Marijuana as Medicine

[Michaelangelica]

Originally Posted by orbsycli

For those who are legally allowed to consume THC:

URL removed by Admin. Come on Orb, this site clearly wasn't for people legally allowed to consume THC. You know better.

Pity that URL had the potential of reducing many of the adverse health effects of smoking marijuana

[Boerseun]

Marijuana's only contribution to the medical world is as a painkiller. It achieves this by the not-so-groundbreaking technique of desensitizing the user. So, too, does a lot of other legal medicine. Serious humdinger painkillers, like morphine, is controlled because of their addicitive nature. Nobody's yelling for the legal control over morphine to be removed.

Whether you're pro or con marijuana is irrellevant. Fact is, the discussion of how unfair it is to have this 'wonder drug' controlled and declared illegal because of it magical mystical medical properties, is a trojan horse. Marijuana is no great medicine. But it will bullshit you in believing that it magically whisked the pain away by desensitizing you. As easy as that. Once you come off your high, badabing badaboom! The pain is back. So you have to roll another one to get the pain sorted. Ascribing medical virtues to marijuana is a simple misunderstanding of cause and effect. Marijuana does nothing for you except bullshit you in believing the pain's going away. Treat the cause, and treat the pain with existing legally controlled drugs. Or, if you shout for the legalising of MJ for medicinal purposes, then be consistent and shout for the free availability of morphine, too.

[orbsycli]

Marijuana is no great medicine for you, Boeseun,

but for others, like me

it's the best medicine I've ever ingested.

THC is not a pain killer. It's a muscle relaxer. (An many other things)

Marijuana cures a different kind of pain,
One you are blessed not to know,
for if you did your eyes would be just as glazed as mine.



There's no other medicine, especially in legal super amazing pill form that can:
1. cure my anorexia
2. and my depression
3. and make me really creative
4. and help me sleep

All at the same time. And all I have to do is smoke a little bit of herb.
There are many other uses for it, although those are mine.

You are lucky to have such a stable body, Boerseun.

Please stop trying to tell me our medicine is bullshit.

Sat nam

[Michaelangelica]

Originally Posted by Boerseun

Marijuana's only contribution to the medical world is as a painkiller.

No not true.
unfortunately many researchers find it hard to contain all the variables when looking at the complex chemistry of a plant. So i have mainly given you research here on synthetic THC the so-called "active ingredient" of marijuana. All this research is post 1985 when the drug was first marketed.I have mainly relied on scholarly and medical journals using synthetic THC.

About 30%+ of Americans over 12 have used marijuana.

Marijuana is no great medicine.

Not true

Treat the cause,

Painkillers, by definition, do not treat causes. Am I repeating myself here?

shout for the free availability of morphine, too.

OK if you want.
Personally I would like to go back to 1945 when you could buy opium poppy heads from the chemist (Boots UK) to help you sleep and as an analgesic. Refined morphine can be dangerous as the dose between a therapudic and a deadly one is small. But, hey, we could always let the buyer beware?

Evidence supports the selective use of pure THC preparations to treat nausea associated with cancer chemotherapy and to stimulate appetite.
Annals of internal medicine
Medicinal Applications of Delta-9-Tetrahydrocannabinol and Marijuana
right arrow Eric A. Voth, MD, and Richard H. Schwartz, MD
15 May 1997 | Volume 126 Issue 10 | Pages 791-798

There are lots of books this was trying to look just at the science not at all the socio-cultural issues.

Marijuana and Medicine: Assessing the Science Base
The medical use of marijuana is surrounded by a cloud of social, political, and religious controversy, which obscures the facts that should be considered in the debate.This book summarizes what we know about marijuana from...
More about this book

Marijuana and Medicine: Assessing the Science Base - Google Book Search
--

Dronabinol is a synthetic form of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), an active ingredient in marijuana that was first approved in 1985 for nausea
and vomiting associated with cancer chemotherapy.
Dronabinol (Marinol(r)) is a schedule III controlled substance that contains delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), a major active ingredient found in marijuana.
Average montly costs for patients is c $500 per month.
Dronabinol is approved for appetite stimulation in AIDS-related anorexia and ..treats nausea and vomiting associated with cancer chemotherapy
Dystonia .Multiple Sclerosis..
Chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting

On pain

The authors concluded that cannabinoids, as oral THC 5-20 mg, oral synthetic nitrogen analogue of THC 1 mg, or IM levonantradol 1.5-3 mg were found to be as effective as codeine 50-120 mg, but have depressant effects on CNS that limit their use. Two studies reported that 20 mg THC was roughly equivalent to 120 mg codeine. However, the THC 20 mg was highly sedating and produced mental effects prohibiting its use..
Glaucoma - Smoking marijuana may cause the reduction of intraocular pressure (IOP) on average, by about 25% (range, -45% to +5%). Duration of its effect on IOP reduction is about 3 to 4 hours,

Dronabinol

"Our research suggests dronabinol may reduce agitation and improve appetite in patients with Alzheimer's disease, when traditional therapies are not successful," said Joshua Shua-Haim, M.D., lead investigator in the study and medical director of the Meridian Institute for Aging, a continuum of senior health programs and services in Central New Jersey affiliated with Meridian Health System. "In the study, dronabinol appeared to be safe and effective for these patients. The results point to a promising direction for future research."

cannabis.net : dronabinol ( Marinol ) a synthetic marijuana compound

Journal of Ocular Pharmacology and Therapeutics
Dronabinol Reduces Signs and Symptoms of Idiopathic Intracranial Hypertension: A Case Report
Feb 2006, Vol. 22, No. 1 : 68 -75

Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. - Journal of Ocular Pharmacology and Therapeutics - 22(1):68

Inhaled Dronabinol is in development for use in multiple indications.
"Some oral medications are broken down by the liver before reaching the bloodstream, which limits the amount of the parent drug that is systemically available.

Inhaled Dronabinol : Nektar

Use of dronabinol for treatment of side effects of hepatitis c therapy

Use of dronabinol for treatment of side effects of hepatitis c therapy patent invention
Finally a note on the whole plant from NSW parliment

MEDICAL USE OF CANNABIS
Legislative Council Hansard (Extract)
The Hon. ANN SYMONDS [6.30]: I wish to express support for the doctors and health workers who this morning in the Sydney Morning Herald called for marijuana to be used for medical purposes. It is unfortunate that a valuable therapeutic substance is being withheld from patients with a variety of medical conditions which respond favourably to its administration. There is a growing body of evidence that cannabis has a beneficial effect on a number of chronic conditions. Conditions such as glaucoma, multiple sclerosis, depression, epilepsy, paraplegia, quadriplegia, and chronic pain all respond to marijuana. In addition to being beneficial in the treatment of such chronic conditions, cannabis also assists to control the nausea and vomiting that result from chemotherapy when all other remedies have failed. This has been known for more than 20 years. In the United States Dr Lester Grinspoon encouraged some of his medical colleagues to conduct a scientific study on the use of cannabis, and their results were published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine in 1975.

Medical Use Of Cannabis - 13/11/1995 - ADJ
Michael .

[orbsycli]

wrong thread

[Fatstep]

Marijuana is the only drug I have ever heard of that will not kill you, meaning you cannot overdose. The only way I can think of it possibly killing you is from asphyxiation, you're in a room, closed, no new air.
And the other thing is it's disorienting sometimes, and causes short term memory loss, but doesn't almost every other drug(prescription and illegal) out there?

[Ganoderma]

in farness it is carcinogenic...i mean you are SMOKING. there are otehrs ways around that, but smoking kills...no matter what the plant. tar is tar.

[Michaelangelica]

An estimated 300,000 people in the USA use medical marijuana, based on estimates from data on registered medical users from ASA.

Employers grapple with medical marijuana use - USATODAY.com

[Turtle]

Originally Posted by consumerreports

>From _Licit & Illicit Drugs_, by Consumer Reports, p. 403:

...In 1762, "Virginia awarded bounties for hempculture and manufacture, and imposed penalties upon those who did not produse it."

George Washington was growing hemp at Mount Vernon three years later--presumably for its fiber, though it has been argued that Washington was also concerned to increase the medicinal or intoxicating potency of his marijuana plants.*

The asterisk footnote:
* The argument depends on a curious tradition, which may or may not be sound, that the quality or quantity of marijuana resin (hashish) is enhanced if the male and female plants are separated *before* the females are pollinated. There can be no doubt that Washington separated the males and the females. Two entries in his diary supply the evidence:

May 12-13 1765: "Sowed Hemp at Muddy hole by Swamp."
August 7, 1765: "--began to seperate (sic) the Male from
the Female Hemp at Do--rather too late."

George Andrews has argued, in _The Book of Grass: An Anthology of Indian Hemp_ (1967), that Washington's August 7 diary entry "clearly indiactes that he was cultivating the plant for medicinal,purposes as well for its fiber." [7] He might have separated the males from the females to get better fiber, Andrew concedes--but his phrase "rather too late" suggests that he wanted to complete the separation *before the female plants were fertilized*--and this was a practice related to drug potency rather that to fiber culture.

Erowid Psychoactive Vaults

[Ganoderma]

funny how it [hemp] was made legal for WW2 then made illegal once the war was over. lobbyists much? quite pathetic really.