Marijuana legalization on 9 state ballots

Michigan passed its medical marijuana laws a few years ago. The amount of entrepreneurship involved in marketing this production is now astounding. It wouldn’t surprise me if there are more cottage MM businesses in the state than McDonalds. I would doubt if they dispense solely to chronic pain/end of life conditions.

I am sympathetic to the use of MM in certain situations. If we are not opposed to synthetically produced pain killers/opiates, I’m not sure why we would oppose MM in principal. However, in order to prevent recreational abuse, I am in favor of strict regulations on the dispensing. I believe that only physicians licensed to practice in certain fields should receive the rights to dispense the product (geriatrics, oncology), and that the prescriptions that they write for this product should be highly audited. Penalties for abuse should be very severe.

But few states are taking this more cautious approach. My fear is that without oversight, we will be allowing much larger numbers of recreational users to hurt their minds and future employment chances than we will for patients to manage chronic pain.

Appreciate what John Lee noted here about the consequences of “medical” marijuana—though Colorado doesn’t limit it to “medical”, it’s rare for a pot shop not to have some sort of cross advertising its healthful benefits. Certainly it is true that medical marijuana does tend to be the camel’s nose in the tent towards full legalization.

What’s worth noting, though, is that we really ought to quantify the costs. OK, it is a psychoactive drug, and my impression (and experience from watching potheads at times) is that the side effects of pot can be pretty spectacular at times—witness Maureen Dowd’s account of the time she tried a pot brownie and and had a massive paranoid attack. Evidently the instructions didn’t mention that her brownie had about sixteen “servings” of THC—it’s the marijuana equivalent, more or less, of downing about a pint of whiskey. (don’t try either at home, kids)

But that noted, it’s worth noting that finding serious adverse effects is tough, statistically speaking. There is some correlation to traffic accidents—nowhere near as strong as that for alcohol—and I would assume that those operating heavy equipment might want to screen employees, but otherwise, we simply do not find the kind of tragedies that we find with drugs like opiates (heroin, fentanyl, etc..), where evidently close to 50,000 people are dying annually. We’re really dealing with maybe 4% or so of traffic deaths and presumably a subset of deaths induced by mental illness situations. Maybe a few cancer cases, since inhaling smoke doesn’t tend to be good for you.

In other words, we’ve got….maybe a few thousand deaths annually among 20 million regular users and close to 100 million people who have ever used it. It’s nowhere near the numbers you’ll find for super big gulps and the Old Country Buffet, a lack of exercise, tobacco, alcohol, or a bunch of other things that are completely legal. Maybe it’s time to try a different approach.

….but I wonder if a significant portion of the 47000 or so deaths due to opiods annually are in fact un-counted suicides. Can’t prove it one way or the other, as not everybody talks it over or leaves a note, but if you want something to deal with that is truly a big deal with regards to drugs, there you go.

Praying for you, Joe. Does not sound like fun at all. (and I promise, per our running joke, that I will not be beating you up….even a thug like myself has SOME limitations on what he’ll do)

Despite medical marijuana’s legality in most states and the District of Columbia, the Obama administration announced Aug. 11 the drug will continue to be classified by the federal government as having “no currently approved medical use” and “a high potential for abuse.”

Kim Jones, a pharmacy professor at Union University, told Baptist Press (BP) the decision may appear “somewhat surprising” in light of American culture’s increasing acceptance of marijuana use, but it is “not surprising” from a scientific standpoint.

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) “made its decision because there still has yet to be any firm, scientific evidence validating the therapeutic effectiveness of marijuana,” said Jones, associate professor of pharmacy practice. Reported medical successes of the drug are anecdotal and do not involve “data founded and duplicated in a large, randomized, controlled trial.”
http://www.brnow.org/News/August-2016/Marijuana-DEA-underscores-lack-of…

David R. Brumbelow

First resource by Mayo.

Mayo on efficacy in various areas.

Looks like the DEA is wrong about this, as is the Biblical Recorder. Of course, given that the DEA is one of the chief obstacles in getting research done in this area, and given that they’ve got something of a vested interest in justifying the laws they enforce, this comes as no surprise.

For reference, never tried it, and have no desire to do so. A doctor once told me, through scratch tests, that I’m allergic to it. Agreed 100% that most who want “medical” marijuana want it mostly for the treatment of “clinical boredom” and similar conditions. But all that noted, the fact remains that it is long past time for many to get past the false arguments of Reefer Madness.

And for those who are interested, here’s a link to Dowd’s experience, and here is Michelle Malkin’s take on buying it for her mother-in-law. Now the data are as yet incomplete, but at least statistical “outliers” (the most difficult to process statistically) suggest that our choice is very simple; do we deny this drug to those who would like to try it simply because we suspect others will use it to get high?

Bert said, “the DEA is one of the chief obstacles in getting research done in this area.”

In contrast, the article states the DEA supports legitimate research:

“If the scientific understanding about marijuana changes – and it could change – then the decision could change,” DEA acting administrator Chuck Rosenberg wrote. “But we will remain tethered to science, as we must, and as the statute demands. It certainly would be odd to rely on science when it suits us and ignore it otherwise.”

Rosenberg’s letter expressed DEA support for “legitimate research regarding marijuana and its constituent parts,” noting that “some trials have shown promise” for treating childhood epilepsy.

http://www.brnow.org/News/August-2016/Marijuana-DEA-underscores-lack-of…

David R. Brumbelow

First of all, David, I’d like to see you concede that the Mayo Clinic is a better source on the therapeutic effects of marijuana than the DEA? Can we have that much?

Second, while the DEA theoretically “supports” research, the sample it provides is limited to a single field growing in Mississippi which is often not even planted. Want to do research without going through that? You will get a visit, and they’re going to take everything you need to do your work. Come on—don’t political conservatives like yourself understand that government agents with an axe to grind quietly obstruct things?

David, here’s an article that details how the DEA, while theoretically “facilitating” research in the area, is obstructing it. By retaining it as “schedule 1”, they’re more or less preventing any clinical trials from being conducted on a large scale, which will in turn…keep it as schedule 1. The plot is 12 acres, not very much at all.

See how it works? To remove it from Schedule 1, they’re demanding a large scale clinical study, but they’re not growing enough to economically do a large scale clinical study—only a pharmaceutical company or the government can do it. You can’t patent it, so the pharmaceutical company won’t do it, and the government wants to keep it banned. So you’ve got a Schedule 1 drug that poses a lot less risk than a LOT of Schedule 2 drugs like morphine.

I’m no fan of getting high, but that is simply absurd.

Per Todd’s experience, here’s a Newsweek article that notes that a Johns Hopkins study suggests that opiate deaths go down by 25% in states where medical marijuana is legalized. If the data hold nationwide (if of course), that would suggest we could save something like ten thousand lives per year by legalizing medical marijuana. The matter is debated—see the second half of the article—but reality is that churches are going to need to come up to speed on the possibility that if we allow our members with chronic conditions like back pain or chemo to use marijuana instead of opiods and the like—to substitute a lesser intoxication for a more dangerous one—we can get rid of a LOT of needless suffering.

And writing as the son of a woman who died on a morphine drip (colon cancer), as the stepson of a dentist who used to get calls to prescribe oxy to addicts (I was in the room once while he took the call and got a tongue lashing when he tried to call it in to the pharmacy), and as a guy who quite frankly remembers what it was like to be on morphine coming out of surgery (passing in and lucidity—I was clearly “high”), I’ve got to note that if there are alternatives to opiods like oxy, morphine and fentanyl, let’s bring it on. Even if it only (as I quite frankly suspect) it only works for 5-10% of patients, that’s better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.

H/T Joeb.