[House Hearing, 107 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
``MEDICAL'' MARIJUANA, FEDERAL DRUG LAW AND THE CONSTITUTION'S
SUPREMACY CLAUSE
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE,
DRUG POLICY AND HUMAN RESOURCES
of the
COMMITTEE ON
GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
MARCH 27, 2001
__________
Serial No. 107-2
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house
http://www.house.gov/reform
----------
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
72-258 WASHINGTON : 2001
_______________________________________________________________________
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COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman
BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland TOM LANTOS, California
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
STEPHEN HORN, California PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii
JOHN L. MICA, Florida CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington,
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana DC
JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
BOB BARR, Georgia ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois
DAN MILLER, Florida DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
DOUG OSE, California JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
RON LEWIS, Kentucky JIM TURNER, Texas
JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
DAVE WELDON, Florida WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
CHRIS CANNON, Utah ------ ------
ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida ------ ------
C.L. ``BUTCH'' OTTER, Idaho ------
EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
------ ------ (Independent)
Kevin Binger, Staff Director
Daniel R. Moll, Deputy Staff Director
David A. Kass, Deputy Chief Counsel
Robert A. Briggs, Chief Clerk
Phil Schiliro, Minority Staff Director
Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana, Chairman
BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois
JOHN L. MICA, Florida, BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
BOB BARR, Georgia DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
DAN MILLER, Florida JIM TURNER, Texas
DOUG OSE, California THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine
JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia ------ ------
DAVE WELDON, Florida
Ex Officio
DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
Chris Donesa, Staff Director
Sharon Pinkerton, Chief Counsel
Conn Carroll, Clerk
Denise Wilson, Minority Professional Staff Member
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hearing held on March 27, 2001................................... 1
Statement of:
Nagel, Laura, Deputy Assistant Administrator, Diversion
Control, Drug Enforcement Administration; Bill McCollum,
former chairman, U.S. House Subcommittee on Crime; Dan
Lungren, former California State Attorney General; and
Janet Joy, Senior Program Officer, Division of Neuroscience
and Behavioral Health, Institute of Medicine............... 55
Sembler, Betty, founder and Chair, Drug Free America
Foundation; Joyce Nalepka, president, America Cares; and
Rob Kampia, executive director, Marijuana Policy Project... 8
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Barr, Hon. Bob, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Georgia, prepared statement of.......................... 37
Kampia, Rob, executive director, Marijuana Policy Project,
prepared statement of...................................... 32
Lungren, Dan, former California State Attorney General,
prepared statement of...................................... 78
McCollum, Bill, former chairman, U.S. House Subcommittee on
Crime, prepared statement of............................... 69
Nagel, Laura, Deputy Assistant Administrator, Diversion
Control, Drug Enforcement Administration, prepared
statement of............................................... 58
Nalepka, Joyce, president, America Cares, prepared statement
of......................................................... 17
Sembler, Betty, founder and Chair, Drug Free America
Foundation, prepared statement of.......................... 10
Souder, Hon. Mark, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Indiana, prepared statement of.................... 4
``MEDICAL'' MARIJUANA, FEDERAL DRUG LAW AND THE CONSTITUTION'S
SUPREMACY CLAUSE
----------
TUESDAY, MARCH 27, 2001
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and
Human Resources,
Committee on Government Reform,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:42 p.m., in
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Mark E. Souder
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Souder, Weldon, Barr, Jo Ann Davis
of Virginia, and Cummings.
Staff present: Chris Donesa, staff director; Sharon
Pinkerton, chief counsel; Charley Diaz, congressional fellow;
Conn Carroll, clerk; Tony Haywood, minority counsel; Denise
Wilson, minority professional staff member; Ellen Rayner,
minority chief clerk; Earley Green, minority assistant clerk;
and Lorran Garrison, minority staff assistant.
Mr. Souder. The subcommittee will come to order. Good
afternoon and thank you all for coming.
We hear repeatedly that one of the keys to an effective and
meaningful drug policy is to reduce demand in the United
States, whether it be in hearings or meetings with government
officials and drug victims, more popular sources like
``Traffic,'' the ``West Wing,'' or last week's series on
``Nightline,'' or even from foreign leaders. I expect the
subcommittee will aggressively explore demand reduction issues
during this Congress, beginning with today's hearing examining
one of the most troubling demand reduction and law enforcement
issues we face today, the effect of so-called ``medicinal''
marijuana initiatives on attitudes toward drugs and on Federal
law enforcement.
It should be obvious that one of the cornerstones of even a
basic demand reduction strategy is to tell our citizens not to
use illegal drugs. Eight States and the District of Columbia,
however, have adopted State laws which have the effect of
encouraging their citizens to use illegal drugs for medicinal
purposes. These initiatives are wholly contrary to Federal
statutes, which have explicitly stated by law that marijuana,
``has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the
United States.'' In addition, they sent even more confusing and
contradictory messages to our already confused children at a
time when their attitudes about marijuana use may be open to
bad influences and they may be led to even harder drugs.
Let me be very clear here. The critical issue here is not
whatever medicinal benefits smoked marijuana may or may not
have. Federal law has established proper procedures to review
that question, which have not been followed. The issue is a
more fundamental one that goes to the heart of our Federal
Government and Federal law enforcement. In our Federalist
system, even strong advocates of States rights, among which I
would count myself, have to agree that States simply cannot
pass their own laws contrary to Federal law whenever they
disagree with the Federal law. The result would be anarchy. And
we have literally seen symptoms of anarchy with respect to
marijuana enforcement as a result of these State initiatives.
In California, Federal and State agents have told
subcommittee staff that the initiative there, proposition 215,
has led to uncertainty on the part of State and local law
enforcement and has had the practical effect of curtailing most
marijuana enforcement in the State. The city of Oakland has
repeatedly declared, ``a public health emergency,'' because
citizens cannot obtain marijuana. State judges have ordered
local police to return seized marijuana to its owners, forcing
the DEA to detail agents to seize very small amounts of
marijuana held by local officers. About a week ago I received a
briefing from the DEA in San Francisco, that marijuana growers
are attempting to claim that large crops are medicinal in
purpose and have threatened to hold Federal agents personally
liable for the cost of the plants. The fundamental relationship
between the Federal and State and local law enforcement relies
on a vigorous marijuana enforcement by States and localities.
That relationship has now been called into question.
I believe that this hearing is important for several
reasons. First, we will have an opportunity to review serious
issues of Federal law enforcement and public attitude. The
Supreme Court will also consider related issues tomorrow when
it hears oral argument in the Oakland Cannabis case, which will
consider whether State initiatives or other authority provides
a medical necessity defense to the clear Federal law against
marijuana use for any stated purpose. I commend the Justice
Department and the Solicitor General for their advocacy in this
case and hope that the court is able to swiftly bring some
clarity to the field.
Second, we will have an opportunity to review concerns that
these issues fundamentally are not about sick people, but
instead about backdoor efforts at outright legalization of
marijuana. And third, we will obtain some long-term perspective
from respected veterans in the field.
We have some excellent witnesses with us today, and I thank
you all for coming. On our first panel we have concerned
citizens. Betty Sembler is the founder and Chair of Drug Free
America Foundation, and Joyce Nalepka is the President of
America Cares. Both are tireless and unwavering advocates for
our families and children, and it is a real pleasure to work
with them and have them here today. We also have Rob Kampia
from the Marijuana Policy Project, who is an advocate of
medicinal marijuana initiatives and medical marijuana use.
On our second panel, we have from the DEA Laura Nagel, who
is Deputy Assistant Administrator for Diversion Control. We
will hear from two former Members of Congress, both of whom
have been extremely active on this issue. I would like to
welcome back Bill McCollum, former chairman of the Subcommittee
on Crime and author of the legislation regarding the State
initiatives which passed the House 310 to 93, and Dan Lungren
of California, who is also the former Attorney General of
California and in that role has had substantial experience with
proposition 215. I thank you both for traveling here today and
for sharing our perspectives. We also have Dr. Janet Joy, of
the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences,
who edited an IOM study on the potential uses of marijuana.
We look forward to all your testimony. I would now like to
recognize Mr. Cummings for an opening statement.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Mark Souder follows:]
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Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want to
join you in welcoming our witnesses here this afternoon, and I
want to thank them, particularly Mr. Kampia and Dr. Joy, who
had to come on very short notice, but I thank you for making
yourselves available. The diversity of perspectives represented
here today ensures that we will hear the full spectrum of views
on the very contentions subject of this hearing, and I wanted
to commend you for your willingness to be inclusive.
Mr. Chairman, this hearing's subject is not only
contentious, it is also a bit more complicated than the title
of the hearing lets on. As we all know, the Supreme Court is
poised to hear argument for the first time on the
constitutionality of State laws making legal under State law
conduct that is expressly prohibited under Federal statutory
law; namely, the possession and use of marijuana for medicinal
purposes. No doubt because of this impending event today's
hearing has been cast in terms of the constitutional question
presented to the court, broadly speaking whether the supremacy
clause will allow the State laws to operate in the context of a
Federal Constitution.
One thing we are certain not to accomplish this afternoon,
however, is the resolution of that question. We will hear many
of the arguments that the court will hear tomorrow. But it will
be the court's job, not ours, to evaluate them and issue a
definitive ruling. The constitutional question raised by the
State ballot initiatives and the legislation that have been
passed is but one of several dimensions to the debate over
medical marijuana in Congress. And by and large the members on
this panel and the witnesses we are about to hear expound about
the constitutional merits of the State ballot initiatives
question do not come by their position solely on the basis of
jurisprudential philosophy. Inescapable among the issues raised
is the fundamental question of whether the medical use of
marijuana should be legal under any statutory scheme; that is,
does marijuana offer medical benefits that outweigh its harmful
attributes such that its legalization for the purposes of
treating certain medical conditions is justified.
Some of my colleagues believe absolutely that it does not.
Others are convinced that it does. Between these two camps are
those who support rigorous scientific investigation to
determine the safety and efficacy of marijuana in the treatment
of conditions in which its effectiveness may be indicated. Even
among those in the latter group there is disagreement on the
question of whether the terminally ill who might benefit and
for whom the long-term harms may be irrelevant should have
immediate access to medical marijuana while studies on its
effect are pending.
Separate from the health ramifications of medical marijuana
initiatives is the question of process. Should State's have the
authority in effect to establish separate standards and do the
contrasting State laws pose an undue obstacle to the effective
enforcement of the Federal drug laws in the States that have
adopted them? Does the current controversy suggest flaws in the
process for scheduling drugs under the Controlled Substances
Act?
As I have noted, the Supreme Court will soon resolve
whether the State laws can provide a valid defense to Federal
defendants charged with criminal possession and distribution.
Whatever the outcome of the pending legal controversy might be,
it will not provide the last words on any answer to many of
these questions. Congress will inevitably be left with policy
decisions to make.
I look forward to hearing the perspective of our witnesses
today and I thank them for being here.
Mr. Souder. Before proceeding, I would like to take care of
some procedural matters. I first ask unanimous consent that all
Members have 5 legislative days to submit written statements
and questions for the hearing record, that any answers to
written questions provided by the witnesses also be included in
the record. Without objection, it is so ordered.
We will now begin our first panel, which is made up of
citizens who have expressed concerns regarding the issue before
us today. I would like to welcome Betty Sembler, Joyce Nalepka
and Rob Kampia. As an oversight committee, it is our standard
practice to ask all our witnesses to testify under oath. If the
witnesses will stand and raise their right hands, I will
administer the oath.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Souder. Let the record show the witnesses have all
answered in the affirmative.
We will now recognize the witnesses for their opening
statements. I would like to thank you for being here today. We
would like you to summarize your testimony in 5 minutes. You
will see the lights. There is a yellow with 1 minute to go, and
you may put your full statement in the record.
Mrs. Sembler, do you have an opening statement?
STATEMENTS OF BETTY SEMBLER, FOUNDER AND CHAIR, DRUG FREE
AMERICA FOUNDATION; JOYCE NALEPKA, PRESIDENT, AMERICA CARES;
AND ROB KAMPIA, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, MARIJUANA POLICY PROJECT
Mrs. Sembler. Thank you very much. Good afternoon and thank
you very much for the opportunity to speak before you today. As
you said, I am the president and founder of Drug Free America
Foundation, Inc., an organization whose mission is to expose
the hidden agenda of those who wish to legalize all Schedule I
drugs in our country.
Their agenda includes subverting Federal supremacy,
manipulating public opinion, and perpetrating a fraudulent
marketing campaign touted as compassion for the sick. We have
all witnessed this campaign, some of us agape at the blatant
untruths used to convince voters in eight States and the
District of Columbia that smoked crude marijuana is really
medicine, quote-unquote, dressed up to look like a weed.
These drug pushers in coat and tie are intent on using any
means possible to market addictive, unsafe, life threatening
substances to our children. In a clear violation of Federal
drug laws and the Constitution's supremacy clause, these
business men disguised as medical experts, using tactics worthy
of the Goebbels award, Hitler's Propaganda Chief, distort
truth, eschew legitimate research, manufacture facts and
bombard the public with disinformation.
For example, they continually say the war is lost, that our
prisons are overflowing with nonviolent drug offenders, no use
education is to be replaced with so-called responsible use
instructions. Examples abound.
It is a feckless endeavor to look any further for
explanations that would adequately illuminate their
motivations. We already know what their motivation is. It is
documented by their own words and certainly their own actions.
The only thing standing in their way is the Constitution of the
United States of America.
To sweep away the protection offered by that august
document, the money bags have employed wordsmiths so they can
hide behind the first amendment, and therefore cleverly use the
word ``recommend'' as a euphemism for ``prescribe.''
If you read the fine print on any of the initiatives or
examine the tactics that are being used in States that have no
initiative process, it becomes very clear that this is not
about compassion and it is certainly not about medicine. It is
about softening public opinion without regard for truth to
promote the acceptance that to chemically alter one's mind is
an inherent right.
The premise is that old excuse about a victimless crime.
There is no such thing as a victimless crime. The parents of
this Nation are helpless without you as our elected
representatives stepping up to the plate and telling the people
the truth, ``you have been misled.''
We cannot afford to tear up our constitution in order to
provide inordinate profits to those who ignore the safeguards
intended to protect us.
Thank you very much. May I yield the rest of my time to my
colleague Joyce Nalepka?
Mr. Souder. Yes.
[The prepared statement of Mrs. Sembler follows:]
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Mrs. Nalepka. Thank you. Good afternoon, Chairman Souder
and members of the committee. I am Joyce Nalepka, president of
Drug Free Kids: America's Challenge. I was also a founder and
former president of Nancy Regan's National Federation of
Parents for Drug Free Youth during the Reagan administration.
On behalf of parents and grandparents across America, I
appreciate your invitation to testify and your willingness as a
committee to take on this difficult issue.
Our most important job is preventing kids from getting
involved in drugs, and the second most important job is
exposing the underground drug culture represented by groups
working to legalize drugs for their own pleasure. These are the
groups that have passed initiatives in nine States already
because an unsuspecting, compassionate public wasn't informed
on the motives behind the legalizers' scam.
As a 25-year veteran in the parents anti-drug movement, I
can testify that some of the most dangerous traffickers are
those trafficking in misinformation. They have been for years
telling young people marijuana is a harmless giggle and now
they are attempting to convince a compassionate public that
marijuana cigarettes or joints are medicine. Legalizers were
helped substantially, in my opinion, by the government-funded
Institute of Medicine study.
I was one of the few who testified against the issue when
one of the public hearings was held in Washington, DC. I noted
that the audience was filled with folks that I recognized for
years as legalizers. Finally, in 1999, Dr. John Benson, one of
the coprincipal investigators, wrote, ``It is true that a pro-
legalization group, the Marijuana Policy Project, organized the
attendance of many of the patients.'' It must also be noted
that Kenneth Shine, IOM president, serves on one of George
Soros boards or committees.
High Times, a drug glamorizing magazine, reported in
September 1993 that the Marijuana Policy Project receives
funding from George Soros. MPP was the brainchild of Eric
Sterling, we were told, formerly of the Drug Policy Foundation.
DPF's idea of drug prevention was to develop a safe crack
smoking pipe so users could smoke crack without burning their
lips.
Representing the concern of parents and grandparents,
students and teachers, I am here to tell you that people are
looking to you congressional leaders for help. They want
results and they really need them now. From the experience of
the numerous anti-drug parent groups throughout America, we
have a plan that, if implemented on a fast track basis, could
reduce student drug use by 50 to 90 percent and also
significantly reduce school violence by the end of the next
school term in June 2001 through 2002.
The key ingredient in this is finding the necessary
leadership in Congress and the administration to adopt and
implement the plan. These expectations of early success are
based upon hard data from previously tried and proven anti-drug
efforts.
Our plan involved the following as a package. The
elimination of any one element could lead to a continued
failure to protect America's kids from drug dealers and
traffickers. We need a national anti-drug leadership to be
established at the highest level of government. Nancy Reagan's
leadership attracted financial support to the parents' anti-
drug movement so we could hire staff and hold national
conferences, disseminating valid scientific information to
drug-besieged parents across America. Our efforts resulted,
according to NIDA, in a 50 percent drop in child drug use
during the Reagan-Bush years.
The recently introduced bill, S. 304, authorizes Federal
funding specifically for identification and treatment of drug
involved kids, 18 and younger. If this could be fast tracked to
early enactment, rescue of drug involved kids could begin at an
early age. The S. 304 bill needs to be amended to authorize and
encourage local school districts to fully utilize drug testing
programs as an effective means of identifying drug using kids
in need of treatment. Also needed is legislation requesting the
Supreme Court to expedite appeals from several existing
conflicting U.S. Appeal Court rulings on student drug testing.
Money should be redistributed from the current public
service program to provide funding for anti-drug parents
organizations. We must expedite the appointment of a new White
House drug czar with specific instructions to work with parents
groups. Of critical importance is the reintroduction and
expedited enactment of Congressman Souder's former bill, H.R.
4802, or express preemption to block drug traffickers' attempts
to legalize drugs by tricking a naive public into voting in
favor of harmful but attractive, sounding State referendum
initiatives for medical marijuana cigarettes and legalizing
hemp.
We understand the Drug Enforcement Administration is eager
to work with you to expedite the bill's passage. We urge you to
call them and to enlist the White House. We promise you that we
will be the wind beneath your wings to get this passed.
The parents' movement is a potent but underutilized force
in America today. In less than 2 weeks we organized over 50
parents anti-drug groups and like-minded individuals to
voluntarily collaborate on a Friend of the Court brief for
tomorrow's Supreme Court hearing on whether a smoked marijuana
joint can be classified as medicine. That absurd proposition
would never have reached the Supreme Court if it weren't for
massive pro-drug funding in the absence of parent organizations
to rebut that silly idea.
I have in my hand a copy of our amicus brief in that case,
United States v. Oakland Cannabis Buyers Cooperative. We are
making an attempt to put a face on the numbers that people tell
us of kids that are on drugs and we have parents coming in from
across America bringing pictures of their dead children that we
believe will put a face on this. After the vigil and the
Supreme Court hearing, we will hold a strategy meeting from 2
to 5 p.m., at the nearby Hyatt Regency Hotel to discuss
effective government actions, as suggested herein, to eliminate
drugs from America's schools and communities in order to
lecture safety and peace to the citizens.
We parents are alive and well and ready to take on the drug
traffickers, but we need effective legislation to help us. We
now have new leadership and you have the ability to provide us
that help by your urgent consideration and adoption of the
program we have outlined. We have access to technical, legal
and managerial experts in the anti-drug field and we have a
long established network of involved anti-drug leadership to
make the programs work and work quickly. We are willing and
able to work with your leadership to work out any problems. If
we move quickly, these measures could be implemented by next
school term.
We feel there are absolutely no excuses. There are 16,000
young people dying every year and if we don't get started soon
on a major fast track basis, students' drug use and drug
shootings will continue unabated to the everlasting shame of
those who failed to recognize this great opportunity to move
forward. And I also have, which I will leave for the committee,
a manual that we have put together making the case for Federal
school drug testing, which has been very, very successful, one
particularly in Texas where in 2 years not only did they have a
drug free school but a long list of parents waiting to get
their kids into the school. And it is said if we don't know
history we are destined to repeat it.
Yet as Jill Jones points out in a book, ``Hep Cats, Narcs
and Pipe Dreams,'' the scientific and medical communities
generally failed to sound an alarm to the American public about
cocaine's devastating effect in the early 1900's and the impact
it could have with its return in the 1970's. We have
experienced the same problems with getting marijuana research
disseminated. The only scientist of this ``we love cocaine''
era to inveigh vocally and publicly against cocaine and
marijuana was Dr. Gabriel Nahas, pharmacologist and professor
of anesthesiology at Columbia University, an outspoken critic
of those who said marijuana was a harmless giggle. Even then,
Nahas was attacked constantly. His paper is in the packet of
information I gave you and just one final comment.
I have before me what may look strange to some of you. This
container contains 450 some M&M's, illustrating the number of
chemicals that are in a marijuana joint or cigarette before it
is lighted. The other two jars each have 1,000 M&M's in them,
demonstrating what happens when you light this joint with 450.
They begin to act synergistically with each other and then you
have 2,400 and I believe it is some 50 odd chemicals and I
suspect that none of us would be happy if we walked into our
doctor's office and said, here, you take these. Yet, that is
exactly what these kids are smoking.
The most clear damage from marijuana seems to be from the
immune system. And NIH has made a statement that, ``People with
HIV and others whose immune systems are impaired should avoid
marijuana use.'' I will close with that, and I wish we had 2
days.
[The prepared statement of Mrs. Nalepka follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Thank you very much. Mr. Kampia.
Mr. Kampia. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the
committee. I am going to use the outline of my testimony that
was submitted as sort of a talking points document.
The Marijuana Policy Project believes that sick people as
well as healthy people should not be arrested and put in prison
for using marijuana. We are the largest membership based
marijuana policy organization in the country. Most recently we
have submitted an amicus brief for the U.S. Supreme Court in
the case that is going to be heard tomorrow, and we are also
responsible for drafting legislation that is being debated in
the States to remove criminal penalties for medical marijuana
use. We were instrumental in helping to pass the law in Hawaii,
which was signed by the Governor in June 2000, which removes
criminal penalties for patients who have their doctor's
approval to use medical marijuana.
It seems that we are all familiar with what the State
initiatives do, so I will skip over the part of my testimony
which explains that the initiatives allow functioning doctors
to recommend the use of marijuana to patients who have certain
specified conditions, who are then able to possess a certain
amount or grow a certain amount of marijuana. They do not allow
for-profit distribution of marijuana. They do not allow people
to grow hundreds of marijuana plants and then to claim it is
for medical use. They do not protect dealers on the streets who
are selling marijuana to anyone, including patients.
I would like to spend a minute or two clarifying what the
issue is before the Supreme Court. The issues in Federal law
that are already resolved in this area are, first, that it is
quite clear that patients who are using and growing medical
marijuana legally under State law are still in fact violating
Federal law. No one disputes that, and if the DEA and other
Federal law enforcement officials are upset about that, then
they still retain the authority to sweep up and down the West
Coast arresting AIDS and cancer patients if they so desire.
They have the authority to do that, and if the committee is
concerned about State medical marijuana laws subverting Federal
law, I would encourage you to encourage the DEA to arrest a
large number of cancer and AIDS patients on the West Coast
under Federal law.
Another issue that is not debatable is that physicians
clearly may not prescribe marijuana. That is clearly prohibited
under Federal law, which then leads to the initiatives to allow
doctors to recommend medical marijuana. This is protected by
the first amendment. Doctors who recommend marijuana are
engaged in free speech, and this was found to be the case in a
court case that was ruled on last year in Conant v. McCaffrey.
Now I think the issue before the committee is primarily
that of preemption, and in fact when proposition 215 passed in
California in 1996 the Justice Department and other Federal
officials were pulling out their hair trying to figure out a
way to subvert the will of the voters, and they came to the
conclusion they could not challenge the State medical marijuana
law in court. It stands to reason given the hostility of those
in Congress and on the Federal level in the Clinton
administration and now in the Bush administration that if there
was a way to challenge the State medical marijuana laws by
using the supremacy clause that they would have already done
it. It has been 4\1/2\ years now and there is no legal case
there. And in fact this was found to be the case in a finding
in Wayne Turner v. D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics. This is
the court case that required the local D.C. government to
release the results of the local medical marijuana initiative
here, and in that court case the Federal judge found that there
is nothing in the Constitution of the United States that
prevents States from reducing penalties for medical marijuana
use.
So what is the case before the court tomorrow? Quite
simply, the question is whether you can use a medical necessity
defense in Federal court to avoid Federal marijuana
distribution charges. That is all. That is not challenging the
validity of State law at all.
With 30 seconds left, I would just like to try to shift
gears here. I think it would be more helpful if the committee
would not focus on the State medical marijuana law, which I
consider good, and instead focus on its own bad Federal
policies. Under Federal law, seriously ill people are treated
the same as recreational marijuana abusers. They face up to 1
year in prison and a $10,000 fine. Under Federal law, cocaine
and morphine are deemed to have more medical value than
marijuana. I think that sends a bad message to the children and
it makes no distinction whatsoever between the medical and
nonmedical use. I think if Congress wanted to do something
proactive in this area, it would pass a law saying marijuana
when used for medical purposes should be treated less severely
than in those cases when people are using marijuana
recreationally or otherwise abusing it.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Kampia follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Thank you. Before we start our questioning we
have been joined by additional Members. I wanted to see if
Congressman Weldon had an opening statement and then
Congressman Barr.
Mr. Weldon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to commend you
for calling this hearing, and I did want to say a few words.
First of all, let me apologize. I have another hearing going on
in the Financial Services Committee and I am trying to bounce
between both locations. I do consider this issue very
important.
As many of you know, I have practiced medicine for about 15
years before I was elected to the U.S. House of
Representatives, and I had the opportunity to take care of a
lot of cancer patients. Indeed as well, I also was partners
with an infectious disease specialist and for many years he and
I were the only people in a county of 400,000 people seeing
AIDS patients. So I have a lot of experience taking care of
cancer patients and AIDS patients. As well, I was in a large
medical group, we had 35 members total. We had a 500-bed
hospital, and at that hospital typically, we had half the
patients in the hospital and I was on call on a regular basis.
And so I have accumulated a large degree of experience taking
care of cancer and AIDS patients, and I just want to say that I
have never seen a case where there was a medical indication for
the use of marijuana.
Marijuana is purported to be useful in controlling nausea.
I will just point out that if you open up the Physicians Desk
Reference you will see many, many drugs that do not have nearly
the side effects of marijuana for the control of nausea.
Marijuana is also purported to have other beneficial properties
or qualities in terms of enhancing a sense of well-being, and I
would like to also point out there are many legal drugs that
are much safer for that purpose. And I have seen two cases
where people who did not smoke cigarettes develop lung cancer
who admitted to being chronic marijuana abusers. And so I just
want to let the record reflect that I don't in my clinical
experience recall ever seeing an indication, a medical
indication for marijuana and that the drug, when smoked as
recommended, probably causes lung cancer.
So in my opinion, it is virtually lunacy to talk about a
medical indication for the use of marijuana and that the
efforts on the part of some people to legalize this drug for
medication is really just a veiled attempt to legalize another
substance for abuse. And let me just close, and I thank you,
Mr. Chairman, for yielding to me by pointing out that every day
in America there are many people who die from the ravages of
cigarette smoking and alcohol abuse. And why on Earth would
this Nation want to unleash another dangerous substance on our
population. There are thousands and thousands of people who
will not use marijuana because it's illegal who will start
using it if it is ever made legal. And to contend that there
are medical indications for this drug is in my opinion patently
absurd. Let me finally close by also pointing out that Marinol
is a substance that you can prescribe. It is
tetrahydrocannabinol. It is available in pill form. It is
legal. I can write a prescription for Marinol, if I have that
rare unusual case. By the way, I never saw it once, but if you
have a rare unusual case, if you have someone intolerant to
every single anti-medic drugs in the book, and I have never
seen it happen, and if you have to resort to this you can
actually prescribe it in pill form.
What's really going on is people are trying to legalize the
smoking of marijuana and they are trying to use cancer victims
and AIDS victims as their prop to enable them to get it
through. And in my opinion it is shameful and for that reason
your hearing is very timely, Mr. Chairman, and I want to thank
you for your indulgence.
Again, I want to apologize. I am going to try to come back.
I am very anxious to hear the second panel's testimony and
engage in a question and answer time. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Souder. Thank you. Congressman Barr, do you have an
opening statement?
Mr. Barr. I do, and I would like to ask unanimous consent
that my full statement be included in the record, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Souder. So ordered.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Bob Barr follows:]
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[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2258.025
Mr. Barr. I think that Dr. Weldon hit the nail on the head,
at least insofar as claiming that marijuana has medicinal value
and is a medicine. Whenever I write about the topic, I always
put medicinal use in quotes prefaced by the face, so-called,
because that's what this is. This is a so-called medicinal use
but it is really simply an effort by the druggies to legalize
mind altering drugs. And even though I doubt that we are going
to hear anything new from drug legalization advocates today, I
think it is important to hold this hearing for a couple of
reasons, Mr. Chairman.
One is the timeliness of it in light of the Oakland-
Cannabis Buyers Corp. case coming up this week in the Supreme
Court. I think it's important to draw attention to this and get
the story out. I think it is also important for America to see
the face of drug legalizers. They have learned a lot over the
last several years. They don't so much bring people forward
with glazed eyes and blood shot eyes that look shabby and dress
poorly. They know that doesn't work, so they send forward
people with legal degrees that dress very nice, that speak very
eloquently, that speak very quietly, but their message is the
same. It is death and destruction.
I think it is important for the American people to see this
movement for what it is despite the benign face that they put
forward. And it is important to remind ourselves, Mr. Chairman,
that they are having some success. Young people are starting to
ask the question why shouldn't we be allowed to smoke
marijuana, after all it is a medicine? Why shouldn't people be
allowed to smoke marijuana, after all it helps people? It
doesn't help people. It kills people. It has very serious
medical effects on the reproductive system, as Dr. Nahas has
written extensively, it has very deleterious effects on other,
both psychiatric and physiological functions of the body, such
as memory loss. It is a mind altering drug, the same as those
other substances on the Federal controlled substances list.
So I think it is important to remind people through this
and other hearings, Mr. Chairman, of what the real problem is,
to show these people for what they are, and to remind the
American people not to be taken in by their siren song of so-
called medicinal use, and despite the nice neckties and nice
dress and eloquent words and soft spoken manner of people that
their message is still very much the same.
I appreciate this hearing, Mr. Chairman, and I appreciate
all of witnesses being here, both those that will tell America
the truth and those that won't. I think it is important for the
American people to see the difference. Thank you.
Mr. Souder. Thank you, and I will start with the first
round of questioning. Mrs. Sembler or Mrs. Nalepka have made
allegations and have crusaded for a long time on this issue,
wherein that the medicinal use of marijuana is actually a
front. Mr. Kampia, today you said in fact you were focused on
medicinal use but you had a letter published in the Los Angeles
Times in 1998, where you said the marijuana prohibition creates
dangerous criminal markets and takes police resources away from
violent crime. It is time to stop arresting adults who grow and
consume their own marijuana at home.
Now in that statement you didn't limit it to medicinal use
of marijuana, yet today you only talked about the medicinal
use. Could you explain the difference?
Mr. Kampia. Yes, at the outset of my testimony today I also
said that the Marijuana Policy Project believes that sick
people as well as healthy people should not be arrested and put
in prison for using or growing marijuana. So I have been
consistent in that.
Mr. Souder. So your consistent position is that people
shouldn't be arrested at all. And you said in July, you were
quoted in USA Today on proposition 215 in California, ``it is
working great. Patients right now can possess and use marijuana
in the privacy of their homes and don't have to worry about the
police.'' Can you explain ``working great,'' and once again you
did not use medicinal. Are you saying there is no enforcement
of marijuana laws in California by State and local police.
Mr. Kampia. I think the word ``patients'' was used in the
quote that you just read.
Mr. Souder. Yes.
Mr. Kampia. So I was referring to the fact that proposition
215 is working well, it is protecting patients from having
their doors kicked in by local cops.
Mr. Souder. Do you know of any case where a door was kicked
in by a local cop who was a cancer patient using marijuana
previously?
Mr. Kampia. Sure.
Mr. Souder. Where the door was kicked in--you are under
oath.
Mr. Kampia. Yes.
Mr. Souder. The door was kicked in by local police because
they were using marijuana for the cancer?
Mr. Kampia. I don't know what was in the minds of the
police when they kicked in the door, but after the door was
kicked in the police found the person was in fact using
marijuana for medicinal purposes. I would be happy to provide
newspaper articles tomorrow if you'd like.
Mr. Souder. Was this after proposition 215 passed or prior?
Mr. Kampia. The case I am thinking about occurred in
Washington State after the initiative passed in Washington
State.
Mr. Souder. Also, when you were at Penn State you were
arrested for growing marijuana plants and you spent 3 months in
the county prison and were kicked out of school for more than a
year, which delayed your graduation and engineering science
degree. Why did you tell this story to the newspaper and are
you proud of that record? Are you, I mean you don't seem
ashamed at all by saying that you not only were an advocate of
marijuana use, you grew the plants and used it yourself?
Mr. Kampia. I think it is an instance of how our government
has gone too far. I was a straight A student in physics and
engineering. I had a full scholarship. The police invaded my
privacy, took my plants, and put me in prison for 3 months. I
think it is an example of how marijuana prohibition doesn't
actually dissuade people from using marijuana.
Mr. Souder. But you knew it was a violation of law.
Mr. Kampia. Yes.
Mr. Souder. And you still went ahead and did that. Why
would you do that and put your education at risk and your
health at risk?
Mr. Kampia. Let's just say it was foolish youthful
experimentation.
Mr. Souder. So you currently would not use marijuana?
Mr. Kampia. I currently do not.
Mr. Souder. May I ask you, Mrs. Sembler and Mrs. Nalepka,
clearly as a prime advocate he at least has a very consistent
position on the use of marijuana generally as well as
medicinal. Is this the pattern that you have seen in those you
have battled in the different State referendums? That they say
it is about medicinal but in fact they have a broader agenda?
Mrs. Nalepka. We have information that as far as 1979,
where one of the groups that are their colleagues, the National
Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, said they would
try to get marijuana reclassified medically and use the issue
as a red herring to get back at us like we got at them for
closing their drug paraphernalia shops. And later on there was
a continuing message. Particularly, NORML was one of the first
and one of the most tenacious of the drug legalizing groups,
and I hold Keith Stroup, who was the founder, to be the father
of the teenage drug epidemic in this country and responsible
for I believe tens of thousands of deaths or kids in treatment
or lost because he continued to make statements telling them--
there was no particular evidence that even those few young
people who used a great deal of marijuana necessarily hurt
themselves academically and otherwise. And that was established
in High Times Magazine, September 1997, that had an estimated
pass on readership of as many as 30,000 kids. And later on he
testified before Congress that he wanted to completely open the
market. No age controls, no street controls. And that next they
need to decriminalize traffickers because most drug sellers are
not violent criminals, are nice folks. They shouldn't be
treated like violent criminals. And my experience over the
years is that mind destruction is a violent crime. They have
been very, very out front about wanting to legalize marijuana,
and there is a whole network of the groups, of whom we have
videotapes of many of their meetings saying--Dennis Peron, the
leader in California, for instance, made a comment to me, he
said, all marijuana use is medical. And chuckled and an
attorney, one of their colleagues, earlier on said that we have
found the chink in the armor. We get medical marijuana, we will
have full legalization, and he is also the same attorney who
said that to him drugs--all law is drugs and mechanics. This is
not an exact quote. But he said you kill a cop and I'll defend
you for free.
This is the type--we are not talking about the AMA here
pushing medical marijuana. The Timothy Leary era continues.
Even though he has been sprinkled into the atmosphere, his
colleagues continue to push for legalization of these
disruptions that are causing an incredible amount of damage to
kids in our country, and it is a mystery to me as the mother of
two young sons, one just about Rob's age and I have looked at
his curriculum vitae and saw he was valedictorian of his high
school and he did very well in college. And I want to ask him
why? As a mother you want to take them home and say, look, let
me show you what's wrong here. But we're having a very tough
time standing up against them, quite frankly, because we are
doing it mostly on our grocery funds and George Soros, John
Sperling, Peter Lewis, George Zimmer seem to be pouring endless
funds in there. When I first discovered that Soros was putting
money into it I was sure he did not know who he was funding and
he was speaking at Georgetown and there was an open mic and I
went to hear him speak, and there were about 450 businessmen
waiting to hear him, and at the end I took the microphone and
asked him. I said I know that variety is the spice of life and
you invest in a lot of things, but did you know these things
and I itemized, you know, their statement about legalization
and no age controls and no street controls, and he turned
rather ashen but it certainly didn't stop him. He continued to
do that. Now we know that he knows exactly what he's doing
because he's been told with 400 witnesses.
Mr. Souder. Mr. Cummings.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much. First of all, I want to
say to all of our witnesses I really do appreciate your being
here and I want to make it very, very clear that I don't
consider anybody a druggie. This is the Congress of the United
States of America. And it does concern me when we ask witnesses
to come, I think, we, and I speak for myself and I hope I speak
for all of my colleagues, respect everybody that comes here and
that we assume you come here because you believe in what you
are talking about and you are not coming here lying to us. You
are under oath. And I respect each one of you for your
positions.
You know, I was just sitting here, I was just thinking
there is nobody in this room whose area or places that they
live is more effected by drugs than yours truly. And you know I
was just wondering, and again I think about it, I looked at
these States that have passed these initiatives and voters
aren't stupid. I'm trying to figure out what kind of arguments
are made to voters who, No. 1, see the effects of drugs every
single day, every day. They have seen it. They have seen it on
the 6 o'clock news, they have seen it in the morning, they see
it in the newspapers. They have heard about shootings that may
be drug involved. How do you, what kind of arguments are made
to the public to get them to vote for something like this?
I mean, you can't convince me that people, I mean, I just
can't, I'm trying to figure out is it the people are just being
bombarded with information. And when you think about people and
their children, people, when you think about your children and
you think about--and I have been watching a series on 60
Minutes last week, and one of the interesting things that one
kid said is that Koppel kept asking him could your parents have
stopped this. And I was just waiting, you know, anxiously to
see what the answer would be and just about all of the kids
said I don't think their parents could have stopped them. As a
parent, I felt pretty bad about that.
I am just trying to figure out what was being said to the
public, and any of you all can answer this question, that
convinced them. And I am looking at these States. These aren't
the most liberal States, necessarily, to legalize marijuana.
I'll start either way. We'll come across.
Mr. Kampia. I think it's the same way Congress looked at
cocaine and morphine when Congress said cocaine and morphine
should be available by prescription in 1970. Those drugs are
available for prescription even though they never intended for
those drugs to be wildly available for abuse on the streets. I
think the voters are at least as smart as Members of Congress
and the voters have said we understand the medicine and drug of
abuse and we don't see any reason to get involved in the
doctor-patient relationship. We think doctors and patients
should be able to make these decisions, and it will have no
impact upon drug trafficking in the streets. In fact I will go
one step farther, by allowing patients to grow their own
marijuana at home so they don't have to go out on the street
and buy it, you are actually reducing drug trafficking. So
those of you who are concerned about that, I say allow
nonviolent individuals, particularly patients, to grow their
own for the specific purposes of reducing the purchase of
marijuana on the streets.
Mr. Cummings. Yes.
Mrs. Sembler. I would like to bring to your attention
though--this is for the State of Florida and, as you know, I'm
a Floridian. We have a petition that's been going around the
State now, this is the third time. I won't go into what our
laws are but this is the last chance they would have to pass
this. The title of it is of course Sign for Medical Freedom.
What you hear from people who advocate smoked marijuana, smoked
marijuana as medicine, has several components to that. First of
all, the petition itself calls it Sign for Medical Freedom.
There is no such thing as medical freedom. But the diseases and
conditions that are outlined are never brought to public
attention. This is what the public sees, right here. And unless
you actually request it, you don't see the bottom part and you
don't read it. But I will read it to you. It says each natural
person has the right to obtain and use marijuana for medical
purposes when a licensed physician has certified the following:
That the use of marijuana is medically appropriate for that
person in the professional judgment of that physician, and,
two, that the person's health may benefit from use of marijuana
in the treatment of cancer. Notice treatment of cancer, HIV,
AIDS, anorexia, glaucoma, arthritis, chronic pain, spasticity,
migraine or other specified medical conditions or illnesses.
I could continue, but I can assure you that there is no
place in here for a physician who would actually say that this
person has glaucoma and he should be smoking marijuana in order
to relieve the pain. They do say that, by the way. But
incidentally I work with physicians all over the country and I
am also on the board of the Brain Institute of the University
of Florida Medical School, and I have been assured by experts
who have studied this for years and years and people who I
respect that are not--who are also physicians, glaucoma has no
pain. So you can sell things if you say it long enough, loud
enough, if you hide the other parts of it.
You won't see anything on these ads that show people
smoking. Now you might see something on an ad for a pill,
somebody swallowing it, but they never advertise the fact that
this is smoking, and we all know that we have spent time,
effort, money, sweat and tears trying to get people to stop
smoking. Why should we promote smoking? We should not. If there
is medicinal value to a plant that we can extract, which has
already been noted by Dr. Weldon, we can also point to
foxglove, from which we get digitalis, as we have pointed out,
we can get other medicines from plants such as poppies. There
is no secret to that. But to promote the smoking of medicine,
that is a lie. It is not a medicine. And I don't care how you
put it or how you say it, it is not a medicine. But what it
does do is it softens the idea of the use of drugs to which I
have just had a very terrible experience in my own family and I
have been in this for almost 30 years, and I can tell you that
young people hear that and what they hear is that if it's a
medicine it's not so bad. And then they begin to use more.
So, the responsibility once again as parents, as
grandparents, as Congressmen, as citizens of this United States
is to stand up and say what the truth is. This is not the
truth. What this man is saying is not the truth. This is not
for people who have cancer. I don't want to go on and on, but I
will tell you one more little vignette.
I have questioned people whose parents have died of cancer,
one gentleman out in California. I asked him before the passage
of 215 if he was going to vote for it. And he said yes. And I
said why. And he said because my mother died of cancer, and it
might have helped her. I said I want to ask you a couple of
questions. Did she smoke? He said no. I said, was she
conscious? He said no. I said, well, how are you going to get
her to smoke marijuana if she had never smoked and she wasn't
conscious? Did she need it? He says, no, I think I'll vote
against it.
So all you need is a grain of truth and that's what we're
asking you for, a grain of truth. Thank you.
Mrs. Nalepka. A very similar----
Mr. Souder. Mrs. Nalepka, we need to keep the questioning
going. I have been generous with the red light, but I need to
make sure we stay within range.
Congressman Barr.
Mr. Barr. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me be perfectly
clear, I do appreciate all the witnesses coming here today and
I will treat all of them with civility. But I don't respect Mr.
Kampia. I don't agree with him. I have no regard for him
whatsoever. What he's trying to do needs to be told to the
American people for what it is, and that means not coming up
here and saying you are a wonderful person and we disagree with
you. You are not a wonderful person. You are doing something
that is absolutely despicable in a way that makes it even more
despicable because you put a face on it that appears to be very
different from what it is that you're selling.
What you're selling to the American people, and
particularly to young people, that's the real heart of the
matter here, is a mind altering substance. And one can argue
over the extent to which marijuana is a mind altering
substance, but it is a mind altering substance. It alters one's
mind. It does do permanent damage. There are very, very well-
documented and extensive research studies by very learned
individuals, much more learned than yourself, and you are a
learned individual, that established beyond any reasonable
doubt that there are very serious permanent effects,
particularly long-term marijuana usage, but even short-term
marijuana usage. And to say that this is a medicine is just--I
think it's just beyond the pale.
But I do admire you all's ability, drug legalizers that is,
to do so with a straight face. You have become very adept at
that and that is perhaps why you all have been successful in
recent years in this score.
Turning though, Mr. Kampia, to the specific issues that the
Supreme Court will be taking up this week, I know it would be
easy to draw analogies to saying that the U.S. Constitution
should not in the case of the so-called Medical Necessity
Defense act as a prohibition or what not on the supremacy
clause; in other words, there should be no prohibition of the
supremacy clause. I know it would be easy to say, well, what
about murders and other types of behavior in which you have two
sovereigns; that is, the Federal Government exercising its
sovereign power and outlawing certain types of behavior and the
State doing the same, and the one being--the Federal effort
being supreme. But where do you draw the line? You obviously
would like to see the effort in California under the so-called
medicinal exception be supreme over the Constitution I suppose,
however you want to put it. But you would have to be consistent
with that argument. Where would you draw the line? Would it be
child pornography, be something in which if you have a conflict
within the two and you have somebody coming in and claiming,
which I have--as a prosecutor have heard them say it helps them
psychologically to traffic and use child pornography, is that
something that would fall within the same category of activity
here that makes you believe and argue that California ought to
be able to with impunity vis-a-vis Federal law use mind
altering drugs?
Mr. Kampia. You and I talked about this on TV a few months
ago when this was first announced, and I will say now what I
said before is that my understanding of the case before the
court tomorrow is the narrow question of whether patients in
any State can cite medical necessity in order to avoid Federal
prosecution for marijuana distribution. It is not really hinged
upon the text of the California law. This is a kind of claim
that could have gone into Federal court in Georgia, and the
question then becomes can you sort of finagle Federal law to
justify medical necessity exceptions to the marijuana laws.
There is a lot of people who think the good guys, meaning us,
are going to lose this case that is before the court because
Congress has been pretty clear that it wants to allow no
medical use whatsoever for marijuana. That is a separate issue.
All of that is a separate issue of whether or not the court
could overturn proposition 215.
Let's look at it this way. If the court decides that the
States are not allowed to reduce the penalties associated with
medical marijuana use, that is going to open a whole can of
worms because then what do you do about the other penalties in
different States that don't match the penalties on the Federal
level? There are some States that don't give jail time for
recreational marijuana use. Like in Ohio, you don't go to jail
if you are caught with a bag of pot in Ohio. So how does that
jibe with the fact that Federal law prohibits the recreational
use of marijuana?
So I think it is 99.9 percent sure that the Supreme Court
is going to allow States to have their own medical marijuana
policies even if the majority Members of Congress don't like
that decision.
Mr. Barr. Will we have a second round, Mr. Chairman?
Mr. Souder. Yes.
Mr. Barr. OK. Thank you.
Mr. Souder. We have been joined by Congresswoman Davis of
Virginia. Do you have any questions?
Mrs. Jo Ann Davis of Virginia. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I
apologize for being late. I was at another meeting. I guess I
am just curious, Mr. Kampia, do you support recreational use of
marijuana?
Mr. Kampia. I don't support the use of any drugs. But our
organization believes that it should not be a criminal offense
to use marijuana.
Mrs. Jo Ann Davis of Virginia. Do you believe that
marijuana may be a gateway to stronger drugs?
Mr. Kampia. I believe that the laws of our society cause
marijuana to be a gateway to other drugs. For those who are
interested in purchasing marijuana, they are oftentimes
introduced to LSD, cocaine, and other drugs through the
criminal market. And if we would regulate marijuana like we do
alcohol, then those who buy marijuana would not be exposed to
cocaine and LSD. So I think that the very laws of this Congress
create marijuana as--sort of put marijuana in the position of
being a gateway drug.
Mrs. Jo Ann Davis of Virginia. The only statement I will
make, Mr. Kampia, is that I am the mother of two sons, one who
is 24. I will tell you that I disagree with you. I think that
marijuana is the gateway to other drugs, even when it is not
purchased. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Souder. I am going to yield to Mr. Cummings next.
Mr. Cummings. I just wanted to ask the ladies, one of you
had said that--were talking about the plan that could reduce
drug usage by 50 to 90 percent. Was it with regard to
teenagers?
Ms. Nalepka. Yes, it was.
Mr. Cummings. Tell me a little bit about that.
Ms. Nalepka. Junior and senior high school students. We
were referring to organizing parent groups centered around the
parents of their own children's friends. And this is what we
did in the 80's, instructed parents to get to know the parents
that are the parents of your children's friends. Get together,
set guidelines for them according to their age group. Make sure
they have a good time. Chaparone their parties. And go to your
school and offer your help. Tell them you are not there to
blame them, but you want to find ways to get drugs out of the
schools. And what happened then, many of our parents found that
schools were teaching responsible use messages and the parents
were able to get those out. And then we discovered drug
paraphernalia shops and we went after them. And then began
networking with parents around our own State and, finally,
around the Nation.
But the thing currently that we were discussing is the
potential that we feel universal, nonpunitive drug testing can
have in schools. And in two situations that I am most familiar
with, one in Sundown, TX, and one in New Orleans, the New
Orleans school was a parochial school and they claim that--my
recollection is that they announced that they were going to do
drug testing in the schools, announced to all the kids and said
look, if anyone has a problem now, you come to us. This is not
going to be a punitive program. We want to help you. The next
day something like 52 kids came in and asked for help. And at
the end of 2 years of universal drug testing with parental
permission, they claim to have a drug-free school.
And a very similar situation happened in Sundown, TX. The
principal called the parents and said, the conditions are
these: you must sign to have this happen. We are not going to
have the ACLU chasing us all over Texas. It is going to be
parental permission. And they started testing the kids and the
result has been after again approximately 2 years they claim to
have a drug-free school. The ACLU has not been able to get a
single person to complain. And finally there is, we are told, a
waiting list for parents who want to get their kids in those
schools. And from my own parental experience, I think that once
those kids know that they are going to be tested, they are
looking to us as adults to hold them accountable and help them.
Most kids who get into drugs I'm sure wish there were some
adults there strong enough to stop everyone from using them
rather than allowing them to be at risk.
Mr. Cummings. The second school, was that a public school?
Ms. Nalepka. The Texas school was a public school, yes,
sir.
Mr. Cummings. So they just did it in one of the public
schools? Is that it?
Ms. Nalepka. In that particular case, but there are about
500 schools nationwide out of, I think, 15,000 schools. There
are 500 schools now using some form of drug testing.
Mr. Cummings. Did you have something to say?
Ms. Sembler. Yes, I have in my possession a fax, or e-mail
that was sent--as far as I know, it was sent to every single
legislator in the State of Florida. I was told that it was also
sent to every legislator in the entire United States, State
legislators. I don't know that that is true, but I can tell you
this was sent by the Marijuana Policy Project, signed by Mr.
David Nolan in November 1999 to every single legislator in my
State.
Fortunately, one of them works for me on his off-time and
the purpose of this--which I did not include in my documents,
supporting documents, but will be glad to give you a copy of
it--is asking that you write a letter to then the Secretary of
Health and Human Services, Donna Shalala. Included in that
was--there were two things that they were emphasizing. One of
them, the second one says, and I would read it to you: There
should be no prohibition on single-patient clinical trials.
That's just the opening statement.
What they're trying to do is they're trying to get Members
of Congress to sign it. A few of them did. Here's the list of
them that did. And that should be what we consider
``research.'' In other words----
Mr. Cummings. Let me--I just want to get to Mr. Kampia
before my time runs out, if you don't mind. Your movement has
been basically accused of trying to--it is a farce--saying that
it is a false movement. That you are really not--this is not
about medicine, it is about legalizing drugs. Could you answer
that for me? Mrs. Sembler, I might have the chance to ask you a
question. Sorry.
Ms. Sembler. That's perfectly all right.
Mr. Kampia. That's a good question, because that is sort of
the most often used accusation these days, because our
opponents know they have totally lost the medical marijuana
debate. They know that we're going to be passing initiatives in
any States that we choose to, and that we are going to continue
to work with legislatures to remove criminal penalties. So now
they are trying to scare people by saying well, really it is
not just about medical marijuana, it is about this broader
agenda.
And in fact that is not the case. We're always quite honest
about what our agenda is. We don't want to see people go to
jail for marijuana. And if we can keep sick people out of jail
in the short run, then, by God, we're going to do it. Because
right now--I will be cordial with Congressman Barr, but I must
say I don't respect him either. Because he is supportive of a
policy that criminalizes seriously ill people who have their
doctors's approval to use what is a legitimate medicine. That
to me is way beyond the bounds of what the Federal Government
should be doing. This should be a decision that is made between
doctors and patients, and jail should not be the solution to
the medical problems that an AIDS patient or a cancer patient
is undergoing.
In sum, there is no master plan here. There is no disguised
agenda. We're always honest about our goal, which is to keep as
many people out of jail as possible. And if this country is
only able, only ready to keep cancer parents and AIDS patients
and MS patients out of jail that use medical marijuana with
their doctors's approval, then we are going to do our best to
see that that happens.
Mr. Souder. Before yielding to Mr. Barr, I want to make a
brief statement, if you will put the clock on me too. Because
these hearings challenge the nature of civility when they are
hearings where we have disagreements. Because I deeply believe
that advocacy from your group has put my kids at risk, has
resulted in additional deaths in my community.
And I believe in having a fair hearing and having the
debate, but when somebody protects and provides a shield for
things that are so damaging to our families and children, it is
hard for us not have to strong statements about each other. I
understand the argument that you are making about us locking up
criminals, because--although apparently, it is based on one
case that you had in the media where you weren't sure why they
went in the House and you weren't sure of exactly the date, you
did not name a bunch of cases relating to going in and getting
cancer patients.
There are procedures where you can go to HHS--and we're
going to have far more experienced people than you on the next
panel to answer the questions on the criminal questions and the
medical questions that we will pursue this question. But you
can get waivers and you have not anywhere in your testimony, or
for that matter, in most of the documents, your organization
made the exclusive case of any medicinal qualities of marijuana
that are not elsewhere. The only question we have really
debated--and I have debated on this on television over the
years as well with different advocates and different cancer
patients--is whether or not it alleviates vomiting, and whether
Marinol works as well with that.
And as that has advanced, we still have the problem--in
fact, in California, you have a tension in law enforcement. You
cannot come in, because this is an official place, an official
cannabis center raising marijuana for so-called medicinal
purposes where you have all sorts of clear evidences in the
State of going around and hiding behind; where you have
referendums that are predominantly backed by people with huge
amounts of money that have a far broader agenda which speaks
for itself. In other words, it isn't a matter of you just
saying I am concerned about cancer patients. It is that you are
concerned about the broader marijuana issue. I am not saying
you aren't concerned about the cancer patients, but I am saying
they are a convenient shield with which to argue a broader
case.
And so some of us, while it may not sound courteous,
because you are an articulate advocate for an evil position in
my position. And I understand the argument you are making, but
I have kids dying. It is ridiculous to say that the only reason
people move to marijuana and other things is who they are
exposed to. It may exaggerate the problem. In other words, some
of those people who move to harder drugs might not have if it
had been legal. But it is not true in the Netherlands, in
Vancouver, in Alaska, in other places where they attempted the
legalization that they did not have an even greater move to
harder drugs.
We debate that statistic all the time too, but in fact, we
are seeing, for example, our methamphetamine problem and the
ecstasy drugs coming from the very countries that supposedly
were eliminating the problem by legalizing.
We are going to continue to have deep disagreements. It is
important to have you here today to have the debate. At the
same time, we are trying to be civil and at the same time, I
think the record--I want the record to show that I have a deep,
deep offense caused by the type of arguments you have made on
television and how you are attacking my own family and other
families in my community because of the advocacy of your
position. If you would like to make a brief comment in my
remaining minute and a half here.
Mr. Kampia. Two comments. The first is that the policies of
this Nation are responsible for arresting 700,000 marijuana
users a year.
Mr. Souder. The actions of the individuals.
Mr. Kampia. Say again?
Mr. Souder. The actions of the individuals are responsible.
We are legislators who respond to voters. If individuals get
arrested, it is not our responsibility. They violated the laws
of the land. That is like saying people who are locked up on
pornography are somehow innocent and we just locked them up.
Mr. Kampia. OK. The laws of this land have defined certain
behaviors as such that 700,000 marijuana users get arrested
every year.
Thousands of those--of course, there is no hard numbers on
this but I think most of us who have worked in this field for a
few decades understand that at least 1 percent of marijuana
users actually use for medicinal purposes. I don't want to
debate that point. It is just sort of a feeling that I have----
Mr. Souder. That is not cancer. That is all medicinal
purposes; right?
Mr. Kampia. Right. At least 1 percent. Let's just say
conservatively----
Mr. Souder. That is arthritis and other things?
Mr. Kampia. Possibly rheumatoid arthritis, but I'm talking
about MS, epilepsy, what we call legitimate conditions. If you
say that 1 percent of these conditions, 1 percent of those who
are arrested are arrested for medical use, that is still 7,000
a year and those numbers are increasing. So I did not mean to
say that because I knew of one patient in Seattle, that that
man was the only person in the entire country who had ever been
arrested for medical marijuana. That would be an absurd
statement. I could open up my files to you and show you example
after example where patients with their doctors's approval have
actually been arrested for medical marijuana use.
Second of all, I would like to respond just briefly to the
other point.
Mr. Souder. But that was a fair analysis, because if I
mischaracterized your earlier position, I apologize.
Mr. Kampia. That's fine. And the second is that there is no
process in HHS that allows patients to go and be able to get
permission to use medical marijuana. If I was hearing you
correctly, you might have been alluding to the program that was
opened up in 1978 and which was closed in 1992, which currently
allowed eight patients in the country--eight, to legally use
medical marijuana where they are smoking 300 marijuana
cigarettes a month each.
That program has not been opened for the past decade. So
there is no witness here who will tell you today that it is
possible to get some sort of Federal waiver. That Federal
waiver is impossible. And, in fact, if you are interested in
creating a Federal waiver system, I would be able and happy to
work with you to pop open that program so that the most ill of
the ill could maybe squeak in and get some sort of Federal
shipment of medical marijuana.
Mr. Souder. I'm sure that over time, we are going to be
looking at ways to deal with the most ill of the ill. Not
necessarily, however, through marijuana, but through the
content, the substance, Marinol. The substance inside the
marijuana. We certainly need to look at ways to alleviate the
suffering. We may still have a problem with the marijuana.
Mr. Barr, do you want to go next in the questions?
Mr. Barr. Thank you. Over the last couple of years, we've
had an issue that comes up every time with the District of
Columbia Appropriations bill. And my opposition to efforts in
the District of Columbia to move in the direction of so-called
medicinal use sometimes are mischaracterized as an effort to do
the same with the States, and that is not my goal or intention.
This is an issue that each State has to address by itself.
The District of Columbia, as I know you are aware, is
different. Congress does have a direct constitutional, very
explicit responsibility and authority over the District of
Columbia. Therefore we have jurisdiction.
It's not my goal to tell the voters in California or New
Mexico or any other State what to do. I do think it is a very
important issue that the citizens of each State have to decide.
But that being said, I am still a little bit curious as to how
you can almost sort of cavalierly get around the supremacy
clause of the Constitution. If you accept the fact, which is
one of the basic precepts of our Federal system of government,
that you cannot have two sovereigns with an interest in certain
behavior, have different laws, how can you really maintain that
you have respect for our Federal system of government if you
say that in any one, and if you say in any one, then you have
to open the door to all sorts of other instance, a particular
State cannot trump the supremacy clause?
And again I go back to--granted it is a hypothetical, but I
think it is one that ought to be addressed, and I pose it to
you again--if you have individuals come in and tell the court
and convince a court in, say, California that exposing
themselves, being able to use child pornography has a
therapeutic effect on them, and you find some doctors that
substantiate that, why would not the same logic prevail? Why
should not that also provide a medical necessity for the people
in California who might, in their so-called wisdom, decide that
they want to make a decision to allow pornography for--child
pornography for medical purposes? I mean, to be consistent
wouldn't you have to say, well, yes they should do that? They
should be able to?
Mr. Kampia. I guess, first I'd just like to read something
from the court decision that overturned your amendment that
tried to prevent the D.C. government from counting the votes of
our medical marijuana initiative. The quote is, this is from
the judge: Whatever else initiative 59 purports to do, it
proposes making local penalties for drug possession narrower
than the comparable Federal ones. Nothing in the Constitution
prohibits such an action.
So, don't take my word for it, take the Federal judge's
word for it. There is nothing in the Constitution that prevents
States from having, or even the District of Columbia from
having, penalties on the marijuana or other drugs that are
lower than on the Federal level. But as a former prosecutor,
you know that the penalties in Georgia on a State level don't
match the penalties for drugs in the U.S. Code. There are
disparities all the time, drug to drug. So this is just yet one
more example of how there is a disparity in penalty.
The penalty in California for possession of medical
marijuana is now zero. The penalty in California for the
possession of marijuana for recreational use is----
Mr. Barr. I am not talking about a disparity in sentencing.
That is another issue. We are talking here about carving out a
trump card. In this case, medical necessity. Would not your
position have to be, in order to be consistent and credible, in
answer to my hypothetical that, yes, the medical necessity
argument should be allowed in that hypothetical to allow the
people of California who have passed a referendum or whatever
to say that we think that people that benefit psychologically
from exposing themselves to child pornography ought to be able
to do so, and the Federal Government should not be able to
prosecute them?
Mr. Kampia. Let's be clear here. My understanding--and tell
me if this is not your understanding--is that this medical
necessity argument that is currently pending before the U.S.
Supreme Court is predicated upon common law. It is not
predicated upon proposition 215. It is a common law question--
--
Mr. Barr. It really doesn't matter what it is predicated
on. What I am talking about is the end result of it, and
whether or not we are going to have a supremacy clause or not.
It doesn't matter what you base the medical necessity on. Let's
say that, however, it is based that the same situation is
presented to the court in the hypothetical. But rather than
marijuana being used for medical so-called medical necessity,
it is child pornography. Wouldn't the same argument that you
posit have to prevail in that hypothetical also?
Mr. Kampia. I don't know. It is getting too hypothetical
for me. Maybe I will have a better answer for you after I hear
the court argue this tomorrow. I just don't know. I mean, quite
frankly, I find the argument on just the medical necessity of
marijuana before the court to be perplexing, because of the
fact, as I said, Congress has been pretty clear on not wanting
to allow any medical use of marijuana under any conditions. To
reach into common law or whatever to say that there is some
medical necessity for marijuana distribution under Federal law
is to me, it sort of requires a lot of thinking to see how that
could be possible. So that is as qualified of an answer that I
can give you at this point. I'm sorry that I can't give you
more.
Mr. Barr. I wasn't quite sure earlier, did you say that you
thought the Supreme Court would rule to uphold the Ninth
Circuit or to overturn it?
Mr. Kampia. I guess I'm not trying to make a prediction on
what the court would do----
Mr. Barr. I thought you had earlier.
Mr. Kampia [continuing]. I could see how there could be a
reasonable argument to be made that the Ninth Circuit decision
would be overturned because Congress has been clear on the
question of whether or not marijuana has medical value. I am
also more sure that the court is not going to overturn State
medical marijuana initiatives in a blanket way. That is not
even before the court, and I can't imagine that the court
would----
Mr. Barr. In other words, what they would probably wind up
doing is, on narrow grounds, overturning or remanding the case?
Mr. Kampia. Yes. In terms of what could be argued in
Federal court, yes.
Mr. Barr. All right. Thank you.
Mr. Souder. We have been joined by Congressman Gilman of
New York, vice chairman of the committee, who has an opening
statement.
Mr. Gilman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I regret I was
delayed and I am being called now to another meeting. I do want
to thank you for holding today's hearing on medical marijuana,
Federal drug laws, and the Constitution supremacy clause. I
know that tomorrow there is going to be a hearing before the
Supreme Court and hopefully we will get some good advice out of
that opinion.
I'd like to thank our witnesses who have agreed to appear
before us today to offer their insight on these important
issues. The last 5 years have seen a number of initiatives in
several States to relax or overturn restrictions on the
possession on the sale and use of marijuana. And since 1996,
eight States and the District of Columbia have enacted
primarily through voter initiatives provisions that permit
under State law the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes.
The general looseness of such provisions however has resulted
in de facto decriminalization of marijuana use in those States.
These new State provisions appear to run counter to Federal
law, which classifies marijuana as a scheduled controlled
substance. In essence, Congress has explicitly stated in
statute that there is no accepted medicinal use for marijuana
and has criminalized its possession and use.
Many of us who have been active on the drug issue for a
number of years here that these recent voter initiatives were
designed to provide a back-door method to legalize marijuana
usage. The broad language in a number of those provisions,
particularly California's, underscores that fear. Moreover the
media bears some responsibility in shaping this debate. By and
large, a majority of news reports on medicinal marijuana have
focused on the supposed benefits of the drug and the compassion
in permitting the terminally ill to smoke it, rather than on
the dangers of marijuana use or the fact that the scientific
evidence shows that the beneficial components can be provided
synthetically independent of marijuana. And I have read
recently that there was competent medical information that
there is a good synthetic use of the pain killer.
It is my view and many on our committee that Federal law
preempts local law on this issue by virtue of the supremacy
clause of the Constitution. The Supreme Court is due to hear
those arguments, as I noted, tomorrow, and I am confident the
court will reach an appropriate decision in due course and lay
this matter to rest. Marijuana is a gateway drug that is
cheaper, more readily available, and stronger than ever before.
The sooner we end this latest attempt to legalization, the
better.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman I regret that I'm being called to
another meeting.
Mr. Souder. Thank you, Congressman Gilman. Congresswoman
Davis, do you have any further questions?
Mrs. Jo Ann Davis of Virginia. Yes, I do, of Mr. Kampia. I
believe I heard you state that you think medical marijuana
should be used for cancer and AIDS. Yet I heard Mrs. Sembler
say in the petition that she mentioned anorexia. And I heard
you say that in these eight cases, they were using 300 a month,
which is 10 a day. Anorexia in itself is a sickness which you
can be cured of, I believe. I am not a doctor. I am not sure.
But what happens when you get these people hooked on marijuana?
What is your answer to that? You put them on marijuana for
medicinal purposes and then you have another problem. How do
you respond to that?
Mr. Kampia. I'm not familiar with that particular petition,
but to answer your question directly, it ultimately should be
left up to the doctor and the patient. Doctors prescribe drugs
every day that are far more addictive and give the patient a
far easier chance of overdosing than marijuana. I am hoping
that Congressman Weldon could verify what I just said.
There has never been an overdose death from marijuana in
the history of our country. There are legal medicines that are
prescribed every day by doctors where patients have a very real
chance of overdosing or becoming physically addictive. What
we're saying is treat marijuana like any other medicine. Allow
doctors and patients to make the determination as to whether or
not it should be used. And yes, marijuana isn't free or devoid
of negative side effects, but the Institute of Medicine found,
and you will hear more about it in the next panel, that the
negative health effects of marijuana are certainly within the
realm of reason, given the drugs that are already available by
prescription in our society.
Mrs. Jo Ann Davis of Virginia. I apologize in being late in
hearing your testimony, but these other drugs you are talking
about that the doctors prescribe, they do just that. They
prescribe and tell you how much of a dosage you can take and
they wean you off. Maybe I'm misunderstanding it, but on
medical marijuana, it is not necessarily prescribed but
recommended. And you can grow it in your own backyard, so the
dosage is not controlled by the doctor. It is controlled by
you. And the doctor doesn't wean you off, you wean yourself off
if you can. Am I correct in that?
Mr. Kampia. The State laws in most cases specify an upper
quantity limit that you are allowed to possess. Then you use
whatever you need to use in order to treat your condition,
similar to a doctor prescribing you a big bottle of pills. If
you wanted to you could eat all the pills in 1 day. But if you
are smart and you want to treat your condition, you would take
half a pill a day or one pill a day.
Mrs. Jo Ann Davis of Virginia. Who controls the amount that
you can grow?
Mr. Kampia. The only way that patients can get access to a
safe supply of marijuana is to grow their own. So, that's the
best that we can do. If you are not happy with that scenario
and you want to work with us----
Mrs. Jo Ann Davis of Virginia. Don't want to work with you.
Don't misunderstand me.
Mr. Kampia. You don't want to work with us. I don't know if
it is protocol to ask a question. Maybe I'll rephrase it as a
statement.
Mrs. Jo Ann Davis of Virginia. Fine by me.
Mr. Souder. It is not protocol, but if you would like to
put a general comment in the record.
Mr. Kampia. I think one thing that the committee might be
interested in knowing is that right now it is more difficult to
do clinical trials on the medical uses of marijuana than any
other drug in our society. And I have always been working under
the assumption that Congress intended for marijuana to be
treated like any other potential medicine. Do the clinical
trials. If the FDA buys it, sure. Approve it. But let's not
have these voter initiatives deciding what is medicine.
If that is really where Congress is on this issue and you
want to see clinical trials move forward, I would point out
that the Clinton administration released guidelines in 1999
which make it much more difficult to do research on marijuana.
So if you don't want to work with me, perhaps work among
yourselves to try to ask the Bush administration to make those
guidelines different so that legitimate researchers who have
FDA approval can actually get a quantity of marijuana to study
in a clinical trial and not have it be any more difficult than
studying any other potential medicines in our society.
Mrs. Jo Ann Davis of Virginia. I think the scary part is
watching our children study it.
Mr. Souder. Thank you. I thank the first panel for coming.
I know that many of you travelled from a long distance. We have
additional written questions that we may ask each of you for
additional answers. Once again, I thank each you for coming.
I would just like to say for the record that as a person
who has opposed some of those research studies, I do not favor
looking at illegal narcotics for the medicinal value. I am
encouraged to find alternatives to illegal narcotics to address
the problem.
If the next panel could come forward.
We have distinguished witnesses with us on our second panel
and I very much appreciate all of you joining us today and we
look forward to your testimony as well.
From the administration we will hear from Laura Nagel, who
is the Deputy Assistant Administrator for diversion control at
the Drug Enforcement Agency. We're also joined by two of our
distinguished former colleagues, Bill McCollum of Florida and
Dan Lungren of California who has not been invited just because
he is a Notre Dame grad, but it is an extra bonus that we get
today. And also testifying will be Dr. Janet Joy from the
Institute of Medicine from the National Academy of Sciences.
Again, as an oversight committee, it is our standard
practice to ask all of our witnesses to testify under oath. If
the witnesses will rise--and Congressman Lungren, if you want
to just sit there and hold your hand up, that is just fine.
Raise your right hands and I will administer the oath.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Souder. Let the record show that the witnesses have all
answered in the affirmative.
We will now recognize the witnesses for their opening
statements. Again, we ask to you summarize in the 5 minutes and
include any fuller statements you may wish to make in the
record.
Ms. Nagel, to you. Do you have an opening statement?
STATEMENTS OF LAURA NAGEL, DEPUTY ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR,
DIVERSION CONTROL, DRUG ENFORCEMENT ADMINISTRATION; BILL
MCCOLLUM, FORMER CHAIRMAN, U.S. HOUSE SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIME;
DAN LUNGREN, FORMER CALIFORNIA STATE ATTORNEY GENERAL; AND
JANET JOY, SENIOR PROGRAM OFFICER, DIVISION OF NEUROSCIENCE AND
BEHAVIORAL HEALTH, INSTITUTE OF MEDICINE
Ms. Nagel. Thank you, Chairman Souder and members of the
subcommittee. Good afternoon and thank you for the opportunity
to address this subcommittee on the effects certain State laws
have had on the enforcement of Federal narcotic laws.
Mr. Chairman, on behalf of Administrator Marshall, I would
like to thank you and the subcommittee for the unwavering
support you have given to the Drug Enforcement Administration
and drug law enforcement in general.
Let me begin with a discussion of the Controlled Substance
Act and the scheduling process. The CSA was passed to minimize
the quantity of abusable substances available while providing
for legitimate medical, scientific, and industrial needs for
those substances in the United States. The CSA places
legitimate and illicit substances with a substantial potential
for abuse into one of five schedules. This placement is based
on the substance's accepted medical use, safety, potential for
abuse and/or dependence liability.
Schedule 1 is the most restrictive and schedule 5 is the
least restrictive schedule. The act also provides a mechanism
for substances to be controlled, added to a schedule,
decontrolled, or removed from a schedule and rescheduled or
transferred from one schedule to another.
In 1995, DEA received a petition to transfer marijuana from
schedule 1 control. This petition was based on the assertion
that marijuana has lower abuse potential than other substances
in schedule 1. The accepted medical use issue was not addressed
in the petition. Following the administrative scheduling
process, exhaustive reviews, and evaluations of the scientific
and medical literature and other data were conducted
independently by the Department, Health and Human Services, and
DEA. On March 20, 2001, DEA denied the petitioner's request to
reschedule marijuana on both legal and scientific grounds.
I would like now to address the impact State laws have had
on Federal law enforcement. These State laws purport to
legalize marijuana for medical use. These so-called medical
marijuana laws work as follows: If a doctor recommends, no
prescription is required, that a patient use marijuana for any
ailment, then it is legal for the patient to grow and use
marijuana. However, ``medical marijuana'' is a misnomer since
marijuana is in fact a schedule 1 drug.
The situation has been viewed as a green light for many
marijuana growers and distributors who recognize that State and
local officials are looking the other way. State judges have
ordered law enforcement officials to return marijuana seized
from criminal defendants who claim to be handling the drug for
medical reasons. Even when local police have made arrests and
seizures, there have been numerous instances where district
attorneys have been unwilling to prosecute because the
defendants complied with the spirit of the State law. In
essence, allowing traffickers to carry on with impunity in this
manner undercuts the enforcement of the CSA and allows an
unproven and potentially dangerous drug to be sold to the
public as medicine.
Two pending lawsuits have developed from law enforcement
efforts to keep this situation in check. In United States v.
Oakland Cannabis Buyers Cooperative, the United States sought
an injunction ordering this cannabis club to stop growing and
distributing marijuana in violation of Federal law. The club
claimed a medical necessity defense. The U.S. Supreme Court
will hear argument on this case tomorrow.
In Conant v. ONDCP, a group of Californians sued the
government claiming that doctors have a free speech right to
recommend that their patients use marijuana in violation of
Federal law. The Federal District Court agreed and issued an
injunction which prohibits DEA from investigating doctors who
recommend marijuana, or from revoking their DEA registrations.
Last, I would like to point out that the United States is a
party to several international treaties to control
international and domestic traffic in controlled substances.
Congress and the CSA expressly recognize these treaties. Most
of the provisions of the CSA must be enforced in order for the
United States to meet its obligation under these treaties.
There is no doubt that proposition 215 and similar State
initiatives provide an obstacle to the United States meeting
its obligations under these treaties. In addition, these State
marijuana initiatives to remain in force potentially undermines
diplomatic efforts by other countries, like Mexico and
Colombia, to enact and vigorously enforce their drug laws.
In conclusion, I would like to thank the subcommittee for
the opportunity to comment on this highly controversial but
important topic and look forward to answering questions.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Nagel follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Thank you, and I again want to welcome our
former colleague, Congressman McCollum, who was a leader in the
Crime Subcommittee and a leader in the drug task force. We miss
you very much. You were a very articulate spokesman in the
antidrug effort. Hopefully, you can continue to stay involved
in this administration.
Mr. McCollum. Thank you, very much, Mr. Chairman for
letting us come and talk about this subject.
Mr. Chairman, marijuana is not a medicine, it is an illegal
drug. Smoked marijuana is a highly dangerous narcotic. In
addition to its addictive qualities, it is known to cause
cancer and harm the body's immune system. The American Medical
Association and many other medical groups oppose the use of
smoked marijuana for medicinal purposes, citing the fact that
its addictive qualities and health hazards far outweigh any
medical value. The AMA points out that what medicinal value
there is in a marijuana plant has been approved by the Food and
Drug Administration and been available in prescription pill
form for a long time.
Nonetheless, the State initiative movement to ``legalize''
smoked marijuana for medicinal purposes has resulted in eight
States legalizing the possession of certain amounts of
marijuana for so-called medicinal purposes.
As one might expect, prosecution of trafficking or
possession of marijuana in these States under State law has
become much more difficult, and where there is a recommendation
from a doctor, virtually nonexistent. In turn, this has made
the job of Federal law enforcement, especially that of the Drug
Enforcement Administration, much more difficult. The Controlled
Substances Act is a Federal law that prohibits trafficking in
marijuana anywhere in the United States. Trafficking in
marijuana recommended for medicinal purposes in the eight
States that have passed marijuana initiatives is still a crime
under the Controlled Substances Act. DEA is rightfully
concerned that the absence of any prosecution for these
activities in the given States will send a message not only in
those States, but throughout the country and the world that
undermines the moral foundation for controlling trafficking in
marijuana generally and undermines the deterrent effect of the
Controlled Substances Act.
In the case being heard tomorrow in the Supreme Court, the
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling effectively nullifies
Federal law in medical marijuana cases. This being challenged
there. Technically, it involves, as you have heard other
witnesses say, a narrow matter of the government's burden of
proof in seeking injunctive relief under the Controlled
Substances Act, but has a broad implication for Federal
prosecutions as well.
Congress, in making marijuana a schedule 1 drug and
prohibiting its sale, distribution, and possession under the
Federal Controlled Substances Act determined by that act, by
passing that law and making that schedule, that it had--that
marijuana had no medical utility. In addition, the Food and
Drug Administration has never approved it as a medication and
no drug can be prescribed without approval.
The supremacy clause of the United States Constitution
nullifies any State act to contradict these Federal laws.
Although one can never be certain of the constitutionality of a
law under challenge until the Supreme Court rules, I believe in
all likelihood that the results of the court ruling tomorrow
will be injunctive relief and the prosecution of marijuana
traffickers will prevail, regardless of the protections of
State initiatives in question. And I also believe that the
medical necessity argument will be thrown out.
The more pertinent question then is whether and under what
conditions Federal prosecution should be undertaken. In my
view, Federal prosecution should be undertaken only in the
context of a new broader policy initiative by the Bush
administration to educate the American public on the dangers of
smoked marijuana and the dangers of initiatives such as
proposition 215. Until such a policy and plan of action to go
with it are developed and adopted, confrontational Federal
prosecutions of marijuana trafficking protected under State
laws are likely to engender more harm than good.
It is obvious from the fact that these initiatives have
passed in the affected States that those proposing them have
been successful in persuading the public of the alleged benign
nature of these inititatives. Many, if not most of the
residents of these States, seem to have no comprehension of the
true dangers of smoked marijuana. Neither do they seem to
appreciate that the effect of how these initiatives have been
drafted is to undermine efforts to control marijuana
trafficking in the affected States and elsewhere. Federal
prosecution of these trafficking crimes, given the current
climate of a poorly informed public, could well cause a
political backlash.
We need the concerned mothers and fathers of America to
rise up in their communities all across this country and
educate their friends and neighbors and the public opinion
makers on the dangers of smoked marijuana, the importance to
our children of not legalizing marijuana, and the perils of the
course these initiatives are taking us on. The President and
the Office of National Drug Control Policy need to develop and
implement a plan to educate, motivate and organize parents
across the Nation to bring about a state of public opinion that
will sustain a policy in opposition to medical marijuana
initiatives. A policy of enforcement of Federal law against all
trafficking in marijuana, regardless of its intended use, and
the policy that discourages rather than encourages teen use of
marijuana and other narcotics.
As a part of this effort, at some point enforcement of
Federal criminal laws against marijuana traffickers in the
medical marijuana States would be appropriate. The promoters of
medical marijuana and the legalization of marijuana must be
confronted. Appeasement will only make them more aggressive and
more successful. But again, such prosecution should only be
undertaken in the context of a larger national policy.
Just last week, two teenagers appearing before a Senate
committee hearing on ecstasy told the Senators that ecstasy was
not the first drug they used, marijuana was. Not only is
marijuana dangerous in its own right; it is the gateway drug to
cocaine, heroin, ecstacy, methamphetamines and many more.
Any message that says to our children that it is OK or
acceptable to smoke marijuana is dangerous. And that is just a
fact. The message being sent by medical marijuana initiatives
that have been passed in California and other States is
precisely such a dangerous message. We must find a way to
counter it and rally public opinion to do so. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. McCollum follows:]
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Mr. Souder. Thank you again, Mr. McCollum. And I want to
say that one of the more moving testimonies that we had in this
subcommittee was in a hearing that we had done jointly with you
in Orlando on the heroin question where we had a young boy and
his dad who was a local elected official. They went public
together and the young boy talked about how he started on the
marijuana habit and how it evolved and how his dad had wanted
to wish the best, and his dad cried in public, said--and I
didn't want to acknowledge what was going on with my family,
and I am coming forward today because I want to warn other
parents. That was moving testimony of the interrelationships. I
want to thank you again for your leadership.
Dr. Joy.
Ms. Joy. Good afternoon, Chairman Souder and members of the
committee. In 1996, I think it was--I am forgetting my date--
the Institute of Medicine was asked by the Office of National
Drug Control Policy to conduct an independent scientific review
of the medical benefits of marijuana. And I served as the study
director on that report and that's what I'll be talking about
today is that report.
We were asked to review the scientific evidence--it's not a
legal review. The report makes no--takes no position on the
legal status of medical marijuana. And I should add that we
were also asked to look at the--examine the evidence of the
gateway effect of marijuana.
As such, this report represents the views and inputs of the
Nation's leading scientists whom we assembled to provide the
panel with information and so forth. What was striking about
the study was the level of consensus on the scientific evidence
of the therapeutic potential of medical marijuana and its
constituent components I should add. And I'm going to move from
there to just reviewing the recommendations for you.
The committee concluded that canabinoids--and that's the
category of drug of which THC is a part. There are other
canabinoids in marijuana. Not all of them are strongly linked
to therapeutic benefits. Canabinoids also exist naturally in
the human body. The panel concluded that canabinoids likely
have a control in pain modulation, control of movement and
memory.
Canabinoids affect the body in very different ways, not all
of which is known, but a tremendous amount of new information
has been learned from research in the past 10 years. And as a
result of this new information, coupled with lack of
information, the committee recommended that research should
continue into the physiological effects of synthetic as well as
plant-derived canabinoids, as well as the natural functions of
canabinoids found in the body.
The second recommendation concerned clinical trials. The
committee did, in fact, recommend clinical trials. These are
clinical trials of canabinoid drugs, meaning chemically defined
drugs, meaning the standard pharmaceutical development pathway.
This was derived from the committee's conclusion that there
are scientific data that indicate the potential therapeutic
value of canabinoid drugs, primarily THC, for pain relief,
control of nausea and vomiting, and appetite simulation. They
further noted that smoked marijuana, however, is a crude THC
delivery system that also delivers harmful substances. And I
will take an aside to note here that Marinol is not an
equivalent for smoked marijuana, ``marijuana'' being the
legally available THC. There is an important pharmacological
difference between smoking a substance versus swallowing it,
and that is rapid onset of action. So the committee recommended
developing systems for delivery that permitted rapid onset of
action.
OK. Recommendation 3 concerned the multiple effects of
canabinoid drugs which includes marijuana. The psychological
effects of canabinoids, which include anxiety reduction,
sedation and euphoria can influence their potential therapeutic
value. This may be positive or negative; potentially
undesirable for certain patients in certain situations and
beneficial for others. One complication is that the euphoria
can mask the perceived benefit. So the committee recommended
that the psychological effects of canabinoids should be
evaluated in any clinical trial.
The fourth recommendation is based on the conclusion that
numerous studies suggest that marijuana smoke is an important
risk factor in the development of respiratory disease. Note
that the committee did not say that it has been proven. It has
not been proven, although it is true that marijuana smoke
contains many of the same substances as tobacco. And the
committee thus recommended studies to define the individual
health risks of smoking marijuana to be conducted, particularly
among populations in which marijuana use is prevalent. This is
a safety issue, not a recommendation that these people use it,
but an acknowledgment that there are many, many people smoking
marijuana, and we know very little about the negative
physiological health effects.
OK. The committee was also asked to address the gateway
drug. They made no recommendations about this. But they did
note that in the sense that marijuana use typically precedes
rather than follows initiation of other illicit drug use, it is
indeed a gateway drug. But because underage smoking and alcohol
use typically precede marijuana use, marijuana is not actually
the most common and is rarely the first gateway to illicit drug
use. There is no conclusive evidence that the drug effects of
marijuana are causally linked to the subsequent abuse of other
illicit drugs. That doesn't mean they don't precede them, but
the causal link has not been established by any scientific
studies.
OK. So to summarize, the committee concluded that present
data on drug use progression neither support nor refute the
suggestion that medical availability would increase drug abuse.
However, this question is beyond the issues normally considered
for medical uses of drugs and should not be a factor in
evaluating the therapeutic potential of marijuana or
canabinoids. The committee discussed some of the scientific
data on gateway drugs and I'll come back to that later in
questioning. I don't think I have time to elaborate.
The second to last recommendation which was the fifth
recommended clinical trials of marijuana use for medical
purposes being conducted, but only under limited circumstances.
Trials should involve only short-term marijuana use, less than
6 months. They should be conducted only in patients with
conditions for which there is reasonable expectation of
efficacy. They should be approved by institutional review
boards and should collect data about efficacy.
Now an important point here is that the goal of these
clinical trials would not be to develop marijuana as a licensed
drug, but rather to serve as a first step toward the possible
development of nonsmoked, rapid onset canabinoid delivery
systems.
And the last recommendation--in the meantime, there are
patients with debilitating symptoms for whom smoked marijuana
might provide relief. The use of smoked marijuana for those
patients should weigh both the expected efficacy of marijuana
and ethical issues in patient case, including providing
information about the known and suspected risks of smoked
marijuana.
So the last recommendation then states, smoked short-term
of marijuana use, less than 6 months, for patients with
debilitating symptoms such as intractable pain or vomiting must
meet the following conditions: first, failure of all approved
medications to provide relief has been documented; the symptoms
can reasonably be expected to be relieved by rapid onset
canabinoid drugs; such treatment is administered under medical
supervision in a manner that allows for assessment of treatment
effectiveness; and last, involves an oversight strategy
comparable to an institutional review board process that could
provide guidance within 24 hours of submission by a physician
to provide marijuana to patient for specified use.
And I'll point out that this is considerably narrower than
any of the State ballot initiatives, but it does acknowledge
the fact that, although the panel recommends traditional
pharmaceutical development for the active ingredients and
whatever synthetics can be manufactured, there remains the
problem of people with debilitating and devastating conditions
for whom none of our medications have proven effective. And
that ends my comments.
Mr. Souder. Thank you. It is great to have you with us,
Congressman Lungren.
Mr. Lungren. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The way my back feels
and as long as I waited to testify, I may be voting for medical
marijuana before we leave here. Just a joke. I'm sorry.
The subject of today's hearing, ``Medical Marijuana Federal
Drug Law and the Constitution Supremacy Clause'' may at first
blush appear to be overly legalistic and sometimes antiseptic,
but upon reflection, goes to a core question which emerges with
greater and greater vitality, and which if ignored, threatens
to overwhelm society's appropriate concern about the drug
problem itself.
Variously stated, it boils down to this: Has the war on
drugs trampled on our constitutional framework and our
constitutional rights? While I would vigorously answer this in
the negative, the very fact that we are having this inquiry
today compelled by various State initiatives purporting to
liberalize or liberate the use of marijuana and other schedule
1 controlled substances needs to be addressed.
It is a fact that an uncertainty of approach has been
allowed to develop throughout this country. Real doubt about
the chances for success has taken hold. Wealthy advocates of
partial or total decriminalization or legalization of drugs,
such as George Soros, have effectively manipulated this doubt
using their wealth to succeed with various schemes to
legitimize the use of illegal drugs under certain
circumstances.
In California, for instance, Mr. Soros and his allies
outspent the opposition 100 to 1 in gaining passage of the
medicinal marijuana initiative. What is most important to
understand is that they are succeeding increasingly to
undermine our society's previously consistent opposition to
drug use, particularly among our youth. This assault on the
common distaste for drug use, and all that it causes, has
attracted partial support of many common sense individuals who
have become confused about the purposes of our government's
response to the problem.
I think we need to acknowledge that some of this has
occurred as a result of a perceived refusal on the part of
government leaders to at least reexamine some parts of the war
on drugs to see if and where we may have made mistakes. With
the new administration comes a unique opportunity to review,
reform and reinvigorate the campaign against drug abuse, and I
truly believe that President Bush's philosophy of compassionate
conservatism can address this problem in a special way, since
within its parameters there is no need to apologize for being
both tough and loving.
It seems to me we have to recognize that drug abuse has
lost its place on the national stage. We have to reassert the
fact that it is a national problem or, more precisely, a
national tragedy, which touches every part of our social
fabric. Hollywood has finally reawakened to this. The movie
Traffic is an example of that. I give Traffic high marks for
illustrating the reach of this problem, the magnitude of the
problem. I give it lower marks, however, for the conclusion,
which I suggest suggests to us that there is no answer. That
this is an insoluble problem. It is solvable, we just have to
put our minds to it.
But as one who has participated in this fight on both the
Federal and State levels, as well as interfaced with the
private sector, I believe that discordant messages which we
have seen for the last 8 years at least, and divided leadership
are the ingredients for failure, if not disaster. I have seen
what happens when there is a major policy cleavage in law
enforcement at the Federal and State levels.
I can go into that specifically if you would like to talk
about that, or at State and local levels. Not only does the
failure to agree render cooperation impossible for the task at
hand, it also tends to make cooperation on associated or
related activities difficult as well.
At the very least, inertia is often a by-product. The drive
to create many different laws concerning illegal drugs
throughout the country will only exacerbate the problem, and in
the process, confuse the citizens that our laws are supposed to
serve. I would suggest there are few things more debilitating
to a representative democracy than a failure to make clear what
is criminally prohibited and what is not. This is particularly
true of a subject as serious and pervasive as drug abuse.
As the legal analysis for this question reaches its zenith
in the U.S. Supreme Court considerations, suffice it to say
that the supremacy clause of the Constitution makes it clear
that to whatever extent Congress has exercised its legitimate
powers, any inconsistent State powers are prohibited. It is
hornbook law that a State law would be held void if it would
retard, impede, burden, or otherwise stand as an obstacle to
the accomplishment and execution of the full purposes and
objectives of Congress in enacting the Federal law.
But whatever decision is ultimately rendered, my hope is
that the importance of congressional decisions commenced some
90 years ago and their progeny to protect the public from
health charlatans and flim-flam artists selling their special
elixirs will be recognized. A successful effort in the
wholesale overturning of the FDA and allied enforcement
mechanisms would be disastrous for the country. Yet as
important as the question about the supremacy clause may be, an
equally important question looms. Does the Federal Government
and various State governments, for that matter, stand the
chance of being repudiated by the public on the matter of drug
legalization? I suggest here we might take a healthy dose of
humility in the political sector. While I have strong doubts
about the efficacy of marijuana for medical purposes, I have
discovered, at least in California, that the public believes
this is a question that should be seriously considered.
The reluctance of most in government to permit a full-scale
medical and scientific testing of the possible medical uses of
marijuana and its constituent parts has created an environment
in which the citizenry at large opts for the only proposals
presented to them. While such initiatives, and I think this
goes to the question you asked Congressman Cummings, why are
people voting for them? I don't think they're stupid. There's a
reason. I think they're wrong in California because such
initiatives result in putting the cart before the horse. That
is approving marijuana for medicinal purposes before it is ever
proven to be safe and effective in such circumstances.
But why do they do that? I think they vote for compassion
or sympathy over law enforcement concerns. This growing
movement has the potential of dramatically altering the Federal
presence in the drug battles. While I can recite the past
studies on marijuana, I know they are falling presently on deaf
ears. That's why I support a full-blown study in California. In
order for it to be effective, the Federal Government needs to
grant the proper waivers. I would suggest that would be an
appropriate thing. And I think we all should agree that we will
abide by the scientific decisions that are made. Treat it as we
would treat other studies of drugs. I don't think that they are
going to be successful, but if they are, we will allow that to
direct our decisionmaking.
Mr. Chairman, one of the things I learned through the
experience of prop 215 in California is how voters will be
willing to upset long established enforced law schemes if they
are convinced of a compassionate necessity. The argument which
drove the proposition's electoral success in California was
simple, and this is the way it was stated. People with chronic
pain should have marijuana as a medical option if all else
fails to alleviate terrible pain, and if the underlying
provable facts support the proponents, who could be against it?
It is difficult to be able to analyze that, though, in the heat
of a campaign.
It occurs to me that as the medical community has begun to
more fully appreciate the reality of pain and concomitant need
to address it effectively, the medical regulatory nexus needs
to adjust accordingly. Use of controlled substances under
proper medical indication should not be denied in pain
management circumstances for fear of possible abuse and other
scenarios. Greater recognition by HMO's and insurance companies
of the appropriate and efficacious applications of pain
management and treatment are in order.
In a similar vein, I would suggest we should reexamine the
role of mandatory minimum sentences in certain types of drug
cases, and honestly determine, for instance, whether the
treatment of crack cocaine within the criminal justice system
has had a fairly disproportionate impact on minority youth. I
remember being on the subcommittee that wrote that law in the
80's. And I remember we responded to cries from the minority
community that crack cocaine was killing the community. That's
why we went so hard on the penalties involved with crack
cocaine. We did it for a good purpose.
If, in fact, there's been a disproportionate impact, if, in
fact, it has disproportionate impact on the community and make
it look like we treat different races or different groups
differently, then we ought to take a look at it. I know what we
did and why we did it, but I think we ought to recognize, or at
least I recognize now, at least in my State, that in many ways
we are losing, you might call it the public relations, or I
would call it the public opinion battle. And in order to get it
back and get us back onto what we need to do, which is to have
a single message on drugs from the top to the bottom having us
all working together, government and nongovernment, all parts
of our culture together.
I think some of us who believe very, very strongly in this
ought to at least have an open mind toward considering some of
these things that I suggested. I thank you very much, Mr.
Chairman, for your time.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Lungren follows:]
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Mr. Souder. I thank you, Congressman Lungren, Attorney
General Lungren. Let me say, I think we will be forced into
this reevaluation whether we want to or not because the general
public is demanding changes and we need to figure out, for
example, in the penalties on differentials on powder and crack
whether we lower one or raise the other, but there ought to be
an equivalency, and we do have to look at unintended
consequences and we need to be willing to look at variables.
But I want to come back to a couple of things, a couple of
questions for Dr. Joy here. I want to make sure we have in the
record a couple of key quotes. In 1997, Surgeon General David
Satcher wrote that there is no scientific sound evidence that
smoked marijuana is medically superior to currently available
therapies, including an oral prescription medication containing
the active ingredient in marijuana. Now your statement, I
understood in the recommendations to say, that the primary
things was speed in smoked. Is that how you would reconcile
this statement which is somewhat contrary?
Ms. Joy. I wouldn't even want to say what the primary
difference is, but there is an important pharmacological
difference in the onset of the drug effect depending on how it
is delivered. If you take it in a pill form it's longer, and in
the case of Marinol it is much more variable. If it is inhaled
the effect is within minutes.
Mr. Souder. Why would the surgeon general have said there
is no scientific sound evidence that that is medically
superior?
Ms. Joy. I didn't say medically superior. I said it's very
different. Personally, you can imagine if you were suffering
severe nausea, you might like a rapid onset. I am not going to
say what he's thinking, though.
Mr. Souder. Yeah, but I would assume relief is part of
that, but it's not necessarily. Now he also wrote that the
Center for Disease Control also supports HHS Secretary Donna
Shalala, who stated California's proposition 215 and Arizona's
proposition 200 are particularly dangerous and misguided
efforts, and I oppose them in the strongest possible terms.
You made it pretty clear that the guidelines, particularly
your sixth point, have nothing to do really with California
because you said they had to work under close supervision,
there was, I think, limited quantities, you had to have
exhausted all other remedies, none of which are in the
California law or Arizona.
Ms. Joy. You are correct in stating that the IOM panel's
recommendations are different from California law and more
strict. The IOM recommendations say nothing about quantity.
Mr. Souder. OK. I misspoke. Sorry. In 1999, ONDCP Deputy
Director Donald Vereen reviewed the study in congressional
testimony concluded, there is little future in smoked
marijuana, a medically approved medication. This is because
long term harms of smoking made it a poor delivery system and
because cannabis plants contain a variable mixture of
biological compounds and don't meet the modern expectation for
consistency.
Can you comment on those two things? The delivery system
and the consistency question, and then respond also to this
question. Do you know of any approved medicine in smoked form?
Ms. Joy. I can't think as fast as you can talk. What you
said were quoting Don Vereen saying was almost a verbatim quote
from the report itself. So yes, we would concur with that. Then
you said something about the harms, did you?
Mr. Souder. I said do you know any approved medicine in
smoked form.
Ms. Joy. No.
Mr. Souder. So there would be no reason--how could--why
wouldn't you have--I don't believe in her testimony, she went
through all this, but Ms. Nagel has an extensive--in the
written testimony how the FDA tried to isolate the components
in marijuana into other forms. Why wouldn't that be the logical
way to do it if there is no smoked alternative in any form of
authorized drugs? Why wouldn't the goal rather than study, the
impact of marijuana, why wouldn't the goal be to isolate the
subcomponent of marijuana?
Ms. Joy. That is the goal.
Mr. Souder. So Marinol, Nabilone, Cesamet, I think that's
one of the----
Ms. Joy. The name is Nabilone.
Mr. Souder. Is that brand name for it?
Ms. Joy. Yeah.
Mr. Souder. That in one of those, it's moved from schedule
1 to 2. Marinol went to schedule 3. The goal here is not to--in
fact, it isn't marijuana that's medicinal. It's a component in
marijuana that can be isolated and turned into therapeutic
drugs.
Ms. Joy. What I said is the goal is the development of
rapid onset cannabinoids drugs, which would include THC, but
not be restricted to it. There are a number of synthetic
compounds that are much more effective.
Mr. Souder. So shouldn't the research be focussed on how
these alternatives that don't have downsides as smoking other
dangers as gateway drugs, why wouldn't the focus, if the mere
question was how to address the health aspect, why wouldn't the
focus be on how to get more of an immediate delivery system?
Ms. Joy. That was recommendation No. 2. Should I read it
again?
Mr. Souder. No.
Ms. Joy. That's exactly what the recommendation is. There
is a number of layers to the recommendation. One is recognition
of the fact that there are a lot of sick people out there, and
I'm not talking mentally, I am not trying to make a judgment. I
am talking about people in poor health who smoke marijuana. We
have very little information about what the physiologic effects
are. Many believe that the data on the immune system are highly
inconsistent. So that's the basis of that recommendation. Some
of the recommendations are where to go forward and some of the
recommendations are how to cope with the situation as it
stands.
Mr. Souder. Congressman Cummings.
Mr. Cummings. I have been listening and I tell you, Mr.
Lungren, I want to thank you for your testimony. You are the
first person since I have been here that explained to me why
there is such a difference between the penalties of crack
cocaine and powder cocaine, the first one.
Mr. Lungren. I was here when we did it.
Mr. Cummings. It is incredible because Black people are
being locked up big time, and we don't hear any cries so much
about that and there is such a big difference in the
sentencing, it is phenomenal. And I think you are right, we
definitely need to send a message, whatever it is, and I think
the chairman just mentioned it too, there needs to be a
consistent message whatever it is that if you are going to
penalize the use of drugs, you ought to penalize it wherever
they're found and not base it upon what form they come in. Were
you getting ready to say something?
Mr. Lungren. One of the things I thought worked very well
in the 1980's was criticized by some as being inelegant. It was
Nancy Reagan's ``just say no'' campaign, but that ``just say
no'' rhetoric or rubric stood for an overall consistent policy
that was understood. And believe me, we came from somewhere
else because we didn't have it before and I am not making any
political aspersions.
We got Republicans and Democrats to work together in the
Congress along with the administration. We got Hollywood to
work on it. Hollywood took out the glamorization. Then we seem
to all fall off the wagon. We thought we solved the problem.
Hollywood went back to glamorizing drugs. They're not making
public service announcements. And I will tell you in that
vacuum began the rebirth of the efforts we see in initiatives.
And look, I know some very sincere people who opposed me when I
was opposing proposition 215 in California who truly wanted it
only for medicinal purposes. I know others who want it as a
Trojan horse. I know others have been talking about it for
years and years about the red herring. And I fought all those
battles.
But frankly we lost in California. If I had $2 million as
the other side--that's all they spent was $2 million. We had
$20,000, that's all we could raise against it. And yet the
message is very simple. I have people come up to me all the
time now who are common sense folks, who are overall against
drugs, and they say what's wrong with a little marijuana if we
are going to help people?
We are losing that battle and what I see is the experience
you have in Alaska, that you have the 10 year experiment
brought about by the Supreme Court decision in Alaska where
marijuana was OK, was allowed for private use, not medicinal
use, private use by adults but not for kids.
And what happened during that 10-year period of time? The
marijuana use by kids in Alaska doubled from what it had been
and remained doubled. It was in the rest of the country. So
consistency is important. In terms of the minority community,
obviously, I don't speak for the minority community, but I have
tried to watch it and work with it and deal with it, and I see
the distrust there and I see the questioning there. And when
people say to me by God, it's unfair. You're locking people up
in the African American community for having crack cocaine.
It's no different than powder cocaine, I have to come back and
remember, I remember the subcommittee when we were meeting in
the Judiciary Committee, and one of the members came in and
represented--a part of his community was African American, poor
inner city, and he said this is killing the community. We got
to do something about it. We got to get these people off the
street. We got to have the toughest laws we got. Frankly, that
is why we did it. We didn't do it to punish the community. We
thought we were responding in an appropriate fashion because we
heard the testimony, which was it's far more potent. It's
having a disastrous impact. And frankly, I think it would have
been unfeeling of us not to have responded. What I'm saying now
is if we've had the chance to look at it after 10 or 12 years
and we say hey, we did it with some good intentions, it's had
some unintended consequences.
Mr. Cummings. Big time, big time.
Mr. Lungren. Let's look at that so we don't lose the
support of that part of our community which we need for
consistent anti drug policy.
Mr. Cummings. But just as important, losing all of these
young people who are spending time in jails when white folks
with more cocaine aren't spending that kind of time in jail.
Mr. Lungren. Of course. Let's recognize the difficulty at
times. Where are the buys taking place?
Mr. Cummings. I understand that. I am talking about powder
cocaine and crack cocaine.
Mr. Lungren. I understand.
Mr. Cummings. It's not just getting more people on your
side. It is the fact that so many African American young people
are sitting and rotting in jails and that's--and you know it's
so interesting. But going to you, Mr. McCollum, former
Congressman Lungren states in his testimony that the use of
controlled substances under proper medical indications should
not be denied in pain management circumstances for fear of
possible abuse in other scenarios. He also supports Federal
medical trials to determine whether marijuana for medicinal
purposes are safe and effective. How do you feel about that? Is
that accurate? Don't let me misquote you.
Mr. Lungren. I didn't want--if I misstated and said we
should all use illegal drugs, what I'm saying is those
classified scheduled drugs that are available for prescription
but that many doctors, at least in my experience, are fearful
of using, or have not been educated, understand that they can
be used now, need to be done. Pain management is a relatively
recent development in the area as a specialty in the medical
community. And I think we ought to make sure our doctors are
trained such that they understand the uses of these. And the
other thing, well, I think I will stop right there.
Mr. McCollum. If I can respond. I don't think anybody is
opposed to the scientific study and development of remedies for
pain or for disease in whatever form. We just want to see, and
I want to see the process followed legally. If the Food and
Drug Administration approves a prescription or direction or we
have guidance from the American Medical Association on the
proper efficacy of marijuana compound, then I think all of us
would be happy with that. But right now that's not the case,
and a lot of people are stretching that.
I would like to make one comment, too, because I happen to
share a lot of what Mr. Lungren said, a lot of people don't
know that I served in that same Congress with him when the
crack powder issue came along, and I also served as chairman of
the Subcommittee on Crime for the last 6 years, and prior to
that, with Mr. Hughes when he was chairman.
We tried both when the Democrats had control of the
Congress as well as the Republicans, quite a number of us, to
put the two together, to find a common denominator. We had
those numbers for a while and we couldn't get the votes for
them. And I certainly would encourage those who continue to
have an interest in it to work on that because you could raise
the powder and lower the crack penalties and come up with a
number. It's quite possible that you can do that. You can argue
over what they should be, but they shouldn't be as different as
they are now.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you.
Mr. Burton. Congressman Barr.
Mr. Barr. Thank you Mr. Chairman. Ms. Nagel, thank you for
being here, and please convey our support and admiration for
the work that you and your colleagues at DEA do, and we
appreciate your work on behalf of our country.
Ms. Nagel. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Barr. On page 5 of your statement at the very
beginning, you say in 1995 the DEA received a petition to
transfer marijuana and THC from schedule 1 control, etc. At the
end of that paragraph, you say on March 20, 2001 the DEA denied
the petitioner's request for rulemaking marijuana on both legal
and scientific grounds. Was the work that DEA put into its
decision here, was it fairly extensive or was it very cursory?
Ms. Nagel. No, sir, it took several years. We relied on the
government scientists and medical experts at Health and Human
Services, exhaustive reviews at the same time that the
scientists worked for me, our medical people did a review. And
what's important, the petition never addressed the medical uses
of marijuana, the petition only addressed the abuse because
you're in schedule 1 for two reasons, medical use and the
potential for abuse. This petition only addressed the abuse
potential, and that's what everyone did research on, exhaustive
4 years, I have read it. There was no evidence based on abuse
to move marijuana out of schedule 1, none.
Mr. Barr. Are there any petitions pending to transfer
marijuana out of schedule 1 on medical grounds?
Ms. Nagel. No, sir.
Mr. Barr. Have you had such petitions presented to you?
Ms. Nagel. I believe several years ago we had one under two
or three administrators ago, and at this point, until we get
the scientific and medical basis to act, we can't, we can't
move it out of schedule 1 without that.
Mr. Barr. Thank you. Thank you. I yield to the gentleman
from Florida.
Dr. Weldon.
Mr. Weldon. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I had a
question for you, Dr. Joy. You referred to the report where it
stated that more research was needed, possible use of
cannabinoids in a clinical situation where all available drugs
had been exhausted, I think is the term that you used. Did the
Institute of Medicine study at all how often that clinical
situation actually occurs?
Ms. Joy. No.
Mr. Weldon. OK. I had a feeling that was the case.
Ms. Joy. It would be difficult to get that kind of data.
Mr. Weldon. Well, just from my clinical experience, I never
saw it. I only saw one case where a person was smoking
marijuana. It was a young man who had lymphoma and he was not
particularly experiencing a lot of pain, he was getting
chemotherapy for his lymphoma, but it was pretty obvious he was
getting high, at least based on my clinical assessment of the
patient. And as I stated in my opening statement, I just never
saw that. And frankly I was a little disappointed in the
Institute of Medicine's report for even making that statement,
because it implied there is some validity to the arguments
being put forward by those who are advocating the legalization
of marijuana because you know, really, when you think about it,
there are a lot of countries in the world and there are a lot
of pharmaceutical companies all over the world, and if there
was some real potential for this drug, I would think that
somewhere it would be researched and studied and demonstrated
scientifically.
The Trojan horse issue which Dan Lungren brought up, I
think, is clearly operative in this whole marijuana debate. And
I think George Soros has made no bones about it, that he wants
to see marijuana legalized and he is the one funding a lot of
these initiatives.
I had another question, you also, in the Institute of
Medicine report, you talk about the development of a rapid
delivery system to study this. There again it relates to my
other question, why would you need this if there's really no
real clinical need for the drug?
Ms. Joy. Can I interject, because I'm having trouble
tracking all your questions. The committee does feel that there
are certain unmet needs. The treatment of pain is notoriously
difficult, especially neuropathic pain. So the committee does
see an unmet need. It is very difficult to assess the breadth
of that need.
Mr. Weldon. If I could just comment, my experience, and I
took care of a lot of chronic pain patients usually in
coordination with an anesthesiologist, and my experience with
chronic pain is that it's usually the clinicians don't know how
to manage it and that's why these patients have chronic pain,
including people with things like peripheral neuropathies and
reflex sympathetic dystrophies, things that are notoriously
very, very hard to manage.
But in the course of the research, was there any scientific
evidence that you unearthed at that point? Marijuana was useful
in those clinical situations?
Ms. Joy. Well, one of the members of our panel was a
leading neurologist in the treatment of pain, and he presented
a different scenario than you're describing. It's not really my
position to speak to who said what. Your experience was
different.
Mr. Weldon. Please forgive me. We've been beating you up.
Ms. Joy. I'm OK with that.
Mr. Weldon. You were the staff person, and you put together
the report, but you were not personally responsible for the
scientific opinions in the report or am I mistaken?
Ms. Joy. The Institute of Medicine is responsible for the
scientific opinions. I know the report probably better than
anyone else. It's a little unfair of me to speak outside the
report since I am here representing the report. But I can say
that one of the panel members was a neurologist who specializes
in pain. I can say that very recent scientific data are
extremely compelling in terms of cannabinoids acting, and this
is in animal studies, on different pain pathways than the
traditional morphine, and also in a way that might decrease the
need for morphine in the treatment of pain. So scientifically,
there are--well.
Mr. Weldon. Those are animal studies that showed
cannabinoids that acted on different pathways. There have been
no clinical trials of marijuana demonstrating that marijuana is
useful in the treatment of pain, correct?
Ms. Joy. You are absolutely right, and I think there's one
being started in California on the treatment of neuropathic
pain, and that wasn't available at the time of the report.
Mr. Weldon. The only clinical trials I know of are for
marijuana being used as an antiemetic, correct?
Ms. Joy. There were clinical trials in the 70's as an
antiemetic. There were small clinical trials. They weren't all,
in fact, they weren't all terribly wonderful. You may already
know this, this is in the report--a lot of people----
Mr. Weldon. It was not very effective?
Ms. Joy. A lot of people in those clinical trials in the
cancer patients in the 70's, the dropout rate, I'm forgetting
now, is 25 percent.
Mr. Weldon. They didn't like the effect on their level of
consciousness?
Ms. Joy. Right.
Mr. Weldon. The mind altering properties?
Ms. Joy. Right.
Mr. Weldon. The Institute of Medicine referred to the
gateway issue, and you made some statements about that. If you
could just elaborate a little bit. The reviewers, or the
members of panel, acknowledge that most people who go on to use
other drugs start with marijuana, but then they go on from
there to sort of conclude there's no cause and effect
conclusion there. You can't--but were they not really talking
about a scientific process?
It's very hard to scientifically prove that marijuana leads
to heroin, but you can clearly demonstrate by just interviewing
heroin users that a significant percentage of them start with
marijuana, and therefore it is reasonable to conclude it's a
gateway drug. But the IOM report seemed to imply that we can't
prove that. But that's because it would require a large
scientific study where you would have to take people and give
them marijuana and see how many of them go on to heroine.
Ms. Joy. Well, there have been large epidemiological
studies. If I may, I'll read something about the gateway effect
story. It's a little confusing because now, as I read before,
the report does state that in the sense that it precedes the
use of cocaine and heroin, it is a gateway drug. In the sense
that it causes a person to use those substances, there's no
data.
Mr. Weldon. There's no scientific evidence to back that up,
is that not what they have concluded?
Ms. Joy. There's scientific evidence to back it up, that
marijuana precedes cocaine and heroin uses. It also adds what
precedes marijuana use is usually underage alcohol and tobacco.
That is the first step in the pathway to abuse.
Most of the gateway studies, and I'm thinking of Denise
Kandel, who has done really extensive studies out of Columbia,
are about one-time-only use, and they don't address what we
call abuse. So that included, in that study, people that tried
it only once as opposed to who abused it, understanding that
for some, you might say even once-only use is abuse, but abuse
in the definition of the DSM IV, which is the diagnostic and
statistical manual for psychiatric disorders.
The trick about the gateway issue, I will read from the
report now, ``the gateway analogy evokes two ideas that are
often confused, the first more often referred to as the
stepping-stone hypothesis, is the idea that progression from
marijuana to other drugs arises from pharmacological properties
of marijuana itself.'' And there's no evidence to that
particularly--well, OK I'll go on.
``The second is that marijuana serves as gateway to the
world illegal drugs in which youths have greater opportunity
and are under greater social pressure to use illegal drugs.''
That is the one that is most often used in the scientific
literature, and that's where the sequence comes from.
Mr. Souder. Dr. Joy, one concern I have that you have
raised earlier, you don't address what most of us say, and that
is, most of us don't maintain that there is necessarily a
physical relationship or physiological relationship
necessarily, although there is some certain causal relationship
about the people that you are with, but in fact it's an
experiential or psychological relationship, was that addressed?
For example, you want to get high, the high kind of goes dead
after a while, and you want to get a further high. You didn't
address that in either of those.
Ms. Joy. That's a social----
Mr. Souder. Social, the implication was, in our earlier
panel, was is that the social was because you're involving
illegal, and you used this earlier in your testimony as well,
illegal alcohol, illegal tobacco, therefore you're in a circle
where you're getting exposed to an illegal drug.
Ms. Joy. In my earlier statement, I did not say anything
about social and physiological. Here what I wanted to do is
make a distinction between the idea that you somehow changed
your brain or something, making it want more stimulation of a
stronger nature. I might not be quite understanding what you
were saying, but I did want to show you how the panel had
separated the two and what they were talking about.
Mr. Souder. I think there is a distinct third that you
didn't address there. There is a social pressure, which you
alluded to, and a physiological addiction which would say that
marijuana may physiological--it's much what we argue about the
other habits in your life, that is the habit an actual physical
addiction, for example, alcohol for many people becomes a
physical condition, to some degree it becomes a psychological
dependency. And that's not social. A social would be arguing
that you're at a party and you're a social drinker merely to
fit in. That's merely a different category, and if that's not
in there, that's the one we argue most about.
Ms. Joy. You know, I feel like I'm going to be stepping out
of bounds if I start talking about what substance abuse
researchers talk----
Mr. Souder. You have read the results.
Ms. Joy. But that's not in the report, and I'm not
comfortable going beyond that.
Mr. Souder. Do you have anything?
Mr. Weldon. I just had a couple of questions for Ms. Nagel.
I just wanted to clarify there was a court case you referred to
where the DEA was going to go after doctors who recommended
marijuana where it is not approved. It is a schedule 1
substance. And the court ruled that you could not do that. It
was a district court, I think you said.
Ms. Nagel. It's the Federal District Court in California.
It's an injunction against the DEA.
Mr. Weldon. Is that part of case that's being heard
tomorrow?
Ms. Nagel. No, sir, it's totally separate.
Mr. Weldon. Is that case being appealed by the DEA?
Ms. Nagel. The Department of Justice, I believe, has filed
a notice for appeal, but has not, in fact, filed its appeal
yet.
Mr. Weldon. When did the Department of Justice file its
notice for appeal?
Ms. Nagel. It has been some time.
Mr. Weldon. Was it the previous administration, the Clinton
administration?
Ms. Nagel. Yes.
Mr. Weldon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Souder. I have a couple of additional things I want to
put in for the record, and then we may give you some each
additional written. Congressman McCollum, your resolution that
passed Congress saying that we should not move marijuana off of
schedule 1 and not medicinal is not one of the main arguments
in the solicitor general's case tomorrow. Could you explain
what your view of the effect and meaning of that provision was
for the record?
Mr. McCollum. For the record, Mr. Chairman, my view and I
believe it is the congressional view, it should be very clear
that marijuana is indeed intended by Congress to be a schedule
1 drug. It would not have been done had we thought there would
be medical utility, because obviously schedule 1 drugs prohibit
that. It also is a fact that we didn't have any evidence then
any more than we have today that any official body that we
condone at the Federal level, like the Food and Drug
Administration, to make decisions on medical efficacy of use of
properties like this had come forward to anything like this to
suggest we should alter this schedule. So the resolution was
pretty straightforward in its restatement of the basic law and
our support for the Controlled Substances Act in the keeping of
the marijuana on schedule 1.
Mr. Souder. And I wanted to ask Congressman Lungren,
proposition 215, understanding the--I agree with your
fundamental premise that the reason we're losing these
referendums is the compassion question. And we have to figure
out how we're going to deal with this politically, because it's
undermining the broader question, but in proposition 215, you
describe that there were multiple different types of people who
supported it. If it was really for medicinal use, why would it
have not contained the close restrictions that were outlined in
that report? And in California, or another way to say this is,
in California, do you believe this is, for the most part, being
used in narrow things where everything else has been exhausted,
where it's under controlled prescriptions, where the people are
under observation, that it's guaranteed for a short-term period
or any of those type of limitations? Because we certainly have
heard new stories and seen things on TV of clubs and all sorts
of things.
Mr. Lungren. Well, there's a couple of different questions
there, and a lot of people confuse it. I moved to close down
the Cannabis Buyers Club in San Francisco prior to the passage
of 215. They claimed they were operating only for medical
necessity, yet we had undercover operations there that showed
them selling to teenagers, showed exposed secondhand marijuana
smoke to infants. They tried to show how they were following
what the law would be by only giving it to people for an
expressed medical purpose. And I'm not making this up.
One of the reasons given was for treatment of yeast
infection. And you have to--the minds boggles how that could be
relevant whatsoever. But the law was written with some
specificity. Not as much as you suggested. And we argued when
we tried to then enforce the law--which is a limitation on law
enforcement.
People don't understand, it basically is stated as an
affirmative defense for someone who is charged with the
continuing prohibition against marijuana possession and use in
the State of California. So it's a limited affirmative defense
to an individual who uses it. And it is also supposed to be a
limited defense to someone who possesses it for his or her own
personal use for medical purposes, or is a caretaker of someone
else that went through the definitions of caretaker. But as you
can imagine, some of those who supported it tried to expand it
beyond that.
This whole argument about this Cannabis Buyers Club out of
Oakland and so forth, the law does not change, the underlying
law in California with respect to operation of something like a
Cannabis Buyers Club. They claimed after the law passed, after
the proposition 215 passed, that it's impossible if you give
someone the right to have this medical marijuana, and then
don't give them the ability to buy it somewhere.
You have created an inconsistency in the law. We all know
there are inconsistencies in the law. The fact of the matter is
that wasn't part of it. And I think those who frankly wrote the
law didn't put it in because they knew the voters would
probably vote against it if they knew that was part of it. But
what's happened is you have different counties interpreting the
law differently, some allowing cannabis clubs, some not, some
allowing growing in their counties. In other counties
prosecutions are taking place right now, even though the
defense is hey, we're only growing it for sale on a cost basis
to a cannabis cooperative.
And so if you think there is a disconnect between Federal
and State law enforcement, we also have a disconnect between
State and county or county to county in the State of
California. It is not written with the specificity that you
speak to, and that was one of the arguments I made in fighting
against it. The commercials and all of the public statements on
behalf of it focussed on as was focussed on by a previous panel
member here today, the chronically ill, the AIDS patients, the
wasting AIDS patient, the cancer patient, and I think people
responded to that, but the law does not limit it to that.
Mr. Souder. This is the last question for you, and also Ms.
Nagel, if you could address this. My understanding basically in
how law enforcement is working and our ability--we've given
more flexibility as we have brought a DEA office into my home
area of Fort Wayne, IN to have, in effect, major cases kind of
move up the chain because Federal law can be tougher in
enforcement. And in fact, because of a more, there isn't any
other way to say it, a more general tolerant approach to
marijuana usage in the United States, that the bulk of smaller
cases in law enforcement on marijuana have fallen to the local
county level, to some degree the State level rather than at the
Federal level. And if State law then undermines the beginning
cases at the marijuana level at the local level, and if in
fact, to add one additional variation of this, as you said, if
it varies by county, then certain counties can become conduits
for other counties that are choosing to interpret the law
differently.
For example, a major case in California right now is
turning out to be a provider of marijuana to much of the United
States and are coming up with unusual protections, which is why
we have national law. I want to ask for the record, is it true
that, in fact, we move marijuana--have moved marijuana
enforcement mostly to the local and State level, and the DEA
other than major bust cases on interdiction, will tend to deal
with cocaine and heroin, and does this not, then, at the State
level and medicinal marijuana, things not defined tightly, put
at risk our entire enforcement process on marijuana?
Mr. Lungren. Mr. Chairman, I will just answer it in a
couple ways. No. 1, it has always been the case that you have
more law enforcement officers at the local and State level than
you have at the Federal level, even with the specialized
expertise of the DEA. And so DEA, in other words, is spread
more thinly across the country than local agencies. So the
primary jurisdiction for marijuana busts of individuals has
been in the past at the local level, except when you get to
larger quantities.
We have also had, in the past, some U.S. attorneys
limitations on the prosecutions they were taking had to be a
huge amount, what I thought were huge amounts before they would
have prosecutions.
Second, I would say in some areas, there's been very good
cooperation with the DEA and locals. But I can tell you a
particular experience I had in California in which DEA was one
of the first ones involved in a major operation we had against
a marijuana club. In fact, one of those that invited us in and
worked very hard on them, and then when it came down to making
the final decision, somehow they were called off.
And so you can see the difficulty you have when you have
very different standards approaching a very serious problem
that goes across State boundaries. I mean, there's just no
doubt about it. It is a recipe for disaster.
Mr. Souder. Mrs. Nagel.
Ms. Nagel. DEA's primary responsibility is the largest
international, largest growers, trying to go with the highest
level violators we can. With the laws, particularly in
California, have created confusion county to county, and it's
strained our relationships with our partners because they have
turned to us, and when I spoke to the people in California,
they're telling me they get phone calls from sheriffs begging
us to come to take marijuana because they've been ordered to
give it back, and they just can't bring themselves to do it.
They want us to step in and pick up what they are unable to
do right now, because the State laws won't permit it. And we
can't step in and take care of everything for them. So to a
great extent it's not being done. The laws are not being
enforced at the State level, and the Federal Government cannot
and should not be responsible for doing it. It's created havoc
with particularity in California.
Mr. Souder. I thank you all for your testimony today and
for taking the time to come. Clearly we have--we're entering a
very difficult period and a very critical period with the new
administration of how to focus on the battles, whether you
refer to it as a drug war or as a cancer, and we need to make
sure we have a national focus.
Many of us remain very concerned that because of difficulty
of our dealing with pain and suffering, we have, in fact, seen
something that particularly in this last question, we have seen
could, in fact, result in the de facto legalization of
marijuana if, in fact, you can't enforce it at the local level,
because the Federal Government in no way can step in what local
law enforcement has been doing. And in Indiana, we can hardly
battle our Indiana problems yet alone if it starts coming as it
seems to in larger quantities from California.
With that, I thank you all again, and our hearing stands
adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 5:25 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]