Topic: Health Care
Ron Paul Smokes'em On Marijuana For Sickos The Republican Presidential Field Has Only One Doctor When It Comes To Using Marijuana To Relieve The Symptoms Of The Sickby Scott from Oregon
(Libertarian)
Monday, December 31, 2007
Marijuana wafts in and out of Oregon culture like a burning herb would. The sparsely populated hillsides are perfect places for the alternative set to grow and harvest illicit crops year after year. As an Oregonian, I come into contact with the drug peripherally, at music events and the occasional smoky public bathroom, recognizing the familiar smell readily as it lingers and travels like smoke tends to do. As much as I’d like to claim myself super-cool (And I am, I swear! Just ask me!) I haven’t smoked the drug in over 25 years. It puts me to sleep- the THC in it does- in about 5 minutes. I never found much use in that, as I sleep quite easily as it is.
So my last puff would have been somewhere in my early twenties, and I have never missed it.
But that isn’t to say I don’t know about the plant, its users and the war that has been declared by the federal government. Lord knows, Oregon is full of Marijuana proponents passing out flyers and proselytizing for their cause. I like these people, for the most part, and I always take a flyer and give them an ear, if anything to let them know there are straight people (and straight-looking people) who care about what they are passionate about.
My sister was diagnosed with breast cancer not many years ago and went through chemotherapy. The only effective remedy for the nausea she experienced was to make a tea out of Marijuana leaves. A friend of hers had a medical marijuana card (a set of crushed discs and a bleeding stomach eventually led to marijuana as a pain reducer) and the plant was grown legally under California law and the tea was drank under the approval of her physician.
The equation was basically--
Symptom--> Home Grown Marijuana plant--> Relief of symptom
Please observe that the federal government was left out of this basic loop. So too, were the pharmaceuticals who make things like "synthetic marijuana" (so it is effective when it is artificially manufactured, and ineffective and dangerous when it is naturally grown? Huh?) And there, people of all levels of coolness, is the most relevant and crucial point.
The drug companies can’t make money on something that grows in your backyard quite easily from a seed, and the folks in the federal government want what is best for the drug companies.
I don’t care what your personal views on smoking marijuana are, what I appeal to is your sense of right and wrong. I appeal to your spirit as a free American that should realize your freedom is reliant on the freedom of those around you. I appeal to everyone who knows they will someday get sick, get old, may end up with cancer or suffer under innumerable other ailments where marijuana may ease and comfort you. I appeal to all Americans, to tell the federal government they have no right to play doctor with sick people’s lives.
There is an interesting series of You Tube clips floating around the internet. In each clip, candidates are asked about the issue of putting sick people in jail for self-prescribing (or even doctor prescribed) marijuana as a medicinal herb. On the Republican side, there was Ron Paul, once again, steadfast and on his own, ( a doctor of medicine, to state the obvious) declaring the evil insanity of the federal position. And on the other side, well, the rest of the hapless Republicans, telling sick people that they have a study that claims the benefits the sick people are experiencing are all in their minds.
Imagine that.
Someday I may be in much pain due to illness. Maybe I won’t be able to sleep? I have worked my back in ways many people can only imagine, and the discs may go on me. When that day arrives, I may look to my backyard for relief. What I too wonder is, will the federal government come and arrest me?
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2007 Scott from Oregon, all rights reserved.
Published: Monday, December 31, 2007
Last modified: Monday, December 31, 2007
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I agree with your point of view, and about the candidates, it seems to me almost as a joke. Everyone has the same ideas about how to run this country BUT there's ONE brilliant candidate who actually knows what he's saying, I think the only thing i disagree with him is how he thinks about the "inmigration problem".
The war on drugs is more ridiculous every day, maybe is time to accept that it failed, and it failed in a HUGE scale.
1. One of those videos is of a man in a wheelchair asking Billary her opinion about medical marijuana. Her body language was so sappy, I thought she was going to reach over and pat this man on his head. But her words were cold hypocrisy - 'well, we'll have to look into that.' Bullbiscuits. The same man explained to Ron Paul that he was traveling to campaign stops to ask candidates if they would arrest him for possession. Unlike Billary, Ron Paul lit into the question, stating unequivocally that All possession of marijuana (Not just medical) should be legalized. A grand cheer went up from the audience.
2. I work for a criminal defense attorney in a state where marijuana possession is a felony. I recently spoke with the mother of a 'young' 18year old ('young' mentally because he'd had a couple bouts of brain cancer) - her son's 1st felony charge as an adult? Marijuana possession!! As we talked she said after his sentencing, they would move to Oregon so he could have access to marijuana without being arrested as he eased his pain.
Wonderful article!, Ron has my vote for sure, just because when he speaks he gives a direct answer every time, its so refreshing, and people everywhere are catching on. I'm a medical marijuana user and Ron Paul was one of a few that caught my eye early. Watch him on you tube, I love how the front runners laughed at his ideas during the questions, and by the end the crowd was cheering! It truly is a revolution.
I too am a former pot smoker, although for me it has been about 35 years since I last toked up. I was an almost daily user for about 4 years and only quit because of the legal ramifications. Recently my wife developed lung cancer and had surgery to remove a lobe of her lung. She is unable to take any opiate based pain killer without extreme nausea and vomiting. I was very close to hitting the streets to find some marijuana.
Although she has never used the drug, she would have been willing to try anything to increase her appetite and get her body weight up above 83 pounds. Would pot have worked? Maybe. Maybe not, but I resent those politicians who think they know what is best for us all and are unwilling to support large controlled studies to determine efficacy. Furthermore, I enjoyed using the drug when I was younger and, as far as it being addictive, I had no trouble quitting after years of use.
Ditto here. Haven't touched the stuff in years, and as far as drugs go, I know many people who have done themselves in with booze, but the worst thing I could ever say about a pothead is maybe a little laziness... now alcohol, there's a drug that eats people alive. But it should be legal, they all should. Look, is the fact the heroin is illegal the only thing that keeps you from doing it? If you raise your kids right, the laws are meaningless.
Look - our government has gotten to the point where they are totally pre-occupied with "saving us from ourselves." There really is no other way to read that than to say that these people seem to think we're too stooopid to know what's best for us. What's incredible to me is how many candidates don't understand Dr.Paul's support base. Are they really that out of touch with the real lives of We the People???
The Ron Paul revolution is laughably easy to understand:
1) The productive people in this country are sick and tired of subsidizing the unproductive people in this country. We are sick and tired of giving the government our money, only to have them give it away to people that didn't earn it.
2) The citizens of this country are sick and tired of being represented by a sinister government that preaches feedom out of one side of its mouth, and then supports covert operations in other countries out of the other. We had to fight for our freedom--so do they--let the chips fall where they may, because they're gonna fall that way eventually anyway.
Folks, freedom is finite. And every time a law is passed, by definition, a freedom is lost. Some laws are necessary; not many people argue against traffic laws, their purpose is self-evident.
Drugs are a supply-and-demand game, and as long as there is demand, there will be supply. What's worse is that we all know this and act like it isn't so. The day that drugs are legalized, ALL gangs will lose their revenue stream, and 99% of gang-realated violence will stop. In one day. How do you think they pay for those AK-47's? For god's sake, this nation won it's freedom at a time when a person could buy opium OTC. Our founding fathers weren't too stoned to fight the British...
I guess what I'm getting at is this: I'm a grown man, and I certainly don't need a baby-sitter in the form of a government that thinks I'm too dumb to figure out how much salt I should put on my french-fried. Do you?
Yeah it's obvious to see that a change needs to take place but it's really sad to see the ignorance of the american people reflected in the current poles that are being ran. Ron Pauls doing better than expected but he's still a very very long shot for the next president. As much as I want this man to take charge of things. I doubt it will happen due to the fact that politicians are used car salesmen that have a way of twisting and turning words to make people believe they have their best interest at heart when it's just words to get your vote so they can go about what they really care about. (money)(war)(themselves)...etc...
I really enjoyed this article because it brings an outside perspective into play in this whole war on weed that for me is very refreshing to see. I'm only 21 and am considered by many to be a "stoner". I've probably been smoking all of 4 or 5 years and have noticed no real negative consequences that a good drive and ambition can't cure. Plus often times if I'm sick with nasuea, headache, or just can't sleep a couple tokes and i'm good to go. Not to mention if i'm involved with something creative it's almost as if it were a muse to my creative person. Really with anything it's all about self control and you're obviously going to get your abusers with anything but abuseing pot usually leads to sleep and munchies whereas alchohol abuse often times leads to spousalchild abuse, drama, death, and many other negative consequences. Another thing i notice in my area (Oklahoma) is just about every other night on the news theres a shooting somewhere and 7 out of 10 times it's at a liquor store...coincidence? Maybe but I doubt it. Hell I've had to quit drinking due to negative consequences. Nothing big. But so far i've fared much better with my pot use.
When i was still a minor my parents would tell me about this guy they used to go to highschool with that apparenly smoked himself into thinking the government is after him... but if you think about it.. aren't they in a sense? But thats neither here or there...
Besides there are plenty of moronic people in this country of ours and sure if you put pot in the hands of an idiot they're not going to get any smarter. But even w/o pot would they have been any better off? No and these are the same people who are getting drunk and killing eachother and beating their wives. But as this article addressed...it's much easier to grow pot in your spare bedroom or backyard than it is to set up a brewery in your kitchen. Therefore it's not as easy to monopolize.
Something the government should think about is an official growing liscense (not unlike a fishing liscense) that would allow the average joe who has put some time and energy into learning the finer points of growing (or some of us who'd like to but fear goverment mandated repercussions) to be able to grow this stuff for "big medicine". Therefore creating jobs out of nothing and fixing this huge problem. I mean theres got to be something done to fix this, although I don't even think it should be considered a drug. (see tobacco for what i'm getting at) But it would be a something that just has positive side affects that just happen to help the sick and dying. It really makes me sad to hear a story like that of tymetravler's because I have no doubt in my mind that a little smoke would increase that womans appetite at the very least. Plus who's to say with all the different strands out there that some may help certain conditions more than others or that strands couldn't be made to combat certain ailments or at the very least exagurate some of the side effects (ae. hunger, sleep, euphoria etc.) for those who need them just to be as healthy as possible. To use tymetravler's story as another example... lets say we made a strand (i'm sure there already is one) that causes a more exagurated "munchie" effect just for people like his wife. Now wouldn't that be 100% positive? I don't see why it wouldn't be and at the very minimal would that not raise some morale a bit? Sometimes great miracles come from a positive morale. I'm not saying all people are equal or that smoking all day every day is good for you because it's not all good things should be taken in moderation but with this "drug" the worst thing that comes from overuse like i said earlier is sleep, hunger, and a managable euphoria. It's just amazing to me that our government doesn't evne think of it's a possiblity when it's so obvious to the rest of us. Damn i shoulda write my own artice i guess? lol
anyway i'm ranting it was a great article and i'm definitely going to be circulating it quite a bit.
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2007 Scott from Oregon, all rights reserved.