Saturday, July 11, 2009

Weekend CaliPot Update

Censorship in California: Marijuana Ad Campaign Rejected by TV Stations

We'll take up the slack. Yo, MPP, send us a check. Or a prescription. Heh.


From MPPstaff.


Legal pot, taxed or not: 6 public health issues

On the data side, I compiled every bit of published research about marijuana (positive and negative) from the previous thirty years, researching every conceivable symptom and/or adverse event. The results were published and widely cited. I also gave talks using this same information about the health implications (and the quality of the data to support or refute claims) to any group interested in hearing it.

So how'd that go? While giving the exact same talk, using the exact same slides, I received impulsive, giddy gifts from both a San Francisco medical marijuana club (an enameled marijuana pin - "finally, a physician willing to speak the truth about how safe marijuana is!") and from the Santa Clara police department (a navy-blue district attorney mug - "finally, a physician willing to tell the truth about how dangerous this drug is!"). I had simultaneously become the unwilling darling of both ends of the spectrum. I learned from this experience two things:

1) there is a desperate need for data-based information looking at marijuana in the less-emotional context of a pharmaceutical medication, and

2) no matter how data-dry and context-bias-free you present marijuana information, passionate people will often hear what they want to hear.

Enjoy the rest.

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