Originally Posted by honda606,Nov 30 2004, 02:12 PM

No thanks. I'll get my information from recent research and not some mystical rumors and bullshit about the herb that have sprung from a tree of evil that has been rooted for the past 70 years because of money and politics.

http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v04/n1651/a06.html

URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v04/n1651/a06.html
Newshawk: kirkmuse
Rate this article Votes: 4
Pubdate: Wed, 01 Dec 2004
Source: Scientific American (US)
Copyright: 2004 Scientific American, Inc
Contact: editors@sciam.com
Website: http://www.sciam.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/404
Author: The Editors
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal)

MARIJUANA RESEARCH

The human brain naturally produces and processes compounds closely related to those found in Cannabis sativa, better known as marijuana [see "The Brain's Own Marijuana," by Roger A. Nicoll and Bradley E. Alger.] These compounds are called endogenous cannabinoids or endocannabinoids. As the journal Nature Medicine put it in 2003, "the endocannabinoid system has an important role in nearly every paradigm of pain, in memory, in neurodegeneration and in inflammation." The journal goes on to note that cannabinoids' "clinical potential is enormous." That potential may include treatments for pain, nerve injury, the nausea associated with chemotherapy, the wasting related to AIDS and more.

Yet outdated regulations and attitudes thwart legitimate research with marijuana. Indeed, American biomedical researchers can more easily acquire and investigate cocaine. Marijuana is classified as a so-called Schedule 1 drug, alongside LSD and heroin. As such, it is defined as being potentially addictive and having no medical use, which under the circumstances becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Any researcher attempting to study marijuana must obtain it through the National Institute on Drug Abuse ( NIDA ). The U.S. research crop, grown at a single facility, is regarded as less potent--and therefore less medicinally interesting--than the marijuana often easily available on the street. Thus, the legal supply is a poor vehicle for studying the approximately 60 cannabinoids that might have medical applications.

This system has unintended, almost comic, consequences. For example, it has created a market for research marijuana, with "buyers" trading journal co-authorships to "sellers" who already have a marijuana stockpile or license. The government may also have a stake in a certain kind of result. One scientist tells of a research grant application to study marijuana's potential medical benefits. NIDA turned it down. That scientist rewrote the grant to emphasize finding marijuana's negative effects. The study was funded.

Some may argue that researchers do not need to study the drug--after all, there is Marinol, a synthetic version of marijuana's major active compound, tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC; it relieves nausea and stimulates appetite. But patients are often disappointed with Marinol as compared with marijuana. A 1997 editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine noted that "it is difficult to titrate the therapeutic dose of this drug, and it is not widely prescribed. By contrast, smoking marijuana produces a rapid increase in the blood level of the active ingredients and is thus more likely to be therapeutic."

The reasonable course is to make it easier for American researchers to at least examine marijuana for possible medical benefits. Great Britain, no slacker in the war on drugs, takes this approach: the government has authorized a pharmaceutical firm to grow different strains of marijuana for clinical trials.

This call for marijuana research is not a closet campaign for drug legalization--easing research barriers would not require that marijuana be reclassified, nor would it have any bearing on individual states' decisions to approve limited use of medical marijuana. As a 1995 editorial in the Journal of the American Medical Association said, "We are not asking readers for immediate agreement with our affirmation that marijuana is medically useful, but we hope they will do more to encourage open and legal exploration of its potential." After almost a decade of little progress, we reiterate that sentiment."



Do some research on why marijuana/hemp was made illegal in the first place. It's not hard at all to connect the dots on the Dupont corporation and their involvement with the Federal Government in getting hemp prohibited so that they could make mass amounts of money in the paper industry using a chemical Dupont created to convert wood pulp in to paper.

Don't be one of the puppet people that blindly believes anything they see, read, or hear from the establishment media.

Originally Posted by honda606,Nov 30 2004, 03:41 PM

You really have a problem explaining yourself don't you gotrice?

All you ever do is respond with pictures.

Originally Posted by gotrice02,Nov 30 2004, 09:14 PM

I do think that marijuana should be nationally used for medicinal purposes for certain types of diseases. I am not in support of legalizing it for mainstream use and sale though. Helpful or not, the side effects can be harmful, just as cigarettes are (lung cancer etc). Like it or not, marijuana is considered a narcotic and is illegal.

Originally Posted by cyber_x,Nov 30 2004, 04:22 PM

So what's your take on alcohol? It's a narcotic (in a truer sense of the word than marijuana is) and has detrimental side effects with fewer beneficial uses than marijuana. Yet, it's legal and widely celebrated. I'm genuinely curious as to what you think about this (I personally feel it's a huge contradiction), so please don't take this as a flame...