Marijuana as Medicine

[Michaelangelica]

Volunteers Needed For Science Study

Updated:12:32, Wednesday March 19, 2008

Scientists are looking for 200 cannabis users for a study to see whether the drug has a harmful effect on bones.

 

Possible benefit to cannabis?

 

It is hoped the research by academics at the University of Edinburgh could lead to the development of new drugs to treat the bone disease osteoporosis.

 

The project is the latest stage in an £894,000 research programme which has already found that cannabinoids - chemicals produced naturally in the body - have important effects on bone.

 

Whilst It is known that components of cannabis trigger activation of these receptors, it is not clear whether this is bad for the skeleton or whether it might protect against osteoporosis.

 

Heavy cannabis users are being recruited from general practices in Edinburgh to explore the possible adverse and positive effects of recreational cannabis use on bone disease.

Calling All Dope Smokers - Science Need You |Sky News|Health

[Ahmabeliever]

Cannabis has 5000 years of 'recorded' historical use, most of it medicinal.

 

To be unscientific, who are we to argue with this. 5000 years of use, and with one foul swoop of media (read mass hysteria) one of natures greatest gifts to mankind is criminalised.

 

So we get to be guinea pigs for whatever the pharmaceutical companies have cooked up or relabelled this year.

 

I'm quite sure, with all I've read and theorised, that once again the almighty dollar has created a circus out of nothing in the promotion of self interests.

 

A 12 billion dollar budget can print an awful lot of Reefer Madness pamphlets too.

 

And we, well, we plebs get to suffer, don't we.

 

Anecdote. This is more about decriminalisation, but it's a true account, and valid arguement that more people are hurting by the war on drugs in other ways.

 

In 1987 I worked in retail and was approached by a guy who'd hung round our local for several months. He wanted to buy cannabis. I explained I didn't sell it, he asked if I could hook him up with someone. I said no he went away a few days later he's back. In the interim another guy had mentioned he wanted to sell some cannabis. I mentioned the visit in the shop, enquired if he knew him, yes, if i could tell him to go to him, yes.

 

So I tell the guy, the next time he asks, you know ...., go ask him.

 

He comes back in the shop 3 days later gives me $40. This is for your trouble, buy yourself a bottle of something. I wasn't going to take it but the wording, you know, more like a bottle of spirits than cash...

 

He was a cop. I got 12 months for 'conspiracy to supply'. In jail, the guy who actually sold the cannabis paid someone else to beat me up as he wasn't happy to be there and decided it was my fault... :) The 'hitter' used concrete in a sleeve as a weapon I wound it round my arm as he struck and kicked him back out of the shower booth (got me with soap in my eyes the ****) but in the process it swung round my arm and got my knee. He ran away i had his weapon and was not in a good mood...

 

Got the knee treated, got sent to another part of the jail, woke up next day another nutter in my cell has me by my pyjama lapels and again I get bruised up defending myself.

 

So they ship me out of there and by this time I'm a mess. I finally get out and sleep with a gun under my bed waiting for 'them' to come get me.

 

Yeah I've smoked a bit of weed from time to time, for recreational purposes and medicinal. But did I need that treatment? No Way.

 

I was set up, and made to be part of a conspiracy by the police, then I was set up by this drug dickheads ego to be the scapegoat, and to top it all off, I wasn't even trying to pass on or obtain one bloody joint.

 

Rant ends, for now...

 

If society had half of the 'yearning for learning' and objective realism I find in these forums there never would have been a war on drugs, and cannabis would be a major textile, oil, and medicinal product.

[Thunderbird]

 

Rant ends, for now... :hihi:

 

If society had half of the 'yearning for learning' and objective realism I find in these forums there never would have been a war on drugs, and cannabis would be a major textile, oil, and medicinal product.

 

 

 

Well It’s time for mine then, in 2000 I lived on a lake and had a little garden in the back. Tomatoes cucumbers beans and squash. Out in the woods I had 4--5 dwarf plants 2-3ft. I have always been a law abiding citizen but I found out that if I have a joint in the evenings it had an effect of lowing my stress level that I had built up from the day at work. What I normally would do is think about the idiotic things that happened and they would churn my innards until I became sick. When I would smoke in the evenings I would tend to think of all the ironic and funny things that happened at work. I began cycling around the lake everyday, and became the healthiest I had ever been in my life, This went on for about 4yrs. The dynamics would change completely, because of what I was focusing on . My productivity was higher at work. I could relate to my subordinates and superiors better.

Also on the weekends I would work on my gem carvings. It seemed to really help me with the process of sculpturing.

 

A neighbor somehow found out about my plants and they busted me with about 1oz of small plants and a paper bag with some leaves 15 oz . First offence I got 4 months in prison and 5yr probation. lost my state job and retirement. My stress level went though the roof. My health degenerated. I started smoking tobacco again after quitting for 7yr. The doctor put me on a drug that made me feel like a zombie so I stopped taking it after about 40 days. Then I went though the worst week of my life. I told the doctor that I was about to go off the deep end, he stated that I was going though a withdraw period of the meds he had prescribed and that I should start taking them again, or he could keep switching the type of drug till we could find the right one. The thing about these prescription drugs.. they are all inhibitors of some sort they do not let your body and mind find a balance. On the other hand the garden plants did.

Btw I found out later the reason the neighbor told was because he was a meth dealer and had charges against him. His uncle was the deputy sheriff. So they conviction me, let him walk. He is still dealing meth to this day.

[Moontanman]

No such thing as legal tablets where I live.

 

Moon

[Michaelangelica]

You could always grow Leonuris leonotis which is a very mild marijuana (Dagga Dagga) I am not sure what the best part to smoke is.

Richters in Canada sell it.

 

 

The States is a frightening place.

You would never get a conviction even recorded in Australia with those amounts and offences.

[Moontanman]

Are you sure? Aren't you in the States?

Can you talk to your Doctor about this?

 

You could always grow Leonuris leonotis which is a very mild marijuana (Dagga Dagga) I am not sure what the best part to smoke is.

Richters in Canada sell it.

 

Thanks for the personal horror stories.

The States is a frightening place.

You would never get a conviction even recorded in Australia with those amounts and offences.

 

Hmm, I'm not sure what Dagga Dagga is but does it contain THC? One thing I do know is that the stronger the MJ the less you have to smoke and mild MJ suggests smoking large amounts at once which I do not like at all. In the US different states have different laws, In California a doc can prescribe MJ to you and then you can get MJ with a card in a vending machine. They actually have people giving classes on how to grow your own for medical purposes. Here in North Carolina where I live possession of less than 1/4 of an once is considered a minor offense but lots of hassle associated with it. Any more and they throw the book at you and charge you with possession with intent to distribute and treat you like you are hanging around a elementary school selling heroin.

[Michaelangelica]

i don't think so. It does contain alot of resin and

Extracts of L.leonurus are used as effective anticonvulsants

Shaman Australis Botanicals

Some other links

Most Similar herb to Herb (MJ) [Archive] - Drugs Forum

Leonotis leonurus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You can make an alcoholic extract of it; which suggests that it does not contain THC which I don't think is alcohol soluble. (??)

I dint know this was happening in my own back-yard

Marijuana to be trialled as pain drug - smh.com.au

 

you sound desperate.

The pills I was metioning are legal THC-Marinol

Dronabinol - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

These are FDA approved and your doctor should be able to prescribe them. It would be worth a try.

Comparisons to medicinal cannabis

 

 

Marinol is known to produce side-effects similar to cannabis intoxication. Some have posited that Marinol lacks beneficial properties of cannabis, which contains more than 60 cannabinoids, including cannabidiol (CBD), thought to be the major anti-convulsant that helps multiple sclerosis patients, and cannabichromene (CBC), an anti-inflammatory which may contribute to the pain-killing effect of cannabis.

. . .

 

It takes over one hour for Marinol to reach full systemic effect,

 

Good luck

keep your pecker up :hihi:

[Ahmabeliever]

CBD, interesting. The production of CBD is enhanced by a longer flowering period. When trichromes are all amber, the CBD content will be higher. THC degrades into CBD as late flowering progresses.

 

High CBD content is the stuff that puts you to sleep. More common in indicas, possibly due to the shorter flowering periods raising CBD content faster.

 

Artificial THC, well, why? Drug companies can't stand not getting their piece can they.

 

They'll make something with ugly side effects and then cannabis will get more bad press.

[Michaelangelica]

Maker of cannabis-based medicines hit by disappointing trial

he company said in a statement to the stock exchange that although the patient response rate to its drug, sprayed into a patient's mouth, was "very high" and better than the placebo, the difference between the two was insufficient. That meant the trial was unable to yield a "statistically significant outcome".

 

"Although the difference between the Sativex and placebo groups was clearly in favour of Sativex, it narrowly failed to reach statistical significance in this trial due to an unexpectedly large placebo response," GW Pharma explained.

. . .

"This doesn't call into question anything we have seen before but it doesn't show anything new. So we have to put it to one side and do another trial."

. . .

GW Pharma has been developing Sativex for 10 years, working with government backing to develop a safe way to provide cannabis-based pain relief. It grows thousands of marijuana plants at a secret countryside location to help develop the drug that provides relief for MS pain, MS muscle stiffness, or spasticity, cancer pain and nerve damage pain caused by conditions such as shingles and diabetes.

 

The drug became the first cannabis-derived medicine to win regulatory approval when it was approved in Canada in 2005 as a treatment for nerve pain in MS patients and it is also available in the UK on special prescriptions.

Maker of cannabis-based medicines hit by disappointing trial | Business | guardian.co.uk

[HydrogenBond]

I would like to approach medical MJ from a different angle. I am sort of neutral but can see how its prohibition can create a conflict of interest, since one is stuck in the middle between two opposing forces. It can create a no win situation. The angle I had in mind is whether the original arguments for making MJ illegal still hold water with respect to all the science that appeared since that time. Many of the 1960's and 1970's claims were health based and may have been supported by the data of that time. But has the data changed and do these arguments still hold true?

 

The reason I ask this is some of the earliest arguments that began the prohibition back in the 1920's were racist. Back then these arguments may have had the support of science studies. But they don't really hold water at this time in history. The original arguments were against Blacks, Mexicans, and American Indians. Some of the claims were increase in rape, psychotic episodes, affects that were like someone smoking crack cocaine. Most of these can be debunked based on our current understanding.

 

I am not sure of the list of the latest arguments. If someone had access to that list it might be a good exercise to place each argument under the microscope of modern science and medicine to see which still apply. Maybe they all still hold true, or maybe all don't hold water with respect to the data since that time. The odds are it is somewhere in the middle between these two extremes. I realize this is a conflict of interest, especially if it turned out less than well. But this is a science forum where we discuss science and debunk myths using the latest science as evidence to support.

[Moontanman]

I would like to approach medical MJ from a different angle. I am sort of neutral but can see how its prohibition can create a conflict of interest, since one is stuck in the middle between two opposing forces. It can create a no win situation. The angle I had in mind is whether the original arguments for making MJ illegal still hold water with respect to all the science that appeared since that time. Many of the 1960's and 1970's claims were health based and may have been supported by the data of that time. But has the data changed and do these arguments still hold true?

 

The reason I ask this is some of the earliest arguments that began the prohibition back in the 1920's were racist. Back then these arguments may have had the support of science studies. But they don't really hold water at this time in history. The original arguments were against Blacks, Mexicans, and American Indians. Some of the claims were increase in rape, psychotic episodes, affects that were like someone smoking crack cocaine. Most of these can be debunked based on our current understanding.

 

I am not sure of the list of the latest arguments. If someone had access to that list it might be a good exercise to place each argument under the microscope of modern science and medicine to see which still apply. Maybe they all still hold true, or maybe all don't hold water with respect to the data since that time. The odds are it is somewhere in the middle between these two extremes. I realize this is a conflict of interest, especially if it turned out less than well. But this is a science forum where we discuss science and debunk myths using the latest science as evidence to support.

 

To be honest the arguments are still basically the same except now it's all of us that will go crazy and kill everyone rather than just a minority. Then there is the old "If you smoke pot you'll end up shooting heroin" health issues are seldom used but when they are it is assumed that pot smokers smoke at a similar rate to cigarette smokers. concern over the fact that modern pot is several times as strong as pot was years ago are never put into the context of the real world where pot is smoked in smaller amounts as it gets stronger. it is always assumed that joints are the same size as cigarettes and that pot smokers have to smoke the whole thing like cigarette smokers do. The idea of research is tainted by the assumptions that pot is smoked the same way as tobacco. It is seldom taken into account that pot isn't addictive like tobacco and that pot smokers edit their does by how strong the pot is.

[HydrogenBond]

Marijuana use and Mortality

 

American Journal of Public Health, April 1997, Volume 87 Issue 4, p585

 

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship of marijuana use to mortality.

 

Conclusions: Marijuana use in a prepaid health care-based study cohort had little effect on non-AIDS mortality in men and on total mortality in women. (Am J Public Health. 1997; 87:585-590)

 

I just did this research a minute ago. I was very surprised and expected to see marijuana much closer to cigarettes based on collective hearsay. I hope science will go take that erroneous argument and cross it out. Truth in science is not always politically correct, but it should always be.

[Moontanman]

Marijuana use and Mortality

 

American Journal of Public Health, April 1997, Volume 87 Issue 4, p585

 

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship of marijuana use to mortality.

 

Conclusions: Marijuana use in a prepaid health care-based study cohort had little effect on non-AIDS mortality in men and on total mortality in women. (Am J Public Health. 1997; 87:585-590)

 

I just did this research a minute ago. I was very surprised and expected to see marijuana much closer to cigarettes based on collective hearsay. I hope science will go take that erroneous argument and cross it out. Truth in science is not always politically correct, but it should always be.

 

I wouldn't hold my breath, MJ has to be the devil it's self or too many politicians will look stupid. It's a great whipping boy when they want to stir up votes. Of course it's ok for the president to be have been a dust monkey but to admit you inhaled MJ can be a killer to a carer. [EVIL][/EVIL] weed will always be the first stepping stone on the road to ruin:naughty:

[HydrogenBond]

I am digressing, but if we assume that politics can have an impact on which science studies are stressed or ignored, is it possible that other areas of science, influenced by politics, are doing the same type of thing? For example, my gut never felt good about the hype behind manmade global warming, because it is a hot political issue. Any science that could pour cool water on this political fire is not going to get the same level of hype if we want this political fire to remain stoked. The zero mortality study for MJ was never stressed due to this affect. It sort of cools the fire.

 

From a practical point of view, if I was a politician and needed to keep the fire going, what I would do is try to direct most of the research money into studies that help the fire. Disproportionate science will help assure the political illusion is not going to be challenged easily by science since it will assure majority consensus along the lines I need. I would also need to assure that any independent studies not get the press they may deserve. The media need a license to broadcast so that keeps them from straying. We need to keep the people ignorant of all the data or else they will cool off. All the data, would make it harder for me to excite the crowd. In other words, fanaticism is overcompensation for doubt. Inner doubt can be created by using part of the data. This will create a hole in their ability to reason. The fanaticism is reflex to fill in that hole, with more fanaticism equal to a bigger hole. Once the herd is not rational, we can direct them in irrational ways. This is politics 101.

 

No matter how many times politicians make promises they don't keep we still keep falling for it with the next politician. The way the affect works, is the promise creates a hole in reason since it is based on narrow data. The hole allows us to stir up irrational feelings such as a utopian hope. It is not so much the promise that is important, but the emotions that the data hole can help induce, that people crave. With the MJ prohibition, the hole allows us to feel empathetic, mad, self righteous, cruel, etc. all because there is a hole in the data that causes reason to take back seat to emotions. Nobody wants to give up, it is intoxicating.

 

This affect is also operative with the opposition, i.e., MJ users. In an attempt to stress the data in the hole, they create their own data hole, leading to their own fanaticism. That is why I suggested gathering the arguments and the data to fill both holes so things become more rational.

[Moontanman]

I am digressing, but if we assume that politics can have an impact on which science studies are stressed or ignored, is it possible that other areas of science, influenced by politics, are doing the same type of thing? For example, my gut never felt good about the hype behind manmade global warming, because it is a hot political issue. Any science that could pour cool water on this political fire is not going to get the same level of hype if we want this political fire to remain stoked. The zero mortality study for MJ was never stressed due to this affect. It sort of cools the fire.

 

From a practical point of view, if I was a politician and needed to keep the fire going, what I would do is try to direct most of the research money into studies that help the fire. Disproportionate science will help assure the political illusion is not going to be challenged easily by science since it will assure majority consensus along the lines I need. I would also need to assure that any independent studies not get the press they may deserve. The media need a license to broadcast so that keeps them from straying. We need to keep the people ignorant of all the data or else they will cool off. All the data, would make it harder for me to excite the crowd. In other words, fanaticism is overcompensation for doubt. Inner doubt can be created by using part of the data. This will create a hole in their ability to reason. The fanaticism is reflex to fill in that hole, with more fanaticism equal to a bigger hole. Once the herd is not rational, we can direct them in irrational ways. This is politics 101.

 

No matter how many times politicians make promises they don't keep we still keep falling for it with the next politician. The way the affect works, is the promise creates a hole in reason since it is based on narrow data. The hole allows us to stir up irrational feelings such as a utopian hope. It is not so much the promise that is important, but the emotions that the data hole can help induce, that people crave. With the MJ prohibition, the hole allows us to feel empathetic, mad, self righteous, cruel, etc. all because there is a hole in the data that causes reason to take back seat to emotions. Nobody wants to give up, it is intoxicating.

 

This affect is also operative with the opposition, i.e., MJ users. In an attempt to stress the data in the hole, they create their own data hole, leading to their own fanaticism. That is why I suggested gathering the arguments and the data to fill both holes so things become more rational.

 

I think I'm going to get emotional:) another human who likes his truth straight instead of mixed with what he wants to believe or what others think he should believe:) My hat's off to you!

[DougF]

Well said HydrogenBond,

 

:eek_big: :hihi:

[Michaelangelica]

I am digressing, but if we assume that politics can have an impact on which science studies are stressed or ignored, is it possible that other areas of science, influenced by politics, are doing the same type of thing?

I am sure this is the case.

The squeaky research gets the most oil?

Politics societal attitudes and values MUST effect science; as science also effects/affects our world view.

I remember doing an unfortunately short course of the philosophy of history which looked at how our view of history was very much affected by our current societal concerns. Fascinating stuff; it really made me wonder about "truth" in history studies.

 

I also remember a social psy. professor who showed a number of scientific studies on the psychology of ESP, showing "something" unexplainable was going on.

He said "Behavioural scientists believe in scientific method. Right?"

"So we have all these good scientific studies on ESP. Right?"

"So how come 99% of Behavioural Scientists don't believe in ESP?"

 

 

i.e., MJ users. In an attempt to stress the data in the hole, they create their own data hole, leading to their own fanaticism. That is why I suggested gathering the arguments and the data to fill both holes so things become more rational.

I am sure this is the case on both/all? sides of the argument. Unravelling prejudice from science in this area is a bit of a Gordion knot. I fear it always will be,(Although the history of Tobacco 'science' gives some hope) meanwhile, as you can see, from the personal accounts just here on Hypography, many people suffer unnessesarily.