Marijuana is Not the Answer
Is there medicinal value to marijuana?
- Yes – there is limited clinical value in its FDA approved form, never in its smoked or raw form
What about for cancer and HIV/AIDS patients?
- The pill form of the active chemical in marijuana can be helpful for the nausea associated with chemotherapy or the wasting disease that appears with AIDS, but even dronabinol is a third tier medicine with unpleasant side effects, including increased susceptibility to depression.
- Many other medicines that have been tested as safe and more effective are preferred by oncologists
- Smoking or ingesting marijuana damages the immune system – an intolerable side effect for an end of life or immune-suppressed patient.
- Inhaling marijuana impairs lung function, increases the risk of bronchitis, causes premalignant cellular changes in the lungs, inflames the lining of the lungs and leaves the patient more vulnerable to bacterial and viral infection.
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How can you say its bad to have a raw material, and have it be useful? When you take a prescribed drug such as thc pills, it doesn't have all the other chemicals that work together to help you in many needs. Not to mention the fact that most of the chemicals in marijuana are actuely in you, they just need to be activated. Another thing to consider is that every chemical has a different effect on each individual. Meaning it may help more so then any other prescribed drug, or it may have some mild negative effects. I've known a man who had a very bad reaction, now some may say, "See marijuana bad!" But then you've got to remember its not ment for everyone, but some people need it. In fact some people are born with this genetic mutation that needs the chemicals in marijuana. The man made alternative wouldn't have all the chemicals that marijuana has. So next time you go and say that marijuana has negative chemicals, or that its to raw. Just remember that some people like things more "real" then fake alternatives that only lead to more dangerous and harmful problems.
Peace comes from within - Buddha
"Smoking or ingesting marijuana damages the immune system – an intolerable side effect for an end of life or immune-suppressed patient." -- I'd like to see some citations for this. an April 16, 2003 article in the American Medical Association's journal demonstrated that cannabis lowers levels of the inflammation-promoting protein interleukin-2 and raises levels of the anti-inflammatory protein interleukin-10. This means, in layman's terms, that it fights inflammation. However, since inflammation is part of the immune system, this finding has been twisted around by certain dishonest organisations to imply a weakening of the immune system, even though no increased susceptibility to any diseases other than bronchitis* has ever been shown. To paraphrase with less technical detail:
When the Partnership for a Drug Free America says that cannabis damages the immune system, what they REALLY mean (or should, if they bothered to read the literature) is that it reduces swelling. Thus, if your question is "what's a good way to deal with swollen joints after exercise that won't cause unwanted effects (but might feel good)," cannabis just might be the answer.
*Acute bronchitis incidence rate is higher for cannabis users than the general population, but researchers have thus far failed to control for the means by which the cannabis is ingested or the context in which it's used. Taking huge gulps of air while in a humid environment , such as on your porch while it's raining, could alone account for the effect. And if the smoke itself could be explained as a contributing factor, it's likely that the use of vapourizers, or, to a lesser extent bongs, could mitigate this effect.
Both of these findings could be of potential benefit for treating autoimmune disorders one day.
As far as I'm concerned, Drug Free America Foundation is a fraudulant group of morons who should be put out of business for being a front for Big Pharma. Ever notice that they don't call for outlawing tobacco or alcohol , which kill far more people per year than marijuana has in DECADES?! Why not? Because the government makes too much money off taxing them, and banning alcohol didn't work in the 1920s. And if marijuana were legal and used as medicine , it would take a huge bite out of Big Phama's profits!
Marijuana IS a medicine i dont give a shit what your moral views are. if a patient through personal experience gets relief from marijuana YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO DENY THEM. marijuana is a safe, non-toxic medicine that has no chance of killing you that relieves so much pain. i dont hate anyone expect thoughs that support a view that holds no water. WHY ARE WE PUTTING PEOPLE IN PAIN IN PRISON. we have laws in place to protect people. these people pose no harm to society except they want to relieve pain. go to hell worthless scum.
If cannabis is not the answer than why is marinol? You don't have to smoke cannabis.
The only FDA approved, is FDA approved because pharmaceutical companies can make money from it, and they hold the FDA's puppet strings. Regardless, just use a vaporizer, it has none of the negative effects of smoking. This is just a stupid argument because states have the right to choose and we have the president on our side. Now that we've started, we can't be stopped.
This is a quote...
"Cannabinoids have been found to have antioxidant properties, unrelated to NMDA receptor antagonism. This new found property makes cannabinoids useful in the treatment and prophylaxis of wide variety of oxidation associated diseases, such as ischemic, age-related, inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. The cannabinoids are found to have particular application as neuroprotectants, for example in limiting neurological damage following ischemic insults, such as stroke and trauma, or in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and HIV dementia."
That's Cannabinoids... from Cannabis... which is Marijuana. Want to know where that quote comes from? Get this... it comes from the text of a patent provided to the United States of America as represented by the Department of Health and Human Services. That's right... your government and my government. The same gevernment that sponsors this propaganda machine called Drug Free America. Check it out for yourself...
http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/6630507/fulltext.html
This "marijuana is not the answer" rhetoric is just the latest talking point that prohibitionists have adopted. The answer to what question? If it's "What new treatment can we patent and sell to the public?", then I agree... the whole marijuana plant is not the answer to that question.
I believe that if marijuana "is not the answer" then one must look at the possibility that you are asking yourselves the wrong question.
Tell me why tobacco and alcohol corporations fund Drug Free America. Could it be because they are afraid of competition from a substance which does NOT cause cancer, does NOT give hangovers, does NOT cause hundreds of thousands of deaths each year?
Do you find it outrageously ironic that the Partnership for a Drug Free America is funded almost wholly buy alcohol, tobacco and pharmacuetical companies. Here are a few from the list: Johnson and Johnson, DuPont, Merk, Bristol Myers Squibb, P&G.
Medical marijuana advocates are often accused of having biases. Of course we do, we side with reason and logic. We don't have a profit motive. It's just a damned plant.
Sarcasm and irony.
Why don't we talk from positions of facts, instead of fear.
I live in Texas. The is NO Medical Cannabis program here. If you even mention the word cannabis to a physician he/she curls up in a fetal ball, puts their hand over their ears, and says NANANANA. He/she could loose his/her license, be put in jail, called incompetent, etc. Ya'll speak of "No Medical Value". How do you know? Meaningfull research is NOT allowed in this country into the curitive properties of the compounds in this plant. Allow research. Then come back, and say there is no medical value. Considering I have used cannabis oil to remove all visual signs of Basal Cell, and Squamous Cell Carcinoma from my head, I don't think you will be able to.
When I began smoking pot in 1968, I found it to be an effective anxiolytic, and helpful in attaining sleep after a full day of work followed by night school; and it was only decades later that I learned why my asthma mysteriously subsided about that time after plaguing me since childhood.
To claim the "raw crude herb" can never have medical value is patently absurd-- Why is coffee legal if caffeine pills can be prescribed? Oranges vs Vitamin C pills...
Cannabis was in the US Pharmacopoeia for a century. What "science" led to its removal?
hint- Google: Anslinger jazz swing.