Posted on 02/26/2006 7:55:05 AM PST by Wolfie
Physician Advocates for Medical Marijuana
Vermont -- As he opened his remarks about medical marijuana, Dr. Joseph McSherry said he couldn't be as informative as he would like to be.
"I asked a very good friend, who happens to be a medical marijuana patient, what I should tell you today," McSherry said. "He said to tell you not to ask a doctor. Doctors don't know (expletive) about medical marijuana."
McSherry, a neurophysiologist and PhD associated with Fletcher Allen Medical Center and the University of Vermont, said his friend is largely correct: There have been few scientific studies on the effects of marijuana as a medicine, and even less research has been conducted on its medical effects in humans.
"You'll probably be more educated than your doctor by the time we get through," McSherry told his audience at the Godnick Center in Rutland on Friday.
He walked the audience through the limited medical data on cannabis and the properties of the chemicals in marijuana other than THC that can have beneficial effects.
Canabanoids, McSherry said, can boost the effectiveness of other painkillers, inhibit the growth of tumors and alleviate wet macular degeneration, which causes blindness in some cases.
"We're just beginning to scratch the surface of this iceberg," he said.
McSherry said that inhaled marijuana can be very effective at treating sudden swift pains, while many other painkillers, including marinol — a legal prescription drug that is a capsule of THC in sesame oil — can take too long to take effect.
"I don't approve of smoking for anybody," he said. "There's got to be a better way of doing it, but the U.S. government hasn't been interested in doing any research.
"If you eat it, the chemicals peak in two to four hours. Eating it is probably the worst way of intaking THC," he said. "If you inhale it, THC levels peak in a few minutes and it actually goes away in the first hour."
He noted that researchers in other countries are trying to develop different types of medical cannabis for patients.
Two members of the audience who said they use the drug for medicinal purposes offered compelling testimony about its benefits. Neither identified themselves.
The first patient said that at one point he had been on 17 different medications to treat his multiple sclerosis — some to counteract the side effects of other medications.
"Now I think I'm on four medications now," he said. "I'm not on medications for the side effects of medication. I'm not drugged out or high. From 17 meds, down to four."
A second patient said he had lost more than 50 pounds while undergoing chemotherapy before using marijuana to counteract the nausea.
"I went from 236 pounds down to 176," he said. "Part of the problem was the sickness of chemo. I couldn't hold down food, and marinol did not work for me. Cannabis did work."
Members of the audience had many questions about medical marijuana, from its chemical properties to the intricacies of growing plants to use for medicine.
"If you have a seed that has a known history of consistent product, you will get a consistent product medically," McSherry said. "That's why I think patients ought to be able to grow their own."
One audience member wondered how patients who don't grow it can access medical marijuana.
"Where does the pot come from if you're not a green thumb person?" she asked.
McSherry said "compassionate clubs" have formed in California that allow medical marijuana patients to bring in prescriptions to be filled with marijuana of a known quality rather than forcing patients to rely on what they can find on the black market, he said.
"In Vermont, if you have a friend or a grandson … you can make a provision to register with the state that you're a registered patient and they're a registered grower," he said, adding that Vermont's medical marijuana law does not shield users or growers from federal prosecution.
McSherry sees access to the drug as an uphill battle. He said many doctors are resistant to the notion of medical marijuana.
"There are very definitely a lot of doctors who are very adamant it's not a medicine," he said. "There are doctors that believe if it were a medicine, the FDA would approve it and pharmaceutical companies would make cannabis that you can take as a product.
"But patients' definition of a medicine is a different thing," he added.
Yes, so dangerous that it kills more people each year that cigarettes and alcohol put together.
Pot ? ...kills more people than booze and cigaretts?
I was being sarcastic, of course. We have been trying to get a reason out of the "warriors" as to why pot is banned since it is completely harmless and there is not one documented death recorded in the history of the world from pot use, while there are 400,000 deaths PER YEAR from legal tobacco and 100,000 deaths PER YEAR from legal alcohol.
No one can come up with a valid reason yet. We are still waiting, but not holding our breath.
Of course they don't have data on driving under the influence of THC. Unfortunately, those accidents also kill other people. That would seem to be the biggest obstacle in my mind to legalization.
Actually, there is some data on the use of pot while driving. Some researchers actually did tests on people driving under the influence of pot and found that some people actually drive better under that influence. There is a link on one of the pot sites, or you can find it by searching the web.
If you can't find it, ask and I shall provide it for you.
Of course, mixing it with alcohol doesn't count for anything. Alcohol all by itself is known to cause traffic accidents.
Alcohol is involved in much violence. Strange that alcohol is legal and pot is not. The only reason pot is illegal is because the government says it should be. That is not good enough for me nor others who know the truth.
Cruising on Cannabis
Cruising on Cannabis: Putting the Breaks on Doped Driving Misconceptions
By Paul Armentano
Moreover, emerging scientific research indicates that cannabis actually has far less impact on the psychomotor skills needed for driving than alcohol does, and is seldom a causal factor in automobile accidents. A pair of international studies released in the spring of 2001 bolsters this argument.
The first, conducted by Britain's Transport Research Laboratory, found that volunteers performed better on a driving simulator under the influence of pot than they did after consuming alcohol. According to the study, marijuana only adversely impacted subjects' ability to maintain a constant speed and control while driving around a figure-eight loop. Reaction time and all other measures of driving performance remained unaffected. Researchers also noted that the subjects who had smoked marijuana - unlike alcohol users - were aware of their impairment and attempted to compensate for it by driving more cautiously.
Similar results were also reported in March by a South Australian team at the Department of Clinical and Experimental Pharmacology at the University of Adelaide. Their epidemiological review of automobile accidents found that alcohol "overwhelmingly plays the greatest role in road crashes ... [and] conversely, ... marijuana has a negligible impact on culpability." The study was a follow up to a 1998 analysis of 2,500 injured drivers that previously determined cannabis to have "no significant effect" on drivers' culpability in motor vehicle accidents.
In fact, most marijuana and driving experiments give pot a relatively clean bill of health, particularly when compared to alcohol. A review of two-decades worth of driving simulator and on-road studies by Alison Smiley for Toronto's Centre for Addiction and Mental Health concluded that although marijuana temporarily impairs driving behavior, "this impairment is mitigated in that subjects under marijuana treatment appear to perceive that they are indeed impaired [and] where they can compensate, they do."
http://www.norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=5449
One of several articles about driving high on pot.
"Why can't they grow it themselves?"
Because it is illegal and it's much easier to get caught growing it than it is just smoking it and the penalties are much worse for "manufacturing." Besides, most don't need as much as they'd have if they grew it, and hardly any would want to go to all that trouble anyway, even if it was legal. It's cheaper than beer. Why go to all the trouble of growing it? Most people would rather take the easy way and just pay a few bucks a week or month or whatever for what they smoke, or just smoke their friends' pot, or both.
"Moreover, emerging scientific research indicates that cannabis actually has far less impact on the psychomotor skills needed for driving than alcohol does, and is seldom a causal factor in automobile accidents. A pair of international studies released in the spring of 2001 bolsters this argument. "
Ummm...my recollection of this from high school is somewhat different. It would be hard to describe my driving friends as anything less than impaired.
"Almost half the people strongly oppose legalization -- and that's with regulation and taxation."
The number of those who want it regulated and taxed is steadily growing though, and you and I both know public opinion numbers can change by ten or more points in no time. As support for changing the laws grows and more important people come out in favor of it public opinion could totally swing in the opposite direction. It is slowly but surely getting to that point already, even with a concerted and well funded effort on the part of the government to prevent it from happening. Give it time and you'll see better than half the people strongly supporting regulating and taxing the marijuana industry.
Let me put it to you this way. How many people do you personally know who wrecked while high on pot and only high on pot?
I know of none.
I like it.
Who are you growing for -- Orange county?
That's a 150,000.
Not to mention the meth lab in the kitchen.
First, there's a 150,000 medical marijuana patients who can grow legally under California law plus however many "caregivers" there might be. Second, if they don't grow it then they aren't "just smoking it", they're probably buying it from a drug dealer.
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