is up in smoke?

This is all you really need to see in the article to explain it:

"But scientists who study the medical use of marijuana said in interviews that the federal government had actively discouraged research. Lyle E. Craker, a professor in the division of plant and soil sciences at the University of Massachusetts, said he submitted an application to the D.E.A. in 2001 to grow a small patch of marijuana to be used for research because government-approved marijuana, grown in Mississippi, was of poor quality.

In 2004, the drug enforcement agency turned Dr. Craker down. He appealed and is awaiting a judge's ruling. "The reason there's no good evidence is that they don't want an honest trial," Dr. Craker said.

Dr. Donald Abrams, a professor of clinical medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, said he had studied marijuana's medicinal effects for years but had been frustrated because the National Institutes of Health, the leading government medical research agency, had refused to finance such work.

With financing from the State of California, Dr. Abrams undertook what he said was a rigorous, placebo-controlled trial of marijuana smoking in H.I.V. patients who suffered from nerve pain. Smoking marijuana proved effective in ameliorating pain, Dr. Abrams said, but he said he was having trouble getting the study published.

"One wonders how anyone" could fulfill the Food and Drug Administration request for well-controlled trials to prove marijuana's benefits, he said."

Exactly.

Once again, it is up to society to overcome our own government.

and all the doctors know it. Why should some people be able to smoke pot because it makes them feel good when other peopples are smoking it to relieve there pain? It doesn't make any  sense to me. These peoples are downright criminal s becuase they are not obeying the laws in the counties in which they. live. Didn't Jesus say to obey the law in the counties you live in? If I had a bad pain I would tell the doc to give me something like morhpine. Or I would ask for something more powerful.

Consider:
When is the last time 2 people got in a fight after smoking pot? When has a war started after world leaders shared a smoke? How many marijuana smokers vandalized your home to steal your possessions to go buy their next high? Crackheads and MethHeads can be regular vandals.

And  for the Bible guy,

"Render therefore unto Caesar the things which be Caesar's and unto God the things which be God's." (Luke 20:25) --- God gave man herbs to use. And it was a government that put Jeshua (known as Jesus to the Gentiles) to death.

And more references!!

"Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed which is upon the face of all the earth.…To you it will be for meat." … And God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. (Genesis 1:29-31)

And I will raise up for them a plant of renown, and they shall be no more consumed with hunger in the land, neither bear the shame of the heathen any more. -- Ezekiel 34:29

"I will take my rest and I will consider in my dwelling place like a clear heat upon herbs. For afore harvest, when the bud is perfect and the sour grape is ripening in the flower, he shall cut off the sprigs with pruning hooks and take away and cut down the branches." (Isaiah 18:4-5)

"Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man." (Matt. 15:11) ---Consumption is not a defiler.

Blessed are the peacemakers. (Matthew 5:9) --- We all know marijuana has been used for centuries to help in Peace processes!!

Exodus 30:22 The Lord spake unto Moses, saying, 23 Take thou also unto thee principal spices, of pure myrrh five hundred shekels, and of sweet cinnamon half so much, even 250 shekels, and of qaneh-bosm ---- HEBREW for cannabis --- 250 shekels, 24 And of cassia 500 shekels, after the shekel of the sanctuary, and of oil olive an hin: 25 And thou shalt make it an oil of holy anointment, an ointment compound after the art of the apothecary: it shall be an holy anointing oil. 26 And thous shalt anoint the tabernacle of the congregation therewith, and the ark of the testimony, 27 And the table and all his vessels, and the candlestick ahd his vessels, and the altar of incense, 28 And the altar of burnt offerings with all his vessels, and the laver and his foot. 29 And thou shalt sanctify them, that they may be most holy: whatsoever toucheth them shall be holy. (Exodus 30:22-29)

Enjoy marijuana!!  But please, give Thanks to The Lord!

DITTO!!!!!!!!!  consider yourself lucky you've never experienced true pain

very wise philosopher "Sponge Bob"  I agree with you, all I am stating is that our puritanical history, that (I might add) makes the open discussion about sex taboo, makes it just about impossible to really do research on pain and then apply that research to actually providing pain relief to patients.  Sooooo, I have no problemo with using MJ for the relief of pain and nausea in patients for a wide variety of reasons....  Roughly 60% of ALL pharmaceuticals marketed today are either natural products or derived from natural products (plants, animals etc....) - from Curare to Taxol.

My personal fave... Yohimba... Hee hee!   lol  - I still got it!

-- Modified on 4/23/2006 4:22:46 PM

To paraphrase George W. in another context, "Science is hard work".

There are any number of barriers for a Principal Investigator to initiate and conduct scientific research. Acquiring and maintaining a laboratory, office space, personnel, and above all funding (both government and private) is no small task for the scientific investigator. Then there are the normal barriers to conducting the research, and finally having it published in peer-reviewed journals. Even then, it's not considered true "science" until an interesting finding has been verified by independent groups.

Dr. Donald Abrams is a noted clinical investigator at UC San Francisco, one of the best we have in the nation. He has publshed over 90 articles on AIDS in scientific journals, and has studied the palliative effects of marijuana on AIDS patients for a number of years. If he has difficulty getting his clinical studies on marijuana published, then likely no one in then nation will be allowed to published articles conflicting with the political position of the George W. administration.

There are a whole host of critical scientific issues (e.g., global warming, stem cells, contraception, evolution, space science) which are currently under attack by George W. and his acolytes. Those scientists willing to stake their scientific careers and livelihoods on  such 'controversial' research should give us all inspiration.

I have been a strong advocate for the legalization of marijuana for many years.

The problem lies with government corruption within the corporate ranks. as usual.

look at the history... hemp was used for many purposes. It was used to make rope for the allies in ww2. Until Dupont invented nylon and nulon rope. they wanted the government contracts which were at tthat time going to manufacture products made of hemp, including parachutes.
so Dupont financed a film project called Reefer Madness. Hemp, aka marijuana was quickly ostracized and classified in the same category as heroin, and more dangerous than cocaine.

Meanwhile corporate profits skyrocket, while poor people suffer.

Your Republican led government in action.

Unfortunately Roosevelt (pres from '33-45) was Democrat.... when the National Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 was passed.

Later during WWII, Nylon (and other synthetics) were necessary as Rubber was hard to come by; Hemp as well, due to the shipping issues during WWII as well as Axis control of ports and territories....  

While I agree with the legalization, it is important to note that alcohol and tobacco take more then their fair share of lives.  What we DO need is education in the appropriate use of any and all substances...  

But, more to the issue, the control of pain that accompanies so many medical conditions is very poorly addressed by the medical and medical research community.  To be honest, chronic long term pain, is a real issue that is difficult to study, almost impossible to model (in either computer models, isolated cellular constructs or for that matter whole animal models).  The challenge is that nature intended pain to provide a signal that "something" has gone wrong and engineered around "short circuiting" that signal.  

Once I asked "how are research priorities, paid for by the federal tax revenue, established?"  The answer was terribly frightening... "they are not!  We respond to political trends."  In short, a logical, well thought-out national research agenda, driven by need, independant of politics and not political posturing does NOT EXIST.

WRT corporate profits skyrocketing.... in medical research these days, it is your local university that is reaping more and more as they charge more and more to run clinical trials... overheads that amount to highway robbery and the expectation of "rewards" for faculty....  to say nothing of the "Fat cat" deans of our major medical schools....   face it, corporate America is only one aspect of the problem... Said it before - I'll say it again.... "We have met the enemy - and he is us"  

We had better wake up soon.... cause know what?  Our almighty $ depends on our technological edge... which is becoming dull rapidly.  

On this board I have been accused of being a white conservative dude... lol!  if they only knew... lol!!  However, this pres - is a creationalist zealot who probably thinks that the origial Hebrew translates into God creating the earth in 7, 24-hour days.  LOL - it doesn't.

Agendas and politicizations characterize most of human kind.  Let's face it, we have not had a true educational agenda since Kennedy - when we were scared by the soviets... now, we honestly believe that we can beat a bunch of guys in a cave?  guess what, they are smart, intelligent and have patience that is longer than a 30-min sit com.  Unless we change NOW- we are f**ked.

American society is struggling over the proper use and control of drugs, and most particularly mood-altering drugs.   It does not seem right to allow monopolies controlled by psychrinks and narcotraffickers; but wherever there is a right, there must also be corresponding responsibility.

In this situation, the best thing is to put everything out on the table.   In close cases, the right and the responsibility should be with the individual - which is hard to do, because of the increasing social and financial interrelationships - people who insist that you should wear a helmet because of the medical risk will certainly insist that you must not use drugs - and of course, statistically, they are right - that many morons will in fact drive into trees without helmets, and what's the choice here?  Assume it was their fault (sometimes it's not)?   So we will have to keep on muddling thru, I suppose.

Your information about Dupont using "Reefer Madness"  to sell nylon seems weak.  To begin with, it was made in 1936, and with the war, there was more than enough business for everybody - connecting the use of hemp and the use of the drug seems like a stretch, get it?

It seems that no matter how mindless a "mood-altering" drug makes an individual - it is ok.... but if one controls (read aleviates) pain, that somehow is bad....   Our society is just chock full of contradictions.

dealing with them.

Many pain-controlling drugs (whiskey, morphine) have been mood-altering drugs.

And there are open questions about all sorts of side effects.

My point has been that it seems profoundly wrong to limit the debate to (a) outlaws, (b) psychrinks, and (c) politicians.  The necessary theory seems to be that the individual mind, the consumer or citizen himself, does not have the necessary knowledge; and that seems profoundly undemocratic and un-American to me.   (If people have noticed, we have a particular hardon for psychs who contend that they can identify an organic disorder by noting that Johnny behaves differently than Janie.)  

Of course, the necessary prerequisite is accepting responsibility for wrong decisions - what do we do with somebody who turns into a junkie and becomes a public charge?  We suspect that the most effective and perhaps most humane society would find a use for everybody, if as nothing more than a bad example....

Ch 1:  In honesty, there are plenty of other pain-killers out there...but why not give a doctor or patient the widest range of alternatives?   Because of the cultural issues, or the doubts the mainstream docs have about it, or the fact that the county ERs are the HMO of last resort?

Not an easy question, but one has to wonder if the FDA might have a different view of this if the pharmaceutical industry had a piece of the MJ business.

Which gets right back to my original comment about the society struggling over who will and how we will control the use of drugs.  

-- Modified on 4/24/2006 3:56:26 PM

ie, antiinflammatories (non-steroidal type) do not alter mood.  Second, MJ succeeds in controlling nausea while morphine does not, indeed, morphine can cause nausea... Making THC somewhat unique.  Read your Goodman & Gilman - prior to posting....   tiresome maggot.  

And for the record, having a physician treat the pain is a good thing.... as we would not wish to suppress the autonomic nervous processes with an overdose of morphine... ya know, like BREATHING - kinda necessary.

Oh yeah.  Because you're a moron.  Like I could forget.

But then again, you think that you are intelligent... so tell me dude - what is IMS?  and what do they provide?  

What is the difference between analgesia and anti-inflammatory?  Why the distinction?

Oh, can't answer - don't know - if you don't we will all know that the reason you didn't answer is that you don't know  and can't answer cause you are too stupid or too ignorant to answer.