Marijuana and "Medical Marijuana" - ethical considerations

[Maria]

Marijuana is now legalized in several states including California which allows for medical marijuana dispensaries.

Marijuana grown today is much stronger than that used back in the 1960's when Puff the Magic Dragon was a popular song.

I am starting this thread for serious discussions.

Please list any references (links or books) you might like to present as evidence or any claims you make.
Note that Wiki links are not the best sources of information.

[NadirGP]

Marijuana is now legalized in several states including California which allows for medical marijuana dispensaries.

Marijuana grown today is much stronger than that used back in the 1960's when Puff the Magic Dragon was a popular song.

I am starting this thread for serious discussions.

Please list any references (links or books) you might like to present as evidence or any claims you make.
Note that Wiki links are not the best sources of information.

Maria,

Considering the use of Marijuana for anyone, I have been always against because of the after-effects on people who use it on a regular basis. I know people who used Marijuana because our family lived on a forty-acre bush property in far north Queensland, where most neighbours used to smoke Marijuana almost every day. I noticed that the first of symptoms in a Marijuana user is loss of memory and erratic behaviour.

However, that was seventeen years ago. If today anybody asks me, if I am for or against the legalization of Marijuana for medical/therapeutical reasons I would say: this is not a personal matter - to be for or against the legalization of the use of Marijuana. Marijuana - hemp, cannabis, or whatever you name it - is a political issue.
It is a political issue because, as in any other drugs, for example opium from poppy ... heroin, cocaine etc., it has to be under the control [read monopoly] of the powers that be. As a side issue, the war in Afghanistan was nothing but a war of liberation of opium poppy from the prohibition of the Taliban.

Marijuana or hemp is not any different today. Here are some facts.

Hemp history

[Excerpt only:]

Those thought to gain the most were Hearst who owned large timber holdings which feed the paper industry. DuPont who dominated the petrochemical market, which manufactured plastics, paints, and other products of fossil fuels and the Secretary of the Treasury and owner of Gulf oil Andrew Mellon who pushed legislation through congress giving tax breaks to oil companies. The Conspiracy was against hemp, it threaten certain vested financial and industrial interest especially those in the paper and petrochemical industries.

Through the Hearst newspaper chains racist propaganda messages were abound, it was Hearst that coined the phase “Marihuana Madness” this was related to Mexicans, African Americans, and jazz musicians, use of marihuana said to caused excessive sex, and violence, and threatened the safety of white women and children. Following this campaign against hemp it was not long before the complete prohibition of hemp was enacted.

As history continues so does this chapter.

http://www.globalhemp.com/2001/01/hemp-history.html

***Cannabis facts

What is cannabis?

Cannabis is a depressant drug, which means it slows down messages travelling between your brain and body.

Other names

Marijuana, yarndi, pot, weed, hash, dope, gunja, joint, stick, Kronic (synthetic form), cone, choof.

How is it used?

Cannabis is usually smoked or eaten and comes in 3 different forms:
•Marijuana − the dried plant that is smoked in a joint or a bong. This is the most common form.

•Hashish – the dried plant resin that is usually mixed with tobacco and smoked or added to foods and baked; such as cookies and brownies.
•Hash oil – liquid that is usually added to the tip of a cigarette and smoked.
•Medicinal cannabis – can be marijuana, tablets or a mouth spray. It is used to treat chronic diseases and conditions.

It takes about an hour to feel the effects of eating cannabis, which means it’s easy to have too much. If it’s smoked the effects are usually felt straight away. However, smoking can cause a number of negative side effects, especially later in life.
Cannabis can also come in synthetic form, which may be more harmful than real cannabis. Read more about synthetic cannabis.

• See more at: http://www.druginfo.adf.org.au/drug-fac ... 85cp6.dpuf
  http://www.druginfo.adf.org.au/drug-fac ... pAod4lYATg

[The pros and cons of Legalizing Medical Marijuana]

Ethical Inquiry: July 2013
The Ethics of Legalizing Medical Marijuana http://www.brandeis.edu/ethics/ethicali ... /July.html

[NadirGP]

[Continuation]

First Human Trials Using Cannabis To Treat Brain Cancer Under Way

A European based pharmaceutical company called GW Pharmaceuticals is set to commence its first phase of clinical trials for the treatment of Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM). It’s a bio-pharmaceutical company focused on discovering, developing and commercializing novel therapeutics from its proprietary cannabinoid product platform.

According to the New England Journal of Medicine, GBM accounts for approximately 50% of the 22,500 new cases of brain cancer diagnosed in the United States alone each year.

Treatment with regards to brain cancer are very limited which makes the study of cannabis and its effect on brain tumors crucial.

It’s about time, isn’t it? For several years now, pre-clinical research conducted by multiple scientists and universities all over the world have demonstrated that cannabinoids inhibit the viability of glioma cells both in vitro and in vivo

.

To read more: http://sorendreier.com/first-human-tria ... under-way/

[Barbara]

Eww, the very TERM makes my skin crawl to see !
Let alone all those slang terms for this dreadful substance which I can't even WRITE !

Looks like CANNIBALS -- to me !

Nadir, you are SO RIGHT about Afghanistan. "ISAF" troops will be removed only when sufficient profits have been gathered from
this horrific industry ruining southern Russia and Europe and America [that is the course taken by the shipment lines].
Probably Australia too.
Of course, that money from this trade
is what pays for the entire occupation and decimation of Afghanistan and any others in the region which catch the eye of
these unspeakably evil creatures.

Agree that wikipedia is SO biased on any controversial subject. I get disgusted seeing all the distortions even in other realms.

It is only the powers in power who are promoting this "legalization", you are quite right.

I had no idea about the symptoms of memory loss. I am going to remember that, because I notice that a lot in people of
my age group. I have been trying to pin down WHY. This is one possibility which I hadn't even gotten near to considering as
it's so far from my own world.

[JamesR]

Tough one.

One the one hand, marijuana can mess people up, but, so can alcohol and tobacco, yet, we allow those things to be legal, and the Prohibition against alcohol was unsuccessful. The difference however between alcohol and marijuana is that a person can consume alcohol without getting drunk--and drunkenness is dangerous, even more so than being high from marijuana--whereas, smoking marijuana by default makes you high, even if it is just one puff.

Public drunkenness is technically already illegal. Chances are if you go into public drunk, you can be arrested or receive a ticket for disturbance of peace and/or indecency. But you can still consume alcohol and get drunk at your own home. I imagine that marijuana should be the same way. You can smoke it at your home but you cannot smoke it in public or be high in public places. I think that this is a fair solution.

[Maria]

Tough one.

One the one hand, marijuana can mess people up, but, so can alcohol and tobacco, yet, we allow those things to be legal, and the Prohibition against alcohol was unsuccessful. The difference however between alcohol and marijuana is that a person can consume alcohol without getting drunk--and drunkenness is dangerous, even more so than being high from marijuana--whereas, smoking marijuana by default makes you high, even if it is just one puff.

Public drunkenness is technically already illegal. Chances are if you go into public drunk, you can be arrested or receive a ticket for disturbance of peace and/or indecency. But you can still consume alcohol and get drunk at your own home. I imagine that marijuana should be the same way. You can smoke it at your home but you cannot smoke it in public or be high in public places. I think that this is a fair solution.

People can be allergic to marijuana smoke, and some asthmatics could die if exposed to that smoke.

We had some teenagers smoking marijuana late at night in the flood channel that runs between properties. Calling the police would only get them agitated. We had to close the windows of our house when it was very hot and turn on the air conditioner, which uses a lot of electricity. We have also had some neighbors host parties where meth, marijuana, and other drugs were freely distributed. The whole neighborhood stunk.

[NadirGP]

Maria wrote:

People can be allergic to marijuana smoke, and some asthmatics could die if exposed to that smoke.
We had some teenagers smoking marijuana late at night in the flood channel that runs between properties. Calling the police would only get them agitated. We had to close the windows of our house when it was very hot and turn on the air conditioner, which uses a lot of electricity. We have also had some neighbors host parties where meth, marijuana, and other drugs were freely distributed. The whole neighborhood stunk.

Maria,

Tough luck … I cannot say, really, I envy your position then.
In addition, it remind me, in a similar situation, I had to spend the night inside my car a few kilometres from home. I did not sleep much that night, though.

Nadir