Controversial Post - Enter at your own Risk

[Guest guest]

I have known of several people who have used and some who continue to us marijuana as part of their treatments and most have said that they have found it beneficial, especially some who had been using it to help curb pain, inflamation and two who were using to help with CNS involvement. All supposedly having success with it. Now I have never asked them how they obtain it and I am assuming they buy it from a local "dealer." I asked one of my doctors about it several years ago and he said he believed the THC in it is of some benefit, but he could not professionally recommend it himself. He said it is hard to monitor the amount of THC through smoking...he believes it is best taken in capsule form with the THC in monitored dosages. Which would cost about 10 times more, since it has to go through a pharmaceutical company and all the process to become available to the public (which costs lots of $$). When growing your own is not very expensive. Or risking buying it illegally through some dealer (to big of a risk I think). This is the article and I really would love to hear your opinions about this if you have an opinion. Now for me it would be difficult to make this decision, basically because I do have a minor child to who it may be difficult to explain all the pros of using something that is considered illegal...yet I am finding it harder and harder to explain so many meds I take that he slowly is finding out are also "street drugs." A bit of a controversy with this one, but an interesting subject I think...So I thought I would bring up the subject and get some feedback from you gals, as it is a BIG issue out here sometimes in the meetings I have been too. Plus I talk to people a lot at the rheumy's and at the hospital when I go for my drip. At the hospital last week, I was talking with a lady who is going to cytoxin treatment and is using pot for her chemo side effects and says that it has relieved her from so many other things she had going on with her lupus, and has even stopped using her valium, antidepressants and her pain meds and that her blood pressure has never been so stable...she says it is the pot that has brought relief. I asked her how often she smoked and she said 1/2 in the morning and the other half in the evening before dinner. I asked her if she felt like she was too high or did she feel out of it and she said she had more of a high from her vicodins and valiums then the pot itself... OK, here is the article. Health - Reuters Calif. Court: No Prosecution for Medical Pot Users Fri Jul 19, 5:21 PM ET By Schorr

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - In a unanimous decision, the California Supreme Court reasserted the voter-approved law granting ill patients the right to use marijuana for medical purposes without fear of prosecution.

"The court made it clear that medical marijuana patients with a physician's authorization are no different than patients who have a prescription for prescription drugs--they are to be treated the same," Gerald Uelmen, the attorney who argued the case before the court, told Reuters Health. Uelmen is a professor at Santa Clara University School of Law.

California voters passed Proposition 215, or the Medical Use of Marijuana initiative, in 1996. The law gave patients the right to possess marijuana if it was prescribed by a doctor for ailments such as glaucoma, AIDS ( news - web sites) and cancer. Eight other states--Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Maine, Nevada, Oregon, Hawaii and Washington--have since passed similar laws.

However, a 2001 US Supreme Court ruling found that federal drug laws do not recognize these state initiatives and that medical marijuana users and third-party distributors are still technically subject to federal prosecution.

The California law was challenged by Myron Mower, a Tuolumne County diabetic who was arrested in 1997 for growing 31 marijuana plants in his home.

On Thursday, Chief Justice overturned an appeal court's earlier decision. In the court's ruling, he wrote that patients who produce a prescription for marijuana should not have to proceed to trial, but should have their cases dismissed at an earlier point in time.

The initiative "reasonably must be interpreted to grant a defendant a limited immunity from prosecution," the justice wrote.

In addition, the justices found that defendants who do go to trial should be judged by whether there was merely a reasonable doubt, rather than a preponderance of the evidence, that they were guilty.

"For many patients who still live in fear, it should put their minds at ease that the law is the law," Armentano, a senior policy analyst for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, a Washington, DC-based advocacy group, told Reuters Health. "For qualified patients, the possession as a medicine should be treated as we treat other prescription medications people use every day."

California Attorney General Bill Lockyer, whose office prosecuted the case, said in a written statement he approved of the clarity of the court's decision.

"The court's decision strikes an appropriate balance in helping to ensure that truly needy patients whose doctors have recommended medical marijuana to alleviate pain and suffering related to serious illnesses will have access to this medicine under California law," he said.

In 1999, the Institute of Medicine ( news - web sites) reviewed the medical literature on marijuana's health effects. "Scientific data indicate the potential therapeutic value of cannabinoid drugs," the report concluded. "Cannabinoids would be moderately well suited for particular conditions, such as chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting, and AIDS wasting."

The American Medical Association and the American Cancer Society ( news - web sites) have previously called for clinical trials investigating marijuana's reputed health benefits, such as relief from pain and nausea, and appetite stimulation.