Dangerous Criminal Update
You might remember the story of Richard Paey, the Florida man who was given 25 years for “drug trafficking” because he broke the law to obtain extra pain medication. The Florida Supreme Court has refused to hear an appeal against the sentence because there is no point of law on which to overturn it. This means that absent an unlikely appeal to the US Supreme Court, Paey will do his time unless granted clemency by the Governor. Let’s hope sanity will prevail.
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His only consolation appears to be that he is receiving more pain medication in prison than when he was free.
This case may actually change the law if it’s appealed. Genuine hard cases arising from mindless enforcement of the law can be the trigger for that. I would be surprised if an ambitious lawyer doesn’t take up the appeal on a pro bono basis.
I just finished reading a book by Thomas Sowell so I’m keen to try out some of his terminology. We could describe the law in this instance as being too “categorical”. He suggests that this is a major difficulty with legislated solutions. He contrasts this with the incremental nature of market based solutions. Not that he suggests we should never use the law instead of the market but it is good to note the pros and cons.
>Let’s hope sanity will prevail.
In the war on drugs? Since when has sanity ever been part of the picture?
The war on drugs does have a logic of its’ own- just not one that we adhere to. The point is not to do good to the community, but to do well at elections. Politics is part of every primate society, so we aren’t likely to be able to ignore it- our genes guarantee it will come up again. Our trick should be to point out the costs involved in the war, and explain that neither increasing nor maintaining the current war-budget will ‘win’ this kind of war, nor is it worth ‘winning’. Then the scare-mongering for votes will fail, when the average voters see through the ‘Drugs=bad, Prisons=good’ slogan.
“I would be surprised if an ambitious lawyer doesn’t take up the appeal on a pro bono basis.”
The problem is that the only place left to appeal to is the US Supreme Court and any appeal there has to be done on constitutional grounds. It is hard to see what constitutional grounds there would be for an appeal. The constitution doesn’t forbid draconian punishments, just “cruel and unusual” ones. Clemency from the governor would be an easier route, and frankly this probably needs a skilled publicist, rather than a lawyer.
Good work Chris keeping us up to date on this.
The pro drug war crusaders use emotive appeals, but this story is both a very sound argument against the war on drugs to both our reasoning and our hearts.
In that vein, and bearing in mind Chris’ comments about no options for appeal, perhaps the emotive aspects of this case will make a difference.
However, there is also a risk that it might be seen as an exception rather than confirmation of the absence of rationale for drug laws generally. That is, illegally buying prescription drugs for genuine medical need might be distinguished from using illegal drugs for recreation.
I personally despise drugs. I am repelled by the idea of disrupting my few remaining neurones with a chemical. But I can’t see why my revulsion (obviously shared by many others) warrants the imposition of criminal penalties on those who have a different view.
Even at the pragmatic level, the war on drugs is not only a failure but the main contributor to property crime.
Not sure why that comment came out in italics. Wasn’t me (I think).
Not sure why that comment came out in italics.
Must have been the drugs
Even at the pragmatic level, the war on drugs is not only a failure but the main contributor to property crime.
It’s a major feeder for just about *every* kind of crime.
To Chrisjv, the US declaration of Independence also has a disappointing feature- it only encourages you to the ‘pursuit’ of happiness. You don’t have a right to FIND or KEEP happiness, only to PURSUE it, like a mouse on a treadmill. Perhaps that’s why the yanks are so moralising- the economy would go to pieces if the citizens were left alone to enjoy their own brand of happiness. (Then again, if they had the right to BE happy, they could sue the government if they WEREN’T happy!) Perhaps the best thing is to not have a Dec. of Ind. in the first place!
Does caffeine or alcohol ever pass your lips?
I can’t believe he hasn’t already been pardoned. An Ivy League educated lawyer and father of three. Surely the media and the public would get behind this guy. It’s an unbelievable situation.
I’m not a fan of mandatory sentencing, it just seems lazy and unjust. Past convictions are taken into account in the sentencing of criminal matters anyway. I can’t think of a situation where mandatory sentencing should be used, any suggestions?
The real problem here is that these type of laws designed to act as a deterent (make an example of the guilty party) shouldn’t be used for victimless “crimes”. But in a society that thinks euthanasia and abortion should be illegal it’s hard to see people understanding the concept of owning your own body.
I’d be interested in any thoughts on the punishment and deterent functions of the law?
I think that the law should focus on ensuring public protection and compensating loss rather than punishment. But I’m not currently opposed to the concept of punishment in itself mainly because if someone harmed one of my family, I’d want to harm them back and get revenge. Does anyone have comments on the revenge function of law?
In reality, I think things like public exposure of convicted criminals is more important.
Also does anyone have any thoughts on the rights of a convicted criminal?
US declaration of Independence also has a disappointing feature- it only encourages you to the ‘pursuit’ of happiness.
I’m not sure the declaration is a constituional document – I’m pretty sure it isn’t.
As much as I feel for the guy and accept just bad the war on drugs has turned out, I with the State Supreme court on this. The law is the law. We need to see a change through the legislatures to change the law rather than expect a court to go Awol.
Mandatory sentencing is a response to the perception that judges are in general too soft. The perception may not always be incorrect. However I also think mandatory sentencing is a bad idea.
I have heard it suggested that electing judges (as opposed to appointing them) might overcome some of the softness. Judges would obviously care more about their general reputation as a judge if they were periodically held to account.
I agree with JC that the court made the right call. This sort of situation is exactly what clemency is designed for.
DL: I am repelled by the idea of disrupting my few remaining neurones with a chemical.
T: Does caffeine or alcohol ever pass your lips?
Or chocolate? Paracetamol? (amusingly, it is metabolised into a cannabinoid)
“(amusingly, it is metabolised into a cannabinoid)”
Do you own shares in firms which produce drug-cleansing/pass your drug test kits?
It’s true that the dec. of Ind. isn’t part of their constitution, but it does claim to represent their dreams and justifications- it’s like the cover on a book, enticing people to move to the US.
This ‘criminal’ was involved in a victimless transaction. such things should not be crimes. Whilst he broke a law, I’d rather have him as a friend than any of the law-enforcement side. And I will never dob in anyone just over drugs.
“Do you own shares in firms which produce drug-cleansing/pass your drug test kits?”
Possibly through my super fund, but not to my knowledge.
And it doesn’t metabolise into ‘that’ cannabinoid, anyway.
Mark,
The drug works precisely because it is metabolised into a cannabinoid. Numerous studies have indicated that the endogenous cannabinoids (2 AG and ananamide) play a fundamental role in pain reduction, this being mediated by both the cb 1(predominantly neurologic receptor) and cb 2 (predominantly immunologic) receptor. At the neurologic level cannabinoids reduce pain because they function as retrograde inhibitory neurotransmitters, at the immunological level the effect is reducing the infammatory mediators that drive pain, in particularly il-1, tnf-a. What you won’t hear is that cannabinoids have powerful neuroprotective qualities.
“What you won’t hear is that cannabinoids have powerful neuroprotective qualities.”
Please go on. I am an economist, not a pharmacist.
Seems to be all good so far. Is any of this a good argument for medical marijuana or am I confused about the chemistry?
Who watched Penn and Teller a few months ago when they did their piece on the war on drugs?
Remember the one guy in the US who can legally smoke marijuana, which is produced commercially for him, rolled and cut into very tidy and normal looking cigarettes?
I think he had bone cancer or something euqally horrible. Why can’t everyone else do the same?
Shouldn’t anti-euthenasianists be arguing for more palliative care, such as medical marijuana?
Yes, I remember reading about the same case, but that doesn’t help us here in Australia. If you read ‘Cannabis and Cancer’, you’ll see our govmints are just as inflexible.
I’ve done a lot of reading of primary material on marijuana. Chronic pain treatment makes a lot of sense. There is also clear evidence it is very effective in prevent amyloid aggregation (Molecular Pharmaceutics Oct 2006- found to be stronger than most alz drugs today). It also has been found to be protective in Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinson’s Disease and trauma. Sadly research is strongly limited by stupid governments. The psycoactive component is not necessary for some of these benefits, some other cannabinoids, like cannabidol, also confer protection. There is great medical promise but apart from government paranoia commercial interests are limited because you can’t patent a natural compound. Amazingly in the USA they even created an artificial cannabinoid, Marinol, to get around this but the research suggests that one is better with a number of cannabinoids acting in unison. Hampson et al, PNAS July 1998 found some cannabinoids have greater antioxidant potential than Vitamins C or E and comparable to the strongest laboratory antioxidant available. A Canadian Medical Journal study even found it can slightly increase iq and I can still remember a chart from a longitudinal study showing how over time, as people reach their 40′s, cannabis consumption seems to confer a protective effect. This is concordant with the idea that age associated cognitive impairment is associated with oxidative stress and inflammatory mediators like il-1, the latter being strongly implicated in this decline. Cannabis does, however, induce the same brain changes associated with addiction. The other problem is that a microarray analysis of gene changes suggested that cannabis can inhibit mylineation, the covering of nerves and I suspect this can be a problem for developing brains, which can be up to 30 years of age. Hence I have concerns about teenage smoking because myelineation is happening very much during these years. There is also the problem that chronic smoking can impair academic performance and is problematic in people prone to depression and anxiety. In should be noted however that the current drugs used to treat these conditions can have some rather unfavourable side effect profiles. The earliest known record of medicinal marijuana goes back some 6,000 years I believe(India).
Some recent studies on cannabis and cancer. Lots more by the way and contrary to what is commonly heard there is no defnitive evidence is causes cancer.
1: Oncol Rep. 2007 Apr;17(4):813-6. Links
Endocannabinoids as emerging suppressors of angiogenesis and tumor invasion (Review).Bifulco M, Laezza C, Gazzerro P, Pentimalli F.
Dipartimento di Scienze Farmaceutiche, Universita degli Studi di Salerno, 84084 Fisciano (SA), Italy. maubiful@unina.it.
The medicinal properties of extracts from the hemp plant Cannabis sativa have been known for centuries but only in the 90s membrane receptors for the Cannabis major principle were discovered in mammalian cells. Later on the endogenous ligands for the cannabinoid receptors were identified and the term ‘endocannabinoid system’ was coined to indicate the complex signaling system of cannabinoid receptors, endogenous ligands and the enzymes responsible for their biosynthesis and inactivation. The ‘endocannabinoid system’ is involved in a broad range of functions and in a growing number of pathological conditions. There is increasing evidence that endocannabinoids are able to inhibit cancer cell growth in culture as well as in animal models. Most work has focused on the role of endocannabinoids in regulating tumor cell growth and apoptosis and ongoing research is addressed to further dissect the precise mechanisms of cannabinoid antitumor action. However, endocannabinoids are now emerging as suppressors of angiogenesis and tumor spreading since they have been reported to inhibit angiogenesis, cell migration and metastasis in different types of cancer, pointing to a potential role of the endocannabinoid system as a target for a therapeutic approach of such malignant diseases. The potential use of cannabinoids to retard tumor growth and spreading is even more appealing considering that they show a good safety profile, regarding toxicity, and are already used in cancer patients as palliatives to stimulate appetite and to prevent devastating effects such as nausea, vomiting and pain.
PMID: 17342320 [PubMed - in process]
Antitumor activity of plant cannabinoids with emphasis on the effect of cannabidiol on human breast carcinoma.Ligresti A, Moriello AS, Starowicz K, Matias I, Pisanti S, De Petrocellis L, Laezza C, Portella G, Bifulco M, Di Marzo V.
Istituto di Chimica Biomolecolare, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche Pozzuoli, Italy.
Delta(9)-Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) exhibits antitumor effects on various cancer cell types, but its use in chemotherapy is limited by its psychotropic activity. We investigated the antitumor activities of other plant cannabinoids, i.e., cannabidiol, cannabigerol, cannabichromene, cannabidiol acid and THC acid, and assessed whether there is any advantage in using Cannabis extracts (enriched in either cannabidiol or THC) over pure cannabinoids. Results obtained in a panel of tumor cell lines clearly indicate that, of the five natural compounds tested, cannabidiol is the most potent inhibitor of cancer cell growth (IC(50) between 6.0 and 10.6 microM), with significantly lower potency in noncancer cells. The cannabidiol-rich extract was equipotent to cannabidiol, whereas cannabigerol and cannabichromene followed in the rank of potency. Both cannabidiol and the cannabidiol-rich extract inhibited the growth of xenograft tumors obtained by s.c. injection into athymic mice of human MDA-MB-231 breast carcinoma or rat v-K-ras-transformed thyroid epithelial cells and reduced lung metastases deriving from intrapaw injection of MDA-MB-231 cells. Judging from several experiments on its possible cellular and molecular mechanisms of action, we propose that cannabidiol lacks a unique mode of action in the cell lines investigated. At least for MDA-MB-231 cells, however, our experiments indicate that cannabidiol effect is due to its capability of inducing apoptosis via: direct or indirect activation of cannabinoid CB(2) and vanilloid transient receptor potential vanilloid type-1 receptors and cannabinoid/vanilloid receptor-independent elevation of intracellular Ca(2+) and reactive oxygen species. Our data support the further testing of cannabidiol and cannabidiol-rich extracts for the potential treatment of cancer.
PMID: 16728591 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
1: J Ethnopharmacol. 2006 Apr 21;105(1-2):1-25. Epub 2006 Mar 15.
Cannabinoids in medicine: A review of their therapeutic potential.Ben Amar M.
Substance Abuse Program, Faculties of Continuing Education and Graduate Studies, University of Montreal, C.P. 6128, succursale Centre-ville, Montreal, Que. H3C 3J7, Canada. mohamed.ben.amar@umontreal.ca
In order to assess the current knowledge on the therapeutic potential of cannabinoids, a meta-analysis was performed through Medline and PubMed up to July 1, 2005. The key words used were cannabis, marijuana, marihuana, hashish, hashich, haschich, cannabinoids, tetrahydrocannabinol, THC, dronabinol, nabilone, levonantradol, randomised, randomized, double-blind, simple blind, placebo-controlled, and human. The research also included the reports and reviews published in English, French and Spanish. For the final selection, only properly controlled clinical trials were retained, thus open-label studies were excluded. Seventy-two controlled studies evaluating the therapeutic effects of cannabinoids were identified. For each clinical trial, the country where the project was held, the number of patients assessed, the type of study and comparisons done, the products and the dosages used, their efficacy and their adverse effects are described. Cannabinoids present an interesting therapeutic potential as antiemetics, appetite stimulants in debilitating diseases (cancer and AIDS), analgesics, and in the treatment of multiple sclerosis, spinal cord injuries, Tourette’s syndrome, epilepsy and glaucoma.
PMID: 16540272 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
1: Cancer Res. 2005 Mar 1;65(5):1635-41
Cannabinoid receptor as a novel target for the treatment of prostate cancer.Sarfaraz S, Afaq F, Adhami VM, Mukhtar H.
Department of Dermatology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin 53706, USA.
Cannabinoids, the active components of Cannabis sativa Linnaeus (marijuana) and their derivatives have received renewed interest in recent years due to their diverse pharmacologic activities such as cell growth inhibition, anti-inflammatory effects and tumor regression. Here we show that expression levels of both cannabinoid receptors, CB1 and CB2, are significantly higher in CA-human papillomavirus-10 (virally transformed cells derived from adenocarcinoma of human prostate tissue), and other human prostate cells LNCaP, DUI45, PC3, and CWR22Rnu1 than in human prostate epithelial and PZ-HPV-7 (virally transformed cells derived from normal human prostate tissue) cells. WIN-55,212-2 (mixed CB1/CB2 agonist) treatment with androgen-responsive LNCaP cells resulted in a dose- (1-10 micromol/L) and time-dependent (24-48 hours) inhibition of cell growth, blocking of CB1 and CB2 receptors by their antagonists SR141716 (CB1) and SR144528 (CB2) significantly prevented this effect. Extending this observation, we found that WIN-55,212-2 treatment with LNCaP resulted in a dose- (1-10 micromol/L) and time-dependent (24-72 hours) induction of apoptosis (a), decrease in protein and mRNA expression of androgen receptor (b), decrease in intracellular protein and mRNA expression of prostate-specific antigen (c), decrease in secreted prostate-specific antigen levels (d), and decrease in protein expression of proliferation cell nuclear antigen and vascular endothelial growth factor (e). Our results suggest that WIN-55,212-2 or other non-habit-forming cannabinoid receptor agonists could be developed as novel therapeutic agents for the treatment of prostate cancer.
PMID: 15753356 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
I was going to say that, but Dead Soul beat me to it.
Yeah well nicholas look at stupid the issue has become:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/15/us/15marijuana.html?ref=health
Dumbass George and his fundamentalist nutter mates. Dumbass Howard who wouldn’t know better because he has never smoked pot and at his age it shows.
This is exactly the point that I was trying to make with Flash-heart, that Governments can get it exactly wrong! They’ll never admit it but it happens. Here’s a political joke-
Q. What do you call a good politician…..?
A. Don’t worry, nobody else knows, either!
Commerce is no better, because they can’t make a buck out of natural compounds they won’t investigate these. It has been scientists working in government funded universities that have driven this research. So spare me the typical libertarian rants against government. The way you people carry on about that is so bloody tedious and hubristic. If you lot spent less time attacking all your favourite targets and more time thinking about positive solutions then perhaps the wider public would listen more often.
What do you call a compassionate corporation?
An oxymoron.
Anyone can play that silly schoolyard game.
“Commerce is no better, because they can’t make a buck out of natural compounds they won’t investigate these. ”
How do you know what a firm can and cannot make money out of – a firm needs to find a way to make it profitable – if the manufacture of a drug isn’t profitable, bundle it with screening or another medical service.
Water is a natural compound yet we buy bottled water. It is more than just water they are selling.
Dead Soul, this column is to remember a man who has been imprisoned for using a non-approved substance. It wasn’t commercial firms that did that, it was the Government. I agree that commercial firms can be greedy and short-sighted, but your nytimes websight )above( doesn’t show anyone but the state to blame, surely?
My fellow on Orkut shared this link and I’m not dissapointed that I came to your blog.