Oh heaven help us if there's a natural plant that helps chemo or AIDS patients keep their food down.
Quote:
Eleven states, including Washington, have passed legislation allowing marijuana use for medical purposes, but the FDA said Thursday, "These measures are inconsistent with efforts to ensure that medications undergo the rigorous scientific scrutiny of the FDA approval process and are proven safe and effective."
Who can afford such rigorous scientific scrutiny--the dope dealers?
I've often wondered if marijuana were grown organically or biodynamically and consumed in a healthful manner rather than smoking it ... if the benefits would be even greater. For instance, what if it was brewed into a tea or consumed as a freeze-dried supplement? Why is it that only smoking is used as a vehicle (and an unhealthful one at that) to administer the potentially therapeutic substances in maijuana?
Be well,
HH
__________________
You're officially invited to visit my natural health blog: www.healthyfellow.com
I read recently where a new study claimed that marijuana provided no medical advantage. So forget this silly idea that you can take care of your own heath. Of course no mention was made as to who funded the study or what it entailed. Just trust us, we know what is good for you!
"These measures are inconsistent with efforts to ensure that medications undergo the rigorous scientific scrutiny of the FDA approval process and are proven safe and effective."
Really?? Can the FDA say Vioxx? Again just read where Merck lost a 32 million dollar case. Their scorecard at the moment, three cases won, three cases lost, and only 11,500 more to go.
I have no experience with marijuana, only read about it. But from what I've read, as far as safe and effective goes, I think I would choose it over cancer chemo (not safe, not effective), Cox-2 inhibitors like Vioxx and Celebrex (not safe), and a host of other FDA approved drugs, most of which are not safe and/or far less effective than non-FDA approaches.
It's intentional that I haven't written much over the years about marijuana.
For one thing, I could only in good conscience write about it from a medical standpoint. And since it seems like the overwhelming bulk of the dialogue about the drug centers on its political aspects, its medicinal properties - and I'm not saying I'm certain there are such (I've seen evidence on both sides) - seem always to take a backseat. Because of this, the subject of marijuana use just hasn't come up very often in contexts I've found it necessary to weigh in on.
But now that the FDA has issued an April 20th statement condemning the substance as conclusively having no value as a treatment for disease, I feel like I have some jurisdiction to speak on the matter...
Though in wide use as a recreational and medicinal drug from early in this century, since the 1960s, marijuana has become more than simply a drug, but a symbol for many of the struggle against governmental oppression, and of personal freedom. Which leaves me a bit torn, since I'm typically all about personal freedom (as long as its tempered with accountability), and I'm almost unilaterally against excessive Federal regulation.
However, I'm also not for rampant self-medication with substances we've really only half-explored. Seriously, for as much spotlight time as marijuana gets on the public stage, precious little actual scientific study has been conducted on the substance. Whether this is for political reasons or not is irrelevant. It's simply so. Sure, marijuana has been shown to be helpful for certain specific medical conditions (like glaucoma and nerve pain), but are these limited benefits enough to justify its mass legalization, like so many who support the drug seem to be angling for?
Also, let's not forget that the double-edged sword of capitalism hangs poised over this issue. On the one hand, if marijuana remains technically illegal (11 states have declared it legal for medicinal use, yet a 2005 Supreme Court decision allows federal authorities to arrest pot-smoking patients even within those states), America will continue to pay the price of the robust and violent black-market pot trade. If it's made legal, the government gets to line its own pockets by regulating and taxing it like they do tobacco or alcohol.
Bottom line: It's a Catch-22 - neither of these outcomes is ideal.
But whatever side of the argument you fall on, it's clear that a lot of people (including many doctors, for what that's worth nowadays) at least BELIEVE in the benefits of the plant for certain conditions. In my opinion, this fact alone - even if it is one day shown to be only the placebo effect - may warrant giving the drug its "day in court."
If you can strip the issue of marijuana-as-medicine down to its barest essence, free from all political agendas or policy ramifications, the substance itself seems, by all credible reports (I can't say first-hand), to be no more intense or mind-altering in its effects than any number of other natural therapies - including some I often recommend, like kava, caffeine, and St. John's wort.
That's why it seems very suspicious to me that the FDA should so emphatically denounce marijuana. Study after study have shown just how effective the placebo effect (the power of the mind) can be in treating and curing disease. So if patients out there smoking grass believe it helps them--and it can't be demonstrated that it HURTS them--then I say marijuana therapy falls into the same category as chiropractic, acupuncture, and other "unproven" medicine many people nonetheless swear by...
In other words, if they're not willing to study its effects fully, they shouldn't be allowed to outlaw it--at least not for MEDICAL reasons. Should this new FDA "marijuana mandate" stand, it would set a dangerous precedent: It gives the power to dictate what's medicine and what isn't to the very people who determine what gets studied and what doesn't. In that world, how would any alternative treatments get validated by science?
If they want to outlaw marijuana for reasons applicable to interstate commerce, national security, an inability to guarantee its safety, or other legitimate reasons, that's another matter - one that's out of my area of expertise. But for the Feds to say marijuana isn't "medicine" draws my ire. ANYTHING that helps people feel less pain or anxiety that isn't proven harmful qualifies as medicinal in my book.
And let's not forget that these are the same folks that cast their blessings on prescription "medicines" that kill and main us by the millions per year! Yet I've never seen or heard of even ONE instance in which someone died from marijuana poisoning.
Personally, I'd rather see folks smoking a little legal grass than popping Cox-2 Inhibitors for joint pain, or taking addictive, suicide-inducing antidepressants for day-to-day stress management.
And I'd also rather see them have the right to more medical choices rather than fewer.
Nice article from Dr. Campbell Douglas, Ruby. I agree with every word of it.
Actually, many years ago I have tried to study marijuana. No medical study, but a biochemical one about posible binding of THC to the membranes inside the body. I had several graduate students, and one of them started to work on the project. In order not to land behind bars, we needed a license to work (or even possess) the stuff. But these (federal) licenses were very hard to come by. So we got a professor at Va. Commonwealth U. to sit on the student's thesis committee, and we could work under his license.
But my students (all of them) got into a conflict with the chairman of the department. He was a certified scoundrel, and he pursuaded the Virginia professor to withdraw from the thesis committee. So we had to stop the work (or go to jail), and the poor girl had to start all over.
Well, the students sued the university and the biochem. chairman. They won, and got their degrees from the federal court instead of the university.
But this illustrates how difficult it is to do scientific work on controlled substances against which there is an extreme (and probably unwarranted) prejudice on the part of the government.
This is the perfect �catch 22�. You cannot use it because we have no studies showing it to be effective and it cannot be studied because it is a controlled substance. Where is my conspiracy hat?
Well, for the same reason that humans resist higher states of consciousness even when such a state doesn't involve drugs. We're afraid of our exquisite beingness. Why, I don't know, but that appears to be the case where humanity as a whole is concerned. Of course, there are individual exceptions, or we wouldn't have great music, literature, discoveries, etc.
Quote:
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. --Marianne Williamson
I've often wondered if marijuana were grown organically or biodynamically and consumed in a healthful manner rather than smoking it ... if the benefits would be even greater. For instance, what if it was brewed into a tea or consumed as a freeze-dried supplement? Why is it that only smoking is used as a vehicle (and an unhealthful one at that) to administer the potentially therapeutic substances in maijuana?
Be well,
HH
I'm with Harry. Once and for all, let's get some high
fallootin' East Coast scientists to do a precious "Doube-blind
placebo controlled" study and figure out once and for all
if this stuff is helpful/harmful.
This stuff was widely and openly sold on the streets of
New York, Philadelpia and Chicago in the roaring 20's
and 30's.
Only after the formation of the FDA, was it made illegal.
Perhaps because no company wanted to go into production.
(market too small?)
I've tried it, don't use it now, but I don't point fingers at
anyone who does use it.
My favorite form of self-medication is Cabernet Sauvignon.
Ruby:
Quote: Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. --Marianne Williamson
I like that! Sound similar to stuff I have read in the past. Who is Marianne Williamson?
Jack:
Check out Xania�s green cook book.
The reason it is illegal is, if hemp were mass-produced it would put a number of other business out of business.
Personally I would feel much safer in a room full of potheads, who are contemplating their navels, then I would if I were in a room full of drunks fighting with each other.
However we are told that this is dangerious stuff.
Matter of fact, and probably like others on this forum I spent a fair amount of time with potheads contemplating their navels. I don't smoke pot any more but sometimes I think I should.....for greater mental stability and spontaneous creativity.
Currently I live in a very straight world. Today, while my husband and I were returning from our walk we heard the song "Hotel California" on the radio. It instantly took me back to the old days of living in rural New Mexico, basking in the sun, walking in the sunflowers, counting the tipis on the ridge, and all the amazing people I met there who lived on the edge of reality. My husband said yes, I remember when my life felt more like "Hotel California". There was a lot of pot back then, LSD, MDA, Everyone was high and everyone was smiling. Everyone loved each other. Now the only person who loves me is you and neither of us nor the people we know smile all that much. Life back then felt viscerally energetic, people's eyes shined. There were few rules that mattered. They came freely to each others homes. Shared meals all the time. Helped raise each others kids, did chores together. Took risks, meditated and prayed together, did yoga, fasted on water, danced spontaneously either to remember or forget, lived close to the earth.
Now were in this middle america morass. Rules, laws, fears of the man. Time schedules, bills, preparing for aging and death. WOW. what a long long trip its been.
Marijuana Has No Medical Use, FDA Says
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