4 Americans get pot from US government

[xchrom]

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_UNCLE_SAM_POT?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-09-28-12-37-33

EUGENE, Ore. (AP) -- Sometime after midnight on a moonlit rural Oregon highway, a state trooper checking a car he had just pulled over found pot on a passenger.

The discovery was not surprising in a marijuana-friendly state like Oregon, but the 72-year-old woman's defense was: She insisted the weed was legal and given to her by none other than the federal government.

A series of phone calls from a dubious trooper and his supervisor to federal authorities determined that the glaucoma patient was not joking - the U.S. government does grow and provide pot to a select few people across the United States.

For the past three decades, Uncle Sam has been providing patients with some of the highest grade marijuana around as part of a little-known program that grew out of a 1976 court settlement and created the country's first legal pot smoker. The program once provided 14 people government pot. Now, there are four left.

[eShirl]

1. "some of the highest grade marijuana around" ...actually, I've read it was really low-quality

Years ago in an article (perhaps High Times, late 80s??), one of the other compassionate use patients said it was about "ditch weed" quality and hard on his throat.

[Uncle Joe]

2. If there is no scientific or medicinal value to pot, how can supplying this select group of

people be considered an act of compassion!?:shrug:

Don't get me wrong, I'm most happy for those people but if supplying them with cannabis is done by the federal government is to be considered an act of compassion, then the government's reservoir of compassion is non-existent when it comes to the millions of other Americans; that could benefit from this.

This is just one small aspect of the bullshit insanity behind the so called "War on Drugs."

Advocates for legalizing marijuana or treating it as a medicine say the program is a glaring contradiction in the nation's 40-year war on drugs - maintaining the federal ban on pot while at the same time supplying it.

Government officials say there is no contradiction. The program is no longer accepting new patients, and public health authorities have concluded that there was no scientific value to it, Steven Gust of the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse told The Associated Press. The government has only continued to supply the marijuana "for compassionate reasons," Gust said.

(snip)



One of the recipients is Elvy Musikka, the chatty Oregon woman. A vocal marijuana advocate, Musikka relies on the pot to keep her glaucoma under control. She entered the program in 1988, and said that her experience with marijuana is proof that it works as a medicine.

They "won't acknowledge the fact that I do not have even one aspirin in this house," she said, leaning back on her couch, glass bong cradled in her hand. "I have no pain."

Thanks for the thread, xchrom.

[xchrom]

3. Sure thing. Nt

[slay]

4. Nobody should be getting pot from the government. We should all be able to go buy it just like cigs

and alcohol. what fucking century are we living in?!?! good lord. but nah, my subject line is misleading - i think it's fine for people to get pot from the government - lucky them - and good for them.

[theaocp]

5. I actually wonder if Obama knows this?

I've known about it for years, but then again, I give a shit.

[Warren DeMontague]

6. The real question is, why are our tax dollars paying to seach the cars of 72 yr old ladies

for weed?

I mean, don't the cops have better things to worry about?

[formercia]

7. If the Government grows it, you can bet it's shit.

I wonder who does their Quality Control.