Call for marijuana to be legalised for restricted medical use... :D

[anon_eighteen]

Looks like they are starting to realize all the medical uses and not trying to hide it as much.
have a quick read its worth the moment of time
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2013/s3908139.htm

[hashwizard]

Good find Anon18.

 

Just love the argument  "Can it be argued though, that by having some cannabis for legal, medicinal use, that it sends the wrong message to the rest of the community, that using marijuana is ok?"  Yeah that's why half the population is hooked on valium, morphine, methadone & every other prescription drug that gives a buzz.

Imagine the downturn in alcohol related violence, domestic disputes, casualty numbers, hospital admittance, the savings of money time & resources if just half of those who abused alcohol switched to mj? Then the coppers will have more time to catch real crims like thieves, rapists, speed dealers etc.

 

I've been bagging Dr's on other threads so I must give kudos to Emeritus professor of Anaesthesia [no less] Dr Laurence Mather. Respect. We need more Dr's like him.

Edited December 10, 2013 by hashwizard

[Badseed77]

Good find Anon18.

 

Just love the argument  "Can it be argued though, that by having some cannabis for legal, medicinal use, that it sends the wrong message to the rest of the community, that using marijuana is ok?"  Yeah that's why half the population is hooked on valium,

Lmao .

I listen to breakfast radio at work and the guys that do the breaky  show always use booze in there storys and jokes / talking to listeners etc .

 When they do talk back and joe blow tells em he got on the piss on the weekend and did ( insert dumb drunk thing here )  and every laughs big joke etc..

So we can talk about booze in a light hearted  way on TV and Radio . And they are worried about sending the wrong message about Cannabis use . Yet booze fucks up more lives everyday but its cool to joke about it.

What a fucked up world we live in

[anon_eighteen]

Good find Anon18.

 

Just love the argument  "Can it be argued though, that by having some cannabis for legal, medicinal use, that it sends the wrong message to the rest of the community, that using marijuana is ok?"  Yeah that's why half the population is hooked on valium, morphine, methadone & every other prescription drug that gives a buzz.

Imagine the downturn in alcohol related violence, domestic disputes, casualty numbers, hospital admittance, the savings of money time & resources if just half of those who abused alcohol switched to mj? Then the coppers will have more time to catch real crims like thieves, rapists, speed dealers etc.

 

I've been bagging Dr's on other threads so I must give kudos to Emeritus professor of Anaesthesia [no less] Dr Laurence Mather. Respect. We need more Dr's like him.

The reason i believe that they don't is the exact thing you said, the cops would be out catching real crims like thieves, rapists, speed dealers etc.  Busting people for possesion of marijuana is probably the biggest income for the police, so say they bust 100 dealers or growers in one year (i dont know statistics) the next year they need to bust atleast 100 people again to have the saim budget that they did the year before or they have to make cuts in their budget....

[Badseed77]

 We are suppose to be the smart the country , surly all the bean counters in parliament would do the maths .

 

Our country would spend close to 1 billion dollars a year fighting a drug that millions of people want and use every day ( Apparently we have 1 of the highest number users of cannabis  in the world ) .

 The money saved from fighting + the money made from taxing a high demand product that the people want would help the economy greatly .

 

The argument about health problems are old , the amount of information  about the positive vs negative effects of cannabis is mind blowing .

 

I think sometimes that it is more about the mighty $ other industry's  may lose then what the people want . Do pharma , tobacco  and alcohol companys want  cannabis legalised . Probably not because it will take money from them .   

Edited December 10, 2013 by Badseed77

[hashwizard]

Busting people for pot is good for their numbers & makes it look like they're doing something Anon18. We're easy targets because there's so many of us, & we're unlikely to shoot, stab or punch them in the face when arrested. Like shooting ducks in a cage ['fish in a barrel' never made sense  ]

 

Badseed, there's definitely an anti-mj lobby out there. Big Pharma can't compete with the efficacy of mj nor can they patent it.

Big Industry & the self appointed moral voice, the God-botherers, are amongst the other culprits.

[anon_eighteen]

MARK COLVIN: There's been another high-level call to consider legalising cannabis for medicinal use.

An article published in the Medical Journal of Australia today argues that medically supervised use of cannabis provides relief for some chronic nerve related conditions with fewer side effects than existing medications.

In May this year a New South Wales parliamentary committee recommended legalising medicinal cannabis for selected conditions.

But the New South Wales government has since dismissed the unanimous recommendations of the committee, which had members from five political parties.

Emeritus Professor of Anaesthesia, Laurence Mather, co-wrote today's article.

He spoke to Nance Haxton.

LAURENCE MATHER: There's a lot of evidence to show it's useful in some conditions. Certainly, it's not really a curative use. It's a palliative use to allay the symptoms of a number of conditions, mostly to do with nerve damage of some sort or another. And the nerve damage includes things like the spasticity of multiple sclerosis, chronic pains of certain types that are known as neuropathic pains. It's used for treating nausea and vomiting in people who have intractable nausea and vomiting from chemotherapy.

There's a whole range of uses for which cannabis is known, I think, from the evidence presently available, to be effective.

NANCE HAXTON: Are there are any alternative medicines that provide the same effect for those conditions?

LAURENCE MATHER: There are in some cases. Chronic pain management is particularly covered by opioid drugs, morphine type drugs. But the cannabis works in many cases where conventional medications don't work, and/or the conventional medications have excessive side effects.

NANCE HAXTON: And how would cannabis be prescribed medicinally? How would it be used medicinally?

LAURENCE MATHER: It can be used by vapourising the active ingredients out of the cannabis preparation or it can be used by making a tea-type preparation by, you know, using hot water to extract the active ingredients, or by extracting them into oils and making a butter-type preparation, or by baking them in brownies etc. There's a variety of ways of taking it like that. That's using the crude cannabis plant.

And there's a way of using a prepared product, that's known as Nabiximols, which is made by a company in the United Kingdom. They take a cannabis extract, they make their own extracts out of it with appropriate technology, and they purify these extracts to an extent where they are known in their active ingredient content. And this is sprayed under the tongue, and the cannabis becomes absorbed from the mucous membranes of the mouth, and some of it's swallowed. And a variety of methods of that kind could be used.

NANCE HAXTON: Are there any other countries that have looked at this issue and made marijuana available for medicinal use?

LAURENCE MATHER: Yeah, quite a few. There are some 20 or so countries at the moment that have made it available for medicinal use, and the list is growing basically monthly. And there are various states of the United States that are in the process of doing this. I think it's up to about 20 states at the moment in the US, plus the district of Columbia, that have made, what they call medical marijuana laws, and it enables the medical use of marijuana.

NANCE HAXTON: Can it be argued, though, that by having some cannabis available for legal, medicinal use, that it sends the wrong message to the rest of the community that using marijuana is okay?

LAURENCE MATHER: Well that's an interesting ideological argument. It's certainly not borne out by the evidence. There's specific evidence available from the United States, where they do have medical cannabis laws. The evidence is very clear. In those states that have those laws, the number of people busted for having cannabis illegally is certainly not greater in those states.

The medical use of it does not flow through to illegal use of it.

NANCE HAXTON: Is more research needed before Australia really looks at whether it can make medicinal use of marijuana legal?

LAURENCE MATHER: I don't believe so. I believe there's enough evidence out there at the moment to proceed. A lot of analogies drawn from cannabis when it's used recreationally, and the recreational cannabis really should have nothing to do with the medicinal use of cannabis in the way people conceive it; certainly when the regulatory bodies and the Government consider it. They should consider the two separate things entirely.

MARK COLVIN: Dr Laurence Mather speaking to Nance Haxton.

 

 

Author:Nance Haxton
Date:Monday, December 9, 2013
Source:http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2013/s3908139.htm
Copyright: © 2013 ABC
 

Edited December 10, 2013 by anon_eighteen