Official MPP "$20,000 Candidate Challenge" Letters

Below are the letters MMP executive director Rob Kampia sent to presidential candidates Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney and John McCain offering $20,000 ($5,000 for the primaries, $5,000 for the general election and a $10,000 donation to the candidate’s charity of choice) if the presidential hopefuls can back up their statements opposing medical marijuana with scientific evidence.

This new challenge doubles the original offer of $10,000 made on December 6th 2007.

With each letter we’ve included video footage of the candidates explaining their views on medical marijuana.
 

Rudy Giuliani
Rudy Giuliani Presidential Committee, Inc.
295 Greenwich St, #371
New York, NY 10007

Dear Mayor Giuliani:

I am writing to challenge you to back up statements you have made in recent months on the campaign trail, and to offer the maximum campaign contribution allowed by law if you are able to do so.

In response to questions from New Hampshire voters, you made the following statements:

“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 … 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.”
— July 10, 2007, Concord, New Hampshire

"I believe there are a lot of alternatives people have other than using marijuana."
— June 6, 2007, New Castle, New Hampshire

We find it notable that you dismiss marijuana as too dangerous for medical use, while your law firm represented Purdue Pharma -- the makers of the highly addictive and toxic opioid OxyContin -- given that the company paid $634.5 million in fines and penalties for misleading doctors and patients about the drug's abuse potential, and given that a growing body of evidence suggests that medical marijuana can reduce the use of such highly addictive opioid painkillers.

We believe your statements about medical marijuana are demonstrably false. Therefore, the Marijuana Policy Project’s Medical Marijuana PAC will make a $10,000 contribution to your presidential campaign ($5,000 for the primary, and $5,000 for the general), along with donating an added $10,000 to the charity of your choice, if you can prove the following:

1) That there are safe, effective drugs approved by the FDA to treat every condition for which medical marijuana provides relief, including neuropathic pain such as HIV/AIDS-related peripheral neuropathy; that these drugs work for all patients, without unacceptable side effects; and that these medicines provide relief as quickly as marijuana, with the same ability to titrate dosage.

2) That using medical marijuana is more dangerous than other drugs commonly prescribed for these indications and is too dangerous to be used even under medical supervision.

Please provide the scientific evidence for your claims by February 15, 2008. We will refer your submission to an independent scientific review panel for evaluation and will respond within 30 days of your submission.

If you are unable to provide proof of your statements about medical marijuana, we call upon you to publicly retract these falsehoods and to apologize to the patients and others who have raised this issue in good faith. In short, we expect you to stop lying to the public about medical marijuana.


Sincerely,


Rob Kampia
Executive Director
 

Mitt Romney
Romney for President
P.O. Box 55239
Boston, MA 02205-5239

Dear Governor Romney:

I am writing to challenge you to back up statements you have made in recent months on the campaign trail, and to offer the maximum campaign contribution allowed by law if you are able to do so.

In response to questions from New Hampshire voters and others, you made the following statements:

“I am not in favor of medical marijuana. Other pain relievers are available in this country and I support the use of those other pain relievers. And synthetic marijuana, with the elements that are essential, is available.”
— July 25, 2007, Bedford, New Hampshire

"I believe marijuana is the gateway to drug use that is a plague to our children and a plague to our country. Medical marijuana is a Trojan horse for getting marijuana legalized.”
— October 12, 2007 at Conservative Leadership Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada

“Marijuana is the entry drug for people trying to get kids hooked on drugs. I don't want medicinal marijuana; there are synthetic forms of marijuana that are available for people who need it for prescription. Don't open the doorway to medicinal marijuana."
— July 25, 2007, Bedford, New Hampshire

Hundreds of thousands of television and YouTube viewers saw you turn your back on Clayton Holden, a severely disabled muscular dystrophy patient, when he simply tried to ask if you would have him arrested for using medical marijuana with his doctor's recommendation. Patients like Clayton deserve honest answers.

We believe your statements about medical marijuana are demonstrably false. Therefore, the Marijuana Policy Project’s Medical Marijuana PAC will make a $10,000 contribution to your presidential campaign ($5,000 for the primary, and $5,000 for the general), along with donating an added $10,000 to the charity of your choice, if you can prove the following:

1) That there is such a thing as a "synthetic marijuana" that is legally available to U.S. patients and contains all of “the elements that are essential” in natural marijuana and which have therapeutic activity.

2) That the "other pain relievers" available are safe, effective drugs approved by the FDA to treat every condition for which medical marijuana provides relief, including neuropathic pain such as HIV/AIDS-related peripheral neuropathy; that these drugs work for all patients without unacceptable side effects; and that these medicines provide relief as quickly as marijuana, with the same ability to titrate dosage.

3) That action by any state or nation anywhere in the world to permit physician-supervised use of marijuana has caused increases in the non-medical use of marijuana, cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin, or other opiates, or that any such state or nation has subsequently legalized non-medical use of cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin, or other opiates.

(Cocaine, methamphetamine, and many opiates have been legal prescription drugs in the U.S. and many other countries for decades.)

Please provide the scientific evidence for your claims by February 15, 2008. We will refer your submission to an independent scientific review panel and will respond within 30 days of your submission.

If you are unable to provide proof of your statements about medical marijuana, we call upon you to publicly retract these falsehoods and to apologize to the patients and others who have raised this issue in good faith. In short, we expect you to stop lying to the public about medical marijuana.

Sincerely,


Rob Kampia
Executive Director
 

Senator John McCain
John McCain 2008
P.O. Box 16118
Arlington, VA 22215

Dear Senator McCain:

I am writing to challenge you to back up statements you have made in recent months on the campaign trail, and to offer the maximum campaign contribution allowed by law if you are able to do so.

In response to questions from New Hampshire voters, you made the following statements:

“[T]here is a large body of medical opinion that says there is plenty of other medications that are more effective and better and less damaging to one's health to use to relieve pain.”
— April 25, 2007, at Veteran's Park in Manchester, New Hampshire

“Every medical expert I know of, including the AMA, says that there are much more effective and much better treatment for pain then medical marijuana.”
— September 30, 2007, Deery, New Hampshire

We are struck by the fact that you consider marijuana to be too "damaging to one's health" for use even under medical supervision, considering that the Arizona Republic has reported that at least half of your family's wealth comes from an Anheuser-Busch beer distributorship. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that excessive drinking was responsible for 75,000 deaths in the U.S. in 2001. Marijuana has never been proven to increase death rates or to have caused even one fatal overdose.

We believe your statements about medical marijuana are demonstrably false. Therefore, the Marijuana Policy Project’s Medical Marijuana PAC will make a $10,000 contribution to your presidential campaign ($5,000 for the primary, and $5,000 for the general), along with donating an added $10,000 to the charity of your choice, if you can prove the following:

1) That there are safe, effective drugs approved by the FDA to treat every condition for which medical marijuana provides relief, including neuropathic pain such as HIV/AIDS-related peripheral neuropathy; that these drugs work for all patients without unacceptable side effects; and that these medicines provide relief as quickly as marijuana, with the same ability to titrate dosage.

2) That using medical marijuana is more “damaging” to a patient’s health than other drugs commonly prescribed for these indications.

Please provide the scientific evidence for your claims by February 15, 2008. We will refer your submission to an independent scientific review panel and will respond within 30 days of your submission.

If you are unable to provide proof of your statements about medical marijuana, we call upon you to publicly retract these falsehoods and to apologize to the patients and others who have raised this issue in good faith. In short, we expect you to stop lying to the public about medical marijuana.

Sincerely,


Rob Kampia
Executive Director