It's Not About the Pot

Initially, I was angry about the FDAs blanket statement that marijuana has no medicinal value but I couldn't quite figure out what my anger was directed towards. There are a lot of issues to consider, the most prevalent being that doctors consistently advocate Marijuana as a useful drug. There are lots of dangerous drugs in the world that the FDA has given the thumbs up to.

My anger comes from the fact that the FDA is not a government institution designed to help people's lives. Instead it has become an ultra-political group that makes decisions based on ideologies rather than science. As this article by Sydney Spiesel so effectively points out, the FDA never even bothered to do any research before declaring that marijuana has no medical use. So their statement is motivated by the fact that marijuana is hard to regulate and carries a lot of baggage with it. They'd rather have a dangerous drug that pharmaceutical drugs can profit off of. Spiesel is write when he asks the question "What do you do when federal agencies become so politicized that their recommendations can't necessarily be trusted?" As a consumer, you become scared.