An advertising campaign from the Marijuana Policy Project, the largest marijuana policy reform organization in the U.S., is blanketing airwaves with the message that the U.S. government's own research contradicts its anti-marijuana propaganda. "Warning! The government doesn't want you to hear this ad!" the spot begins, "because they're embarrassed they funded research indicating marijuana doesn't cause lung cancer, and might even prevent cancer." The ad began airing on 141 stations nationwide on September 5, 2006.
"The U.S. government's own research directly contradicts the blatantly false information about marijuana that the government has been issuing for the last three decades," said Marijuana Policy Project Executive Director Rob Kampia. "The drug czar's office is still publishing ads and 'fact sheets' suggesting that marijuana causes cancer, even though new research financed by the National Institute on Drug Abuse shows no link between marijuana use and cancer. In fact, the marijuana smokers in the study had a lower rate of lung cancer than the non-smokers."
"In 1999, the National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine released a White House-commissioned report concluding that marijuana is useful in treating nausea, appetite loss, pain, and anxiety. When the findings weren’t what the federal government had wanted, they simply ignored them and continued to claim that marijuana has no medical use," Kampia continued. "And on Monday, the Government Accountability Office revealed that the Office of National Drug Control Policy has been ignoring a body of evidence that found the Anti-Drug Youth Media Campaign to be a complete failure. The purpose of our new radio ad is to highlight the federal government's disregard of its own research in order to continue its unjust war on marijuana users, including the seriously ill."
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