Listen to the Doctor: Weed Really Can Heal

Townhall.com ^ | August 27, 2013 | Debra J. Saunders

[BenLurkin]

Administering a palliative substance is a far cry from “healing.”

[svcw]

Refer Madness - that's why To many people think this is what pot is all about:

[mmichaels1970]

Gupta told CNN's Erin Burnett that he used to look at medical marijuana advocates as "malingerers" who are "just looking to get high." But he came to see that cannabis not only helps severely ill people but also averts the dangerous side effects of more potent pharmaceuticals.

Do those two views have to be mutually exclusive?

[Blood of Tyrants]

Time to end the 100 year old failed War on Drugs.

[bolobaby]

SO, whatever is in marijuana can’t be isolated and turned into a pill with the same properties? Very unlikely that it can’t.

But that’s not what the pothead lobby wants. They want to smoke it, not actually do research on what could REALLY be helpful.

[Nifster]

Deb Saunders....bleeech a so called SF conservative....

[Nifster]

exactly....

[Nifster]

Yes it can and has been. The drug is known and marketed as Marinol. Very effective when used

[cincinnati65]

First, the sex. Now, the drugs. Next thing you know, Bruce Springsteen will be writing the new national anthem.

[Kenny Bunk]

Cannabis was part of the Pharmacopeia for centuries.

If a doctor wishes to prescribe it for a patient, what exactly is the big deal? It has some fairly well described medical effects, or at least as many as other "legal" drugs. It has an "herbal" source, and contains hundreds of pharmacologically active compounds, just like morphine, quinine,digitalis, or many another medical stand-by.

The problem with it is unrestricted recreational use*, or "self-medication," as apologists for addiction like to call it.

*Heavy use of which makes people demonstrably stupid-er.

[Hot Tabasco]

It might help an anorexic gain weight but that’s about it......

[virgil283]

"...alcohol is much more harmful than marijuana"...man I have strong reservations about 'more harmful'.....others have stated figures about this better than I can but if you compare the two there are glaring problems in that many accidents aren't attributed to pot because there weren't tests to show pot use. If you want to prescribe THC in a pill for pain maybe but what is really happening is every one who wants to get high comes up with some ailment....I don't say this lightly but because I know potheads and they don't want to do anything unless the get high first...

[Hot Tabasco]

On one hand they want to ban tobacco products and on the other they want to legalizing smoking marijuana.......go figure.

As a side note, marijuana is about 10 times more harmful on the lungs than cigarettes since it's unfiltered........

[spawn44]

Dude has been sampling to much of the product.

[Kenny Bunk]

Bruce Springsteen will be writing the new national anthem.

Lay offa Bruce. He has learned several new chords (we're up to 8!) and he is a damn hard worker. He is also fatter. Weirdly, fellow Joisey Shore Guy, Chris Christie is getting somewhat slimmer.

This illustrates "Conservation of Mass."

[wardaddy]

oh lord...let the battle begin

i’ll bring bandages

[bassmaner]

And the 76 year old war on MJ, started because the fascist prohibitionist Harry Anslinger (the federal ‘drug czar’ of the day) testified before Congress that it made white women have sex with black jazz musicians.

[Gargantua]

Why is Washington still waging a war on weed?

1) Nobody likes to admit they were wrong... Governments least of all.

2) It's all about power and control. Legalize weed, and the powers-that-be give away their most useful tool in exercising total control over the general populace. By criminalizing an otherwise harmless act, the Government by its decree instantly makes millions of Americans "criminals." Now that's power. That's control.

3) What in the world would they do with all that free court time and prison space?

4) Where would they find another so convenient an excuse to turn thousands of rapists, muggers, murderers and pedophiles loose on the public if not the overcrowding of our prisons created by this amoral set of Drug Laws?

Power, control, and the refusal to admit their error.

The Jackboots suck huge mung.

;-\

[Edward Teach]

"SO, whatever is in marijuana can’t be isolated and turned into a pill with the same properties? Very unlikely that it can’t. But that’s not what the pothead lobby wants. They want to smoke it, not actually do research on what could REALLY be helpful."

Yet the current regime of draconian marijuana laws make even research next to impossible.

Shall we even get into the sheer madness of no-knock swat raids and lengthy prison sentences for marijuana users who are committing what amounts to a consensual crime? As long as I'm doing no harm to others, what business is it of anyone's if I dry out a plant and burn it and inhale the smoke? I personally don't, but nevertheless it speaks to a principle that I feel very strongly about.