[Vision2020] Website Error: Re: medical marijuana

[Ted Moffett]

The website previously given for info on Robert S de Ropp's "Drugs and
the Mind" appears to have an error.  This URL should work:

http://www.pep-web.org/document.php?id=paq.029.0407a

On 6/2/11, Ted Moffett <starbliss at gmail.com> wrote:
> Kenneth Marcy kmmos1 at frontier.com
> Wed Jun 1 18:03:11 PDT 2011 wrote:
> http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/2011-June/076771.html
>
> "So, medical benefits have been known or suspected for twenty years or
> more."
> -------
> The "medical" benefits of cannabis have at least been "suspected" for
> over a 1000 years.
>
> Decades ago I read the book "Drugs and the Mind" by Robert S. De Ropp,
> where I learned of Weir Mitchell's 1800s US explorations of hashish
> use.  If I recall the text correctly, Mitchell was able to purchase
> hashish in the 1800s from the local apothecary, or whatever they
> called it, legally.  I'll not describe the experiences induced, but
> Ropp's "Drugs and the Mind" gives a detailed account, worth reading.
> Mitchell later went on to become a physician.
>
> As can be read from this website regarding migraine treatment with
> cannabis, with extensive references,
> http://www.druglibrary.org/Schaffer/hemp/medical/omr_russo.htm
> Mitchell is listed as a source mentioning hashish or cannabis as a
> headache or migraine remedy from the 1800s.
>
> Quote mentioning Mitchell from 1874:
>
> "Throughout the latter half of the nineteenth century, many prominent
> physicians in Europe and North America advocated the use of extracts
> of Cannabis indica for the symptomatic and preventive treatment of
> headache.
>
> Proponents included Weir Mitchell in 1874, E.J. Waring in 1874, Hobart
> Hare in 1887, Sir William Gowers in 1888, J.R. Reynolds in 1890, J.B.
> Mattison in 1891, et al., (Walton, 1938; Mikuriya, 1969). Cannabis was
> included in the mainstream pharmacopeias in Britain and America for
> this indication. As late as 1915, Sir William Osler, the acknowledged
> father of modern medicine, stated of migraine treatment (Osler, 1915),
> "Cannabis indica is probably the most satisfactory remedy. Seguin
> recommends a prolonged course." This statement supports its use for
> both acute and prophylactic treatment of migraine. "
>
> Info on Robert S. De Ropp's book "Drugs and the Mind:"
>
> http://www.pep-web.org/document.php?id=paq.029.0407a\
>
> Goolker, P. (1960). Drugs and the Mind: By Robert S. de Ropp. Foreword
> by Nathan S. Kline. New York: Grove Press, Inc., 1960. Originally
> published by St. Martin's Press, 1957. 310 pp.. Psychoanal Q.,
> 29:407-409.
> -------------
> Kenneth Marcy kmmos1 at frontier.com
> Wed Jun 1 18:03:11 PDT 2011 wrote:
>
> "As a practical matter, until the federal marijuana laws are changed to
> either
> legalize it altogether, or to legalize medical marijuana, or to allow
> states
> to set their own policies subject to federal rules, I doubt much can be
> done
> that is legally safe, administratively efficient, and medically
> effective. If the
> 2012 federal elections bring to office a Congress more conducive to change,
> there may be some better hope for legislative as well as medical relief."
> -------------
> As long as Sarah Palin, for example (she's blathering on as I write,
> on CNN), is regarded as a credible candidate for the presidency by a
> large segment of the US voting public, given what this implies
> regarding the mindset of the electorate, the odds of a "Congress more
> conducive to change" on the federal level regarding liberalizing
> federal cannabis laws are rather low.
>
> There is more concern among Palin's followers with assuring legal
> unregulated access to firearms, than legal medical or other reasons
> for access to cannabis.  Comparing the negative impacts of legal
> access to firearms, to the negative impacts from illegal cannabis,
> reveals a migraine inducing inconsistency in the rational application
> of public pressure and lobbying efforts before the US Congress to
> prevent abuses of government control over individual liberty, assuming
> the harm of the behavior that is a protected liberty, and the harm
> induced by rendering a behavor illegal, are measures of how much
> government control is indicated over the behavior.
>
> I am of course not saying that access to firearms should be
> criminalized like cannabis is, but that to insist on protecting the
> right to carry arms while not insisting on allowing adults to make
> their own legal choices regarding cannabis use, as astonishing numbers
> of people are jailed and persecuted for growing, selling or using
> cannabis, seems like a glaring inconsistency.
> ------------------------------------------
> Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett
>
> On 6/1/11, Kenneth Marcy <kmmos1 at frontier.com> wrote:
>
>> On Wednesday 01 June 2011 16:03:18 Bill London wrote:
>
>>> The essay below was originally posted by Susan Engle of the Lewiston
>>> Tribune on her blog at the Tribune website, and then reprinted in the
>>> Tribune itself on page 8C today (June 1) on the best of the blogs page.
>>> This is the most powerful statement I have yet read on this issues of
>>> pain, suffering, and relief (and medical marijuana).....thanks
>>> Susan....BL
>> <[snip]>
>>
>> The requisite knowledge to stop or alleviate lots of unnecessary pain and
>> suffering has been available for a long time. Being the sometime science
>> student that I am, I just happen to have a copy of the twelfth edition of
>> Hawley's Condensed Chemical Dictionary, edited by Richard J. Lewis, Sr.
>> The
>> Library of Congress number for this edition has 1992 for a date, so this
>> book
>> is nearly two decades old. Here are three related entries:
>>
>> hemp.   Soft white fibers 3 - 6 feet long. It is coarser than flax but
>> stronger,
>> more glossy, and more durable than cotton. Obtained from the stems of
>> Cannabis
>> sativa. Sources: Central Asia, Italy, USSR, India, U.S. Hazard:
>> Combustible.
>> May ignite spontaneously when wet. Use: blended with cotton or flax in
>> toweling
>> and heavy fabrics, twine, cordage, packing. See also cannabis.
>>
>> tetrahydrocannibol.   C(21)H(30)O(2). The active principle of marijuana,
>> a
>> hallucinatory drug. It has been synthesized and is available in lab
>> quantities
>> subject to legal restrictions. Animal tests have indicated that it can
>> retard
>> cancer growth and may also promote acceptance of organ transplants in the
>> human body.
>>
>> cannabis.   (marijuana). CAS: 8063-14-7. Its principle,
>> tetrahydrocannabinol,
>> can be made synthetically. Derivation: Dried flowering cups of pistillate
>> plants of Cannabis sativa. Habitat: Iran, India; cultivated in Mexico and
>> Europe. Hazard: A mild hallucinogen. Sale is illegal in U.S. Use:
>> Medicine,
>> opthalmology (treatment of glaucoma).
>>
>> (Yes, I noticed the spelling. The first is their typo, the second is
>> correct.)
>>
>> So, medical benefits have been known or suspected for twenty years or
>> more.
>> What has been done in the interim? Well, here's a six-year-old Web page
>> about
>> marijuana hypocrisy: http://cannabisnews.com/news/20/thread20844.shtml
>>
>> For more up-to-date information, here is the Wikipedia page for the
>> active
>> agent, tetrahydrocannabinol:
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrahydrocannabinol
>>
>> As a practical matter, until the federal marijuana laws are changed to
>> either
>> legalize it altogether, or to legalize medical marijuana, or to allow
>> states
>> to set their own policies subject to federal rules, I doubt much can be
>> done
>> that is legally safe, administratively efficient, and medically
>> effective.
>> If the
>> 2012 federal elections bring to office a Congress more conducive to
>> change,
>> there may be some better hope for legislative as well as medical relief.
>>
>>
>> Ken
>>
>>
>