Treating PTSD: Expansion of medical marijuana to get hearing

 @MarkKpic Actually, the VA has been recognizing medical use of marijuana in their stated policy for 2-1/2 years now.  They are one of the few federal agencies that allow it.http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/24/health/policy/24veterans.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Sorry to hear about your PTSD from one service member to another you did serve right?

 @deejm2112 There are Vietnam Veterans who have suffered for over 40 with PTSD and are still waiting for disability benefits.....

 @Fox Hollow Man  I'm sorry, you lost me.  What was the question?

 @Shadow No it doesn't but the military has provide various kinds of methamphetamine and opiates, pain killers, to reduce fatigue or increase aggression and fighting ability.

 

"Go Pills" have been a part of the Air Force since WWII

 @Shadow I don't want to burst your bubble, but TONS of soldiers returned from VietNam addicted to amphetamines.  They didn't get them on a street corner in Saigon.  "Somebody" passed them out......not naming names, but think about it.

@Shadow   You are obviously ill-informed of the benefits of medicinal pot.

 @August100 

 

The VA doesn't work like private practice specialty clinics or even a private practice GP.

 

Government drugs are bought on bulk and distributed to various facilities.   Government contracts are the meat and potatoes of big pharma but private practice is the gravy.

This is a problem

is not medicine. It’s more like heroin.10January 22, 2013

I will NOT allow facts, science, reason, and logic to make a mockery of these proceedings!

Yesterday I wrote a piece on Martin Luther King Day.  In it, I referenced “A Call for Unity“, the letter written by eight white clergymen in Alabama calling on the Negroes rallied by Dr. King to stop being so uppity (I paraphrase). Part of their plea for Dr. King to call off the non-violent marches for equality and justice was this point:

When rights are consistently denied, a cause should be pressed in the courts and in negotiations among local leaders, and not in the streets. We appeal to both our white and Negro citizenry to observe the principles of law and order and common sense.

Today, Americans for Safe Access and our friend, Michael Krawitz, were once again consistently denied their rights to use marijuana medicinally, in accordance with the law and order established in eighteen states (and our nation’s capital) and in defiance of all common sense. (In this case, at least, the judges ruled that Krawitz “had standing”; previously they had just dismissed the petition because nobody petitioning could prove that federal denial of medical marijuana would actually harm them.)

Where’s our Dr. King? And when do we march?

I am so frustrated by the decision that I reached out to my contact at the FBO (Federal Bureau of Obfuscation), Dr. Vinnie Boombatz, PhD.*, for an explanation. His letter is reproduced below:

At issue is a petition for the Drug Employment Administration (DEA) to reschedule marijuana from its current Schedule I status. The judges ruled that the DEA’s scheduling of marijuana is not “arbitrary and capricious.” The DEA, it seems, has solid factual reasons for banning all marijuana use, and by so doing is in no way unaccountable and ruled by political whim. As we all know by now, Schedule I drugs meet three conditions:

(A) The drug or other substance has a high potential for abuse.(B) The drug or other substance has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States.(C) There is a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug or other substance under medical supervision.

Drugs in Schedule I include heroin, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), marijuana (cannabis), 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (ecstasy), methaqualone [quaaludes], and peyote. (Or as Dr. Hunter S. Thompson used to call them, “the usual”.) Thus, cancer patients smoking a doobie to ease the pain and wretching of chemo are a lot like the junkie in Trainspotting, the Merry Pranksters, your average rave, a shaman on a spirit quest and whoever it is who can still find ludes.

I know, you’re all screaming “there are eighteen states that accept medical use of marijuana!” As far as federal courts are concerned, it just ain’t so. See, the federal Department of Health and Human Services told the federal DEA in this federal court that marijuana lacks a currently accepted medical use in the United States. Those eighteen states and the city where this federal court decision was made merely refuse to prosecute people who break Schedule I marijuana laws if they have a note from their doctor saying it might help their medical conditions. Those states don’t officially recognize marijuana’s medical value.

“Oh,” you complain,“some states, like Oregon do officially recognize marijuana’s medicinal value”? So do their doctors prescribe marijuana? Aha, no, they don’t, so see, marijuana has no accepted medical use in the United States. “But they can’t prescribe because the federal DEA would revoke their license?” Right, because marijuana is a Schedule I drug with no medical value in the United States – we can’t let doctors prescribe those!

“But, but,” you stammer, “there are four patients in a federal program getting federal medical marijuana from the federal government’s medical marijuana farm in Mississippi!“ Nope, sorry, that’s an investigational program that was discontinued. Those patients were grandfathered in and there is no evidence that we’ve never investigated that marijuana has any medical benefit for them.

“Wait a minute,” you interrupt, “the federal government has patent #6630507 on the medical value of marijuana!” Yup, we have a patent on one of the molecules in marijuana that we can someday put into a pill, spray, or inhaler and sell at a high-profit mark-up to insurance providers and Medicare. Not a crude plant you can grow at low cost at home with lots of molecules in it that work synergistically and have never caused a fatal overdose.

“C’mon now,” you kvetch, “the federal government has known since 1974 that THC can kill cancer! There are 11,734 published studies on cannabis and another 6,599 on THC in the federal government’s PubMed database!” Calm down, the federal government is very interested in the medical efficacy of molecules and compounds that can be derived from marijuana and put into patentable pills like Marinol®, sprays like Sativex®, and inhalers (we’re still working on those). So much so that we rescheduled Marinol® pills down from Schedule II (like cocaine and meth and Oxycontin) to Schedule III (like Vicodin and testosterone and steroids).

“Hold on,” you ask, “you mean dronabinol pills that contain 100% synthetic THC**?” Exactly. 100% THC, suspended in a sesame oil capsule, has a medical use, lower abuse potential than cocaine and meth, and can be used safely when supervised by doctors. 10%-25% THC, suspended in a plant flower with a whole bunch of other cannabinoids, has no medical use, even when supervised by doctors, because it is as likely to be abused as heroin. It’s really quite simple – patents make molecules safer.

“That,” you mutter in disbelief, “is the most capricious and arbitrary thing I’ve ever read.” No, dear reader, it is not. For we have actually suggested that natural THC harvested from pot plants be listed at Schedule III if it is extracted by corporate people to make pills, but remain at Schedule I if it is grown by natural people to roll joints.

I hope this clears up any confusion.

Satirically,

Dr. Vinnie Boombatz, PhD. - Assistant Adjutant Administrator of Annoying Acronym Acquisitions (AAAAAA) Office of Disinformation, Federal Department of Obfuscation

Actually you have to show a three year medical history from your primary doctor proving you need it.  Nobody just walks into one of the clinics and says give me a card.  Look it up, its not that easy.  The list of ailments is quite extensive, but having a headache once in awhile will not get you a card.   Must be in your medical files.    

@Dr. Rawdog   Obviously you are not a real doctor, otherwise you would be educated on the benefits of several conditions, number 1, Cancer.   My wife has a friend that makes candy for cancer patients, she is a Godsend.   Very well respected in the cancer treatment centers.  Please, just get educated instead of being judgmental.   Would you rather these patients get addicted to narcotics and have every major organ in their body attacked because of it?   People die from alcoholism and dependency on pills long before they do consuming marijuana.  

actually it does help and it helps bipolar illness. I'v been smoking for a long time but before that I was taking crap antidepressant pills and all they did was make me feel worse,atleast now I can consentrate and get on with living. You and whoever else can keep that poison that Dr.s love giving out. not to mention Iv heard a Dr. only gets about a handful of hours to study  pain management so what makes them experts?

 @Benjamin Schniffle 

 

Well...by Federal Drug Class Scheduling Marijuana is Scheduled as a Class 1 drug which means that it has no medically beneficial use same as Methamphetamine.  Whereas, Alcohol isn't classified as a drug at all.  Here are the qualifications of a Class 1 drug:

 

*  The drug or other substance has a high potential for abuse.

*  The drug or other substance has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States.

*  There is a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug or other substance under medical supervision.

 

Ironically, the requirements for Class 1 drugs seem to fit the known social use/abuse of Alcohol and defy qualification, by every validated study and general knowledge, of Marijuana.  So the answer to your question is painted in blood on the nations highways and Thanksgiving Day dining rooms.  

@JTesla

The testing has been done, just not here. We are the only industrialized nation to have nothing to do with any type of cannabis derivative, even hemp. Regardless of the rules, many countries grow especially hemp and others the culture is entwined.  The saddhu's aren't over from lung cancer.

 

Ever heard of Raphael Mechoulam, Yechiel Gaoni, and Habib Edery from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel in 1964? They discovered the molecule known as THC and eventually found out we had a receptor system that our bodies in nature will accept cannibinoids, or called the endocannibinoid system. Mechoulam had a hand in Israel's current Medical Marijuana program which invests heavily in testing for PTSD and the Israeli Armed Forces.

 

Or......... Dr. Mahmoud El Sohly @ the University of Mississippi and head of the federal medical marijuana program or the Compassionate Investigational New Drug program.In existence as the CIND since at least 1967 and probably the 1950's and earlier.

 

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-03-08-olemiss_N.htm

"The article goes on to say, “Although he says he has never smoked it, ElSohly is a big marijuana fan. He is an informed believer in the medical properties of THC, the chemical in the plant that produces a psychoactive high and gives relief to people with chronic ailments such as cancer or Parkinson’s.”

 

The DEA also claims that smoked marijuana is not medicine. Not absolutely true, not absolutely false. Expectorant vs. congestant, however, Mississippi St. continues to supply patients with smokeable marijuana once a month to this day. They are grown in Ms and then shipped to Triangle Research in NC and packaged and then sent on their merry way. 

 @QuandoQuandoQuando 

 

If smoking a blunt decreases the pain of a soul haunted by the nightmare of combat by one iota then let them smoke because they have already paid dearly for those precious American Freedoms that no American has the right to take for granted.