Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R-NY)
In Short
The former mayor of New York City has stated publicly that he does not support ending the federal raids on state medical marijuana patients and caregivers.
What Former Mayor Giuliani Has Done:
Mayor Giuliani has neither cosponsored nor voted on any legislation specifically addressing medical marijuana.
What Former Mayor Giuliani Has Said:
On June 6, 2007, at a town hall meeting in New Castle, New Hampshire, Mayor Giuliani talked about being a strong proponent of states' rights and individual freedom. Former Maryland statehouse delegate Don Murphy asked Mayor Giuliani, "Considering your comments regarding choice and personal responsibility, can you please comment on marijuana use by cancer and AIDS patients with their doctors' approval?"
To this Mayor Giuliani replied: "I believe there are a lot of alternatives people have other than using marijuana."
Just over a month later, on July 10, 2007, at a town hall meeting in Concord, New Hampshire, Mayor Giuliani was asked if he would end the DEA's raids on seriously ill patients and their caregivers living in the 12 states that have passed medical marijuana laws. He responded, "Good question. I told you we were going to disagree about something. Sit down and I'll tell you what you're going to disagree with. I'm very opposed to any form of legalizing marijuana; I think is a mistake. I know a lot about this particular area for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is as a prosecutor for more of my life then anything else. You can accomplish everything that you want to accomplish with things other than marijuana, probably better. Meaning, there are pain medications much superior to marijuana. And, marijuana is a very dangerous substance. And, in an era in which we want I have always found this really strange in an era in which we're really worried about clean air, clean forests, and clean atmosphere, why people want to pollute their bodies with things that are really, really damaging, I don't get. We'd be much better off telling people the truth; marijuana adds nothing to the array of legal medications and prescription medications that are available for pain relief. And marijuana is a very serious and addictive drug that particularly harms lots and lots of young people. And we should keep it illegal, and I will keep it illegal."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFHf...y_giuliani.html
Mayor Rudy Giuliani on medical marijuana--July 10, 2007
When Giuliani was asked a follow-up regarding how medical marijuana differs from the numerous legal pharmaceuticals that contain dangerous narcotics, such as the opiate-based painkiller OxyContin, he responded: "There are substantial differences in the things you are talking about in terms of addiction potential, ability to control, what has happened with addiction in this country, and there are more than an array of medicines available. I believe the effort to try and make marijuana available for medical uses is really a way of just legalizing it, cause there is no reason for it. There are plenty of other alternatives that are presently available." What Mayor Giuliani didn't say was that he has worked as a hired consultant for OxyContin manufacturer Purdue Pharma. After the company pled guilty to charges that it misled doctors and patients about the addiction risks of the powerful narcotic and helped create a nationwide epidemic of addiction to the drug, Mayor Giulani personally met with the head of the DEA to urge him to keep the drug legal and available to patients.
Later in the afternoon on July 10, 2007, at a meet and greet in Hooksett, New Hampshire, Giuliani was confronted by another GSMM volunteer, who asked Mayor Giuliani's opinion on the Institute of Medicine's 1999 report to the White House that concluded that medical marijuana was beneficial medicine for cancer and AIDs patients. Giuliani, who has no medical experience or training, replied, "There are plenty of medications that deal with cancer suffering and pain that are available." He offered no evidence or justification for his disagreement with the doctors and medical researchers who participated in the 1999 Institute of Medicine study, or any of the myriad medical associations that support marijuana's medical utility.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsVS...y_giuliani.html
Rudy Giuliani on Medical Marijuana Raids 7-10-07
On July 31, during a town hall meeting in Rochester, New Hampshire, Rudy Giuliani was asked by a GSMM staffer, The last time I saw you, I asked if you would end the federal raids on the 12 states that have approved medical marijuana use for the seriously ill. You told me that medical marijuana had no medical value. 78% of the American public, 70% of the New Hampshire public, the American Nurses Association, the American Public Health Association, the Institute of Medicine, and the New England Journal of Medicine all disagree with you about that. Could you please cite a single doctor or medical organization that believes it is better to imprison and arrest the seriously ill, and two, if we elect you, are we looking forward to an administration that will ignore 80% of the public and the experts on this issue?"
Mayor Giuliani replied: "The reality is, no one is suggesting that people who are sick be in prison, so thats an overly emotional statement of facts." The GSMM staffer corrected Mayor Giuliani, saying, "If you raid them, then you're going to imprison them."
Mayor Giuliani responded: "No one is suggesting that people who are sick should go to prison. And the second fact is that all of the experts I have ever talked to about this my knowledge of this goes back about 8 to 10 years, I haven't really looked at it in that period of time, or during the time when I was U.S. attorney dealing with marijuana cases is that, just about everything you want to do for pain can be done with other legal prescribed medications. There is nothing magical that marijuana is going to do for pain, that four or five other medications don't already do. And this is more or less an excuse to see if we can legalize marijuana. I'd be happy to take a look at the literature you are talking about. I will look into see what youre talking about. I haven't looked at it in about eight to ten years. So it's probably worth taking a look at it again. Give me a week or two, I'll probably be back here, you'll ask your question again, after I look at the material I'll give you another answer, maybe the same, maybe different."
On August 17, during a town hall meeting in Merrimack, New Hampshire, Mayor Giuliani was asked by a GSMM staffer if a Giuliani administration would target medical marijuana patients with DEA raids. Mayor Giuliani replied: "Well, the reality is that I have asked that question too before. I checked with the FDA. The FDA says marijuana has no additive medical benefit of any kind, that the illegal trafficking of marijuana is so great that it makes much more sense to keep it illegal. I will keep it illegal."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYEU...y_giuliani.html
Mayor Rudy Giuliani on medical marijuana--Aug. 17, 2007
On October 3, while at a town hall meeting in Windham, New Hampshire, GSMM volunteer and seriously ill patient Linda Macia asked Mayor Giuliani: "I am disabled and seriously ill. I live with chronic neuroligical pain that will stay with me for the rest of my life. I'm allergic to or intolerant to conventional pain medications. I have tried them all, including Oxycontin. I have found that marijuana works for me. It really makes a difference in my pain management, and currently there are 12 states that have laws protecting the seriously ill patients using marijuana with their doctor's approval. You have said, that if elected, you would continue having federal agents raid and arrest the sick and dying for using marijuana, which has killed no one, but you have lobbied for Oxycontin, which has killed more than 800 Americans in recent years. How can you take such a hypocritical position?" Mayor Giuliani pulled the microphone from Macia and responded, "Thank you, but I haven't said that. First of all, I haven't lobbied for anything. I've not been a lobbyist. And second, I've never said that I'm going to raid anybody. The question I was asked was, would I be in favor of legalizing marijuana for the purpose of medical treatment. I've checked with the FDA, and the FDA are experts on this, not me, and the FDA takes the position that we shouldn't do that. That there are alternatives that are better than marijuana for purposes of pain. I'm not a doctor, my wife's a nurse, she would probably understand this better than I would. The FDA takes the position that anything that marijuana can accomplish, there are any number of pain and other medications that can accomplish the same thing. So I can only be guided by the FDA. I have visited cancer wards. I had cancer! And the reality is, I've had painful cancer. So I understand it from my own experience, not just other people's experience. And the reality is the FDA says that there are more than enough alternatives to marijuana, that it would be not advisable to make marijuana legal, and if the FDA took a different position, maybe I would then rethink it."