Patterico's Pontifications

6/8/2005

Dutch: Weed-b-Gone?

Filed under: General — See Dubya @ 8:48 pm



Seems the enlightened, the progressive, the sophisticated, the Dutch may give up selling medical marijuana through a nationalized industry. Possibly because they can’t compete with the coffee shops, but also because doctors aren’t all that interested in prescribing it:

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands – The Dutch Health Ministry, unhappy with legal sales of medical marijuana through pharmacies, will reevaluate its program later this year and may close it, a spokesman said Monday.

[snip]

Sales began in September 2003 and fell flat.

Doctors who had lobbied for legalizing prescription marijuana in the 1990s failed to prescribe it once it was available in drug stores, Kuik said.

One reason may be the high price of prescribed marijuana compared with the product sold at the neighborhood coffee shop. The prescription marijuana is about double the price of the unauthorized drug — or about $280 an ounce — since it must cover the costs of regulating production, packaging and sales tax.

Another reason might be that the whole medical marijuana movement is pretty just much a back door for stoners to circumvent the drug laws, and the medical claims are exaggerated. But don’t take my word for it. What does the Dutch health minister have to say about the value of medical marijuana?

Another reason for the Dutch policy review is that the current health minister, Hans Hoogervorst, is less committed to liberal drug policies than his predecessor, who initiated the program, Kuik said.

Hoogervorst argues the medical value of marijuana has never been scientifically proven, despite anecdotal testimony from sufferers of chronic pain.

But clearly that it’s going to be difficult even for any sort of decriminalized drug program to compete with the black market, which doesn’t have to worry about lawsuits, minimum wage requirements, etc.

Meanwhile, so many foreigners come to the Netherlands to smoke pot in coffee shops, especially in towns near the German border, that the Dutch are considering restricting sales to residents or to customers with special passes.

Justice Minister Piet Hein Donner has said the Dutch must take action to curb “drugs tourism.”

Wait, Piet, are you saying that Amsterdam’s drug scene affects interstate–or international–commerce? I heard a fellow named Scalia hinting as much over here the other day.

A hip of the tat to the WorldTribune.

–Posted by See-Dubya

PS Angry Stoners: my e-mail is patterico (at) patterico.com. I’d love to hear from you about the truth about Medical Marijuana and how we should free the weed!

11 Responses to “Dutch: Weed-b-Gone?”

  1. You’re an evil man for that PS.

    Good show!

    Angry Clam (f05866)

  2. Jonah Goldberg has complained about the immense amount of incoherent hate mail he gets whenever he posts his halfhearted defenses of drug laws.

    Good thing I’m anonymous. At least I am until Patterico reads this.

    See Dubya (c83831)

  3. I’m not too worried about angry stoners. Sure, they’re angry now . . . but two minutes later (by the time they’ve opened their e-mail client and clicked on “Compose”) they’ll likely have forgotten why they were so angry.

    I’ll be getting all these e-mails saying “Duuuude! I don’t even know why I’m writing you, man!”

    I know where to forward them . . .

    Patterico (756436)

  4. It’s still a bad interpretation of the Commerce Clause. Last I checked, the idea of the Constitution was to limit the powers of the government, and to do so with the minimal number of words.
    At this rate, all commerce will automatically be considered interstate by nature of the internet.

    On the other hand, if you trust the minds of people who live and work half-way across the world from you and are paid to keep the wool over the eyes of 51% of their followers, well, then I guess it’s a good thing…

    blueeyes (85e0cf)

  5. Another reason might be that the whole medical marijuana movement is pretty just much a back door for stoners to circumvent the drug laws
    Of course. They just will never admit it. Many of the people who are for medical marijuana are honest and earnest, but there’s also a lot of stoners in the background.
    I’m for legalizing it, but it’s because I don’t think the gov’t should be my mother. Many self-destructive actions are legal, I don’t see why the gov’t gets to pick and choose which ones to sanction.

    Veeshir (d4339d)

  6. Of course this is about legalizing weed.

    But you can’t just stand up and say legalize the stuff that doesn’t work….people like patterico will make you look silly.

    You first must have a sympathethic cause….obviously a bunch of sick and terminally ill patients does the trick. But while weed may or may not have relief from pain is it worse than say Demerol? Lets see Demerol is highly addictive and has a long list of side effects which could ultimately lead to a coma. And if you want to kick these pain relievers? Someone ask Rush about how much fun he had in rehab. Pot can be grown in your backyard and the side effects are…..really bad if you don’t have an ample supply of Doritos.

    I agree with Veeshir keep the government out of this type of stuff.

    Of course this is cutsie little stuff that Republicans just loooove to have fun with. It’s kind of like having a policy on small unintrusive federal government , smart fiscal policies etc….sounds great during a speech the same way helping sick people sounds great . But once you get elected that big federal government and the deficit just aren’t really that bad are they?

    LibertarianLarry (71cab3)

  7. While pot may indeed provide some ‘pain relief’ simply because of the buzz, it was my understanding that the call for legalization of medical use pot was to provide relief from the debilitating effects of nausea. Terminal illnesses, especially cancer, often cause strong nausea with the resultant inability to tolerate food. And the most commonly cited reason when I first read about the issue years ago was to offset the nausea that accompanies chemotherapy and less often radiation therapy.
    Anyone who has ever had a bad hangover and smoked weed to ‘get well’ knows how quickly and completely it can placate a sick stomach.
    Terminally ill patients are used for the example because that was the original common sense exception to anti drug laws, to lessen their suffering from nausea producing treatments.
    The Supremes got it wrong on this issue.

    mikem (fd2aad)

  8. “Medical value never proven”? Really? You might want to do some research before you come off sounding this ignorant. This is a pretty good overview in a major medical journal: Williamson EM, Evans FJ. Cannabinoids in clinical practice.
    Drugs. 2000 Dec, volume 60, issue 6, pages 1303-14
    .

    I have absolutely no stake in this (not being a stoner 😉 but since I do have a professional background in biochemistry I think I should set the record straight.

    If you want some more info, go to MEDLINE (a huge database of medical articles) and run the following searches:
    cannabis AND pain
    cannabis AND analgesic AND animal
    cannabis AND analgesic AND human
    cannabinoids AND antinociceptive
    All of these return huge numbers of highly informative articles – the first search is mostly clinical studies (yes, it is effective), the second is studies in animal models of pain and analgesia (obviously free from any reporting bias that humans may have), and the last for technical studies on drug action mechanisms.

    To explain this in layman’s terms: cannabis is an extremely potent painkiller, about equal to morphine, and perhaps even more potent in treating chronic pain. This has been known for a very long time, and old medical handbooks (pre-1920s or so) accurately describe those properties. People used to do major operations using cannabis as the sole painkiller. Unfortunately, all strong painkillers tend to be psychoactive and addictive (at least psychologically) because they also block the normal feelings of discomfort that the body generates – in other words, they all “feel good”. Canabis and related synthetic chemicals are less so because they work by enhancing the effects of natural opioid substances that the body produces; in other words they don’t kick in unless you are actually in pain. That is why they have a vastly lower addictive and abuse potential than opioid analogues such as morphine. If it were not for the “war on (some) drugs”, cannabis would be the most common medical analgesic for anything from toothache to HIV. Its negative effects are comparable or lower than of alcohol, but its medical value is vastly higher. So why isn’t it?

    Now, yes, there are a lot of people who smoke pot for recreation, and you may or may not object to that (by the way, the negative medical effects of it havce also “never been proven” ;). And yes, there is going to be some “drug tourism” into places that allow medical marijuana. That absolutely does not mean that the medical use is a “back door for stoners to circumvent the drug laws” (although some will do so, of course). The medical use is a very, very serious issue for people with chronic pain (or HIV or cancer or a number of other things), and from your writing you obviously have never known anyone with that problem, or you’d be a little more sympathetic and more knowledgeable.

    -Obsidian

    P.S. Did I mention cannabis, in addition to being a strong analgesic, also works as a strong antispasmodic, antiemetic and appetite enhancer?

    Obsidian (90534e)

  9. Assuming that Obsidian is right (I am a neurobiology student with no real expertise in the cannabinoid field), I disagree with the claim that “cannabis would be the most common medical analgesic for anything from toothache to HIV.”
    The critical thing here is to remember the fundamental nature of all other medications: they are all composed of purified active ingredients. They also all come in quantifiable doses(pills, sprays or puffs). Home grown marijuana does neither and therefore cannot be considered a true medicine.
    If cannabinoids are so great, then they should be purified and administered through a pill or an inhaler. This way you can actually deliver a specific, controlled dose. I also don’t understand how the FDA could allow marijuana to be a sanctioned drug without having any quality control over the product.
    To me, any attempt to legalize smoking medicinal marijuana is the first step of a plan to legalize smoking marijuana in general. If cannabinoids are truly helpful, then why aren’t they making pills and running clinical trials on them?

    The answer is that they are working on pharmaceutical trials(Google: cannabinoid clinical trials). This seems to be the right way to approach it, but it will upset those who are trying to make pot smoking legal for all.

    supraliminal (8f629c)

  10. supraluminal – you have some valid points. I exaggerated slightly when I said “most common medical analgesic”, it wouldn’t replace aspirin of course. I mean most common in the kind of situation in which now codeine or stronger is prescribed – although I really don’t see why it wouldn’t be OTC, either.

    Purified active ingredients? Sure, but unfortunately it turns out these have side-effects which the rather complicated natural cocktail does not have (again, see the abstract I linked). Smoking the stuff does have some health risks, just as any other type of smoking, so I’m all in favor of pills – or brownies for that matter.

    Preparations of a standard potency? Would be nice, of course, and would no doubt be made commercially if the legal issues weren’t a problem. However that is not strictly necessary since it is easy enough to self-select the proper dosage, and the medical risk from overdose is essentially nill. Besides, there are lots of herbal medicines which are not all that standardized, but which work like magic anyway (to pick an example at random, Viburnum prunifolium). If it works, does it matter what packaging it comes in?

    There has also been a lot of research into non-psychoactive cannabinoids, some of which are pretty good but not nearly as good as the natural stuff.

    In short, all of this seems to be looking for a solution to a non-problem. Well, except for the drug companies that stand to make tons of money from a patented non-psychoactive cannabinoid analgesic, of course 😉

    Obsidian (90534e)

  11. Just to make my position clear, I really don’t give a damn about recreational uses either way – I don’t think anyone is hurt by them, but I don’t forsee any circumstances in which I’d want to engage in that myself either. I do care about the medical uses which I think are very considerable. Beyond that, banning the stuff strikes me as completely unnecessary, costly, prison-crowding, organized-crime-producing and above all stupid. If it was up to me, the stuff would be sold over-the-counter. The people who need to use it for medical reasons will be able to do so without any hassle, and to the extent that others use it recreationally instead of alchohol (which is toxic, addictive and induces violent behaviour) or tobacco (which is toxic, carcinogenic and highly addictive) that would be a net gain. Just my two cents.

    I am however interested in hearing any arguments for why it should be banned…

    Obsidian (90534e)


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