Prescriptions for Pot

Puffin13 · Post by **Puffin13** » Mon 27th Aug 2007 08:16 am

Prescriptions for Pot
Posted by CN Staff on August 23, 2007 at 07:02:36 PT
Editorial
Source: The Phoenix

Massachusetts -- Smoking a joint can be a better and more effective way of easing specific types of chronic pain than the use of legal but addictive prescription narcotics such as OxyContin and morphine.

Is this a flash bulletin from the Cheech and Chong School of Medicine? An advertorial from the pages of High Times magazine? Folk wisdom dispensed by a whacky but reliable Central Square pot dealer?

The answer is none of the above. Instead, the conclusion comes from researchers at the University of California, and has been validated by the American Academy of Neurology.

In other words, this reaffirmation that pot, marijuana, cannabis — whatever you want to call it — has legitimate medical applications comes straight from the conservative bosom of the nation’s medical establishment.

While this recent study focused on a very specific sort of pain suffered by HIV victims, its findings are equally applicable to the sorts of pain associated with multiple sclerosis, diabetes, arthritis, and a wide range of side-effects caused by cancer and its treatment.

Plus, more than 150 years of medical research have already established that, in addition to treating certain types of pain, marijuana can be used to treat anxiety, nausea, appetite loss, vomiting, and a host of other afflictions.

Marijuana used in a medical context is not a cure in the sense that antibiotics are. It is more akin to a treatment, something like aspirin. For almost 5000 years, marijuana’s medical uses have been recognized around the world as being both valid and versatile.

The US government has a penchant for fighting foolish wars; Vietnam and Iraq are only geopolitical examples. The so-called war on drugs is an equally misguided crusade. It perverts science, compromises medicine, and callously denies millions who are suffering access to fast, effective, and inexpensive relief.

Laws that remove state-level penalties for medical marijuana are currently in place in Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington. Ten others, plus the District of Columbia, have endorsed the concept.

It is time for Massachusetts to join the ranks of those that make it legal to grow and possess marijuana for medical reasons, subject to medical approval.

As for circumventing prosecution at the federal level, which the US Supreme Court allows, Massachusetts’s congressional delegation should vote to deny specifically the funds needed to prosecute such “crimes,” and should move to protect doctors who prescribe marijuana for medical reasons.

Note: It is time to make the medical use of marijuana legal.

Source: Phoenix, The (MA)
Published: August 22, 2007
Copyright: 2007 The Phoenix Media/Communications Group
Contact: letters@phx.com
Website: http://www.thephoenix.com

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geoffk · Post by **geoffk** » Mon 27th Aug 2007 02:24 pm

Thanks as always Puffin. I've been smoking more than I used to for the pain relief from two recent surgeries, it's far more soothing than anything cooked up in a pharmaceutical(sp?) lab.

Puffin13 · Post by **Puffin13** » Mon 27th Aug 2007 03:52 pm

I kinda hesitated to post this article because it really doesnt have much to do with coffeeshops or Amsterdam but I felt compelled to post it for those that might not know about all the medicinal uses that cannabis possesses. Spread the word.

sh@dy · Post by **sh@dy** » Mon 27th Aug 2007 04:24 pm

in Germany last week finally a woman was allowed to buy marihuana in a pharmacy, its the first time someone in Germany is allowed to do so.
Its not as good as in the states mentioned, but its a first step into the right direction.....hope one day Germany becomes as liberal as Spain or Belgium/Holland

Bhang Buddie · Post by **Bhang Buddie** » Thu 4th Oct 2007 09:38 pm

Many years ago I was prescribed 'Cannabis Tincture' by this wonderfully enlightened doctor. He saw it as the only sensible treatment for so many ailments of the body and the mind, sad (and obvious) to say he was hounded by all and sundry. Maybe if you go to your doctor and ask for tincture he'd prescribe it, it never does any harm to ask. I do know that at the time it was prescribed to me it was manufactured by 'BOOTS'.
Oh, one other thing, it was prescribed to me back in the 60's.