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it's truly amazing
the number of conditions that respond
favorably cannabis
We are looking at an
unexcelled wonder plant
an herbal medicine that has
no comparison
It would appear that cannabis and hemp 
were one of the first plants grown in agriculture
we came out of being hunters and gatherers
at about ten thousand years ago
and so that's at least the length of
time a cannabis has been cultivated
Cannabis
has long been known
aas a medicinal
plant
as a medicinal product
the latest studies or the latest findings
are
a tomb in china in which the contents of
the medicine bag of a medicine man
were discovered one of the things it contained 
was cannabis
The tomb was carbon dated as 
almost 5000 years old
the conventional wisdom
which goes to the oral history of
china
is that the emperor Shennong wrote
first chinese materia medica
and that it contained
cannabis
He is alleged to have written it in 2637 bc which would be
almost 5000 years ago
the oldest known copy of that goes back to
some ranging about 100 bc and 100 ad
100 bc and 100 ad
the oldest actual written record of the
use of cannabis as a medicine 
is found
in the writings of the Indian as in been
India ayurvedic medicine
In which that
a piece of  history is dated eight
somewhere between 1100 bc
and 1700 bc
Cannabis is found in every major materia
medica that has ever been written
that includes the Ebers Medical Papyrus from Egypt
It includes the writing of Dioscorides who
was Niro's Doctor
and
his materia medica was used for over a
 1000 years
and it was included in the united states
for pharacopeia
from
1854 until 1941
Marijuana 
has been a medicine for a lot longer
than it hasn't been a medicine
evidence suggests that it was used
in northern china
for either
shamanists purposes or religion or
healing
The culture of cannabis as medicine
moved across the world
india was very big in the use of marijuana
It was from India where
W.B. Oshaughnessy who
work for the British East India Company
picked up cannabis and brought it to the united
kingdom where apparently it was queen
victoria's favorite uh... treatment for
her menstrual cramps. Ultimately it came
to the U.S.A in the early part of the
twentieth-century and most of the major drug
companies in this country were actually
producing
cannabis medicine
Up until the beginning of the twentieth
century
cannabis was probably the second or
third most commonly used medicine
in the world.
Cannabis was found in patent medicines
that were
manufactured by such familiar names is
Eli Lilly
Squibb
Merk, Park Davis
Smith Brothers you know the Smith Brothers 
cough drops
It was available 
powdered, chopped and whole 
as tincture.
It was only in
1937 when congress
enacted the
marijuana tax act. That imposed
levy of the dollar an ounce for the
use of medical marijuana that
0:04:36.169,0:04:37.180
was the beginning
of the end for marijuana as a medicine
in the united states. it was in 1942
1942
when it was totally removed from the US Pharmacopeia or at least the formulary
but up until 1942
physicians could still write prescriptions for
cannabis so
marijuana has not been a
medicine for sixty eight years in this
country, but it has been a medicine in
the world for 3000 years
it was the
miss
conception that use of marijuana lead
to
debotury and physical violence
and for that reason
I guess the investigator would probably be
more conservative than an they
are now and that's hard to believe
So was considered 
the way alcohol was
considered in prohibition.
So it was prohibited, all uses of marijuana.  It
had been used medicinally
as well as for recreation
as well as for recreation
All uses were 
declared illegal and marijuana was
given the status of a schedule #1
substances. Which means a
Substance that is without any recognized demonsterable
Theraputic effect.
As opposed to Cocaine
which was also
and
declared legal for
recreational use but still having
Medicinal properties.
Which is used as a local anesthetic
For which it is still used today.
That's Schedule #2
When the marijuana tax act was passed in
1937
immediately Fiorello LaGuardia who was the mayor of new york established
an august body of scientists to
investigate whether the claims that
marijuana use was going to increase
mental illness and crime
in the united states were valid
and the LaGuardia commission report was
issued in 1942 and they
concluded
that marijuana was a a good medicine
and that the claims that it's use would
increase crime and mental illness was
unsubstantiated. 
Prohibition 
can not be enforced
for the simple reason
the majority of American people do not want it enforced 
and are resisting it's enforcement.
That being so
the orderly thing to do
under our form of government
is to abolish a law
chich cannot be in enforced
a law which the people of the country do not want enforced.
So that sentement was
repeated in 1962 when
the Nixon marijuana commission
of wrote their report.
This was in the face of the
admonition by president nixon that they
not
recommend
the legalization
of cannabis for recreational use.
sufficient
There is a Commission that is to make recommendations to me
about this subject.... 
The recommendation of the
commission in its first report is that
we do not feel
that private use or  private possession
in one's own home
should have the stigma of
criminalization.
People who experiment should not be
criminalized for that particular
behavior.
Every ten years or so our government
has sponsored
another look into marijuana as medicine.
The last one actually now being 1999
when the Institute of Medicine did it. Every ten
years
these august bodies come up with the
same conclusion, that
there is medicinal
value to marijuana.
its adverse effects and
its addictive potential
gateway drugness are overstated
and for some reason every ten years
these reports go... 
I don't know if they are 
ignored, but they certainly don't seem to
change policy.
In 1974
a fellow with glaucoma named Robert Randell
was arrested for possession of marijuana.
He had found a using marijuana had
diminished
the symptoms that he was having
and
it was later found
by both Johns Hopkins and the Jule
Styne eye institute of UCLA
that this was the only thing that would
preserve his eyesight
and the federal government then agreed
to provide
Mr. Randell with marijuana for medical
purposes.
He had made an agreement, or the government
thought he had made an agreement not to
tell anybody about this. Well as soon as it
happened he told as many people as he could
and
people begin to apply for this program
which is called the IND (Investigational New Drug) program.
At one time there were as many as
15  americans to were receiving
300 hand rolled marijuana
cigarettes a month
from the federal government
There were another 35 people
who were approved
for the program.
In 1989 the
first Bush administration 
decided that they needed to review this
They were concerned that
too many people were applying for the
program and if too many people got on it
and if too many people got on it
the public might get the quote "wrong
idea"
that marijuana actually had some medical
value which of course it actually does
have some medical value.
just prior to that time in 1988
the chief administrative law judge of
the food and drug administration
issued a ruling recommending that
marijuana be rescheduled from schedule #1 to
schedule #2.
In his ruling
ruling he found that marijuana was one
of the safest therapeutic agents known
to man
and he stated that it was safer than
eating 10 potatoes.
So I've always been very careful about
the number of potatoes I've eaten since
then.
Marijuana was widely used in the
19th century with the treatment of Asthma.
and in the 1970's we found that
marijuana
has a Bronchodilator Effect.
This is because the THC in marijuana.
First of all
let's
compare and contrast
marijuana
with the other even more widely smoke
substance in our society tobacco.
Tobacco was use more there than any
other smoke substance and marijuana is
second only to tobacco.
Lucy give me a cigarette will ya honey....
...
...
...
...
...
You see how easy it is to keep your man happy.
Why not give your husband a carton of cigarettes.
Smart move
He will love them for their mild and smooth taste.
He will love you too for thinking of him.
...
We know that if you analyse
the contests of tobacco and marijuana
they are quite similar and the major difference is
that tobacco contains nicotine
not found in in marijuana
and marijuana contains THC and
about 60 other THC like
substances called Cannabinoids
not found in tobacco
but there are other a lot of other
particulars are shared in common
and these include carcinogens 
such as Benzo Pyrene the most potent of the
carcinogens and considered
to be responsible for a large
precentage of human cancers.
Benzopyrene is found
in 50 percent higher concentration in
marijuana smoke than in the smoke from a
comparable quantity of tobacco.
This has been shown by 3 separate
groups of chemical investigators so the
expectation is
that if you smoke marijuana enough in and on a
regular basis
you would
encourage similar risks to smoking
tobacco.
So what are the major health risk for
tobacco
emphysema which I prefer to call COPD
which is
the new term.
Which consists of cronic emphysema.
You can have significant
imparement of lung function without emphysema
it could just be air ways disease.
Because we can't separate out the
2 components of COPD
emphysema and the airways
component we lumped in together so
that COPD
COPD is the 4th leading cause of
death
in the U.S. and the world and will become the 3rd leading
cause in 2020 it is a very important
diseas. About 120000
americans die
each year
 from
COPD.
probably the best evidence
for separating
or best method for separating out a
patient with COPD from someone else is to look at
the rate of decline in lung function.
I shouldn't say the best it's the probably the most informative.
But it's more difficult to do because you have to make
measurements every
year for a number of years. The slope of rate of loss of lung function over time. We did that.
We actually measured lung function every year in
 marijuana smokers up
up to 8 years.
We found that
the slope of the
decline in lung function is almost
identical in the marijuana only smokers
compared to non-smokers. Where it was accellerated in
tobacco smokers.
Just one other
piece of evidence that marijuana
is not a risk factor for the
development of COPD.
I'm convinced of that.
and the other major health consequence
pulmonary health consequences of tobacco
is lung cancer.
Cancer is the 2nd most common cause of
death
in
the U.S.A.
and lung cancer is most common form of cancer.
The major risk factor for lung cancer is tobacco smoking.
About 160000 Americans die each year of lung cancer.
so the question
that came to my mind was whether or not there was any
evidence
that marijuana would at least
qualitatively share
some of these health risks
with those of tobacco.
That was the rationale for
initiating our  studies back in the
1980's
What is the evidence that
marijuana smoking
habbitual marijuana smoking can lead to lung
cancer(?) With respect to
the development of lung cancer
We found
We found no evidence of any increase
risk
of lung cancer
ocurrance,
In association with marijuana smoking
alone.
The marijuana smokers if  anything had a reduced risk for developing lung
cancer. Not a significant reduced risk
but a reduced risk
less than 1 fold.
So that means reduced.
Whereas the tobacco smokers had markably increased risk.
Those that smoked more than 2 packs a day
had a 20  fold increase in risk.
That is 2000 percent.
Those that smoked from one to two
packs a day had an 8 fold risk.
800 percent.
800 percent.
So that contrasts with
no risk, no increased risk, if anything a slightly reduced risk for smokers of marijuana
THC
 actually has a
anti-tumor effect.
These are studies that were done both
experimental animals and
in cell culture systems and for
different kinds of cancer.
For lung cancer, breast cancer, thyroid cancer, prostate cancer gliomas which is brain
cancer.
That the
development and growth of the tumor is suppressed
by THC and the mastastiees are also
suppressed.
So how could that be(?) well THC impares
protein synthesis
and it's what we call Antimitogenic anti-proliferative
which means those tumor cells don't 
readily proliferate
in the presence of THC.
There are also
There are also
antiangiogenic.
So they interfere with the growth and
development of new blood vessels are
necessary for it to spread.
and they also are Proapototic.
What is a Proapototic (?)  It is
programmed cell death so
when cells
age there is a mechanism whereby the
cells die.
It is a non-necrotic death and the die off of
old cells and
we get rid of them
before they have an opportunity to
develop mutations that would lead to
cancer.
So enhancing a Proapototic effect diminishes
the risk of the cells become cancerous.
 So marijuana or THC turns out to be Proapototic
Those
appear to be the mechanisms that might
account for these antitumoral effects
of THC.
we decided to
do our own
case control study.
Funding from the National Institute on Drug Abuse which is a major funding
agencie for marijuana research.
This is the largest study
ever conducted on this subject. It was very well
designed.
We used the los angeles
tumors Registry
to identify and rapidly ascertaine
all the cases of lung cancer head neck cancer
cancer
that were diagnosed in the LA county
system
and of course by the time we got to some
of them they had already died or were too sick but we got
to it.
Over sixty percent of them
who agreed to participate
and were able to participate and we administered
this questionaire.
Then we match them
to controls
same age, socioeconomic status, within the
same neighborhood using an algorythm which
USC developed
for this.
So we could match comparing apples with apples.
WE then administered
this detailed questionnaires.r
Also
In molecular
we got
... smears so we could look at
DNA to look at genetics
to look at lung cancer.
So,
what we did was too
recruit
smokers. Heavy smokers of
marijuana
at least a joint a day for a week and it
ended up that the average smoker of marijuana
who we recruited
smoked about 3 joints a day for about 15 years.
and
we also required that they smoked that much for
five years but the average they 
smoked 15 joints for fifteen years so that's =
about 45 to 50
Joint years. A Joint year is the average number of joints smoked
times the number of years smoked.
Over the
study population
was I think between 35 and
59
...
Of course we thought that they have to be
teenagers in the early twenties at the
time of the
marijuana epidemic which
you know was in the in the mid 1960's.
Prior to that time very few people
used marijuana after that time it just mushroomed
up to 1979.
Represented the apex
that means
the active use in society.
that is why we chose those age limits and so would be find (?)
for any category of cannabis use
including heavy use
(defined as more than 10 joint years)
we look at 10, 20,30 years.
For every category
of marijuana use the ratio was less than 1 which means reduced risk.
it was not significantly reduced but it was reduced.
The compensatables were not that wide
... so there was
no evidence, we control for all
accumulated factors of such economic status
in common,
tobacco smoke
....
same time we did a similar study on
tobacco smokers
there was a huge effect from tobacco.
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0:22:33.380,0:22:38.900
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So. I am a cancer doctor
and everyday I see patients with cancer
who have
nausea from their chemotherapy or their
cancer
losses appetite
pain
depression
insomnia
my experience over the past thirty years
of being an oncologist is that
there's one medicine that I could
recommend to patients that can take care
of all those problems.
Instead of writing 5 different
prescription drugs all of which have
side effects and
addictive potential.
I can tell my cancer patients to
try
marijuana
to take care of
any combination of those symptoms.
The first study that I really wanted to
do was in patience with the so-called
AIDS wasting syndrome which was
something we saw
before the availability of antiretroviral drugs and
patients with HIV infections just
wasted away. They lost weight they got
diarrhea and fevers.
Dronabinol delta 9 THC became
available
to help those patients increase their
appetite.
When we
prescribe those patients dronabinol in the
early 1990's they said "you know this is
okay but I really prefer to smoke
real cannabis because
when you take
cannabis by mouth either as
delta 9 THC or eating
in fact baked products
the
absorption is very slow and variable so
it takes about two and a half hours
for peak to be reached and the peak level in 
the blood is quite low and it
stays in the body for quite a long time
as well.
Also when taken by mouth
the delta 9 THC becomes
converted by liver to another
psychoactive metabolite.
people that take dronabinol
or take 
cannabis baked products often get more zonked (tired)
than people who smoke because when you
smoke you don't get that second metabolite.
and so when you smoke you get a
very rapid peak in the blood of in two and
a half minutes
as opposed to two and a half hours.
people can really control the onset
of the activity and
how long it lasts better if their
smoking
rather than taking a pill or eating a baked product.
So,
our first
study that we hoped to do
in the early 1990's was to show that
smoked cannabis was better
than dronabinol in
increasing appetite in patients with
AIDS wasting syndrome.
I tried twice to get
cannabis from the government because
they're the only legal source of
marijuana for clinical trials.
Both times I failed
and then went to Allen Leshner who at the
time was the head of the
national institute on drug abuse and he explained
to me infact that the government
NIDA the national institute on drug
abuse has a congressional mandate only to
to study substances of abuse as
substances of abuse.
So my requests have marijuana to study
it has the potential therputic agent could
never be granted by the government.
because congress says you can only study these substances as substances of abuse and 
not as 
treatments for disease.
In 1996 the terrain changed 
when we got
HIV drugs that actually work
and we didn't see the wasting syndrome
anymore.
but these drugs were broken down by
liver by the same pathway that
metabolizes some
illegal substances and there was a report
in the literature of the patient
dying from ecstasy overdose. 
It was one of the aids
antiviral drugs that they took and
ecstasy at the same time.
So I said haha little light bulb went off 
that may be
I should study to see if it's safe
for patients on the aids antiretroviral
drugs
to smoke cannabis.
So I submitted that grant to the government
and that work within thier schema because I
was looking
to see if it was harmful
With that application I finally
succeeded and got 
a million dollars and 1400
government (marijuana)cigarettes to study
in patients with HIV. Now these
patients didn't have the wasting
syndrome anymore
but the endpoint of our study was
is there a change in the amount of the
aids virus in the blood stream
after 21 days of exposure to
either 3
government cigarettes
a day
or three
dronabinol capsules or 3 placibo capsules.
We looked at the change in the HIV virus and 
it didn't change at all.
We also look at the interaction between
canabinoids 
either smoke more oral and the amount of
AIDS drug
in blood stream
that didn't change clinically
significantly either.
We also knew that people were concerned
that
marijuana might have an impact on the
immune system that could be negative
and we look at that very carefully in
these HIV patients and found
no evidence of any negative affect 
and perhaps some have
a benefit
in the immune system
in patients
smoking even more than taking the
capsules.
My opinion the whole plant
is medicine
that nature provided.
It's the best medicine.
It is truly amazing
the number of conditions that respond
favorably to cannabis. The #1
condition
is pain.
Cannabis
is useful again relieving people's pain
and is particularly effective in relieving
pain from connective tissue disorders.
Arthritis, Fibromyalgia,
 systemic lupus, reflex
sympathetic dystrophy. A whole host of
conditions that we don't really
understand very well, people seem to get
good relief from cannabis. People are able
to decreased the amount of opiates that
they're taking and in some instances to
stop taking opiates entirely for pain
control.
The first modern research that was done
cannabis was done in 1949
demonstrate its usefulness in treating
epilepsy. I have a number of people
who don't have epilepsy when they
use cannabis regularly.
The founder of modern medicine is a Physician named 
Sir William Osler.
Who was prominent around the turn of the
nineteenth or twentieth century, wrote
the first textbook of internal medicine
and in that textbook
he said the cannabis was the most
effective medication for the treatment
of migraine headaches and I certainly
have a number of people with migraines that get
substantial relief or even prevention of
migraines by consumption of cannabis.
other conditions that common respond
favorably to marijuana include depression,
helps people with sleep, helps with
appetite.
It is also very good training
GI symptoms, nausea,
diarrhea,
it is excellent for treating Crohn's
disease.
We did a little study of people with
crohn's disease and found that many of
them were able to stop using steroids to
stop using other
medications that they had taken for
their cronies that they have
less diarrhea they had less abdomenal
pain. it was true miracle for them.
There is a
list here of
conditions
that was originally developed by
doctor Tod Mikuriya. Who is a
pioneer
in terms of medical marijuana.
He actually work for the national
institute of mental health and his job
was to give out
grants for doing studies on cannabis.
he thought he was there to find out
how cannabis was useful to treat medical
conditions.
NIMH thought he was there to hand out
grants to see how
dangerous it was. This was a
marriage made hell and needless to say he did
not stay with NIMH for very long.
Cannabis is seen as a
protecting agent
and we have found
that it has provided benefits for people
with multiple sclerosis.
it treats the pain in
their muscle spasm
but more importantly
people who were placed on Sativex
the tincture of cannabis
in early studies in great britain have
remained on it
for years and years
and rather than progress the
multiple sclerosis has stayed the same.
Suggesting
that cannabis may not only be effective in
reducing the symptoms
but also in slowing the progression of
disease.
it is helpful when dealing with
anxiety of people that have alzheimer's
disease.
It is helpful in dealing with the
muscle spasms that are associated with
parkinson's disease.
When it comes to psychological illnesses
cannabis is useful not only treating
depression which are already mentioned
about also bipolar disorder which is
depression and mania.
It is useful in treating (ADD) attention
deficit disorder,
post-traumatic stress disorder 
there was a study done at the Max Plank
Institute in Germany.
A few years back that demonstrated it
was used for 
reducing fearful memory so that might
suggest white
is used for 
alleviating PTSD. This is
extremely important at this time when we
have
so many people who are serving multiple
tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.
the pentagon has projected that at least
a third of these people and I think
that is a very conservative
estimate
will come back up with the symptoms
of PTSD.
Matter of fact in regards to PTSD
of both the Israeli government and the
Croatian government have given their
troops cannabis for treatment of PTSD.
The list just goes on and on.
Many many conditions cause pain
serious conditions
... spondylitis which can actually turn you over or make you bend over
in a crippled position.
People who have failed
back surgery.
People who have
herniated disks,
who have chronic dislocated shoulders.
All of these people
get relief from cannabis
and they find that the cannabis provides
that relief
with fewer side effects
than the opiates do.
Another thing that is sort of counter intuitive
 
is in the treatment of asthma.
You may have seen the ads for Advair
states both the bronco dialator and
anti-inflammatory.
Well so too is cannabis.
This is why ther were numerous
marijuana cigarettes on the market
in the 1920's for the
treatment of asthma specifically for at
the treatment of asthma.
So as I
pointed out by holding up this list the
a list of conditions for which cannabis
is useful is extremely lengthly.
That's a quick overview of some of the
conditions that cannabis 
is useful in treating.
Most people tend to take cannabis at
least in the evening
some people take it more often than that
and the reason is that many of these
conditions interfere with sleep and then
there are some people who just have
sleep problems, have insomnia difficulty.
Cannabis is very useful assisting people
and going to sleep.
Now if they have difficulty staying
asleep
in addition to
smoking or vaporizing or using it sublingually
they should also use it as an edible or
drink it because it will kick in
45 minutes into their sleep
and it will be affective for about 5
to 6 hours.
There are a number of was
of administering
cannabis.
Smoking and vaporizing cause the
chemicals to get into the body upstream
of the liver.
So you have unmetabolized cannabinoids
that are going to the brain.
Now this doesn't mean that when the cannabinoids
go to the liver that they
are inactivated
but it means that they're different
85 percent of the cannabinoid is
metabolize on its first pass to
liver.
The other thing is that
when it goes to the brain immediately
by the
respitory route of administration
the effect will be in 15-30
seconds.
Whereas if we wait for it to go through the GI Tract
to deliver
it will take 45 minutes before
its effective.
Now each one of those routes of
administration
is going to give you a slightly different
mix of chemicals
because when you smoke it you
are oxygenating the chemicals that are in there.
So when you are vaporizing
the cannabinoids that are behind where
the flame is
you're also burning
them right at the
junction.
So that smoked marijuana is not identical
to vaporizing marijuana.
With the vaporized marijuana all the
volitalized oils
will be vaporized by the time you get to 340 degrees C
...
You will have removed
or been exposed to about 70
percent fewer irritants
then when you smoke it.
It also has a somewhat different odor
it doesn't have the characteristic
classic burn rope odor
it has more of a 
nutty odor.
Now when you eat marijuana
you're going to have metabolized
85 percent of cannabinoids.
People
who eat it talk about having a body high as
opposed to
mind high.
That is because you are being exposed to
different combination of cannabinoids.
Now some people have found that an
under the tongue spray
which is
what Sativex is,
SAtivex is analcohol extract of the
whole plant
which combines
extracts from two plants one that is high in THC
for it's theraputic value
and another that is high in CBD
to keep down the
euphoria.
When you spray it under the tongue it will be
effective in about 15 minutes
But it will go to the brain first before going
through the liver.
On the other hand there are many people in canada where
Sativex is legal
that find that they still preferr
cannabis
to Sativex
Now sativex
is prescribed in canada
and it appears as though
the british government and or the
spanish government might also approve
sativex in the near future
for sale as a pharmaceutical
in their country.
The US food drug administration (FDA)found
that Sativex, basically liquid marijuana
was safe enough to be tested on
americans and they approved a phase 3
clinical study, phase 3 just means
human beings, in
december of 2005
to determine whether or not this under
the tongue tincture spray was useful in
 intractable pain of
people with cancer.
This study did not gets started until
2007 and still on going.
There have been numerous studies with
cannabis and tincture of cannabis
and pain that have shown it
is useful in
releaving pain.
We talked about under the tongue we've
talked about smoking talked about being
vaporization.
There's also
these synthetic delta 9 THC
that can be taken orally just like edibles.
...
The main problem with edibles is that
it's hard to tell whether you're going
to get a dose that is going to just deal
with the therapeutic needs that you have
whether it's going to give you euphoria 
or whether it is going to give you disphoria
you need to have
the regular supply so that you
can be fairly certain that you're going
to take the amount that will be the
therapeutic dose and not an amount that will
give you dysphoric
side-effects.
Lastly
the .... who are healers in
southern mexico and central america
have used tincture of cannabis as part of their
therapeutic ...
for at least 200 years.
The topical application of tincture of cannabis
is useful particularly on the small joints
the fingers and toes
in dealing with pain associated with
arthritis
and the reason for this is that cannabis
is both an Analgesic,
a painkiller and anti-inflammatory
and we know this not only from the
evidence that we have
but also from thousands of studies have
been done around the world
with
mainly with animals and sometimes tissue
culture.
International Cannabinoid research society's
been around for about 20 years
and the have
conferences each year the last three
days in which researchers from all over
the world
talk about the results they have gotten
doing basic science studies.
Any drug 
that a doctors considering
recommending or prescribing they need to
balance off the therapeutic effects with
the side-effects.
When you talk about the treatment of
pain for many people
the opiates are very effective pain
killers
but for some people
the opiates cause confusion they make it
difficult for them to concentrate
difficult for them to drive
they don't enjoy playing with their kids
and their grandkids
it causes them constipation.
with cannabis
for many of those people they find
that it certainly does not give them
constipation
and does not cause them confusion
provides them with sufficient relief
from their pain
that they can go about their activities
of daily living they can drive their car
without the interference
and more importantly they can have fun
they can play with their children they
can play with their grandchildren.
I wouldn't necessarily say that
across the board
cannabis is to be used instead of
opiates
but I would say that for many people it
can be used to instead of opiates
and for others it can be used in
conjunction with opiates and they can
use a lower dose of the opiates
and hopefully have fewer side effects.
Now any theriputic agent
that we know of
has some side effects
and marijuana is no exception.
The main side-effect to the
use of marijuana
is from smoking it and that is cough.
So that can be completely avoid
by easting it or drinking
and it can be largly avoided by vaporizing it.
One of the things that is talked about a lot
is that you can have a panic reaction and that is 
possible it most commonly occurs
in  people who
are novices users.
Particularly
if they've been exposed to plant
that is very high in THC.
Another thing that
people sometimes have is
paranoid thinking
police are after them.
I've noticed that this is not nearly
used common since it has become legal
becausethe police are not after them
and so it may not be paranoia
that people were experiencing but
an exaggerated perception of reality
and one of the things 
we have lost as a result of the
propaganda miss information that is
spread about cannabis
is the fact that it has legitimate
therapeutic value and we have
discouraged research.
We have a dramatic discouraged research
in this country and
numerous other countries including
england israel spain
germany
are far ahead of us in terms of
quantity of research they are doing on the
medicinal value of cannabis.
This is particularly alarming
in these economic times when we certainly
could
use the economic stimulus and
boost that would come
from having pharmaceutical cannabis
available in the country
as it is now in Canada
and possibly soon will be
england and spain.
Jefferson said that
this country would be in dire straits if
we have laws that
interfered with what we put into our own
bodies.
Are we not
in control of our own bodies?
If the people let the government decide what foods they eat
and what medicines they take, their bidies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who love under tyrany
Quote- Thomas Jefferson
Make the most of the Indian Hemp seed and sow it everywhere.
Quote- George Washington
...
...
Marijuana is a medicine that patients themselves can grow.
For people with cancer who may be
facing
thinking about the end of their life to
be able to grow
a plant in work in the garden and
produce their own medicine is very empowering.
Something that
I think does a patient a lot of good.
Marijuana is illegal
and the government
does not sponsor this kind of research.
In view of the fact that large
numbers of people are 
using marijuana medicinally I think
it's a shame that
there is no investment in this kind of
research.
I think that there is a very bright future
for medical cannabis in this country.
I grew up around drugs
but to me drugs are a good thing. I walked into
building 
everyday almost of my
first 18 years that had a 13 foot tall sign that said
Drugs... my father was a
pharmacist and
we sold medication.
As far as I am concerned medication is helpful to people
I don't think that
medication has personality and sits on
the self until
you prescribe it for somebody.
It has
beneficial use
and has side effects and should only be used
when necessary.
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