Tag: national institute of health

Would you like some irony with that baggie of medical marijuana? Well, like it or not, you're getting some. Medical marijuana has been legal for a decade or so in various U.S. states but it wasn't until the Ogden memo of 2009 that it really took off. Today, another memo from the same agency has marijuana providers and regulators looking over their shoulders.

In March, The American Independent was first to report that the National Cancer Institute (NCI), a component agency of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), had acknowledged the medicinal benefits of marijuana in its online treatment database. Newly obtained documents showing the development of NCI’s summary over months of emails and text revisions now reveal not only how NCI database contributors arrived at their March 17 summary of marijuana’s medical uses, but also the politicking that went into quickly scrubbing that summary of information regarding the drug’s potential tumor-fighting effects.

Denver attorney Robert Corry spoke out this week against federal scare tactics he said were being used to create uncertainty in Colorado's medical marijuana community.

Last week, The Colorado Independent's sister site, The American Independent, was first to report that the National Cancer Institute (NCI) had added a section on medical marijuana to its treatment database, making it the first federal agency to formally recognize marijuana’s medicinal properties. Now, NCI has altered the page, removing any mention of the evidence that marijuana can diminish and even reverse tumor growth.

As federal battles over medical marijuana across the country heat up, a statement from The National Cancer Institute may be a huge asset for medical marijuana dispensaries that have been targeted by the various arms of the U.S. Department of Justice and the IRS.