It is astonishing that in the 21st Century, the so-called “information age,” there are so many Americans who are woefully ignorant about nearly everything. Included in that monumentally large “group of stupid” are conservatives, particularly those Republican conservatives who still base their policies and agendas on information that is patently false or guaranteed to fail. One failed CEO seeking the Republican presidential nomination, Carly Fiorina, revealed why her tenure at Hewlett Packard was a “colossal fail.” One wonders if Fiorina attempted to head a leading technology company with information based on manual typewriters and a mindset demanding that employees use handwritten index cards as a means of keeping mountains of information and technological data. One thing is certain, if Fiorina’s knowledge, or lack thereof, of the tremendous medical advances and research verifying the many, many medical benefits of cannabis is anything like her knowledge of running a giant tech business, it is no wonder she is an epic failure.
Fiorina revealed her outdated “reefer madness” knowledge during a “tense interchange” with Shelly Van Winkle, a veteran of the Gulf War and the “first and only certified cannabis nurse” in Iowa. Van Winkle attended a voter forum at St. Ambrose University in Iowa last week, and as an advocate for Veterans asked Fiorina what she would do to make it easier for patients like veterans with PTSD, and children with cancer to access medicinal marijuana. Fiorina responded by saying “You’re not going to like my answer,” but she failed to add that her answer was based on lies and “reefer madness” ignorance which obviously would not have made her answer any more palatable.
Fiorina’s response related to her breast cancer diagnosis in 2009 when her doctor asked “if I was interested in medicinal marijuana. I said ‘No,’ and he said, “‘Good,’ because it’s a chemically complex compound that we do not understand — we do not understand how it reacts with chemotherapy. It is true today that before you get chemotherapy you cannot have any marijuana in your system for at least 30 days.” It was the wrong lie to tell a certified cannabis nurse or any semi-intelligent 21st Century American who gets their news from everywhere except Fox News, law enforcement, the pharmaceutical industry or reefer madness malcontents.
Ms. Van Winkle interrupted Fiorina’s ignorant spiel and said. “That’s no longer true.” Undeterred from her “reefer madness” sensibility, or scientific facts, Fiorina said “So I will also tell you something else. We lost a daughter to addiction;” as if that little factoid proved that reams and years’ worth of scientific and medical research and empirical data is wrong.
However sincere the business failure and mid-20th Century reefer madness acolyte may be, Fiorina’s daughter was in no possible way lost to cannabis addiction; and Fiorina knows it. It is possible though, that Fiorina does not know that what the certified cannabis nurse said was true according to several peer-reviewed scientific and medical studies that prove the chemical compounds in marijuana when used in conjunction with chemotherapy hasten cancer cell destruction as well as destroying blood supplies to cancerous tumors. Fiorina’s doctor in 2009 was either lying or as ignorant as Fiorina; the several studies that prove cannabis as a lone cancer killer, or when used with chemotherapy, is a scientific fact that has been well documented at least a decade prior to 2009. It is also a scientific fact that the United States government admitted openly in the past month.
Now, this nonsense that Fiorina opposes medicinal marijuana, or recreational use, because she lost her daughter to drug and alcohol addiction has nothing whatsoever to do with marijuana; another fact one suspects Fiorina is likely aware of. But she still holds the “reefer madness” mindset a certain demographic can never abandon and immediately reverts to blaming weed.
One of five new studies that summarily debunked nearly every “reefer madness” belief specifically dealt with “Early Onset Pot Use” the researcher teams at two universities discovered “Is Not Associated With Adverse Outcomes in Adulthood.” The bunch of new studies, coupled with dozens of others, are a must-read for a monumental failure like Fiorina to avoid appearing as if she is either lying or stuck in 1950. Everything about her response in Iowa points to her living the “reefer madness” propaganda as if it were true. As far as weed and chemotherapy, there are studies linking better chemotherapy results when combined with cannabis; particularly for treating breast cancer. One of the newest and most comprehensive studies deals with Fiorina’s other “issue” with marijuana; that it has anything to do with losing her daughter to drug and alcohol abuse.
Ignorant “reefer madness” devotees, like failure Fiorina, are convinced that kids who experiment with, or use, weed will grow up to be drug-addicted failures, or at least less likely than non-users to be healthy, well-adjusted, and successful adults. However, a new peer-reviewed scientific study by researchers at the Pittsburgh School of Medicine and Rutgers University proved that is another lie.
The scientists examined whether male subjects who consumed cannabis between the ages of 15 and 26 differed in terms of socioeconomic, social, and life satisfaction outcomes by their mid-30s as compared to those who were either abstinent or only consumed it sparingly. The scientists reported that pot consuming subjects, including those who used the substance habitually, were “certainly not at a heightened risk for maladjustment in adulthood.”
The findings were particularly noteworthy because they defied researchers’ presumptions, and motivation for conducting the study, they readily confessed was solely to “provide peer-reviewed empirical evidence regarding the deadly consequences of marijuana legalization.” The scientists also published results of a separate evaluation in the journal Psychology of Addictive Behaviors reporting that younger pot smokers were no more likely than their non-smoking peers to experience physical addiction or mental health issues later in life. The study decimates the “gateway drug” assertion proffered ad nauseum by big pharma and law enforcement; the two groups making the most money from keeping cannabis, for medicinal or recreational use, illegal.
Some of the other topics scientists recently debunked about reefer madness resulting from marijuana use are that decriminalization will create a nation of drug-addled teenagers, marijuana is a substitute for alcohol and ‘hard drugs‘ such as heroin, cannabis encourages higher opioid use, and that cannabis decriminalization will drive teens to use more marijuana. Just like the claims for years that cannabis has no medicinal benefits, scientists looking for proof that weed is a killer were stunned, and at least objective and honest enough to admit, that there is nothing whatsoever true about reefer madness.
As this column has stated in the past, marijuana is likely not a miracle drug and is certainly not for everyone. However, its value as a cancer-killer, and myriad other human afflictions, has been well-documented for decades; just not in America. There is no way the pharmaceutical industry is going to sit idly by and allow a common weed that can treat a world of infirmities become legal any more than law enforcement drawing federal dollars based on interdiction and confiscation efforts.
It is impossible to know for sure if Carly Fiorina is just an ignorant dolt running her mouth about the reefer madness effect of cannabis because she is stuck in the 1950s, or if she suffers from PTSD after losing her daughter to drug and alcohol addiction. Whatever Fiorina’s particular dysfunction, as the only certified cannabis nurse in Iowa said “The rest of the world has moved on. In the U.S., we let people die.” And it is because of the pharmaceutical industry and law enforcement greed, as well as ignorant devotees of reefer madness like Carly Fiorina.
Born in the South, raised in the Mid-West and California for a well-rounded view of America; it doesn't look good.
Former minister, lifelong musician, Mahayana Zen-Buddhist.
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