Another Government Road Block

The Department Of Health and Human Services (it has very little to do with health and is into denying services) has denied permission for an FDA approved study of cannabis for treating PTSD.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has blocked a pilot study to examine the benefits of marijuana for veterans with treatment-resistant post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

The study was sponsored by the nonprofit research organization the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), and would have been conducted by Dr. Sue Sisley of the University of Arizona at Phoenix.

“Hundreds of veterans in medical marijuana states already report using marijuana to control their PTSD symptoms,” MAPS said in a statement. “The growing number of service members returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with combat-related trauma combined with large numbers of treatment-resistant veterans highlights the pressing need for research into additional treatments for PTSD.”

It seems the Federales have an impenetrable wall to keep this reseach on cannabis from getting done.

The Drug Enforcement Administration has denied researchers requests to obtain licenses to grow marijuana, claiming that the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) — overseen by the HHS — can be the only one to supply marijuana for Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-regulated research.

Clever boys.

It seems like actual veterans are taking matters into their own hands. Green leafy matters.

“My life went downhill from the moment I came back from Iraq,” Begin, now a 31-year-old veteran, tells Danger Room. “Doctors at Bethesda had me on so much, and on such high doses of everything, that I didn’t even know what was a symptom and what was a side effect.”

At one point, Begin, diagnosed with PTSD shortly after coming home, was taking more than 100 pills a day. So many that he would stuff dozens of bottles into a backpack to lug everywhere he went. Now, he’s cut his dependency on prescriptions to zero. Their replacement? Five joints a day.

“Using marijuana balances me out,” he says. “It takes those peaks and valleys of PTSD and it softens them. It makes my life manageable.”

Begin’s now launched an online petition asking the feds to change their course on marijuana as a treatment for PTSD. In September, the first-ever study proposed to evaluate marijuana as a potential treatment for PTSD was blocked by officials at the National Institutes on Drug Abuse (NIDA). With an estimated 37 percent of this generation’s vets afflicted with PTSD, and a dearth of effective treatment options available, Begin thinks pot deserves, at the very least, a single study.

He is not the only veteran who thinks that cannabis ought to be an official medicine. I wrote about Jamey Raines recently.

And what do you know? Our friends the Israelis are on the case.

D., a 26-year-old woman from the north of Israel, says she began to suffer from nightmares about seven years ago, after her partner raped her. After undergoing various forms of therapy, she thought she had largely put the trauma behind her. Then, two years ago, she chanced to see the rapist not far from her home. The nightmares came swarming back.

"I fell into a depression that went on until not long ago, during which I hardly slept or ate," she says in a quiet voice. "My whole life turned upside down. I left my job. Everything came to a stop. I went back to taking antidepressants and tranquilizers - Cipralex, Lustral and Prozac; sleeping pills that made me addicted. It was a nightmare. There was no way I could get through the day without those pills. Then I discovered cannabis."

So war trauma is not the only way to get PTSD? Maybe that explains why 70% of female Heroin users report being sexually attacked. When they were children. Too bad no famous sports figures (in so far as we know) are involved. Too bad we can't figure a way to give such kids a pass. Until we figure out better ways to help them heal. Currently a long slow process that is not a sure thing.

H/T Drug Policy Forum of Texas

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Brain Study - Childhood Sexual Abuse Linked To Drug Use

The physiological link between sexual abuse and drug use has tentatively been found.

It has long been widely accepted that early childhood sexual abuse can predispose an individual to later substance abuse. But how?

Now, a new study combining brain imaging with information gathered from a questionnaire assessing symptoms of subjective distress and discomfort provides evidence of a neuroanatomical mechanism by which early childhood trauma could lead to drug abuse or other behavioral problems.

In the study, published in the January [2002] issue of Psychoneuroendocrinology, Carl Anderson, PhD., and colleagues at McLean Hospital, in Belmont, Mass., found that repeated sexual abuse in childhood may be correlated with changes in blood flow and function in a key region of the cerebellum, known as the cerebellar vermis.

At the same time, they found that those changes were significantly related to scores on a questionnaire used to rate symptoms of irritability in the limbic system of the brain, known to be involved in regulation of emotions, attention, and judgment.

This study was published in January 2002, so the information has been available for about ten years. Funny that it is not common knowledge by now.

The study was small (24 people total - 8 abused kids and 16 controls) so the findings are not definitive. But they correlate well with the findings of Dr. Lonnie Shavelson detailed in his book Heroin. And what did Dr. Shavelson find?

About 70% of female heroin users were sexually abused as children.

Is it possible to get the government to stop further abusing abused kids? Or is a modicum of morality and human kindness too much to ask from our government? Heck is it too much to ask from the people supporting Drug Prohibition? In my experience so far the answer is YES. It is too much to ask from them.

Say. Isn't America supposed to be a Christian Country? Yes it is. In the same way the Inquisition was a Christian operation. Or the way Martin Luther hated Jews. Ya gotta love Christian Morality. And them Christians are so proud of it. Isn't it time for another Reformation or something? Could we please avoid the Jew hatred this time? How about ending all hatred? You know "Love thy neighbor as thyself." Pardon me but isn't that a Jewish concept? Yes it is.

OTOH some Christians get it.

H/T Drug Policy Forum Of Texas

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Sexual Predators

Ron Paul says the TSA is like a sexual predator.

In Wednesday night's GOP presidential debate held in California, Texas Congressman Ron Paul let it rip on TSA abuses of airline passengers (via TheHill):

"If the perpetrators were a gang of criminals, their headquarters would be raided by SWAT teams and armed federal agents," he continued. "Unfortunately in this case, the perpetrators are armed federal agents."

Like sexual predators Ron? No they ARE sexual predators.

Here is what my favorite Advice Goddess Amy Alkon has to say about her encounter with the Transportation Sexual Attackers.

On March 31st, when I came through the metal detector and realized that everyone in the TSA line to my United flight was getting searched, I got teary. I was teary at the prospect of being touched by a government worker -- entirely without probable cause. I was very upset, both because of the physical violation and because I love our now too-often-crumpled-up Constitution and Bill of Rights.

I can hold back the tears...hang tough...but as I was made to "assume the position" on a rubber mat like a common criminal, I thought fast. I decided that these TSA lackeys who serve the government in violating our rights just don't deserve my quiet compliance. And no, I won't go through the scanner (do you trust the government that they're safe?) and allow a government employee to see me naked in the course of normal and totally ordinary business travel: flying from Los Angeles to Binghamton, New York, to attend an evolutionary psychology conference for my work.

Basically, I felt it important to make a spectacle of what they are doing to us, to make it uncomfortable for them to violate us and our rights, so I let the tears come. In fact, I sobbed my guts out. Loudly. Very loudly. The entire time the woman was searching me.

Nearing the end of this violation, I sobbed even louder as the woman, FOUR TIMES, stuck the side of her gloved hand INTO my vagina, through my pants. Between my labia. She really got up there. Four times. Back right and left, and front right and left. In my vagina. Between my labia. I was shocked -- utterly unprepared for how she got the side of her hand up there. It was government-sanctioned sexual assault.

Upon leaving, still sobbing, I yelled to the woman, "YOU RAPED ME." And I took her name to see if I could file sexual assault charges on my return. This woman, and all of those who support this system deserve no less than this sort of unpleasant experience, and from all of us.

Yes they did Amy and I'm going to let a few more people know about it.

I have such a bad attitude about these government agents that I will never fly again if I can possibly help it. And I'm an aerospace engineer.

TSA = Transportation Sexual Abuse

Pass it on.

Update: Amy responds to the Sexual Predator Agency Gestapo Agent who posted to her blog. Do not go quietly into the dark night.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

But What Has It Got To Do With Politics?

S.M. (what a great set of initials) McCain is blogging about a blogger busted for incest. Since it is a political hit piece you know how it runs. The miscreant is a left wing blogger who was a big Obama supporter.

It is just a matter of time (human nature being what it is) until some prominent R gets found with a 15 year old and the Ds will claim moral superiority because "at least an 18 year old can consent." Yeah. The cad waited until his daughter was of age.

Of course the incest loving blogger could go all biblical on us and say that he liked her a Lot.

I don't think these kinds of stories say anything one way or another that is useful about politics. I'm reminded of one of Reagan's best friends and big money boys dying in the arms of his mistress while RR was President. Bloomberg I think - something like that.... (some one remind me if you know)

Gossip is no doubt interesting (Larry Craig?) but what does it have to do with politics? Well it does draw eyeballs. And since it is Christmas time I'm going to get in the spirit and sell something.

Song (comedy bit?) #11 (Green Chri$Tma$) on this compilation is particularly relevant.

Dr. Demento Presents: Greatest Christmas Novelty CD

H/T Instapundit who seems to have quite in interest in sex which allows me to indulge while claiming a smidgen of moral superiority. Which of course if found out will automatically make me morally inferior. But by outing myself on the subject.... Well it never ends. But it isn't, except in the crudest precincts, politics. A certain A.S. - take note.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

For The Children

The drug war and its search for contraband was the prototype for all this. All made easier by the Drug War Exception to the Fourth Amendment. You peed in a cup to get your job didn't you? Why all the pissing and moaning about the TSA? After all they are doing it to save the children.

You wanted a police state for the dopers? Well now every one gets one. Welcome to the club MOFOs.

And to all those who have told me for decades with great force "it can't happen here". Deja vue all over again ain't it - you sons of bitches.

Cross Posted at Classical Values