in the same class as dangerous drugs such as alcohol, methamphetamine, cocaine, opiates, or barbiturates.  
     FDA and DEA, when asked to show that marijuana is dangerous and has no medical value or proven safety, has shown just the opposite, that marijuana is not dangerous, and that it has many known and well-understood medical uses.  The following statements are taken from the paper presented by DEA to the Supreme Court, written by FDA, in defense of keeping marijuana as Schedule I (entire text can be found at www.druglibrary.org/ocbc/Legal/Supreme_Court/2001-03-22_HHS_Recommends_Marijuana_Cont_Sched_I.pdf  ):
     “…there is abundant scientific data available on the neurochemistry, toxicology, and pharmacology of marijuana.” 
     “In conclusion, progress in cannabinoid pharmacology…. has provided the foundation for the elucidation of the specific effects mediated by cannabinoids and their roles in psychomotor disorders, memory, cognitive functions, analgesia, antiemesis, intraocular and system blood pressure modulation, broncodilation, and inflammation.”
     (After trying to compare the chemistry of marijuana with those of actually dangerous drugs like cocaine, methamphetamine, and heroin) “the relevance of these findings in the context of the abuse potential of marijuana is still unknown.”
     Reference to the Johns Hopkins study of “marijuana’s effects on cognition on 1318 participants over a 15 year period that reported no significant differences in cognitive decline between heavy users, light users, and non-users of cannabis.  The authors concluded ‘these results … seem to provide strong evidence of the absence of a long-term residual effect of cannabis use on cognition.’”
     “The majority of early-onset marijuana users do not go on to become heavy users of marijuana, and those that do tend to associate with delinquent social groups.”
     “…data showing that reaction times are not altered by acute administration of marijuana in long term marijuana users, suggesting that behavioral adaptation or tolerance can occur to the acute effects of the drug in the absence of evidence for dependence.”
     “There is suggestive evidence that marijuana may have beneficial therapeutic effects in relieving spasticity associated with multiple sclerosis, as an analgesic, as an antiemetic, as an appetite stimulant and as a bronchodilator.”
     “Cannabinoids have a remarkably low acute lethal toxicity despite potent psychoactivity and pharmacologic actions on multiple organ systems.”
     “…potential for dependence on marijuana has been assessed to be rare among the general population.”
     “Physical dependence on marijuana is a rare phenomenon compared to other psychoactive drugs and if it develops, it is milder when marijuana is the only drug instead of being used in combination with other drugs.”  The word addiction is never mentioned. 
     Thus, in the body of FDA/DEA’s defense of placing marijuana in schedule I,  they have scientific explanations for many of the positive health benefits that they deny, but  they do not have a scientific explanation for the dangers they say exist.
     The FDA/DEA presentation to the Supreme Court neglected to mention an important DEA sponsored report. After a study of all the available medical literature and statements of medical doctors with actual experience in research and practice, as well as many patients, in 1988, Administrative Law Judge Francis Young said, "The evidence in this record clearly shows that marijuana has been accepted as capable of relieving the distress of great numbers of very ill people, and doing so with safety under medical supervision.  It would be unreasonable, arbitrary, and capricious for DEA to continue to stand between those sufferers and the benefits of this substance in light of the evidence in this record."
     Nothing has changed in FDA/DEA. They continue to be unreasonable, arbitrary, and capricious. The lies about marijuana have just become institutionalized, causing serious rot to a free society. 
     An honest reading of the data show clearly that marijuana has accepted medical uses, is safe, and has a low abuse potential.  It also qualifies under the “grandfather rules” that allow drugs in usage prior to 1906 and 1938 to be allowed in the pharmacopoeia without studies of safety and efficacy.  Drugs such as aspirin, digitalis, morphine, barbiturates, and many others are in current use based on having been grandfathered.  Cannabis was in use prior to 1906, and also prior to 1938.  It was removed from the pharmacopoeia under fraudulent testimony and evidence, and now should rightfully be restored.