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Marijuana Laws: State by State

This map summarizes state marijuana laws. For details click a state. Track the end of the prohibition!

Book review: Smart Drugs 2

Biopsychiatric perspectives on cognitive and mood enhancing psychotropics.

Alternet - War on Drugs

Which direction is the War on Drugs headed in, and why is no one else going there...

MDMA Poster

"Are you overwhelmed by anxiety in social situations?" Site has a link to purchase a very interesting poster.

Overgrow

A site ALL about growing your own stash.

GHB: The First Authentic Antidepressant

GHB is a remarkable molecule because it can suppress depressive ideation and anxiety, sometimes within less than 30 minutes. It also seems to be immediately active on the most severe and treatment-resistant forms of depression.

The Times: Changes in British Drug Law

Good news for UK potheads! The police can't arrest you for personal quantities anymore. It's been moved to the same narcotics category as anti-depressants and steroids.

Spiral Acid

Stare at the spirals for a bit. Then look away and stare at something else just to see it crawl...

Lycaeum

The Lycaeum works to promote public education about all aspects of psychoactive drugs and drug use, including, but not limited to:

  • Visionary and entheogenic aspects of drug use,
  • Ethnobotany of indigenous cultures,
  • Harm reduction, and
  • Health and legal risks of drug use.

Erowid

The definitive internet source for entheogenic information.

:: Erowid Vault
:: MAPS In The Media
:: MAPS - Medical Marijuana Research
  • Marijuana/PTSD Protocol Drafted; MAPS Tries Again to Overcome PHS/NIDA Obsta ...

    Marijuana/PTSD Protocol Drafted; MAPS Tries Again to Overcome PHS/NIDA Obstacles

    We’ve completed the initial draft of a MAPS-sponsored marijuana/PTSD protocol, designed as a pilot study to investigate whether medical marijuana might be a safe and efficacious treatment for PTSD. We plan to refine the protocol and submit it to the FDA in the next four to eight weeks. Sue Sisley, M.D., will lead the study, planned to take place near Phoenix, Arizona. The study is titled "Placebo-Controlled, Double-Blind Study of the Safety and Efficacy of Smoked or Vaporized Cannabis in 32 Veterans with PTSD.” Sasha Stafford, B.S., joined us to help create the first draft this protocol. Stafford earned his B.S. in chemistry, has worked in regulatory affairs and clinical research, and is the son of Psychedelic Encyclopedia author Peter Stafford.

    The need for scientific research into the risks and benefits of medical marijuana use is urgent, as evidenced by NPR’s broadcast this past week about the use of marijuana to treat symptoms of PTSD. But there continue to be major obstacles to FDA drug development research with marijuana that MAPS has been trying unsuccessfully for almost a decade to overcome. The primary obstacle is that the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) has a monopoly on the supply of marijuana for use in clinical research and uses that monopoly to obstruct privately funded studies into the potential beneficial uses of marijuana.

    With more and more states voting to legalize marijuana as a medicine, medical professionals are increasingly searching for clinical studies to draw upon when choosing whether or not to recommend marijuana as a treatment.

    We anticipate that we will eventually be able to obtain FDA and IRB approval for our protocol. Realistically, based on statements by NIDA official Steven Gust, Ph.D., we expect that the NIDA/Public Health Services (PHS) review process will take at least a year (as compared to FDA's 30-day review process), and probably much longer. The initial response from PHS/NIDA is supposed to take six months, but we’ve seen past instances where it has taken years. Since it is inevitable that there will be some critiques of some aspects of the protocol, the PHS/NIDA review process for our response will likely take at least another 6 months. This time delay is outrageous. MAPS fears that the NIDA/PHS review will result in the protocol being rejected, even though we are not asking for a penny of federal money and are seeking to purchase NIDA marijuana at cost. Hopefully our dim view of the politically required and totally unnecessary PHS/NIDA protocol review process will be disproven, perhaps due to sympathy for veterans and also to the negative publicity NIDA would receive if the protocol is rejected.

    Our study is designed as a four-arm study. Three groups will receive NIDA marijuana with 2%, 6% or 12% THC. The fourth group will receive marijuana that is about 6% THC and 7% CBD, since we would like to compare and contrast the effects of marijuana with THC with marijuana with THC and CBD, which has been reported to have anti-anxiety properties. NIDA has no marijuana available with any significant levels of CBD, but claims to be able to provide whatever researchers request. The U.K. Company GW Pharmaceuticals manufactures a marijuana extract administered under the tongue, Sativex, which is 50% THC and 50% CBD. Bedrocan in the Netherlands has a plant strain that is 6% THC and 7% CBD, but their product is not yet approved by FDA for use in clinical research, though Bedrocan is seeking to obtain approval from FDA for use of its marijuana in U.S. clinical trials.

    If NIDA were sincerely interested in facilitating medical marijuana research, it would already have asked Dr. ElSohly (a professor at the University of Mississippi who is the only person in the U.S. licensed to grow marijuana for research under contract to NIDA) to produce a strain of marijuana with substantial levels of CBD as well as THC. Rather, Dr. ElSohly claims that no researcher has ever requested marijuana with CBD, and has therefore not produced any. Whether NIDA will order Dr. ElSohly to produce a strain of marijuana that is 6% THC and 7% CBD for our proposed study is anybody's guess. Even if NIDA does request it, how long it will take for Dr. ElSohly to create such a strain and have it approved by FDA for use in clinical research is also anybody's guess. It's been 28 years since the first paper indexed in medline showed that CBD has anti-anxiety properties (Psychopharmacology (Berl). 1982;76(3):245-50. Action of cannabidiol on the anxiety and other effects produced by delta 9-THC in normal subjects. Zuardi AW, Shirakawa I, Finkelfarb E, Karniol IG.) The fact that NIDA still doesn’t have a strain with significant amounts of CBD shows that NIDA is not proactively seeking to facilitate medical marijuana research, yet another reason why the NIDA monopoly needs to end.

    NIDA's monopoly fundamentally obstructs medical marijuana research. We are aware of no privately-funded medical marijuana research in the U.S. in over 40 years. It doesn't make sense to spend money on research for which the sponsor doesn't have control over price, availability, and content of the marijuana strains to be tested and perhaps eventually brought to market. Dr. ElSohly is the only person authorized by DEA to grow marijuana for research and has massive and obvious conflicts of interest against seeing more marijuana plant products become available as medicines. Dr. ElSohly has financial interests in generic Marinol made by Mallinckrodt from THC which Dr. ElSohly extracts from marijuana he and he alone has permission to grow for medical purposes, and for his own personal financial gain.

    MAPS is going ahead with our marijuana/PTSD protocol design and approval process because of the pressing social interest in finding new treatments for vets with PTSD. In addition, since we are already sponsoring MDMA/PTSD research, we can learn a great deal more about treating PTSD if we also initiate a marijuana/PTSD study.

    In February 2007, DEA Administrative Law Judge Mary Ellen Bittner ruled that it is in the public interest for the DEA to license Prof. Lyle Craker, UMass Amherst, to grow marijuana under contract to MAPS, ending NIDA's monopoly. The DEA has tried to reject Bittner's recommendation, but we have filed a Motion to Reconsider to which DEA has not yet responded, following its long and successful strategy of delay. The Senate confirmation hearing of Michele Leonhart, to be Administrator of the DEA has not yet been scheduled. She signed the order overruling Bittner’s recommendation and led the DEA’s efforts to arrest medical marijuana patients and providers in medical marijuana states, yet was still nominated by Pres. Obama. We're working to have her questioned by Senators on the Judiciary Committee about the DEA’s rejection of the ALJ recommendation.

    Meanwhile, U.S. vets with PTSD are increasingly using marijuana to treat PTSD without any scientific research on that use. MAPS will do its best to try to bring some science to bear on marijuana for PTSD, even with the obstacles placed in the way by the NIDA monopoly and the PHS/NIDA protocol review process that exists for marijuana but for no other drug. Perhaps the PHS/NIDA reviewers will pay attention to the words of U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who stated during a recent appearance at a gathering of mental health professionals on October 26, 2009, “Beyond waging the wars we are in, treatment of our wounded, their continuing care, and eventual reintegration into everyday life is my highest priority, … I consider this a solemn pact between those who have suffered and the nation that owes them its eternal gratitude."

  • NPR. "Can Marijuana Ease PTSD? A Debate Brews" (Audio File) (Webpage) by J ...

    NPR. "Can Marijuana Ease PTSD? A Debate Brews" (Audio File) (Webpage) by Jeff Brady.

    This article reports on persons with PTSD, including veterans of war, who are using medical marijuana to ease anxiety and other symptoms, the debate within the Veterans Affairs, and the conflict between state laws and federal laws.

    "The Department of Veterans Affairs finds itself in a difficult position because some vets want to use marijuana to treat symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. Pot possession remains illegal under federal law. The VA says that as a federal agency its doctors can't recommend using it.

    The problem is especially acute in New Mexico, where one-fourth of the state's more than 1,600 medical marijuana patients are PTSD sufferers."

  • Craker’s lawyers file seventh update with U.S. Court of Appeals, First ...

    Craker’s lawyers file seventh update with U.S. Court of Appeals, First Circuit

    Prof. Craker’s lawyers filed a seventh update with the U.S. Court of Appeals, First Circuit. It has now been 15 months since our lawyers filed our Motion to Reconsider. The DEA's tactic of delay is once again in full effect.

  • Marijuana PTSD Study in the Works in Arizona MAPS is currently working with ...

    Marijuana PTSD Study in the Works in Arizona

    MAPS is currently working with Principal Investigator Sue Sisley M.D., of Phoenix, Arizona to develop a new marijuana/PTSD protocol in order to get a marijuana study underway in the U.S. Weve already developed a protocol summary. Were anticipating that the protocol will be ready for submission to the Institutional Review Board (IRB) and the FDA this summer. Were sadly anticipating that this study is likely to be delayed for at least a year by NIDAs review process-- should they even approve it, which is doubtful. In addition, were asking for marijuana with THC and CBD in it, which NIDA does not have available.

    There is not at yet a possibility of importing any marijuana into the United States that contains significant amounts of both THC and CBD. This shows clearly how the DEA support of NIDAs monopoly on the supply of marijuana for research is fundamentally obstructing drug development research aimed at transforming marijuana into an FDA-approved prescription medicine. The DEA/NIDA obstruction of FDA research is one of the primary reasons why state medical marijuana reform efforts are essential.

  • Professor Craker, UMass, and MAPS Efforts to Create a Privately-Funded Medic ...

    Professor Craker, UMass, and MAPS Efforts to Create a Privately-Funded Medical Marijuana Production Facility

    Since 2001, MAPS has worked with Professor Craker at UMass Amherst to try to obtain a license for our own production facility of marijuana for FDA-approved research. NIDA currently has a monopoly on cannabis production for research purposes, and the DEA has been protecting that monopoly, which fundamentally obstructs drug development research for a number of reasons.

    President Obama has recently nominated Michelle Leonhart as the new DEA Administrator, which will complicate the fate of our marijuana drug development efforts. Since 2004, Leonhart has been the Acting Deputy Administrator of the DEA, after being appointed by President Bush. Although she had several jobs, shes been in a leadership role at DEA, and has been behind the crackdown on the state medical marijuana patients, growers, and providers. Most significantly, she rejected the February 12, 2007, recommendation of DEA Administrative Law Judge Mary Ellen Bittner, who found that it would be in the public interest for Professor Craker to receive a DEA license for the production of marijuana for research.

    Professor Crakers lawyers have filed a motion to reconsider to Michele Leonhart, with her response still pending. President Obamas nomination of her to be the Administrator of the DEA is not encouraging, even though President Obama has also ordered his Attorney General Eric Holder to stop the DEA raids on cannabis dispensaries in states that allow medical marijuana, so long as they are operating in compliance with state law. Were hoping that opening the door to scientific research is something that President Obama, his senior staff, members of Congress, and members of the Senate confirmation hearing will understand is a priority principle that Michele Leonhart needs to share to be confirmed as the next Administrator of DEA.

    We expect the senate confirmation hearings to take place in the next month or two. We strongly encourage people to contact their Senators about the Michelle Leonhart confirmation, saying that she should not be confirmed unless theres a pledge to accept the recommendation of the Administrative Law Judge, or a pledge to facilitate medical marijuana research and not protect the NIDA monopoly.