And it gets better.
In an email obtained by the Raging Chicken Press, State Representative Matt Baker, the committee leader who wants to kill medical marijuana legislation, received an email by Sue Rusche from National Families in Action, Inc and then forwarded those emails to parents advocating for medical marijuana. Instead of using medical marijuana to treat epilepsy, the reports that Sue Rusche forwarded to Representative Baker advocates for the pharmaceutical alternatives, Sativex and Epidioex. One of the documents compares medical marijuana alternatives to opiates and pain killers.
The Opium Example
Heroin comes from the opium plant. Medicines have been developed from the opium plant but we don’t call them “medical heroin.” We call them morphine, Demerol®, Percocet® and other names. These medicines have been approved as safe and effective by FDA to treat moderate to severe pain. Doctors prescribe them and pharmacies sell them. They did not have to be legalized. Heroin is not medical.
The Cannabis Example
Marijuana comes from the cannabis plant. Medicines have been developed from the cannabis plant but we don’t call them “medical marijuana.” We call them Marinol® and Cesamet®. These medicines have been approved as safe and effective by FDA to treat nausea and wasting in cancer and AIDS patients. Doctors prescribe them and pharmacies sell them. They did not have to be legalized. Marijuana is not medical
Pretty simple, eh?
As promised, it gets better.
For the past few years Sue Rusche has written numerous blogs linking marijuana use to testicular cancer. In one instance, Rusche writes:
Neuroscientists from Wake Forest University and Duke University medical schools explained why it is crucial to prevent young people from using pot. “Adolescence is a critical period of brain development,” said Wake Forest’s David Friedman, Ph.D., “and marijuana use has profound effects on brain development. Chronic use impairs short-term memory, attention, executive function, decision-making, learning, and in vulnerable individuals can produce psychosis, including schizophrenia,” he added. “Duke’s Rochelle Schwartz-Bloom, Ph.D., cited a number of recent studies reporting that adults who start smoking pot before age 18 are significantly more likely to have cognitive problems (including a drop in IQ), anxiety and psychotic disorders, and testicular cancer.”
According to the National Families In Action website, Sue Rusche was a co-author with David Freidman, who is mentioned above. Sue Rusche has a second project called “But What About the Children Campaign” and Rochelle Schwartz-Bloom, the doctor who claims smoking pot will give you testicular cancer, is listed as an adviser to that campaign.
There can be some truth to this claim, but a 2009 CNN article looked into an earlier study that claimed smoking marijuana causes testicular cancer. There are two forms of testicular cancer, seminomas (60 percent of cases) and nonseminomas (40 percent of cases), and marijuana smokers were 2.3 times as likely to contract nonseminomas. Fear not, the article states that scientists believe “that most cases of testicular cancer actually get their start in early fetal life,” and was with any type of cancer, you are more likely to contract this rare form of cancer through family history and any previous battles with the disease.
