Barrier to Legalization: Drug Testing Industry

There are many barriers to the legalization of medical marijuana in the United States. Some – political platforms, lack of public support, etc. – are more obvious than others. One that many may not consider is the rapidly-growing drug testing industry.

Employment drug testing has become the norm for many modern businesses (67% according to a 2001 survey). Pre-employment and random drug testing have helped to make drug testing a $5.9 billion a year industry, which relies heavily on positive marijuana screens to keep it alive.

The most common form of drug testing, as it is the least expensive, is a urine analysis, which costs between 20 and 25 dollars to perform. Hair testing, which can track a longer history of drug use, costs around $50.

But different drugs can be detected in the urine for a longer period of time after use than others. For example, cocaine is out of the body in 1-2 days; Methamphetamines, 2-4 days; Heroin, 1-2 days; MDMA (Ecstasy) 1-5 days. However, marijuana’s active ingredient THC is fat-soluble, meaning it stores itself in the body’s fat deposits and can be detected up to 30 days after its use. This means that users of serious harmful drugs can clean their system in less than 5 days and be undetectable as drug users, while an occasional marijuana smoker can be busted a month after smoking.

A vast majority of positive results on employment drug tests are as a result of marijuana, a relationship which is directly correlated to the drug’s detectable life in the body. Heavy cocaine users and addicts can stop use a day or two before a job interview and go by undetected, posing a much larger risk for a corporation than a marijuana user. Were marijuana made legal, companies would find pre-employment drug testing obsolete, as they would almost never encounter a positive result. This would destroy the drug test industry, and they know it. So they fight for the drug to remain illegal across the board.

Special interests hold enormous power in this country. Indeed, far too much power for a country that was built to be governed by the people, for the people. We must work to look past special interests and lobbies in Washington and objectively analyze the pros and cons of an issue in terms of the citizens, rather than in terms of who has the fattest pockets.

Medical Uses for Marijuana

The first documented use of medical marijuana was by Chinese Emperor Shen Neng in 2737 BC, when he recommended it as a treatment for constipation, malaria, gout, rheumatism, menstrual cramps, and, ironically, poor memory. Since that time, marijuana has proven time and again its value as a medical treatment.

Numerous medical studies on marijuana have found that the cannabinoids (oxygen-containing aromatic hydrocarbon compounds, which are also produced by the human body) show great benefit in treating a variety of conditions and symptoms. Marijuana research was legitimized in the 1990s with the discovery of cannabinoid receptors in the human brain, such as the cannabinoid receptor CB1 which modulates psychoactive effects, motor control, memory processing, and pain.

The National MS Society, in their studies in marijuana, found that the cannabinoids ingested by smoked marijuana improved spasticity, managed pain, and slowed the destruction of neurons and the myelin sheaths that protect them in multiple sclerosis patients. This was a major breakthrough for MS research, as the disease is not well understood and current treatments can shut off the immune system entirely, leaving the patient susceptible to infection.

A comprehensive 1999 report by the Institute of Medicine, “Marijuana and Medicine: Assessing the Science Base,” concluded that “nausea, appetite loss, pain, and anxiety… all can be mitigated by marijuana.”

Further, marijuana has been shown to be effective, and has been approved by the 15 legal states and DC, in treating conditions such as cancer, nausea, migraine, chronic pain, HIV/AIDS, glaucoma, cachexia, epilepsy and other seizure disorders, arthritis, Crohn’s disease, lack of appetite, spasms, eating disorders, asthma, depression, and insomnia.

These are just a few of the studies and uses for marijuana in a medical setting. Take some time to check out 70 peer-reviewed studies on marijuana and take a look at their different findings.

Other points:

There has been no confirmed association of smoked cannabis with an increase in oral, pulmonary, esophageal, or other cancers in even long-term smokers.

While smoking is considered a primitive method by which to administer medicine, smoked marijuana takes effect very quickly, a great asset for pain management. Further, synthetic THC capsules have been shown to provide less medical benefit than smoked marijuana.

Government Hypocrisy

While some states have legalized marijuana for medicinal purposes, its use, possession, and cultivation remain illegal under federal law. This has created a legal grey area, in which law-abiding citizens are subject to harassment and arrest by federal law enforcement agencies, such as the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), for following their doctor’s orders or for legally supplying marijuana to legal patients.

The United States government denies that marijuana has any medical use. It is currently listed under Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) administered by the DEA. Schedule I narcotics are defined as controlled substances that have no present or foreseeable medical use, and which carry a high potential for abuse. Under the CSA, marijuana is categorized as more harmful than methamphetamine.

Despite their longtime denial of the efficacy of marijuana as a medical treatment, the American government does have some interesting connections to the substance. The National Institute of Drug Abuse and Food and Drug Administration’s Compassionate Investigational New Drug program (IND), which accepted new patients from 1978-1992, provided medical marijuana to up to 30 active patients at a time. The program was closed to new entrants in 1992 due to an influx of requests from HIV patients, but as of 2006 seven surviving IND patients still received as much as 9 ounces per month of marijuana from the government.

Further, though the government does not recognize marijuana as a legitimate medical treatment, the United States of America, as represented by the Department of Health, holds Department of Commerce Patent #6630507 (issued October 2003), which outlines a number of medical uses for the drug. This makes clear the fact that the US government is, and has been, aware of marijuana’s medical applications for years. It also forces us to wonder, why would the US government keep its citizens from an effective medication, yet obtain a patent meant to profit off the sale of the drug?

In January 1997, in the wake of referendum passed in California and Arizona permitting the use of marijuana as a medical treatment, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy asked the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to conduct a review of the scientific evidence promoting marijuana as an effective treatment. The result was the scientifically research-based 1999 IOM report “Marijuana and Medicine: Assessing the Science Base”, which found promise in marijuana as a treatment for pain and other conditions. To this day, 12 years later, the federal government and the FDA have not acknowledged or responded to the findings in a scientific report that they themselves chartered.

It is time for the government to end its hypocrisy on the topic of medical marijuana. How can a government deny the efficacy of medical marijuana in the face of scientifically-sound evidence that they themselves chartered? How can they claim that medical marijuana is a falsity, yet obtain a patent (which outlines various medical uses for it) in an attempt to profit off the drug? Why are federal agencies harassing law-abiding citizens for using marijuana, when they too recognize the medical value in it? The US government must face up to these issues; the American people deserve answers, and if the government is aware of marijuana as an effective medical treatment, they have no choice but to legalize it for medical purposes.

State Marijuana Programs

Although marijuana is illegal under federal statutes, 15 of the United States as well as Washington, DC, have medical marijuana programs currently in place. While these programs vary slightly, there are a number of similarities among them. All state programs stipulate which illnesses can be treated with marijuana and apply to patients diagnosed with illnesses such as cachexia, cancer, chronic pain, epilepsy and other seizure disorders, glaucoma, HIV/AIDS, multiple sclerosis, nausea, migraine, arthritis, and Crohn’s disease. Further, 14 of these 16 programs allow patients to cultivate their own cannabis plants (the two that do not allow personal cultivation are DC and New Jersey), but stipulate the number of mature and immature plants allowed by law. Additionally, each of these programs state the maximum amount of marijuana that patients can legally possess.

In addition to stipulations on the amount of marijuana and cannabis plants a patient or their caregiver can possess and cultivate, the majority of state-run medical marijuana programs require patients to register with the state and be issued a medical marijuana identification card. This is meant to protect patients from wrongful arrest, as what is legal for them is still illegal for citizens that do not possess prescriptions and ID cards.

Following is a list of states that currently have medical marijuana programs in place, as well as the year that the medical marijuana bill was passed in that state: Alaska (1998), Arizona (2010), California (1996), Colorado (2000), Washington, DC (2010), Hawaii (2000), Maine (1999), Maryland (2003), Michigan (2008), Montana (2004), Nevada (2000), New Jersey (2010), New Mexico (2007), Oregon (1998), Rhode Island (2006), Vermont (2004), and Washington (1998).

While patients and dispensaries (marijuana shops) can legally use and sell marijuana in these states, they still face arrest and property seizure by federal law enforcement, as marijuana is strictly illegal under federal law. Why is the federal government depriving its citizens of a beneficial drug which has been voted legal by more than 50% of these states’ populations? Why is the United States arresting law-abiding citizens for taking (or just holding) their medicine, and shutting down the shops that legally provide it to them? It is time for the US government to adopt a federal medical marijuana law, eliminating the legal grey area that haunts marijuana patients and those that provide them with their medication, while allowing every American citizen (that suffers from a legitimate disease) to benefit from marijuana’s medicinal properties.

Get more in-depth information about each state’s medical marijuana program on this page provided by NORML, a campaign for the legalization of marijuana.