Medical Marijuana

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Another Day, Another Dollar
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Decision to smoke pot shouldn't involve doctor


THE ATTEMPT by drug policy reformers in Maryland to legalize marijuana for medicinal purposes is bad medicine masquerading as harm reduction.
Marijuana is no more a medicine than is water. It is neither safe nor dangerous, good nor bad. Marijuana is a plant that people have a right to grow, purchase, sell, own and ingest as they see fit.

Anything can be labeled a medicine, just as anything can be diagnosed as a disease - provided the people applying the label and diagnosis have the authority to do so. It all depends on who says something is medicine, who is using it and for what purposes it is being used. Is water a medicine? Yes and no. If a person is dehydrated, water becomes a life-saving medicine.

Most of the time water is not medicine, despite the fact it is essential to our survival and consumed regularly. Is water safe or dangerous? People can safely drink and swim in it. When people consume too much water they may suffer from electrolyte imbalance. A person can drown in water. Does that make it dangerous? No. It all depends on how you use it.

Is water good or bad? The question is meaningless. Just as dangerous and safe are not properties we can detect through water analysis, there is no goodness or badness we can detect in water. Water is just water. A priest sees "holy" water. An atheist sees "plain" water. Doctors and scientists cannot tell the difference, only priests and theologians can. How can they tell the difference between holy water and secular water? By who uses the water, by the ways in which they use it, by the way it has been blessed and consecrated.

The same is true for marijuana. Medical marijuana advocates argue that marijuana is a panacea. Prohibitionists argue that marijuana is a panapathogen (something that causes illness). Who is right? Neither. It all depends on how you use it. Marijuana is no more medicine than water is medicine. And marijuana is just as dangerous as water.

So why all the fuss about marijuana as medicine? The Maryland General Assembly passed a bill legalizing marijuana for medical purposes. Could it be because those who hold that marijuana is medicine, safe and a panacea are not far away from those who think marijuana is bad, dangerous and a panapathogen? Both sides attribute nonexistent qualities to marijuana.

Is the fuss because people who want to smoke marijuana need it to treat any number of diseases such as glaucoma or multiple sclerosis or the nausea that often accompanies chemotherapy? Of course not. Plenty of effective drugs are available for these diseases and conditions.

Medical marijuana advocates hide behind sick people in order to get marijuana without penalty in order to get high. They believe the laws against marijuana possession and use are inhumane - and the laws are inhumane, but not for the reasons they state. The medical marijuana pushers lie about the drug just as much as the prohibitionists do.

The medicinal marijuana argument is as red a herring as they come. People have a right to use marijuana or any drug in any way they see fit - as medicine, as religious ritual, or simply to make themselves feel good, as long as they don't hurt anyone else in the process.

However, the medical marijuana peddlers are not satisfied with such an honest and principled stand. They trust doctors to make lifestyle decisions for them. They want doctors in charge of who gives them their recreational drugs. Medicinal marijuana peddlers fear autonomy and embrace the paternalism of the therapeutic state.

Medicalizing marijuana, like medicalizing behavior, is bad medicine. Two wrongs don't make a right. The best solution to the harm created by drug prohibition is repeal of drug prohibition in its entirety. And that is a federal issue, not a state one.

http://www.sunspot.net/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.marijuana12may12.story
 
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Northern Lights...what an awesome strain.

It safer than booze, but they can't tax it. That's why.
 

RPM

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AS A SUBSCRIBER TO THE BALTIMORE SUN, LET ME TELL YOU THAT PAPER IS A PIECE OF SHIT!!!!

there are no EFFECTIVE drugs that i know of for nausea associated with chemotherapy. i have seen several family members pass from cancer, and i WATCHED as they withered away from not being able to eat.

and as far as pot not having negative effects... there is currently a comercial on t.v. about how harmless pot is. i believe it says something about 1/3 of people involved in fatal car accidents test positive for weed.

as far as the law goes, i support the law maryland passed. it doesnt legalize pot, but it does give judges the right to not impose fines or jail time for people who have an understandable reason to be using it.
 
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I have an deceased aunt who died of cancer. A friend of hers turned her on to weed when she was on chemo-and she was a different person.

p.s. I think that she was also rather pissed that she had never been stoned before.

She still died, but I saw her laugh more in the last 6 months of her life than in the previous 4 years.
 

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<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by RPM:
AS A SUBSCRIBER TO THE BALTIMORE SUN, LET ME TELL YOU THAT PAPER IS A PIECE OF SHIT!!!!

there are no EFFECTIVE drugs that i know of for nausea associated with chemotherapy. i have seen several family members pass from cancer, and i WATCHED as they withered away from not being able to eat.

and as far as pot not having negative effects... there is currently a comercial on t.v. about how harmless pot is. i believe it says something about 1/3 of people involved in fatal car accidents test positive for weed.

as far as the law goes, i support the law maryland passed. it doesnt legalize pot, but it does give judges the right to not impose fines or jail time for people who have an understandable reason to be using it.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

RPM, those commericals are the biggest load of crap out there. The commercial states that 1 in 3 drivers tested for pot test positive which equates to probably like 1.5% of the overall accidents. You have to be pretty blatantly high to be tested like that. Same with the teenage pregnancy test commercial they have in the same series about getting 13 year old girls pregnant by smoking pot. It's all about skewing the numbers. Those commercials are quite possibly the most misleading ones on the market.
 

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No problem. Hope I didn't come off as an ass. Those commercials just annoy me.
 

RPM

OG
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no, you didnt come off badly at all. i appreciate your insight.
 

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