Smoking is Never a Good Idea

Certain aboriginal groups in the "new world" have been using smoking as a delivery mechanism for medicinal compounds for a very long time, and have done so effectively. Some medicines that have been smoked are even used specifically to fight ailments of the lungs -- such as mullein to treat heavy, mucus filled coughs (the mullein smoke breaks up the mucus and facilitates its removal from the body). While it is true that irritation in the throat or lungs is not an uncommon side effect among people who smoke, the benefits in many cases far outweigh the harms.

Until recently, the inhalation of smoke was the only effective means of getting active compounds to the lungs; certain technological advances have provided us with other methods of late, such as aerosol sprays, some of which have proven to have their own contraindications and side effects. Strict use of aerosols, in any case, makes users dependent upon an industrial complex to provide them with those products, which of course also requires that they are deemed worthy of receiving them: the fact is that not everybody is equally able to make use of these advances, and their ability to do so is dependent on some external force deeming them worthy of receiving the benefit.

Whether there is, in fact, relative benefit is also important to consider: while many cannabis users prefer vaporization because it results in less throat irritation, others find that the high is different, and less desirable. The same is true to a much greater extent with the pill forms: by and large they just don't have the same effect, and aren't as effective treatments as smoking. If studies are done using aerosols, the control group will be with a placebo, at best an "active placebo," not with smoking, and thus no data will be generated as to whether the new method is, in fact, a better treatment than smoking. It may well not be.

In any case, ingesting smoke IS an effective treatment for a wide variety of conditions , and the extreme anti-smoking positions of "Western" medicine largely have to do with the historical context of the flagrant overuse of low quality tobacco presenting a very skewed perception of the effects of smoking. We found out that chain smoking low quality, chemical treated tobacco over the course of decades is a fundamentally bad idea, and we inferred from this that ingesting any kind of smoke in any amount over any time scale is always incredibly harmful and should be avoided at all costs. This is untrue.

People who have conditions that cannabis is effective at treating (which, by the way, includes "anyone who menstruates" and "anyone who runs or stretches and experiences joint pain") do not have to use expensive, oil -dependent, industrial complex-tied, big government /big pharma approved methods of ingestion: they have a perfectly simple, effective, and relatively safe means of ingestion at their disposal already. It's called smoking, and there are certain ways in which its harms can be mitigated (such as by use of a bong and avoiding sharing if you're sick).

marijuana has no tar in its smoke,that is a product of legal tobacco,and vaporizing is safer than smoking

Please provide your reference for the following statement: "vaporizing does not filter marijuana – it still delivers the same cancer-causing tar and chemicals directly to the lungs."

I suspect you will have a hard time, as it is not true - or highly misleading at best. It's true that vaporizing does not filter marijuana, but that is not what vaporization is at all, and you know it. Over and over you say that in the end, it's burning leaves, however vaporization does not burn leaves. Finally, the statement "delivers the same tar" does not explicitly say that it's the same amount, but heavily implies it. It's either factually incorrect, or deliberately misleading. What few studies have been performed on the matter show that the levels of tar and other yucky stuff are drastically reduced, if not eliminated.

This information would be easier to find, and you could not get away with such claims, if there were actual research going on into these matters. If marijuana has so little medicinal value, why doesn't the government encourage open research to shut us medicinal patients up once and for all? (I'd guess it's because they know they're lying.)

You can't cite fungal infection from unmonitored growing methods as a negative. Does DFA really think the average person doesn't know that if marijuana were legalized, the growing methods would become perfected?
The so-called harmful chemicals that eating marijuana delivers amount to what, the psychoactives? Show me one study that links these chemicals to harm, and I'll show you ten that show you it doesn't.
Vaporization may still deliver small amounts of tar, but they pale in comparison to the harmful chemicals present in virtually every pharmaceutical (many are laced with fluoride). Look at how wrong your position is, how harmful it is to our society, that 92% of people who take these issues seriously support using marijuana as a medicine. So Just What Is It that keeps you going? Because if it does become legal, your budget gets cut? And you'll need to find real jobs?
You can't cite studies from groups that have vested interests in finding harmful effects. Like Drug Free America, for example. You are a disgrace to science, and actively harm the social environment by making it difficult for honest researchers to conduct studies.
You can make amends by focusing your efforts on the REAL dangers of our society, the chemicals in our food, in our water, in our air. Clean up the drugs, and let the public decide how to handle the plants.

Eating or vaporizing work quite well as a delivery system. Pharmaceutical companies have yet to create a working alternative.