Posted on 02/16/2007 3:23:59 PM PST by cryptical
The cannabis plant has been used as a medicine for thousands of years. In the United States, doctors could prescribe marijuana cigarettes to patients for a variety of conditions until the 1940s, when it was banned. Marijuana's status as an illegal drug has removed it from the official medical arsenal, but its therapeutic power is still attracting attention, especially its pain-killing properties.
About 30 percent of HIV patients develop painful nerves during the course of their illness, and this neuropathy is extremely difficult to treat with standard pain medications. Dr. Donald Abrams, of the University of California at San Francisco, studied the use of marijuana for relief of their discomfort. "We've known for along time that cannabinoids, the active ingredients in marijuana, can be involved in modulation of pain and the response to pain," he explains, adding that the body has its own cannabinoid system. "We make natural substances called endo-cannabinoids and it's felt that one of the main roles of these endo-cannabinoids is in our processing of painful stimuli." Abrams studied 50 patients who had suffered nerve pain for an average of 7 years. He gave half actual marijuana cigarettes to smoke three times a day, the other half smoked placebo cigarettes. He found the patients smoking the marijuana had significantly greater pain relief, and it was almost immediate. "After smoking the first cigarette on the first day," he recalls, "we asked patients what had happened to their pain. Those smoking the actual marijuana cigarette, their pain reduced 75 percent; where those smoking the placebo, their pain reduced less than 20 percent." These results were consistent throughout the study.
Abrams says there is a pill on the market containing the most active ingredient of marijuana, called tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC. But he says smoking the actual plant works better than taking the pill, because THC is only one of the components present in the plant. "The plant has over 400 chemical compounds, many of which also have medicinal value. Many of those compounds in the plant also offer a balance to the side effects of the THC alone. So when you take a pill that's just THC, some people have more adverse effects than actually smoking THC as part of marijuana."
The research appears in the February 13th issue of Neurology, the scientific journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
Your label is false. The burden of proof is on you.
You want to send me to prison for a couple one hits a couple nights a week trying to escape pain that pill after pill and spinal surgery did not address, the more power to you. Such a fellow freedom loving American I can call you huh? If that alone is to send me to prison, so be it.
I am sorry you consider seeking relief from pain as filth. I hope you never experience long term chronic pain yourself, for it is an ugly thing to love with.
If anyone funded a study of smoked marijuana as medicine, I'd dismiss it. Even if the DEA funded it.
If NORML funded a study on smoked marijuana as medicine, I wouldn't even bother to read it.
"I will question them and assign risk to them as I see fit, as it pertains to my life."
Oh, so now you WILL question them? Well, that's not what you said before. And how, pray tell, will you "assign risk" on those 598 chemicals when you have no idea what they do?
I suggested we do research to isolate and remove the chemicals which may be harmful, keeping those that are beneficial. You say patients should be allowed to light up and inhale all 600 chemicals, hoping one or two may help them.
Now, how are they, or you, going to "assign risk"? What "risk" are you talking about and how will you "assign" it?
Gobbledygook.
"Are the sick , in pain, or dying considered people RP? Obviously they are."
Fine. Then I stand by my original statement that you're using the sick and dying as pawns -- despite your denial and saying that you were simply referring to your own wants. Which, again, we see was another lie.
"I did, if you disagee with it, please post another."
You said medicine was any substance or substances used in treating disease or illness. OK. Which major medical organization supports using smoked marijuana to treat some disease or illness? The AMA? The National Cancer Institute? The National MS Society? The American Cancer Society? The American Lung Association? The American Academy of Ophthalmology?
Now if you're saying that it's medicine because some stoned out doper is smoking marijuana to relieve the pain of his ingrown toenail, then your definition sucks.
"and then sit there an claim you aren't trying to stop anyone from anything?"
I'm not. I couldn't if I tried. Could I stop you from smoking? Of course not. So cool your jets. You want to smoke dope, smoke away.
"You argue at great length, for a whole host of reasons, not to allow people access to MJ for ANY reason"
Wrong. I argue to keep marijuana illegal. THAT'S what I argue. Stop with your "won't allow access" and "stop people from smoking".
For trying to escape pain? Of course not. For breaking the law.
I mean, you knew it was illegal, right? And you chose to do it anyways, right? So what's the problem here?
Are you saying you're not responsible for your actions? Is that it? Someone forced you to break the law? Are you .... whining?
The word false comes from the dictionary too. Your label is false.
If you want to be a doper and wallow in filth all day long, it doesn't worry me. If you wind up in prison, that doesn't worry me either.
You mean a wino's bottle of port isn't medicine?
Well, according to clown poster, if the wino says it's medicine, it's medicine.
robertpaulsen: "No, not at all. Through the legislative process. People expressing their will through their elected representatives who vote in various chambers, then signed by the executive, and approved as constitutional by the judicial."
OK. This sounds to me like another argument from authority, this time representative government instead of majority rule. Legislative might makes right?
Then what would you prefer -- a dictatorship? Oligarchy? Theocracy?
What makes one system better than another? How do you choose?
You don't like a pure democracy. You don't like a representatrive republic. I'm asking you, what DO you like?
Given the human body's cannabinoid receptors, it's absolutely ridiculous to think that there wouldn't be some treatments for disorders involving whatever the receptors modulate.
I never said that.
I wanted to know if you had any principle(s) you would like to see guide the legislators in self restraint.
Given the potentially infinite scope for reducing harm, broadly construed, where should legislators draw the line?
Well, let's see. You said, "This sounds to me like another argument from authority ... Legislative might makes right?"
I'm supposed to interpret that as you like it? I mean, you framed this response identical to your response to a pure democracy (majority rule) -- Does that mean you also like majority rule?
"I wanted to know if you had any principle(s) you would like to see guide the legislators in self restraint."
Ah. So when you said, "This sounds to me like another argument from authority, this time representative government instead of majority rule", you were really asking if I had any principle(s) I would like to see guide the legislators in self restraint.
Why didn't I see that?
I'll tell you what -- why don't you tell me what it is you like about a representative republic, and we'll start there?
So far, I haven't seen you give any principle or guideline for limiting government, representative or otherwise.
I gave you mine, which you don't seem to like. OK, show me a better idea.
Can representative governments legally enact laws that transgress their proper limits? On what basis do you evaluate their proper limits?
A) You gave me a Libertarian philosophical theory which had no connection to reality. B) The definition of harm can be so broad as to include behaviors which are prohibited under today's laws.
"OK, show me a better idea."
I'm quite content with the current one. A representative republic, with legislators limited by both the constitution and the people who elected them to office.
If the people don't want certain laws, they can let their representatives know about it. You would attempt to limit their right to choose how they will live.
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