REEFER MADNESS!!!!!!

[Telarus]

RWHN doesn't have to bother with this thread if he's busy. I don't mind.

We have a 1st 'official' explanation. Pretty well put together:

http://americanindependent.com/176489/nci-offers-explanation-for-changes-to-its-medical-marijuana-database-entry

[AFK]

RWHN doesn't have to bother with this thread if he's busy. I don't mind.

We have a 1st 'official' explanation. Pretty well put together:

http://americanindependent.com/176489/nci-offers-explanation-for-changes-to-its-medical-marijuana-database-entry

Number 2 in their explanation is pretty much in line with what I was talking about.  Tamping down false expectations so that medical marijuana doesn't end up being prescribed, solely, for possible anti-tumor effects. 

[AFK]

Well, the original version did mention "possible direct antitumor effect".  So even in the original there was no definitive statement that medical marijuana has that impact. 

I would wager that without definitive science, they perhaps erred on the side of caution and removed the passage.  Which I think is perfectly reasonable.  Especially when you are talking about an addictive substance.  Otherwise you may have people seeking the medication solely for the anti-tumor effect.  But I would also wager that lawyers were involved in altering the language, to protect themselves from any action from patients who used medical marijuana and didn't experience any improvements in tumors. 

I was under the impression that all available science points to marijuana NOT being physically addictive? (obviously, ANYTHING can be psychologically addictive)

not poking with a stick, just honestly curious whether you have something that contradicts that.

I will post it later when I have time, but people who use marijuana extensively and then try to quit do experience withdrawal symptoms.  Obviously, compared to heroin or other illicit drugs, they are a walk in the park, but they are still withdrawal symptoms, nonetheless. 

[AFK]

I really don't think it has anything to do with scheduling and has more to do with tamping down false hope. 

OK, waittaminute...

you REALLY think the feds care more about "tamping down false hope" than they do about keeping the current schedule of a drug that, if deemed medicinally useful at the federal level, could be grown at home in an unregulated manner which COMPLETELY cuts "big pharma" (aka "big campaign donor") out of the profits?

nothing to do with whether or not you believe in the medicinal usefulness of pot, I just can't believe your default position would be to assign the most altruistic motive possible to the people in charge of this sort of decision, especially given how much money is at play.

I wouldn't call it an altruistic motive.  It's more of a "cover their butt" motive.  If you put out there that pot is going to shrink tumors, and then it doesn't shrink tumors.  You are going to have some hella mad cancer patients looking for blood. 

[AFK]

Especially when you are talking about an addictive substance.

[citation needed]

Marijuana is an addictive substance- RWHN, MPP; Substance Abuse Services Specialist

[Vaud]

Marijuana is an addictive substance- RWHN, MPP; Substance Abuse Services Specialist

Is there any biological basis for your assessment?
If there is any truth to this, I'm interested to examine the evidence myself, as I am not fully acquainted with your credentials.

[AFK]

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/drug-addiction/DS00183/DSECTION=symptoms

http://www.jointogether.org/blog/posts/2011/addiction-doctors-say-medical.html

ASAM argues that marijuana is problematic because it is addictive

http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/publications/pdf/Marijuana.pdf

Long-term marijuana users who are trying to stop using the drug report symptoms such as irritability, sleeplessness, decreased appetite, anxiety, and drug craving, all of which make it difficult to quit.21
21 Budney AJ, Vandrey RG, Hughes JR, Thostenson JD, Bursac Z. Comparison of cannabis and tobacco withdrawal:
Severity and contribution to relapse. J Subst Abuse Treat 35(4):362–368, 2008.

For starters.

[Lord Cataplanga]

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/drug-addiction/DS00183/DSECTION=symptoms

http://www.jointogether.org/blog/posts/2011/addiction-doctors-say-medical.html

ASAM argues that marijuana is problematic because it is addictive

http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/publications/pdf/Marijuana.pdf

Long-term marijuana users who are trying to stop using the drug report symptoms such as irritability, sleeplessness, decreased appetite, anxiety, and drug craving, all of which make it difficult to quit.21
21 Budney AJ, Vandrey RG, Hughes JR, Thostenson JD, Bursac Z. Comparison of cannabis and tobacco withdrawal:
Severity and contribution to relapse. J Subst Abuse Treat 35(4):362–368, 2008.

For starters.

That doesn't sound much worse than say, cigarettes. Nobody's smoking tobacco for medical reasons, though.
Also, why are people smoking medical marijuana? Wouldn't it make more sense to make marijuana pills or something? Much less damage to the lungs that way.

[AFK]

Yes.  Yes it would.  And there actually are pills that contain the compounds in marijuana that have the medical benefits.  In fact, my mother in law was just recently in the hospital rooming with someone who had a prescription for medical marijuana.  But the pill form.  She said it was providing her all of the benefits for her symptoms that the smoked version had.  Mainly bringing back her appetite.  I don't really understand why there isn't a bigger push for the pill form vs. the smoked form.

Especially, when we know that the smoked form is already being diverted to recreational users. 

[El Sjaako]

There are pills with THC, but there is more stuff in cannabis than THC. Unfortunately any cocktail of substances approximating cannabis would be almost impossible to get through the FDA.

Also, marijuana is cheap, pills are not.

Also, you say that smoking is bad for the lungs, but there isn't much evidence for this. Yes, smoke is hot and contains tar, but studies looking at long term cannabis smokers do not show an increased level of lung, throat, and mouth cancers. Also, tar isn't well defined. THC could count as a type of tar.

There are ways to consume marijuana that are more comfortable. There are vaporizers, which heat the cannabis up to less than 300 degrees C. It doesn't burn, but many of the active substances do make there way through. You could also make tea out of it. Arno Hazekamp wrote his PHD dissertation on the subject, it's available online (Cannabis; extracting the medicine.) 

[Requia ☣]

Also, you say that smoking is bad for the lungs, but there isn't much evidence for this. Yes, smoke is hot and contains tar, but studies looking at long term cannabis smokers do not show an increased level of lung, throat, and mouth cancers. Also, tar isn't well defined. THC could count as a type of tar.

This means pretty much nothing, since what I'd worry about is emphysema.

[Requia ☣]

Also, the company that makes Cheerios got in trouble for saying it reduces Cholesterol without FDA approval, it should hardly be surprising that claiming an antitumor effect would create a similar ruckus.

[AFK]

Especially when it comes to cancer.  Pretty much everyone knows someone, multiple someones, who've died of some form of cancer.  You have to be really careful when you put out into public a suggestion that something might shrink tumors.  Who wants to be responsible for suggesting something will work on tumors and then it ends up either not panning out or being far weaker than suggested?  You don't fuck around with cancer patients or their families. 

[Laughin Jude]

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/drug-addiction/DS00183/DSECTION=symptoms

http://www.jointogether.org/blog/posts/2011/addiction-doctors-say-medical.html

ASAM argues that marijuana is problematic because it is addictive

http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/publications/pdf/Marijuana.pdf

Long-term marijuana users who are trying to stop using the drug report symptoms such as irritability, sleeplessness, decreased appetite, anxiety, and drug craving, all of which make it difficult to quit.21
21 Budney AJ, Vandrey RG, Hughes JR, Thostenson JD, Bursac Z. Comparison of cannabis and tobacco withdrawal:
Severity and contribution to relapse. J Subst Abuse Treat 35(4):362–368, 2008.

For starters.

The Mayo Clinic source doesn't say what you want it to say. It says cannabis may be "psychologically addicting," which is different from being addictive in the sense we say heroin or cocaine is addictive. Anything is psychologically addicting if you like it enough. And the "use and dependence" section simply lists some of the temporary side-effects of use, not any long-term effects, not to mention it conflates "use" with "abuse" as if they were one and the same, which is an old, tired drug warrior tactic.

The second link comes across as a group of professional nannies who make their money off treating addiction as wanting to protect their bread and butter rather than appealing to science. It also reinforces the idea that people shouldn't have access to medicine that the government hasn't given them permission to use, which is the kind of authoritarian bullshit that's destroyed this country. It's one thing to say drug companies can't market medicine without its approval. It's quite another to say people should be legally prevented from having access to cannabis they grow in their own yards (even if the voters approve it).

The third link is from the feds, which... I'm new here, so I'm just going to assume you're trolling and this is an application of Poe's Law based on that. Not to mention it lists symptoms of "abuse" that I can reproduce from going without chocolate for a week...

[Requia ☣]

It also ignores that doctors prescribe dozens of different massively addictive pills (IE, pretty much anything on schedule II).  It's usually considered an acceptable risk.

Hell at least with weed nobody will turn to heroin after they don't need it (and can't get a prescription) anymore because street Vicodin is too expensive.