The current recession is causing budget cuts in cities all over America. In Phoenix, my hometown, the City Council is considering closing 15 recreation centers, five large community centers, five senior centers, six libraries, three sports complexes, and eliminating police positions that work closely with neighborhood groups.

If this happens we will get sicker and sicker because we will be closing down the # 1 health promotion project in this or any other city. Those city services are what give us neighborhoods, a sense of small-town warmth, security and camaraderie. Those are the places where kids are shooting hoops, seniors play cards, and mothers’ hang out while there kids participate in affordable, after-school dance programs. Closing these places may help reduce the budget deficit but we will pay for it in the long run in increased healthcare costs.

With fewer places to hang out and connect, the old will become more isolated, and without stimulation they’ll get depressed and confused faster. Then they’ll become patients; they will be sent to a doctor who will make a diagnosis and prescribe drugs (these medications are likely to make them even more confused or agitated).

The young will find other (maybe less savory) ways to release their energies, but with fewer places to get out their youthful enthusiasm and competitiveness, you can be sure they’ll get antsy and some will be diagnosed with ADD or ADHD, and for which they too will be medicated (also with terrible potential side effects).

Instead of closing these centers we ought to be creating more such community services as ways of promoting health. Investing in communities is a real step in true health care reform; it moves us from the current interventional system in which you have to get sick before anyone pays attention to you. You first get a diagnosis (which has a number) because that’s the only way a “provider” can get reimbursed. This is a paradigm of healthcare delivery that is predicated on making people sick. Are you aware that 25% of all Americans now carry a mental illness diagnosis? This is ridiculous! This is the result of declaring any unacceptable feelings or behaviors, as diseases.

Let’s rise up Americans! Build communities instead of tearing out their hearts because they can keep us healthy. Stand up and make this a statement about real healthcare reform, a paradigm shift from a model based on intervention and treatment to one based on prevention and healing. Find out if this is happening under the guise of budget cuts in your city. Go to public meetings, raise the issue, and ensure it is addressed in a public forum.

In Arizona, Phoenix residents can still raise concerns about these budget cuts. For information call (602) 262 – 4800, or e-mail (budget.research@phoenix.gov).

Scottsdale is available online at www.scottsdaleaz.gov/finance.asp

Tucson: www.ci.tucson.az.us/budget/

Flagstaff: www.flagstaff.az.gov/index.aspx?nid=164

The federal government still obstructs medical marijuana research (NYT, 1/19/10). It isn’t being done because the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) has a monopoly on the legal supply of marijuana. Marijuana is the only major drug for which the federal government controls the only legal research supply and for which the government requires a special scientific review, and it rarely grants access. NIDA sees its role as focusing on the negative consequences of marijuana use. A spokesperson said, “We generally do not fund research focused on the potential beneficial medical effects of marijuana.”

Doctors have known cannabis’ (marijuana) medicinal qualities for millennia, and were routinely prescribing it until quite recently for eating disorders, neurological diseases, insomnia, arthritis, and digestive diseases. There are 14 states that have already legalized the use of medical marijuana, but clinics, doctors and patients are continually harassed. If we want to study the risk/benefit profile and its abuse potential, then we have to do the research.

How have we gotten into this the demonizing of marijuana? It all goes back to 1970, when in one of his first acts as President, Richard Nixon signed into law the Controlled Substances Act (CSA). Marijuana was declared a Schedule I drug (along with heroin, ecstasy, LSD and peyote). This is the only category that prohibits its use whether medically indicated or not. Drugs like cocaine, codeine, OxyContin, and methamphetamine landed in the less restrictive Schedule II and III, which permits prescription-based medical use.

Congress placed the marijuana into Schedule I only temporarily, pending reconsideration when it received a forthcoming report by the National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse. Nixon appointed this study group, and when their deliberations were concluded, the Commission recommended decriminalizing possession of marijuana for personal use and distribution in private of small amounts of marijuana not involving a profit.

When Pres. Nixon heard the Commission’s recommendations (we learned 30 years later when audiotapes were released), he was livid and demanded “a goddam strong statement on marijuana”. He added an anti-Semitic touch to those advocating decriminalization… “you know it’s a funny thing. Every one of the bastards that are out for legalizing marijuana is Jewish… I suppose it’s because most of them are psychiatrists, you know there’s so many, all the great psychiatrists are Jewish.”

Pres. Nixon prevailed, marijuana stayed in schedule 1, and NIDA and the DEA continue to refuse to license legitimate research. If we want good science, we have to fund real science, and get away from this Nixonian marijuana madness that classifies it as an illegal Schedule I drug. Let’s follow Nixon’s words and finally make “a god damn strong statement on marijuana”.