Marijuana Gains Wonder Drug Status

[SHRED]

I did not think, 20 years ago, that we would still be suffering under Draconian type laws that forbid the use of this valuable plant both in both an industrial and a medicinal capacity.

Lesson?
Never underestimate the corporate powers that own our airwaves .
And let's not forget the "jobs program" known as the DEA
Plus the conscious and sub-conscious psychosis' of those still fighting phantom imagery left over from the Sixties youth rebellion movement. Turn on any RW hack talk radio show, or FOX News, and you will hear, in about 5 minutes, some referral to "liberal, long-haired, Birkenstock wearing"...you know the rest.



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Marijuana Gains Wonder Drug Status
By Lester Grinspoon, Boston Globe
Posted on March 3, 2007, Printed on March 3, 2007

A new study in the journal Neurology is being hailed as unassailable proof that marijuana is a valuable medicine. It is a sad commentary on the state of modern medicine -- and US drug policy -- that we still need "proof" of something that medicine has known for 5,000 years.

The study, from the University of California at San Francisco, found smoked marijuana to be effective at relieving the extreme pain of a debilitating condition known as peripheral neuropathy. It was a study of HIV patients, but a similar type of pain caused by damage to nerves afflicts people with many other illnesses including diabetes and multiple sclerosis. Neuropathic pain is notoriously resistant to treatment with conventional pain drugs. Even powerful and addictive narcotics like morphine and OxyContin often provide little relief. This study leaves no doubt that marijuana can safely ease this type of pain.

As all marijuana research in the United States must be, the new study was conducted with government-supplied marijuana of notoriously poor quality. So it probably underestimated the potential benefit.

This is all good news, but it should not be news at all. In the 40-odd years I have been studying the medicinal uses of marijuana, I have learned that the recorded history of this medicine goes back to ancient times and that in the 19th century it became a well-established Western medicine whose versatility and safety were unquestioned. From 1840 to 1900, American and European medical journals published over 100 papers on the therapeutic uses of marijuana, also known as cannabis.

MORE:
http://www.alternet.org/story/48749/



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[sam sarrha]

1. check out this .LINK> for the history of Hemp... wonderful wonderful

http://www.jackherer.com/chapters.html

until aspirin weed was the most prescribed drug in the USA

[SHRED]

2. I have met Jack....

...and read his "Emperor" book.

Great stuff!


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[bonito]

3. Thanks for the link

great info.

[SHRED]

4. more

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Here are some good links:

http://www.hempreport.com/news.html

http://www.jackherer.com/chapters.html

http://www.hemp4fuel.com

http://www.naihc.org/

http://www.tinroofvideo.com/

http://www.hempline.com/index.asp

[tblue37]

5. But people could grow their own, so pharmaceutical

companies would not be able to make money from it. That can't be allowed, you know. Where would big pharm get the money to buy the politicians if people didn't have to pay hundreds of dollars per month for all their meds?

I have peripheral neuropathy. We have found a drug that relieves the pain for me, though the same drug doesn't work for everyone. But I know from my younger years that weed does the trick much better. I can't use weed any longer, and haven't for many years, because I also have Meniere's disease, and weed can trigger a Meniere's vertigo attack.

Understand, I have never used weed to get high. I have no desire to get high. (I don't drink, either.) I love being fully awake and fully aware. But at times the pain from neuropathy was so bad that when a pothead friend who was often with me offered me a hit, I would take it. One hit, and no more pain.

I did this three times, and each time the pain was gone almost immediately. At that time, I was so poor I couldn't afford to buy pain medication (or even to pay the copay to see the doctor for a prescription). But that's the thing. Big pharm certainly does not want people like that to have access to cheap or free medication that they can even get without going through a doctor.

[tblue37]

6. Oh, and for those of you who don't know how neuropathy feels, let me enlighten you.

I get it mostly in my hands, though sometimes in my feet, too.

Think of when your leg, arm or hand falls asleep. The worst, not the mildest version of that discomfort. On top of that, imagine that you have plunged your hand into water so icy that it is on the verge of going solid, and that you have left it there for a long time.

Then on top of that, imagine that you have somehow also stuck your hand into an open flame.

A combined feeling of painful tingling numbness + icy cold + fire--layered all at once, not successively. That is what peripheral neuropathy feels like. A drug called Lyrica works for me. Thank goodness.

I have a pinched nerve in my neck from arthritis, as well as pernicious anemia, and both have caused some peripheral neuropathy. The pain can get so bad that it will awaken me from a deep sleep--or prevent me from going to sleep in the first place. The fact that the government, for its own dumb reasons, will prevent people from accessing a drug that can relieve such pain is infurating.

If they could package the ingredients that ease the pain in a pill that would not get one high, then I would gladly take it, since getting high would not be my intention.

[undergroundpanther]

8. I consider myself lucky than

I had short term neuropathy caused by degenerative disk disease, I had it on my side radiating along the ribcage and under the shoulder blade.. Most of the time during the day it was pins and needles type of stuff ..but if I dared sleep on my other side it became nasty shooting pain that made me wanna scream,sometimes it would seize up and I would be yelping as I set up my heat pad and popped tylenols..So after two days of this I hauled by butt on the buss to the ER.I put on my sunglasses because I was crying all the way there and didn't want to look like an idiot.Every bump and turn made it hurt worse A shot of morphine was required to make it stop.
I am so glad the pot information is here. Because I don't ever wanna get addicted to shit like morphine or oxycontin.I'd rather ask for a hit from a pothead friend. than go through all that again.
Thankfully the neuropathy in my side has gotten very mild only feel pins sometimes and I can sleep on both sides again.

[SHRED]

7. It is absolutely criminal...

...to keep this plant oppressed.

In my fantasy world, such activity would garner 5 years of hard labor as a "Mandatory Minimum" sentence.

[Jcrowley]

9. K&R n/t