The Christian Science Monitor is:

None of the Above

by Al Byrne, co-founder, Patients Out of Time

In the past I have written the editors of this "paper" to protest their inappropriate to duplicious journalism concerning medical cannabis. That was and will be useless, I have come to understand. Ideologues and the ignorant contain too much hubris to entertain any other truth. I can tell you why they are not Christian in their behavior, why their plea to science is rubbish and that their desire to "monitor" cannabis use as a medicine is a ruse.

I do know about Christians and what it means to be one. Six years of nuns at Walnut Park School, six years of priests at St. Sebastian's School in Massachusetts and I graduated from the University of Notre Dame. Christians are about compassion, forgiveness and redemption. Jesus cured the lepers and he just may have used a cannabis balm to do so.

The drug czar is clear on medical marijuana (cannabis), it should be used based on science he said, and the editors add that we should be scared after reading a footnote. The only thing that scares me about the policeman and the editors is their complete lack of medical training yet they have no problem diagnosing millions of medical cannabis users as quacks. This of course follows that all the MD's and RN's who treat cannabis patients are "doing harm". Practicing medicine without a license in the US is a felony and the drug czar and these journalists have no medical credentials, none. In contrast the folks I work with have MD, RN and PhD degrees from the US and around the world. They say that the drug czar and the editors are without a scintilla of credibility on the subject. This is likely because they do not know a cannabinoid from a bong since none of that stuff is taught in police academies, journalism schools or any law school in the country; but they do like to pontificate as though they actually knew what they were talking about.

I really have no problem ordinarily with folks displaying their ignorance in public, it's just in this case the sick are dying and in misery while these guys play out their little fantasy.

I don't want to brag too much but while the editors have a footnote from a cop, I and others with medical training have put together some 80,000 pages of peer reviewed and published documents concerning the therapeutic use of cannabis. The first 50,000 pages cover all human history up to 2002 and can be found at  www.drugscience.org.

The notion that cannabis is abused or results in dependency in 30 percent of its users is pure whimsy. Statements such as this are duplicity concocted and produced by no one with credentials. Want to be quoted as an expert? Write something foolish and the drug czar will repeat it and this paper will print it. These numbers are numbers. Included are all the kids who say that they would rather go to treatment "for dependency" than jail, or lose their hope of college aid. It even includes all those new cops and soldiers and sailors who have used cannabis but are now on duty busting sick people.

The cop says you get pulmonary illness from using cannabis. The editors agree. I do understand that journalists have been fired by the thousands to make room for pop entertainment and reports of violence but the federal government suffers no such loss. Hey, the special unit of the DEA that is in business just to harass and negate any positive medical cannabis advance could have told these guys about Dr. Tashkin. Donald Tashkin, MD, works for the University of California education system and over 2 decades studied multiple thousands of cannabis smokers. His conclusion, announced at our organization’s 5th National Clinical Conference on Cannabis Therapeutics in the spring of 2008, was in direct opposition to the editors claims. (Do I see a retraction coming?) Dr. Tashkin found that of those thousands of subjects, cannabis smokers only, had no case of lung cancer, COPD or emphysema, none. In fact he surmised cannabis was a cancer inhibitor used in that fashion. We have this information on our web site, it's on Google video and You Tube video. You would think that the feds and a big paper could find stuff right there in front of them.

Maybe it was because they were concentrating on the next paragraph and beyond where the completely false stuff continues. It's reefer madness updated, a shooter used "pot", oh my. I recall the first drug czar, only by study, who entertained Congress with the first crazed cannabis attack scenario that included axe murders, blacks raping white girls and Mexicans coming to get you. A few years later number one was back testifying, you know like under oath, that the "marijuana" being used by our soldiers had robbed them of the will to fight. It makes me wonder what this team of cops and journalists will diagnose the sick with next.

No Christianity here. The science part is the biggest joke of their banner. I'll put the science of our next conference in April 2010 up against their unreferenced "report" on cannabis. Monitoring what? Certainly not the reality of the knowledge that surrounds them, or is it that they want their own reality?

My writing in will be ignored, the editors of this rag don't have the intestinal fortitude to debate me or our organization’s members. I urge readers of this note to write to them and invite them to catch up with the last several decades of reserach in a weekend at The Sixth National Conference on
Cannabis Therapeutics held on April 15-17, 2010 in Warwick, RI. Drop the drug czar a note also, he needs the education too.

- Al Byrne