LaRouche Responds to a Congressman on Medical Marijuana

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During Lyndon LaRouche's Feb. 11 webcast presentation, "On The Next Step," a Congressman asked LaRouche about medical marijuana. "I am unequivocally opposed to the legalization of drugs in any way, shape or form ... but "I am deluged with calls about this, mainly from people who are either elderly, or who are stricken with cancer, who send articles insisting that medical marijuana, prescribed by a physician, does not lead to drug addiction; that it is innocuous, and that it is helpful and merciful to them. While I understand the tremendous potential for abuse in legalizing medicinal marijuana, it is still something that I think we have to address—if for no other reason, than to identify for these people, who really are very much in need, that they may be being manipulated by the drug lobby."

LaRouche responded, "I think we went through this back in the '50s and '60s. And the argument is false. You have people who are desperate, and it is spread also by the 68ers. The 68ers started this thing; and it was started not because marijuana was helpful—people fooled around with this thing. But the problem was that legitimate medication was not available. And it was a policy of the drug industry not to provide the necessary help. The important thing here is, that the promotion of narcotics—and marijuana is a narcotic—the promotion of this in that form, even if you produce medically something very similar to it, if it has clinical value—and producing marijuana, are two different things. So, if you take a drug which has the same effect as is attributed to marijuana, or you take so-called medical marijuana—don't allow the medical marijuana. Get the drug. We should provide, economically, these kinds of things and make them available.

"Now, this is a problem of the drug industry. The drug industry is not necessarily operating in the interests of the people of the United States or Europe. So, therefore, we need a new philosophy on the way medication is generated and provided. The drug industry has become a big financial racket, and its purpose is not medicine; the purpose is money. The purpose is wealth. Physicians need help, not the drug industry.

"But we can provide it, and we should provide it. Even if it's equivalent to marijuana in some symptomatic effect, do it that way; don't do it with marijuana. Why? Because the marijuana is the opening of the control of society by organized crime, international organized crime. And, therefore, if somebody needs something, they get it, but don't give it to them in a way which contributes to organized crime. And what happens is, when you use medical marijuana, it becomes a cover for the use of marijuana in other ways.

"If we're going to have civilization, we have to bring this drug thing under control. It's killing us globally. It's killing us in the United States, and it's a 68er phenomenon. It's a phenomenon which was created by the British—British Intelligence, and we have to defeat that weapon. We have to defeat it entirely; crush it. But we will provide—we have the policy of providing the ill, who need medication, whatever medication they require. But we will do it; we won't have it on the street as medical marijuana."