Ethic Delima: Marijuana?

[maplesky7]

In some areas, it is prescribed I believe.

One con about not having it legalized are the legitimate patients that benefit from it get in trouble if it is found in their homes or possesion. And the laws and punishment are pretty strict regarding this drug, and are more severe if within a certain distance from a school zone.

Of course with any prescribed medicine you will have the people who will try to abuse the system to feed into their habits when it really is not warranted. But doctors are faced with that notion every day with the drugs they prescribe. So it would remain a weak justification to keep a beneficial medicine away from the patients that would gain from it, just to keep it away from the ones who are abusive.

That being said, marijuana is very easy to find and purchase should one go looking. And since it is illegal the patients are putting themselves at risk each time they go seek it out. I would rather them be able to get a decent pure form of medicine legally and through the medical dept. than to take thier chances with something they could find on the street.

I have heard of people selling grass clippings coated with bug spray, or selling just plain oregeno unbeknownst to people who are not familiar with the drug, and it has also been known to be cut with other drugs to enhance the "effect". With that knowledge I would make the case that medical marijuana has it's purposes as stated above...in aid to gluacoma and to harbor off nausea for cancer patients....and would most likely benefit more than that had given the chance.


me,
g

 

[JennsPeeps]

Rick Steves (yes, the same guy who is on PBS doing the travel shows) is an avid proponent of marijuana. You can read about his stance here: http://www.ricksteves.com/about/pressroom/activism/marijuana.htm

He's an interesting guy. I met him recently and he said that he sees his role in opening dialogues on tough issues. He has picked marijuana and Iran as the topics he wants to learn more about and discuss.

 

[maplesky7]

I have a friend with non-Hodgkins lymphoma...she has benefited from marijuana. Each person is different.

 

[dacjohns]

Quote:
Instead of using opinions from an internet forum you should get some reliable medical sources. Google is a good place to start your search, then evaluate what you find and use what looks to be reliable sources.

 

[maplesky7]

yay!!! for dacjohns!!!!

 

[Rhett&SarahsMom]

from a "medical standpoint"

I am for the medical use of marijuana. I wasnt before I ended up with my ankle seriously hurting. But was really thinking of heading down the street and asking the neighbors if I could by a dime bag off em.

not touching the other subject you were assigned.

 

[pascopol]

Quote:
Very good point, from a chicken perspective, chicks love the weed, does not seem to harm them. LOL

 

[I have WHAT in my yard?]

Quote:
I agree with this post in its entirety. But, I also believe that you should go ahead and google it while being aware of the fact that much of what is out there on line is also conjecture and opinion with an idealogical slant depending on the speaker.

 

[Sunny the Hippie Chick]

I had a friend that had throat and stomach cancer.. She had no desire to eat.. And all pills that would make you want to eat, hurt her stomach really really bad. To the point she would curl up into a ball and cry.. The doctors put her on medical marijuana.. It made her get hungry with out hurting her stomach.. It worked for her.. She never used it in her life before the cancer.. Her perscribed amount was to do it 3 times a day.. At least 30 minutes before a meal.. She always was responsable and never did it around others.. Sadly she passed away a few years ago.. But at least the last few years were with less pain, and being able to eat. I think it should be legal for medical use.. But people may abuse it, just like alcohol. But until people can be responsible, and not want it just for the high.. It should be illegal...

 

[Wifezilla]

People can also misuse hammers and kitchen knives. Should they be illegal for all because some idiot uses them wrong?

The Lessons of Prohibition....
"This Friday, Dec. 5, is the 75th anniversary of Repeal Day, the day America repealed its disastrous alcohol prohibition.

Prohibition was the pièce de résistance of the early 20th-century progressives' grand social engineering agenda. It failed, of course. Miserably.

It did reduce overall consumption of alcohol in the U.S., but that reduction came largely among those who consumed alcohol responsibly. The actual harm caused by alcohol abuse was made worse, thanks to the economics of prohibitions.

Black market alcohol was of dubious origin, unregulated by market forces. The price premium that attaches to banned substances made the alcohol that made it to consumers more potent and more dangerous. And, of course, organized crime rose and flourished thanks to the new market created by the 18th Amendment and the Volstead Act.

So hospitalizations related to alcohol soared. And so did violent crime. Corruption flourished, as law enforcement officials in charge of enforcing prohibition went on the take, from beat cops all the way up to the office of the United States Attorney General. Even the U.S. Senate had a secret, illegal stash of booze for its members and their staffs.

In 1924, the great social critic H.L. Mencken wrote of prohibition:

Five years of Prohibition have had, at least, this one benign effect: they have completely disposed of all the favourite arguments of the Prohibitionists. None of the great boons and usufructs that were to follow the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment has come to pass. There is not less drunkenness in the Republic, but more. There is not less crime, but more. There is not less insanity, but more. The cost of government is not smaller, but vastly greater. Respect for law has not increased, but diminished.

A bill in Congress celebrating the anniversary of Repeal Day echoes Mencken's sentiment. It notes that "throughout American history, alcohol has been consumed by its citizens"; that prohibition resulted in "abuses" and the "irresponsible overconsumption of alcohol"; and that the ban on "'intoxicating liquors' in the United States, resulted in a dramatic increase in illegal activity, including unsafe black market alcohol production, organized crime, and noncompliance with alcohol laws..."

But there's one positive thing we can say alcohol prohibition: At least it was constitutional. The prohibitionists built support for their cause by demonizing alcohol from state to state, winning over local legislators one at a time. When they'd built a sufficient national movement, they started the momentum for a constitutional amendment. Congress didn't pass a blanket federal law, Constitution be darn. They understood that the federal government hasn't the authority to issue a national ban on booze, so they moved to enact the ban properly.

When America repealed prohibition, we repealed it with a constitutional amendment making explicit that the power to regulate alcohol is reserved for the states. Even today, when Congress wants to pass federal alcohol laws (such as the federal drinking age, or the federal minimum blood-alcohol standard for drunk driving), it can't simply dictate policy to the states. Instead, it ties the laws to federal highway funding, a blackmail that while distasteful, at least carries the pretense of adherence to the Constitution.

Contrast that to drug prohibition, where Congress (and the Supreme Court, when it upheld it) made no attempt to comply with the Constitution in passing the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 (CSA), the law that gave us the modern drug war.

There's no question that drug prohibition has been every bit the failure alcohol prohibition was. Nearly 40 years after the CSA passed, we have 400,000 people in prison for nonviolent drug crimes; a domestic police force that often looks and acts like an occupying military force; nearly a trillion dollars spent on enforcement, both here and through aggressive interdiction efforts overseas; and urban areas that can resemble war zones. Yet illicit drugs like cocaine and marijuana are as cheap and abundant as they were in 1970. The street price of both drugs has actually dropped—dramatically—since the government began keeping track in the early 1980s.

The main difference between the two prohibitions is that one was enacted lawfully, and once it became clear that it had failed, we repealed it (and government revenues soared with new alcohol taxes). As the drug war has failed, the government merely claims more powers to fight it more aggressively.

Eliot Ness and his colleagues raided supply lines, manufacturing hubs, and warehouses, but alcohol consumption was still legal. You didn't have armed-to-the-teeth cops breaking down the doors of private homes the way they do now for people suspected of consensual drug crimes. During prohibition, doctors could prescribe alcohol as medication. Today, federal SWAT teams storm medical marijuana clinics and terrorize their patients, thanks to the Supreme Court's 2005 decision in Gonzales v. Raich, which allowed the federal government to prevent a dying woman from possessing medical marijuana, solely for her own use, to treat the symptoms of her illnesses, even though the voters of California had determined that she should be left alone.

When he first visited the United States in 1921, Albert Einstein wrote of America's ban on booze: "The prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by the prohibition law... For nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced."

That's as true today as it was then."
http://www.reason.com/news/show/130383.html