Regarding 'Science wins' (Your Views, Oct. 20): It would seem retired Navy Lt. Commander Al Byrne is a bit biased, being the CEO of Veterans for Compassionate Care. Medical cannabis has been available in pill form for quite some time. I urge everyone to vote 'no' on Amendment 2 because it has serious flaws. I do not want to be on the road next to someone driving under the influence of cannabis. Being a veteran of the Vietnam War, I have seen in a tactical situation how marijuana affects the ability to make split-second decisions. Public safety is the issue, and Amendment 2 as written is unacceptable. Stephen Burchett, Seffner [end]
Regarding 'Science wins:' Al Byrne uses the work of Melanie Dreher to support his view that marijuana is harmless, indeed even helpful, to pregnant women and their babies. Unfortunately, this work is only one work carried out on a very small sample of 33 users and 27 non-users in the early 1980s. Although this work is important, subsequent studies have disproved much of her work. In addition, today's marijuana is not your mother's marijuana. It is a much more potent form. [continues 257 words]
Regarding 'Don't let the 'Colorado Calamity' invade Florida' (Brad King, Other Views, Oct. 16): I will not argue the statistics as to how many dispensaries now operate in Colorado, but because law enforcement has failed to protect legal businesses is hardly the fault of cannabis or dispensary ownership. In Colorado, all violent crime is down. DUIs are down. Death by suicide and pharmaceutical overdose is down. Only burglary remains steady. Apparently, burglars do not use cannabis. The suggestion that cannabis in mother's milk is bad is a glaring example of medical cannabis ignorance. Melanie Dreher, RN, Ph.D, spent over 30 years in Jamaica studying pregnant moms for the U.S. government. She found that cannabis greatly relieved or eliminated morning sickness, with no ill effects to mom or fetus. The children born to these moms equaled or exceeded in intellect and social skills non-cannabis-using moms. [continues 96 words]
Advocates Say Drug Can Save Lives Sean Azzariti, a former corporal in the Marines, says medical marijuana saved his life. Two tours in Iraq in 2003 and 2005 left him with post-traumatic stress disorder, and he was barely getting by on a cocktail of antidepressants, Adderall and sleeping pills. With few options, he said, he did some research on marijuana and began taking it shortly after leaving the Marine Corps in 2006. "It changed my life," he told The Washington Times. "I wouldn't be talking to you right now if I kept taking those pills." [continues 1010 words]
Medical Marijuana Finding More Allies Approval of Arizona Research Study Hailed WASHINGTON - After flying helicopters in Vietnam, Perry Parks couldn't stop the panicked dreams. "I was flying through wires all the time, and I never hit the wire," said Parks, 71, a retired military commander from Rockingham, N.C. "I'm a helicopter pilot, so wires scare the hell out of you." Parks, who has post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), said he took sleeping pills for years after he retired. Then he found a more satisfying alternative: two or three bong hits at least three times a day. No more dreams. [continues 620 words]
Lobbying Has Grown to Grant Sufferers Legal Access to Pot WASHINGTON - After flying helicopters in Vietnam for 30 months, Perry Parks couldn't stop the panicked dreams. "I was flying through wires all the time, and I never hit the wire," said Parks, 71, a retired military commander from Rockingham, N.C. "I'm a helicopter pilot, so wires scare the hell out of you." Parks, who has post-traumatic stress disorder, said he took sleeping pills for years after he retired. Then he found a more satisfying alternative: two or three bong hits at least three times a day. [continues 742 words]
WASHINGTON - After flying helicopters in Vietnam for 30 months, Perry Parks couldn't stop the panicked dreams. "I was flying through wires all the time and I never hit the wire," said Parks, 71, a retired military commander from Rockingham, N. C. "I'm a helicopter pilot, so wires scare the hell out of you." Parks, who has post-traumatic stress disorder, said he took sleeping pills for years after he retired. Then he found a more satisfying alternative: two or three bong hits at least three times a day. [continues 701 words]
Publication Front and Center As Pot Movement Grows When staffers at the marijuana fan magazine High Times participated in an "Ask Me Anything" online forum at the website Reddit, they answered plenty of questions. But they danced around one that was the most frequently asked: Ever run into legal trouble? Founded in 1974 by renegade journalist and pot trafficker Tom Forcade, New York-based High Times is a cult publication with a loyal following and a steady base of advertisers who have always tinkered with the boundaries of legality and legitimacy. [continues 826 words]
Publication Front and Center As Pot Movement Grows When staffers at the marijuana fan magazine High Times participated in an "Ask Me Anything " online forum at the website Reddit, they answered plenty of questions. But they danced around one that was the most frequently asked: Ever run into legal trouble? Founded in 1974 by renegade journalist and pot trafficker Tom Forcade, New York-based High Times is a cult publication with a loyal following and a steady base of advertisers who have always tinkered with the boundaries of legality and legitimacy. [continues 971 words]
The suicide rate among veterans is an American tragedy. It's unconscionable not to use every treatment that may help these young people cope with their physical and mental pain. Drs. D. Mark Anderson, Daniel Rees and Joseph Sabia conducted a study titled "Medical Marijuana Laws and Suicide." They found that "... the legalization of medical marijuana is associated with a 5 percent decrease in the total suicide rate, an 11 percent decrease ... [among] 20- to 29-year-old males and a 9 percent decrease ... [among] 30- to 39-year-old males." [continues 137 words]
Michael Lapihuska, a former Anniston resident, is facing a jail sentence and two years probation for bringing his prescription with him from California to Alabama when he came home for the holidays last December. The problem -- his prescription was for marijuana. Lapihuska was arrested Dec. 15, when a police officer stopped him on McClellan Boulevard near Walmart for hitch hiking. The officer searched him, found a prescription bottle of marijuana in his pocket and asked Lapihuska to take it out. When Lapihuska complied, he was arrested for possession despite the doctor's recommendation he presented to the officer. [continues 846 words]
To help battle pain and other problems caused by his debilitating bone disease, Irv Rosenfeld used to take multiple doses of at least eight prescription medications, including strong pain pills Dilaudid and Percocet. Rosenfeld no longer takes any of those medications to curb the effects of his disease, multiple congenital cartilaginous exostoses. Nowadays, the Florida-based stock broker, who routinely takes disabled children sailing and plays softball, relies on just one medication: Cannabis sativa, commonly known as marijuana. Without cannabis, most likely I would be homebound and on disability. That's if I was alive," Rosenfeld said this week in a phone interview. "It has literally made my life bearable." [continues 493 words]
To help battle pain and other problems caused by his debilitating bone disease, Irv Rosenfeld used to take multiple doses of at least eight prescription medications, including strong pain pills Dilaudid and Percocet. Rosenfeld no longer takes any of those medications to curb the effects of his disease, multiple congenital cartilaginous exostoses. Nowadays, the Florida-based stock broker, who routinely takes disabled children sailing and plays softball, relies on just one medication: Cannabis sativa, commonly known as marijuana. "Without cannabis, most likely I would be homebound and on disability. That's if I was alive," Rosenfeld said this week in a phone interview. "It has literally made my life bearable." [continues 488 words]
To help battle pain and other problems caused by his debilitating bone disease, Irv Rosenfeld used to take multiple daily doses of at least eight prescription medications, including strong pain pills Dilaudid and Percocet. Rosenfeld no longer takes any of those medications to curb the effects of his disease, multiple congenital cartilaginous exostoses. Nowadays, the Florida-based stock broker, who routinely takes disabled children sailing and plays softball, relies on just one medication: Cannabis sativa, commonly known as marijuana. "Without cannabis, most likely I would be homebound and on disability. That's if I was alive," Rosenfeld said this week in a phone interview. "It has literally made my life bearable." [continues 1435 words]
Does our high incarceration rate represent the right kind of toughness? By Jacob Sullum http://www.reason.com/news/show/125306.html Prohibitions impose huge costs on individuals and society, yet produce few benefits in return. http://www.iea.org.uk/record.jsp?type=release&ID=138 Disproportionate Application Of Drug Laws Undermines The Conventions, Says Incb Vienna, 5 March (United Nations Information Service)-The Vienna-based International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) today called on Governments to apply the law proportionately when prosecuting drug offenders, as not doing so could undermine efforts to effectively implement the very conventions that these laws seeks to enforce. [continues 304 words]
It's no coincidence that the new O'Shaughnessy's includes five articles on post-traumatic stress disorder and three on forgotten aspects of the history of cannabis as medicine. When Tod Mikuriya first became interested in cannabis as a medical student c. 1960, he realized that understanding might be found in two directions: clinical experience (input from patients, then unavailable) and the pre-Prohibition medical literature. So it makes sense that some 40 years later the journal Mikuriya founded would focus on a psychiatric condition that cannabis is being used to treat, and would publish documents filling in the gaps in our historic miseducation. [continues 1288 words]
Given the cannabis-free curriculum provided by U.S. medical and nursing schools, "continuing education" is not the apt term, but more than 100 healthcare providers (including 40 MDs) will receive credit for attending a conference on cannabis therapeutics at Santa Barbara Community College April 7-8. The event was organized by Al Byrne and Mary Lynn Mathre of Patients Out of Time, a Virginia-based advocacy group, with help from David Bearman, MD, and students from Santa Barbara1s NORML chapter led by Loren Vazquez. [continues 1184 words]
Tod Mikuriya, MD, his energy on the upswing, plans to appear at the "Patients Out of Time" conference April 7-8 at Santa Barbara City College. Last-minute arrangements to attend can be made by contacting organizer Al Byrne at 434-253-4484 or emailing Al@medicalcannabis.com. Dr. Mikuriya strongly suspects that Lipitor, Pfizer's blockbuster statin drug, had a deleterious effect on the lining of his biliary tract. He was put on Lipitor three years ago to lower his cholesterol following coronary bypass surgery. [continues 931 words]
The American Nurses Association recognizes that patients should have safe access to therapeutic cannabis - marijuana. The ANA passed such a resolution in 2004 at the request of its Congress on Nursing Practice and Economics. The nursing community supports the resolution overwhelmingly. Part of the resolution stresses the need for the education of nurses regarding current evidence on therapeutic use of cannabis. Patients Out of Time is providing the education called for by not only the nursing profession, but dozens of other health care organizations of a variety of medical specialties. [continues 160 words]
Thanks. It is rare that a patient is given the opportunity to speak bluntly and with room for explanation of our cause of returning therapeutic cannabis to the National Pharmacopeia. I would respectfully contend that your sentence indicating that cannabis has been lightly studied as a medicine is inaccurate. I understand this is "common knowledge" and that the anecdotal is the source of therapeutic cannabis knowledge in our modern world, say the pundits. Punditry is hardly a science based enterprise but clinical research is all about science. [continues 112 words]