Medicinal Marijuana

[pgg]

pgg, what about Marinol (dronabinol)? When I was a med. student in peds, I saw one of the residents write for this for a cancer patient. I believe it comes PO. It is a derivative of marijuana. It seemed to help a little, but wasn't as dramatic as I expected.

http://www.justice.gov/dea/ongoing/marinol.html


Advocates for medical marijuana have various arguments for why Marinol is inferior to smoking a joint; some of them are even plausible. Mainly they seem to say that while Marinol is just one compound (synthetic THC), different strains of the plant presumably have other cannabinoids and maybe other active ingredients. It could be that they prefer smoking it for the same reason people smoke crack instead of taking it PO: very rapid, titratable effect. There's powerful psychiatric feedback involved in smoking a drug.

Street drugs make people feel good, and even sick people can feel better when using them. That doesn't mean the FDA should approve those drugs as prescription medications for the treatment of medical conditions.

There's a world of difference between giving a patient a morphine PCA and an opium pipe. Wildy variable potency, unregulated quality control, impurities, inconsistent/user-dependent dosing mechanisms - not to mention the proven HARMFUL effects of smoking anything - this is the stuff of quacks and snake-oil salesmen, not modern medicine.

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[pgg]

You got to respect the role Culture plays into all our subjective perspectives on the merit of marijuana within medicine and society. I was born and raised in Cali and went to college in the Northern California, comparing that to my living experience in the South and Chicago it's surprising how differently parts of our country view Marijuana. We all see it in a different light. In California it's pretty commonplace and everyone has a friend with a Cannabis Club Card. At work your colleague might offer to share a smoke instead of a beer later in the week. In the West and Northwest we don't have the same stigma towards marijuana as everywhere else in the country.

I just moved back to CA last year, and I am still amazed every time a radio commercial comes on, advertising for growing supplies. They're not even subtle about it.

"Your crop will explode out of your closet!"
"We'll save you greenbacks while not asking questions about the good green you're growing!"