[Vision2020] Website Error: Re: medical marijuana
Art Deco
deco at moscow.com
Fri Jun 3 09:03:35 PDT 2011
The whole opposition to medical marijuana is an example of extreme ignorance, irrationality, and blind prejudice.
Opium (heroin) and cocaine derivatives are commonly used in pain killers. Most modern prescription pain killers are synthetic narcotics -- that's why so many people become addicted to them.
But where is the squawk about this?
Marijuana has much fewer side effects than most prescription pain killers that actually work, for many kinds of common pain it is extremely effective, and while it may be habit forming, it is not addictive.
This is another of many chapters in "Man: The Irrational Animal."
This also reminds me of Ambrose Bierce's famous definition:
"Puritanism - the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy."
Wayne A. Fox
1009 Karen Lane
PO Box 9421
Moscow, ID 83843
waf at moscow.com
208 882-7975
----- Original Message -----
From: Ted Moffett
To: Kenneth Marcy
Cc: vision2020 at moscow.com ; arlene falcon ; nathan alford ; susan engle
Sent: Thursday, June 02, 2011 10:39 PM
Subject: [Vision2020] Website Error: Re: medical marijuana
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
>>
>>
>
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