The state’s major newspaper is clearly disillusioned with marijuana in Washington, even though it supported Initiative-502 back in 2012. The editorial implied that the medical and recreational regulation should be integrated, calling the legislature’s failure to do so “abysmal.” At last, Seattle’s mayor issued a plan to regulate medical marijuana, but it probably doesn’t have much teeth. Continue reading Washington’s Marijuana Policies Still Chaotic→
It was a good publicity stunt, but a cruel trick. The marijuana industry recently staged an event in Denver to attract veterans. They gave out free marijuana for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). PTSD is very real, and it’s a condition to be taken seriously.
The medical community should find solutions that would bring veterans back to their previous state of functioning before combat. Louis Zamperini, the hero of a book by Laura Hillenbrand and movie directed by Angelina Jolie, Unbroken, had severe PTSD from World War II. He had been beaten in a Japanese prison camp and lost at sea 46 days on a raft. It’s unlikely he would have healed and charged forward so well if marijuana had been offered as the solution. The movie will be in theaters on December 25.
Marijuana numbs certain emotions. It also effects memory. PTSD symptoms are different for different people, but it can include numbness, too. If fear, numbness and depression are present with PTSD, there should be a means that re-build connection to everyday life, rather than avoid the reality of life. Dogs and Yoga are amongst the best treatments for rebuilding connection. Time is a great healer, too.
Handing out free so-called “marijuana medicine” makes a mockery of recovery. It’s hoped our veterans could get back to work and not face long-term disability. Keeping “patients” addicted and under the thumb of medical marijuana industry may do the opposite. The best book on the subject, Judith Lewis Herman’s Trauma and Recovery, doesn’t suggest masking memory. Our first choice should always be therapies that go to the root of the problem, rather than masking the symptoms. Medical marijuana has the potential for masking symptoms. It also risks making a person apathetic and numb. It could give the illusion of getting better without deep healing.
There’s strong evidence that mental illness is increasing in America. According to Robert Whitaker, author of Mad in America and Anatomy of an Epidemic, an increase in bi-polar disorder is driven in part by the expansion of diagnostic boundaries, but it is also being fueled by the widespread use of illicit drugs.
Whitaker explains that studies of first episode bipolar patients, roughly 1/3 suffered their first bout of mania or mood instability after they had abused illicit drugs — amphetamines, cocaine, marijuana and hallucinogens. Marijuana, as the most widespread of the illicit drugs, poses the most risk. (See 10 Marijuana Myths Advocates want you to Believe)
A culture of medication teaches our children to look for easy solutions; it may be influencing the widespread desire to self-medicate with marijuana and other drugs. Psychiatric medications are over-prescribed — anti-depressants, as well as anti-psychotics and ADHD medications. Whitaker also believes that the use of psychiatric stimulants and anti-depressants increases the risk of getting the bipolar diagnosis.
The cannabinoid neurotransmitter, anandamide, may be displaced with marijuana use over time, giving users withdrawal symptoms when they quit, including anxiety, depression.
Leafly, a cannabis company in Seattle run Privateer Holdings, solicits users by advertising 88 strains of marijuana to cure bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety and ADHD. This type of advertising should be censored due to the lack of evidence and high risk for psychosis that comes with marijuana. Any psychiatric treatment demands strict oversight by a qualified medical practitioner, and is often done on a test basis. Medical marijuana “providers” often don’t have to meet standards or qualifications, other than being at least 21 years old.
Prevention over Substituting Addictions
Those who disagree with medical marijuana do not necessarily advocate for the alcohol or pharmaceutical industry.
Some of us notice that people who become addicted to any drug usually began their drug usage with marijuana, which is another reason we wish to prevent youth from using it at all costs. In fact, when it comes to teens and young adults, addicts almost always begin their drug usage as a marijuana user. The marijuana industry gives lip service to wanting to keep it from those under age 21, while using the social media and other tactics try to get young people to support them.
States with the highest marijuana usage, including use by ages 12-17, tend to also have the highest opiate pill, cocaine and heroin usage. Oregon, Colorado and Vermont will need to limit youth marijuana usage, if they truly want to bring down other problems. To a certain extent the current heroin problem has arisen because people addicted to the opiate pills have been unable to get the pills.
The logical way to avoid death by opiate overdose is to keep it in the hands of only those who need it, teach responsible use, and avoid over-prescribing. Not everyone who uses opiate pills needs to get addicted. Many people use vicodin, percocet and oxycontin only for the limited duration until the pain is gone. Twisted, illogical thinking is suggesting that we must substitute one addiction with a drug that can also work on the mind and cause psychosis.
If we are to solve the problem of addiction in a lasting way, we need to help children and teens not begin to use. We emphasize proper usage, not substituting one addiction for another, or “lilypadding” from drug to drug. Prevention before abuse starts has the BEST chance of success.
“I know of no patient-only person sent to federal prison for use of marijuana,” said Law Professor Douglas Berman, a specialist in marijuana law at Ohio State University.
Even before states started legalizing marijuana for medical or recreational use, the federal government didn’t throw defendants in prison simply for using marijuana Vanderbilt University Law Professor Robert Mikos explained. He added, that’s because prosecutors are focused on suppliers and distributors. This information is from an in-depth analysis of Politifact Florida, reports of the Tampa Bay Times and the Miami Herald.
The Compassion Card and the Hoax
Why do marijuana advocates constantly play the compassion card? Or pretend we don’t care about children with epilepsy or cancer?
How is it medicine if they give it names like Purple Poison, White Widow, Body Buzz, Lemon Skunk? Why is it that only 2-5% of the medical marijuana patients are terminally ill with cancer or AIDs, the conditions that may benefit from the nausea and appetite stimulation of medical marijuana with its THC?
Why is it that so many patients have chronic conditions and “need their medicine” continuously. Is the industry trying to make them hypochondriacs, or are the marijuana providers (“caregivers”) nurturing dependence? Most medicine is supposed to cure a person and get them to the place where the medicine is not needed. Our view is that more precautions are needed for medical marijuana.
Fraudulent Practices
Once medical marijuana passes in a state, fraud is encouraged. For example in Michigan a doctor wrote medical marijuana prescriptions for more than 60 so-called people he never saw as patients. He made $16000 in cash, but the medical marijuana providers reaped more than $1.3 million in profits over 2 years.
More than two years ago signs like this one in Pompano Beach were put up in Florida, in anticipation of Amendment 2, to be voted on today, November 4
Americans for Safe Access
A few months ago Americans for Safe Access sponsored some television ads suggesting that cancer patients go to prison. They specifically targeted members of Congress who did not vote in their favor. Representative Andrew Harris, one of the Representatives attacked in an add, explained in front of Congress that medicine was more precise than prescribing “two joints a day,” or “a brownie here, a biscuit there.” “This is not medicine,” Harris said.
“This would be like me as a physician saying, ‘you know, I think you need some penicillin. Go chew on some mold.’ Of course I wouldn’t do that. I write for 250 mg of penicillin, [every] 6 hours, times 10 days. I don’t write, ‘chew on a mold a couple of times a day.'”
Rep. John Fleming, another doctor who formerly worked in a chemical dependency program and has published a book about addiction, spoke, warning of what marijuana does to the brain development of young people. Recent medical studies and reports only clarify this message, making the warning stronger.
In Colorado all that its necessary to be a caregiver is that they are over age 21. Compare that to the training of a pharmacist, nurse practitioner and physicians.
We condemn the way Americans for Safe Access, United for Care and other lobbyists have been essentially dishonest about medical marijuana. They imply that having a different opinion shows a lack of compassion. We also blame them and other groups for not explaining that cannabidial oil which helps for seizure is a component of marijuana and not marijuana. We ask them to stop posturing for one thing when they really want something else. (Read Part 2 of the Medical Marijuana Hoax: Mental Health)
