Pubdate: Sat, 07 Jan 2012
Source: Kennebec Journal (Augusta, ME)
Copyright: 2012 Jeff Marsh
Contact: 
http://www.kjonline.com/readerservices/Send_a_Letter_to_the_Editor-KJ.html
Website: http://www.kjonline.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1405
Author: Jeff Marsh
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v11/n738/a07.html

MARIJUANA IN RAW FORM NOT NEEDED FOR MEDICINE

My initial response to the Dec. 28 editorial, "Pot dispensary a 
pharmacy, not a social lounge," was to slap my forehead and gasp, "I 
could have had a (popular vegetable-based beverage)." Actually, 
that's the polite version.

The lounge atmosphere of the California marijuana scam was clearly 
known long before Maine advocates decided to emulate it.

Cannabinoids do have some medical applications, and several products 
have been available for quite some time through the existing 
pharmaceutical distribution system. Research to develop others is 
ongoing. This is the manner in which numerous other nature-based 
medicines originated, but it is the only one I know of where a 
psychoactive natural substance is used in its raw form.

Patients preparing for oral surgery, for example, are not provided 
with a fistful of leaves to chew, a pipe, or a straw and a line of 
"toot." Patients in need of opiate pain management are not issued 
kits of "works" or wheeled into an opium den, where they can smoke 
their pain away.

Research into the medical applications of marijuana's therapeutic 
components largely focuses on cannabinoid molecules other than THC 
that are not psychoactive. In other words, the patient is able to 
experience the medical benefits of the substance without getting high.

"Medical marijuana" is an undeniable farce. The purpose of the 
movement in Maine, as well as in California, has clearly been to do 
an end run around marijuana's long-standing status as an illegal drug.

Deeply inhaling the smoke of burning vegetation for your health? The 
compassion is pure camouflage, denial, or both.

There are legitimate justifications for considering revision of 
current marijuana laws to permit and regulate private use as the 
recreational drug it is. That rational and ethical path should be 
taken instead.

Jeff Marsh

Shawmut
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