Dr. Phillip Drum - No Such Thing as Medical Marijuana

The Addiction Podcast -: Dr. Drum, thank you for being with us today and helping to shed more light on the marijuana issue that seems to, I don't know, I don't know if it's being ignored by people, but it sure doesn't seem to be getting the coverage it needs to get. Before I get into some of the questions that you sent me, how did you get involved in this area?

P Drum: Well, again, I'm a pharmacist, been a pharmacist since 1986, where I received my doctorate from UC San Francisco. Then we were, you know, made knowledgeable of the drugs that had been approved by the FDA and how they get approved. So very knowledgeable of that whole process. Also became involved as a result of a personal tragedy. In my family, my sister was murdered by a marijuana impaired driver. ⁓ And I started seeing how our system is not set up to address that. ⁓ We can address alcohol and driving, but not marijuana and driving. And unfortunately, it's only gotten a lot worse.

The Addiction Podcast -: When you say it's not addressed, that mean it wasn't considered like a DUI? Like it wasn't prosecuted like a DUI? Is that what you mean? Okay.

P Drum: Correct. Yep. Yeah. In fact, the DA did not even want to charge for a DUI. The guy was looking at a 19 year sentence. He had multiple DUIs under the influence of marijuana in the past and the judge throughout the marijuana evidence completely. The marijuana found in the car, the marijuana blood level. ⁓ He was looking at a 19 year sentence and he ended up getting four and a half and only spending two years in jail for murdering my sister.

The Addiction Podcast -: I'm sorry. I'm sorry for the loss of your sister. And that's just wrong. He should have...

P Drum: She was a nurse driving to work.

The Addiction Podcast -: So, so not okay. So you had several things that you specifically wanted to make sure we cover in this interview. I think the one thing is I really think that people, the bulk of our listeners, and I know that this sounds like something that we should know, they should know, but we've said it over and over again, that the marijuana of today is not the marijuana that... maybe some of us experimented with back in the 70s or our parents experimented with it. And I think that that's just some, it's a message that we just have to keep repeating.

P Drum: We've been saying this over and over again. Once they got the fraud of medical marijuana in 1996 in California, they quickly recognized that they could not continue to addict people at that low concentration of THC that they had even back then, which was around 5%. Back in the 60s and 70s, it was 0.5 to 2 % THC. And so by the 90s, had, you know, made the plants up to, they doubled it up to about 5%. Now, mean, vape pens are up to 99 % THC. You can't sell, there's no products under 20 % in California being sold and this is a study that had come out. ⁓ So this is just reality. ⁓ The FDA approved maximum dose of Delta 9 THC, which was FDA approved. back in 1985 ⁓ was 10 milligrams and that they now call a serving size. ⁓ That's the maximum FDA approved dose. They put over 100 milligrams in a cookie. In the state of California, you can have 2000 milligrams, 2000 milligrams in a brownie. That's a medical product that's allowed in the state of California up to a maximum of 2000 milligrams of THC in an edible.

The Addiction Podcast -: not to put you on the spot, but just as a frame of reference, when you ⁓ 2000 milligrams, ⁓ would be the equivalent of that if you were drinking alcohol? Do you know?

P Drum: I can't even know. There's no equivalence. Again, and this is another false dichotomy that people want to equate marijuana or THC ⁓ to alcohol. You can't do it. You can't do it. I mean, we're talking 21 carbon chain molecule that's fat soluble THC as compared to a two carbon molecule of alcohol. And so you want to call those the same two versus 21? I mean, they're not even close. One's water soluble. One's fat soluble. And the most concerning thing about that is, is that we do know alcohol affects the brain, right? And that's a two carbon molecule because it's very small. You have a large molecule like THC, but yet most people don't realize, you realize 60 % of your brain is fatty tissue, 60%. And so fatty tissue absorbs that fat molecule very easily, very easily. And so it goes into the brain. It's not in the blood. That's why, again, only foolish people think that they can have a blood level. ⁓ Again, it's like oil and water. How quickly do oil and water mix? You have to shake them up to get them to go together, and then they quickly separate. And that's what's happening in your bloodstream. It's quickly trying to get out of the blood, which is water, and go to fat stores in your body, like your brain.

The Addiction Podcast -: Wow.

P Drum: And so until we're able to actually test the level in the brain, then there's no such thing as a blood level of THC. It quickly leaves the bloodstream. Within 90 minutes, lose 80, or actually it's 80 minutes, you lose 90 % of the THC level. From when somebody smokes, it rapidly peaks up and drops very quickly because it's getting out of the water. It's getting out of the bloodstream. unless you get blood work done at the roadside, and that's assuming that they were just smoking as they were going down the road. So again, these people are, some of them are, so it's even more dangerous. But the reality is, is I did a study and it takes two hours, two hours to draw blood. How long did I say it dropped to 90 % drop?

The Addiction Podcast -: Right. Yeah

P Drum: 80 minutes. So it takes 120 minutes to draw blood on average ⁓ in a case in which somebody's been either injured or dead because there's a lot more mayhem in those cases as compared to somebody just weaving down the road. ⁓ So again in a case in which somebody's been injured or killed it takes two hours to draw blood. We did the study. We did it in Colorado and I also did it again here in California. Exact same time frame. Two hours to draw blood.

The Addiction Podcast -: Well, do you?

P Drum: ⁓ Until our legal system wakes up and our judges wake up and realize that you cannot rely on a blood level. Again, the Department of Transportation knows this. They've done this back when they developed levels for drugs. Again, if there's any car crash or major car crash involving a roadway incident, typically a school bus or an interstate truck, ⁓ a boat, crash, an airplane crash. If they look for any other drug other than alcohol, alcohol is the only drug that they'll look for a blood level because that's been accepted by the legal system as a 0.08 nationwide. But all other drugs are a urine test for metabolites. So they've learned decades ago that you do not. Look for Delta 9 THC. You look for the metabolites and there is a psychoactive metabolite. The marijuana industry never wants to admit there's two of them. There's the carboxy and the hydroxy metabolite. And so the hydroxy is more psychoactive than the parent compound THC. More. And it shows up in urine. So what they've done in the state of California is they say you can't look for the carboxy because it's not psychoactive. And I say,

The Addiction Podcast -: and that would show up in urine?

P Drum: Okay, look for the hydroxy instead. Very simple. And it's there and they test for it and it's more psychoactive. Now they're gonna go, well, what's the level? And it's like, there is no level. There never will be a level. If it's present, that delta-9, that THC backbone of all the carbons, your body does not make that. So if it's present and they'll say, oh, it's in your urine for a week, well, yeah. because THC is still in your body for a week. And it's taking that long for your body to get rid of it. And so if it's coming out in the urine, it's still in your brain. Fat.

The Addiction Podcast -: Right, right. Wow. So is there any sort of push right now in any states? Are there any states that have sort of woken up, if you will, to doing any sort of urine tests that you know of?

P Drum: Not urine. ⁓ But something that I did find out again after my sister was killed is that there have been other countries that have been using oral swabs at the roadside. For example, Australia for decades. And so I actually did get it ⁓ placed into law in the state of Michigan. I had a person whose parents were killed in the Upper Peninsula. And he made contact with me and said, ⁓ how can I in honor of my parents? do something to protect the rest of us. And I said, get oral swabs in your state.

The Addiction Podcast -: So oral swabs would find it as well.

P Drum: And so in fact, the ⁓ Department of Transportation, the DOT, is now accepting oral fluid for drug testing. How about that? And so finally, but it's taking time because now they're waiting on trying to approve the labs to do the oral fluid, but they've recognized again, it's urine or oral fluid. Those are your two options for anything other than alcohol. So if you're looking for LSD or an opiate,

The Addiction Podcast -: About time.

P Drum: Benzodiazepine. It's urine or now oral fluid. Why aren't all states doing this? Why aren't all states doing this? And I've tried in the state of California, the marijuana industry owns Sacramento. So they will not let that happen. I was on a three year ⁓ task force, which said, you know, let's do oral swabs. Let's let's let's start doing roadside testing. Marijuana industry will not let that happen.

The Addiction Podcast -: Well, okay. That's what I'm thinking. Yeah, well, that's because of the money. We know that.

P Drum: Well, it's because of the truth, the facts that would come out that, you know, we're now having, if you combine marijuana and marijuana in combination with other products, typically alcohol, that's more than alcohol alone in causing fatalities.

The Addiction Podcast -: Yep. Yep. Wow. So, so recently there was a change in how marijuana was categorized. Like it was a controlled substance. It's a one or a three. What's it, where does it now? And okay.

P Drum: Still is. It's a one. Federally, it's a one. ⁓ As a CS1, so let's go through the differences of what's the difference between a CS1. There's five controlled substance classes, one through five. CS1 substances have no medical indication and have the highest addiction potential, both psychoactive and physical. So those are CS1 substances. So what are CS1 substances? Marijuana, heroin, LSD, ⁓ ecstasy, methiquelum, peyote. Those are the types of drugs then that are CS1 substances. So marijuana is still a federally CS1 substance and as such, unless it's being done in a scientific setting, a medical scientific setting, I as a pharmacist cannot touch marijuana. Okay, so a CS1 substance is not in your pharmacies. So they've been put in, I call them,

The Addiction Podcast -: Okay.

P Drum: what they are appropriately are, I think, drug dens. They're not dispensaries. I find it highly offensive that they would call it a dispensary. And so it's a drug den is what it is that they're able to sell these products in. Because again, a pharmacy cannot take in CS1 substances unless it's in an investigational protocol. And so that's the CS1 substance. CS2 substance then

The Addiction Podcast -: More like a pill mill, except they're not pills.

P Drum: are drugs, ⁓ you cannot get a refill. And so when the provider gives you a prescription for it, there's no refills allowed. And so these drugs have the highest potential for ⁓ physical and psychological abuse and are addictive, ⁓ but they have a medical indication. That's the key difference between a one and a two. And actually between a one and anything else, any of the other fives, it has to have a medical indication. Marijuana doesn't. There's no FDA approved medical indication. There's a lot of hyperbole and claims, but there's no scientifically proven FDA approved indication for marijuana. Marijuana is a whole host of cannabinoids together in a plant. So it's over 100 cannabinoids, 100 active ingredients. Delta 9 THC and CBD have medical indications. That's not marijuana.

The Addiction Podcast -: But it's

P Drum: Those are the active substances in marijuana and they've been approved. It is, it is absolutely, absolutely. It's a con. ⁓ there, there is no medical indication for any cannabis marijuana, whatever name they want to change it to now. there, there's no FDA approved indication for any of them. There are for those two cannabinoids that are in marijuana. CBD was approved in 2018.

The Addiction Podcast -: I see. So medical marijuana is an oxymoron. Is that the right word? Yeah.

P Drum: for very, very, very, how many various do you want? Rare seizure syndromes, okay? And that's it. It's not approved for anything else. And then you have ⁓ THC, which was approved back in 1985 as dronabinol, also known as Marinol. We don't use it. I used it, I was an oncology pharmacist. I used it in cancer patients. First patient I gave it to was an older woman. ⁓ It was receiving chemo and we gave her two and a half milligrams.

The Addiction Podcast -: Heh.

P Drum: two and a half milligrams, not 10, two and a half. And I believe the nurse repeated it within four hours because that's what was allowed. So the person was seeing dancing pink elephants on the wall. And that's a warning in the package insert. You can hallucinate. And we know it's a hallucinogen. Marijuana is a hallucinogen. Delta-90HC is a hallucinogen. And so this person was hallucinating. And she said, I'd rather throw up all night than to feel like that.

The Addiction Podcast -: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yep. Yep. Yep.

P Drum: And that was my first patient I ever tried it in back in 1986. And we quickly learned that you only gave it to somebody that had used marijuana in the past because they knew then what to expect. And anybody else we would say, look, we'll try a low dose in you to see if it'll work. It's not even approved by as an option as in what we call anti-emetic or something that's going to stop you from having nausea and vomiting. It's on the list. It's way down. It's at the bottom. It's like if everything else fails, then you can consider dronabinol. That's how low it is on the use. We've gotten so many more good anti-emetics since the 1990s and even into the 2000s with very low side effect profile, especially as compared to THC. And so the reality is, so that's your CS2s that we went to. Again, these are drugs that don't have refills. So hydromorphone or dilaudid. myparidine or demerol, morphine, cocaine ⁓ a CS2, oxycodone or oxycontin ⁓ a CS2, fentanyl and Vicodin is a CS2. ⁓

The Addiction Podcast -: Cocaine you can get a prescription for?

P Drum: Absolutely. In fact, I've dispensed it a lot, especially in emergency rooms. One of the best drugs, causes vasoconstriction very well. And when somebody busts their nose and has really bad bleeding out of their nose, we apply cocaine there. And it causes vasoconstriction and stops the bleeding. So I've dispensed a lot of it into the emergency room. Again, I'm a hospital pharmacist. I'm not your Rexall outpatient pharmacist. ⁓

The Addiction Podcast -: Understood, but I had no idea anyway.

P Drum: So yeah, cocaine is a CS2. It has a medical indication. It causes major vasoconstriction as compared to other drugs. So that's a CS2. CS3s allow you to have five refills within six months. So these are drugs like ⁓ ketamine, ⁓ anabolic steroids, testosterone, Tylenol with codeine. So long as the amount of codeine is under 90 milligrams, it's a CS3. where they fraudulently want to place marijuana. They don't even want to put it in a CS2 because remember what I told you, there's no refills on a CS2. You have to get a prescription every time, so they don't want to do that. ⁓ fact, they wanted to move it out of the controlled substance status completely, which is an absolute joke because it meets the criteria that it's an addictive substance and you go through withdrawals, both physical and psychological withdrawals, which ⁓ ⁓ controlled substances are. So those are your CS3s.

The Addiction Podcast -: Right.

P Drum: Buprenorphine is also in there, which is Suboxone, which is the agent we use when we're trying to get people off of opiates. So those are your CS3. CS4s then are your benzodiazepines and your sedatives. So these are the drugs like Xanax, Clonopin, Ativan, Librium, Valium. Those are the drugs, Ambien. Again, drugs that people use to go to sleep. Addictive, not as addictive as a CS3. So as you move down in the controlled substance status, you're moving down in the addiction potential. Again, as I mentioned, there are CS5s. CS5 drugs are things like pregabalin, suppositories of opium, Lamodal, which is a drug we use to stop people from having too much diarrhea. Because again, we know the opiates slow the GI tract down. So if you're having problems, cough preparations with low amounts of codeine in it. are CS5. So those are the five levels. They want to move it to a three. They wanted to move it out, not even call it a controlled substance, which is an absolute joke. ⁓ So again,

The Addiction Podcast -: I had thought, I'm sorry, Dr. Drummond, I had thought it had been moved to a three. No? Okay, good. All right.

P Drum: No, no, no, it's just recommended by the president at this time. They have to go through all the requirements. Again, the people that actually move it from a CS1 to a CS3, I actually didn't know that was ultimately under the Department of Justice. And I found this out ⁓ that was Health and Human Services under Javier Becerra created a fraudulent document to claim from that Health and Human Services side that it was medicine. And they used a whole new host of definitions of what a medicine is to try and then move it over to the DOJ side. DOJ, so the Controlled Substance Act is under the Department of Justice and the DEA, Drug Enforcement Agency. That's the controlled substances are under their side. And so Pam Bondi now is the key person. Again, ⁓ I'm blanking on his name, but the previous ⁓ attorney general said, ⁓ OK. It's okay to go ahead and move it to a CS3. This was under the Biden administration But there was a DEA leader that stopped it and said we have to have a judicial review of this first and so that's when I stepped forward and said I'll educate that judge on what the judicial review should be of Marijuana he ended up moving the date back Originally, it was supposed to start in early January of 2025. He moved it back into around January 20th. And because the Trump administration was coming in, they put a kibosh to anything that the Biden administration was attempting to move forward, including changing marijuana to a CS3. Now, unfortunately, now he's created a document that says, yeah, I support making it a CS3. And I want everybody to remember exactly what Trump said. Making it to CS3 substance will aid in the study of marijuana.

The Addiction Podcast -: Why would you say that? That doesn't make any sense.

P Drum: It's a complete falsehood and it's because it's one of the many lies that the marijuana industry says. And so let me just lay it out for you as to how many studies have been done with marijuana? How many do you guess?

The Addiction Podcast -: None.

P Drum: No, it's a CS1 substance. And as I said, we can have CS1 substances that we can study. ⁓ We've had 11,309 projects per the NIH reporter. National Institute of Health reporter contains both the drug studies that have been funded by the government and some that haven't. It doesn't include all of the drug studies that have been done by the drug companies as well, though. ⁓ And the federal government does fund these through the National Institute of Health.

The Addiction Podcast -: Okay. Okay.

P Drum: And so marijuana has been studied and this is since 1985, over 11,309 studies when I did the search on NIH reporter for marijuana or cannabis. 11,000 studies came up on March 1st of 2026, going back to 1985. That's at a cost of 4.7 billion with a B dollars that your tax dollars have paid for.

The Addiction Podcast -: Okay?

P Drum: for marijuana studies. So does that sound like we're having a hard time performing studies with marijuana? We've had 11,000 since 1985. Well, the other thing that I wanted to share with the judge and I'll share with you, ⁓ these numbers now are from when I did the studies back, like I said, I just did it in March. But when I did it in November of 2024, because I was preparing to go talk to the judge in January, 2025, back then there was 10,000,

The Addiction Podcast -: Yeah, no.

P Drum: 800 studies. So now there's 11,300. Okay. But let's compare it to some other drugs. Let's compare it to morphine. Morphine had 9,700 studies at a cost of 2.8 billion. Okay. Ibuprofen had 1,103 studies at a cost of 320 million. Penicillin. Oh, no penicillin. 2,900 studies at a cost of 1.1 billion. So again, we're talking 4.7 billion, 11,000 studies. And it's been a CS1 substance all this time. How about omeprazole? That's a drug used for your stomach. 387 studies at 85 million. How about semiglutide ozempic? A lot of people have heard about ozempic, right? Semiglutide. It has three FDA approved medical indications. Three. 79 studies at a cost of $57 million. Marijuana, 11,309, cost of $4.7 billion and not one, not one FDA approved indication. So changing it to a CS3 is going to magically increase the number of studies.

The Addiction Podcast -: Yeah, I think so too. And I think if those studies said that it should stay a CS1, then it should. I mean, I'm not in charge. So have you gotten in front of the judge or are you still waiting to do that?

P Drum: I think we've had enough. No, it's still waiting, but I think right now it's not going to occur. They're going to restart it all over again. And I'll apply again to be able to speak to the judge if they are, because again, has to go through. HHS has to give the thumbs up that it's a medicine and DOJ has to give thumbs up that it's controlled and to move the control substance status. ⁓ And again, I'm waiting to see the fraudulent document that comes out of the HHS to once again claim it's a medicine when it isn't.

The Addiction Podcast -: Okay.

P Drum: because it hasn't been FDA approved. Let's see the FDA step up FDA. Why don't you approve marijuana as a medicine? You haven't done it yet and you never will because here's the reason why. Here's the reason why I have to as a pharmacist. I have to know the active ingredient. Okay, and that's what's in my package inserts that I get from the Food and Drug Administration. Okay, so those active ingredients they tell me what what is it? What's it look like? What's the structure?

The Addiction Podcast -: Yeah, exactly. You know, I don't know if it's... Sorry.

P Drum: How is it absorbed? How is it cleared by the body? Does it have drug-drug interactions? All of those things are in that package insert, okay, from the FDA. So we know that marijuana has over 100 cannabinoids. They don't like THC. They don't like marijuana or Marinol because Marinol's not their beloved plant. And they claim it needs all of those other cannabinoids for it to work properly. Okay. I'll give you that. Tell me what the absorption characteristics are and the dose for cannabinoid 67. Tell me what the drug-drug interactions are for drug for cannabinoid 35. Tell me the absorption characteristics of cannabinoid 98. They can't do it. They can't do it. Yet they're going to sit there and say, we need them all. OK, well, I need the drug-drug interactions with cannabinoid 66. I need to know what the dose is. for cannabinoid 13, get it? And they'll never be able to do that. That's why it's a fraud. Let's look at the studies. How many written publications are there? This is what's in what we call PubMed. PubMed is the National Library of Medicine, and it contains ⁓ Medline and life science journals and online books. And if you look up medical marijuana, we've had a report even back to 1945 on medical marijuana. Okay? And I know my previous ⁓ Senator Feinstein was also working with the current Senator Cornyn in trying to get more studies, more studies with medical marijuana. And so what they did was they said, okay, well, the hangup is with the Mississippi lab. That's where we get the national marijuana from to perform studies. Because it's going to be all one THC content. It's going to be clean from the heavy metals and pesticides and fungi that are in the marijuana that's being sold in the states now. And again, we've caught the state labs fraudulently creating reports. So I can safely say that. ⁓

The Addiction Podcast -: you

P Drum: They opened it up. They said, we need to do more studies with marijuana. So we need to have more sites be able to make the marijuana. We need to have our drug dealers be able to be part of this scheme. OK. And so guess what? They have to follow a lot of rules and protocols to create that marijuana and test it to make sure it's free of pesticides and herbicides and fungicides and bacteria. ⁓ And so guess what? Guess how many companies raised their hand and are making it? Yeah, there you go. Yeah, because that's too difficult. And if it was real and they gave more money to marijuana research, okay. And ⁓ so what happened to the studies? Well, they peaked. They peaked. Look at that. They peaked. And so now the number of studies you can see, they were going low and they went up. And again, this going up. is around the 20 teens. And so the number of studies peaked at around 2019-2020. In 2020, it had 919 studies per year coming

The Addiction Podcast -: Dr. Drum, can you send me that piece of paper? Are you able to send it to me? Cause I'll pop it up on the screen. It didn't show up very well, but I'll put it up there.

P Drum: Sure, so 919 reports coming out in PubMed with the term medical marijuana, 919. But since then, you can see what happened. It dropped off, boom. Now again, this is the most recent year. So again, it's not gonna show that many, but look at that. This is when they funded for more sites to make the marijuana. the number of studies actually...

The Addiction Podcast -: Yep. Yep. Yep. Wow.

P Drum: Went down. Wow. Why did that happen? Because the studies now have been showing a lot of problems. And the marijuana industry is not willing to fund it because they keep coming up with a lot of problems. In fact, as we know, it's causing psychoses and schizophrenia, right? We know that. And what I would challenge you to do is while you're watching TV,

The Addiction Podcast -: Mm-hmm.

P Drum: I'm sure you've heard this term before, cobenfi, rixalti.

The Addiction Podcast -: We're exulti, yes.

P Drum: Yeah, how about Estello and Capalipta? These are new drugs. These are new drugs that are out on the market now that there's ads on TV. And so the first two are drugs used. Rixalti is used for schizophrenia. Ambilify is used for psychoses. Cobenphi is also used ⁓ again for psychotropic effects for schizophrenia. Why do you?

The Addiction Podcast -: Cappalpita.

P Drum: think the drug company's making big bucks off of these drugs now. Is it because we have a huge amount of marijuana users that are having schizophrenia and psychoses, and now we need to treat that and we're treating that with pharma drugs? You know pharma, the marijuana industry loves to hate pharma and says, our drugs so much better than their drugs. Well, they're making money off of the fact that you're selling your marijuana and now you have to take schizophrenia drugs. because you've caused schizophrenia. The last two, the Osteo and Capillipta, those first drugs, especially the older drugs. So a lot of people, of course, can't afford the new drugs. So they get older drugs for schizophrenia. Older drugs are like Haldol, okay, Thorazine, Compazine. Those are drugs that we use for schizophrenia and psychosis, okay, especially schizophrenia. Those drugs cause what we call Tardive Dyskinesia.

The Addiction Podcast -: Yes, they do. Yep.

P Drum: And so now you're hearing about on TV of those ticks and things that people have from the tardive. Now you need a drug to handle that and Pharma is right there to help you with it because now marijuana is causing the schizophrenia, which now leads you to use the schizophrenic drugs, which cause tardive dyskinesia. And now you get to take another drug for that. So follow the dots. Follow what's happening in our society as a result.

The Addiction Podcast -: And now you need a drug to handle that. Yep. Yep. Yep. ⁓ yeah. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep.

P Drum: as a result of marijuana legalization.

The Addiction Podcast -: Yep. Wow. Well, let me ask you a question, Dr. Drum. If any of our listeners are as outraged about this as I am, what can they do? Who can they write to? What can they say?

P Drum: Well, I think the top thing to do is tell the Trump administration you should not be moving marijuana to a CS3. You're only going to make things much, much worse. Why don't you start looking into who's growing the marijuana in the United States of America? Why don't you look into that? Because it tends to be a lot of drug cartels already here in the US. In Northern California, it's horrendous. Again, we have Russian cartels, Mexican cartels, Chinese cartels all throughout the country. Oklahoma, Oklahoma knows about it very well that they've had major problems. Also Maine is another state that's, so we need to be reversing this. We need to be stepping back and saying, no, no, no, this is a CS1 substance and we are not going to approve this. It's gonna remain a CS1 substance until we have an FDA approval for all 100 plus cannabinoids that are found in marijuana. Again, I personally, again, I've been a pharmacist for 40 years. I haven't seen a medicine that is smoked, that you smoke. and create carbon residue from it. ⁓ If somebody can show me that FDA approved drug, I'd love to see it. We do have drugs like albuterol and things, ⁓ but that doesn't create carbon residue. It's a medication that we may use. So they want to claim this as medicine. It's a new way of creating medicine. Yeah, it's also more carcinogenic than tobacco. Fact, there are more carcinogens than tobacco. in marijuana. In in the state of California, it's on our Prop 65 list, which are the drugs that may cause mutagenic, carcinogenic effects. And marijuana is in there, but yet California approved it. But you approved a drug that you already acknowledge is a mutagen and a carcinogen?

The Addiction Podcast -: Wow. Dr. Drum, tell me again the number of studies since 1985 and the dollars you told me, because I'm going to put it in the show notes and I'm going to put away to email the president and just suggest that people put these facts forward.

P Drum: Yeah, so it's 11,309 is what I got on March 1st. Again, this is an old paper that I was planning. This was, like I said, let me see if I can get this in. There it is. And so this was the table I had created back in November of 2024 and shows you, depending on what the search term is, how many studies and how much your taxpayer dollars have gone.

The Addiction Podcast -: Yep. Okay. Kind of, yeah. Okay.

P Drum: for these drugs. And I could send this to you. But again, down here at the bottom is semi-glutide with the whopping 79 studies and a cost of 57 million. Now again, these are the studies that are done by the federal government, okay? Typically not the ones done by the drug company. So the drug companies have done other studies as well in addition to that 57 million before semi-glutide made it to market. But those are the ones that our government has paid for, not.

The Addiction Podcast -: Okay, perfect. Right.

P Drum: And we've paid $4.7 billion, $4.7 billion for ⁓ these studies on marijuana since 1985 and not one, not one FDA approved indication for marijuana or cannabis, not one. Never will be. Again, we're not going to have a substance that has over 100 active ingredients. I need to know what's the absorption characteristics, the pharmacokinetics.

The Addiction Podcast -: Okay. Okay, I'm writing that down.

P Drum: the elimination, the metabolism, the distribution. I need to see that the studies were done appropriately. So there's some concerning things that I know that he was just removed, but he had helped push through to say, we only need one study that shows efficacy. They used to have at least two, which is very concerning ⁓ because now they're going to slide one slimy study through that might ⁓ show efficacy. Unfortunately, they tried that recently.

The Addiction Podcast -: Hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

P Drum: ⁓ with a group out of Santa Cruz, which I know here in California is not, is a very drug friendly community in which they tried to slide a drug through for PTSD. That is a known hallucinogenic substance. And the FDA wisely said, not only did you not admit that you have a financial interest in it, you the study, the study people, but you actually told the participants. to not report adverse effects. ⁓ Yeah, and so adverse effects like depression, suicidal ideation, ⁓ and fortunately, those people that were in the study came forward to the FDA and told them that and said, they were telling us not to approve this, not to admit these things, and they didn't document these. And again, these drugs then didn't make it. These are again, psychedelic drugs that they're attempting to get onto the market. It's just exploded since they saw

The Addiction Podcast -: Ooh. Good. Wow. Wow.

P Drum: how they were able to do it with marijuana. Again, marijuana is approved by the public. It's not approved by medicine. And so since when did we start approving drugs by the public? Well, since marijuana. And they're trying now to do it with other drugs. And that was a great success, wasn't it? In the state of Oregon, they've had to now backtrack when they started legalizing more drugs, LSD, heroin, everything else up there in the state of Oregon. They had to backtrack that because

The Addiction Podcast -: Yep, yep, yep. Yep.

P Drum: know, ecstasy, everything that they were now allowing was causing major problems there in the state. And they've had to backtrack that.

The Addiction Podcast -: Wow. Dr. Drum, thank you for talking to us today. I'm gonna put this in the show notes and will you keep us posted? Can we have you back on again as you proceed with briefing DOJ or the judges or whoever you get in front of? Because I think it's something that if our listeners are not interested in it, they need to be and hopefully more of them will be. I understand it's...

P Drum: Huh. Right.

The Addiction Podcast -: ⁓ may be a little bit unfortunate for people who just really feel like they need their marijuana and it's not as bad as it was in the 70s, but the facts of the matter are what they are. And it causes psychosis and it causes people to commit horrific crimes and it needs to not be less regulated if anything needs to be way more regulated.

P Drum: Yeah, just again, just follow the dots. Follow the dots as what's happening. Look at the advertisements that are now on TV for drugs used to treat schizophrenia and psychosis and the tardive dyskinesia that those drugs cause. Let's look at the Valdi murder that he was a marijuana user. The Marjorie Stonem Douglas shooter said in the courtroom, marijuana ruined my life. You had the Fourth of July shooter that was a marijuana user. You had the the ⁓ Dancing grandma guy that was driving down the road that ran them over in Waukesha was a marijuana user. The Paris bombers, the Boston bombers, all of these people just followed the dots. It's blatantly obvious. Ross Granger has written a book called The Attacker Smoked Cannabis. Ross Granger, Attacker Smoked Cannabis. And these are cases of stabbings and killings in the United Kingdom and Ireland. ⁓ as a result of these people using cannabis. It's very obvious what's happening. Anytime we see stabbings, anytime we see these mass shootings, again, we've had people that, legislators being shot, right? Gabrielle Gipperts was shot by a marijuana user. Nancy Pelosi's husband was hit over the head by a hammer by a marijuana user.

The Addiction Podcast -: Right. Yep. Yep. You'd think that would wake them up.

P Drum: Steve Scalise, there were five people shot. James Hodgkins was a marijuana user. Okay, it's blatant with Thomas Crooks who shot at President Trump was a marijuana user. And the interesting thing about that case, the Allegheny County would not run for THC, did not own the test for THC, ran it for 11 other substances, but not.

The Addiction Podcast -: I remember. Yep, I remember hearing that. Yep.

P Drum: THC, yet on their page they widely say, well, we've tested over 6,000 cases of drug cases and the most common substance were THC, opiates, know, fentanyl, you know, you're going, then why didn't you test for THC and Thomas Crooks? Who you guys conveniently burned and got rid of the substances and the blood, the urine and hair within a year, you got rid of that.

The Addiction Podcast -: Wow. Yep. Yep.

P Drum: I mean, this is reality, folks.

The Addiction Podcast -: Yep. Yep. Thank you, Dr. Drum. Thank you for taking the time. I appreciate you. I appreciate you finding the good fight and I'll see if I can get some of our listeners to help.

P Drum: All right, very good. Thank you.