Posted on 05/31/2017 4:24:26 AM PDT by Kaslin
Let's talk about marijuana.
Specifically, let's talk about how and why I came to be one of the countless parents across America (and around the world) who have let their chronically ill children try it.
A groundbreaking new study published last week in the New England Journal of Medicine reported on the health benefits of cannabidiol for children with epilepsy. The randomized, double-blind, controlled study found that among children with Dravet syndrome taking cannabidiol, the decrease in the frequency of convulsive seizures was 23 percentage points greater than the decrease in seizures among children taking a placebo.
Cannabidiol is one of hundreds of chemical components found in cannabis plants. Unlike THC, the most famous of marijuana's compounds, CBD is nonhallucinogenic and nonaddictive. It doesn't make you high. CBD can be extracted from hemp and sold as an oil. That's what the pioneering Stanley Brothers of Boulder, Colorado, did several years ago when they conceived and manufactured "Charlotte's Web" -- named after Charlotte Figi, a Colorado Springs girl with Dravet syndrome whose seizures dramatically decreased after using CBD.
Until now, evidence of marijuana's benefits for pediatric epilepsy patients has been largely anecdotal. The new CBD study, led by researchers at the NYU Langone's Comprehensive Epilepsy Center, is a hugely significant development because it uses the scientific gold standard of a randomized controlled trial. Other limited clinical trials involving CBD have explored the drug's therapeutic benefits for pediatric patients with conditions ranging from anxiety to movement disorders to inflammatory diseases, multiple sclerosis and cancer.
My own interest in pediatric use of medicinal marijuana is more than academic.
When my daughter, Veronica, fell ill in late spring of 2015 -- unable to breathe normally, bedridden with chronic pain and fatigue -- she saw dozens of specialists. Among those doctors was a leading neurologist at one of Denver's most well-regarded hospitals who treated intractable cases. The various drugs prescribed to my daughter weren't working and had awful side effects.
One of them, a potent anti-epileptic drug called Trileptal, was supposed to treat the severe motor tic that left her gasping for air nonstop for months. But Trileptal ended up causing extreme loss of appetite, more fatigue and temporary dystonia, while doing nothing to alleviate the tics. The constant jerking of her body caused one of my daughter's hypermobile shoulders to dislocate multiple times a day -- increasing her pain and anxiety.
To our surprise, the mainstream neurologist suggested Veronica try CBD. This doctor had other young patients who used CBD oil with positive results, but she could not directly prescribe it because of her hospital affiliation. So we did our own independent research, talked to a Colorado Springs family whose son had great success using CBD to treat his Crohn's disease symptoms, consulted with other medical professionals and friends -- and entered a whole new world.
Two physicians signed off on our daughter's application for a medical marijuana card. She became one of more than 360 children under 18 to join Colorado's medical marijuana registry in 2015.
And we became pediatric pot parents.
For Veronica, CBD provided more relief than all the other mainstream pharmaceutical interventions she had endured, and without the scary side effects. But ultimately, it was a temporary remedy for her complicated basket of neurological and physiological conditions. We were glad for the chance to try CBD at the recommendation of medical professionals, and glad that so many other families are having success with it.
Our experience showed us the importance of increasing therapeutic choices in the marketplace for all families -- and trusting doctors and patients to figure out what works best.
It flies in the face of current science to classify CBD oil as a Schedule I drug, as the feds did at the end of 2016. Nor does it make sense to draw the line at CBD if some patients and doctors believe that the benefits of using THC therapeutically outweigh the potential harm.
As a lifelong social conservative, my views on marijuana policy may surprise some of you.
I used to be a table-pounding crusader for the government's war on drugs. When I worked in Seattle in the 1990s, I initially opposed efforts to legalize medical marijuana. I also opposed efforts to loosen restrictions on conducting studies on the potential therapeutic effects of using marijuana.
But the war on drugs has been a ghastly quagmire -- an expensive and selective form of government paternalism that has done far more harm than good. What has this trillion-dollar war wrought?
Overcrowded jails teeming with nonviolent drug offenders. An expanded police state enriched by civil asset forfeiture. And marginalization of medical researchers pursuing legitimate research on marijuana's possible therapeutic benefits for patients with a wide variety of illnesses.
The Trump administration has sent mixed signals on a medical marijuana crackdown.
So let me be clear as a liberty-loving, conservative mom: Keep your hands off. Let the scientists lead. Limited government is the best medicine.
We currently foot such bills for alcoholics and overeaters; should government ban alcohol and fatty foods?
Let’s not add to the bill
Why would you not want to subtract from the bill?
Excellent Point RKBA
Not to mention that almost half of the U.S. population has used marijuana, so knows the hysterical Reefer Madness propaganda is BS. (That's why the drug czar some years back was telling desperate lies about marijuana being "30 times stronger" and "not your father's marijuana": he wanted to throw a big slice of that first-hand experience down the memory hole.)
As with any new drug, one has to perfect the medicinal use of CBD through closely controlled product development, with safety and efficacy of therapeutic dosages established through conducting legitimate clinical trials at reputable institutions under Investigational New Drug application procedures(INDs) described by FDA.
Once the drug product derived from it is approved for marketing it should be controlled as any other drug is. I am guessing it would be approved for marketing as a Schedule 2 drug, and considered a "controlled" substance much as opioids are.
For example, I have advised a firm in the product development and regulatory approval pathway for marketing its Cocaine HCl, USP Topical Solution. This has included methods for synthesizing the firm's own the drug substance supplies from well-defined starting materials. The monograph for the product resides as it has for years in the US Pharmacopeia. It is a Schedule 2 drug product. I don't see a reason why CBD could not be done the same way.
I am not in favor of legitimizing use of raw marijuana for its alleged medicinal purposes. It leads to the abuse and social problems that are unsurprisingly seen in the locales that have chosen to "legalize" it.
FReegards!
Yup. And here is another thing to consider. In my opinion, the legalization of the sale of small amounts of MJ isn’t even the most significant part of these laws. It’s allowing cultivation that’s the real game changer. I looked up the yields for one plant, and apparently one pound per plant isn’t unheard of. OK, so let’s say you grow the six allowed plants that are typical under these state laws. That’s a lot of pot. And I suppose there are some folks who cultivate purely for the income. Not because they’re all that interested in consuming it. So there is now a cottage industry in these states as well.
The prohibitionists might as well hang it up. This is a done deal.
Cannabis has been used medicinally for thousands of years.
How many of those years was it "cut" with cocaine, fentanyl, or formaldehyde? Police just made a bust of street sales of marijuana laced with fentanyl in Brockton, Massachusetts. Also, Bismark, ND.
People without the discipline to abstain from artificial "highs" will fall victim to Darwin's Law. Those people appear to be "Progressives", and their proclivity to escape Reality guarantees poor outcomes.
But did he have sex with a negro jazz musician first?
Are you saying that MJ sold through the dispensaries is being adulterated? That’s news to me. More than likely it’s black market trash subject to no kind of quality control, which is one of the more persuasive arguments for legalization.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m not a fan of recreational use and very skeptical of the alleged medical benefits. But I’m even less of a fan of using courts and jails to prevent people from engaging in their own folly. And I think its a nonissue at this point: enough states with enough population have already legalized it to make the ongoing debate irrelevant.
“How many of those years was it “cut” with cocaine, fentanyl, or formaldehyde? Police just made a bust of street sales of marijuana laced with fentanyl in Brockton, Massachusetts. Also, Bismark, ND.”
I believe that’s a recent phenomena & really irrelevant to this thread. Criminals are also putting fentenyl into heroin & anything else they think will make them more $$$.
Just because criminals want to create more customers doesn’t mean the rest of us shouldn’t have access to the medicine we need.
What abuse? What social problems?
Here ya go newbie. Might want to put down the bong long enough to take that finger out of your nose and do some research of your own for a change.
Marijuana use may lead to abuse of other substances -FoxNews
Legal Weed Blamed For Transforming Colorado Town Into Panhandler Haven
Could Cannabis Legalization in Colorado Correlate With Increased Homelessness?
Legal marijuana drawing homeless to Colorado
All of these articles have been discussed at length in multiple threads regarding cannabis these recent weeks. They’ve also been debunked in those discussions.
I did chuckle at the “may” & “could” headlines. Reminds me of the daily MSM lies against President Trump.
You and you other self-validating pot-heads may have mentally masturbated yourselves into an intellectual circle jerk which convinces only yourselves that you have "debunked" the fact that you are in the process of cooking what little grey matter you have left, but no, you have debunked nothing.
You are welcome to join your other comfortably numb hobos in your self satisfied stupor, and you can all schlep yourselves into a brain-addled early grave if you want to, but all your protestations will not reverse thousands of years' experience with a drug once used to dull the senses and personal resistance of those sent out by their masters as suicidal assassins - Hashish from whence the word "assassin" is derived.
No one should begrudge Michelle Malkin's ability to have access to a legitimate, rigorously pharmacologically qualified CBD drug product, formulated to perform reliably and safely to support the clinical indications for which it is designed. I applaud her efforts to see to it that this becomes a reality sooner rather than later.
Opioids which are not chemically synthesized are every bit as much derived from natural sources as is CBD, and they are extracted, refined, and purified into medicinal products which some users have chosen to abuse. There is no fault with the drug product itself, but responsibility for a drug product's abuse rests entirely with the abusers themselves.
Pot heads, as they always have ever been, are nothing more than self-delusional escape-ists, who make excuses to justify their behavior. You say you puff to relieve pain. Maybe you do, and maybe you don't. At the moment all I know you as is as an admitted lawbreaker and an excuse maker.
Why don't you see what you can do to work with Michelle Malkin to make pharmacologically legitimate CBD a reality instead of making excuses for your self-destructive behavior.
FReegards!
“Why don’t you see what you can do to work with Michelle Malkin to make pharmacologically legitimate CBD a reality instead of making excuses for your self-destructive behavior.”
LOL!!! You devout prohibitionists crack me up when someone dares to stand up to you. You get all sanctimonious & righteous, carrying around a wheelbarrow of ad-hominem to shovel on folks you know absolutely nothing about.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/374221/my-trip-pot-shop-michelle-malkin
Excerpt: “Our stash included ten pre-rolled joints, a “vape pen,” and two containers of cheddar-cheese-flavored marijuana crackers (they were out of brownies). So far, just one cracker a day is yielding health benefits. Carole is eating better than she has in three months. For us, there’s no greater joy than sharing the simple pleasure of gathering in the kitchen for a meal, with Grandma Carole at the head of the table.”
Enjoy your prohibitionist delusion. I’ll continue to use & support cannabis as medicine since our Heavenly Father gave it to us as stated in Genesis 1:29.
I forgive you for making false statements against me. Have a great day & I hope you educate yourself on the medicinal benefits of full flower cannabis as Mrs Malkin has done.
In the forum of reasoned debate, when YOU make a claim ("abuse and social problems") YOU acquire the burden of doing the research to support them. (And in said forum, one doesn't accuse others of drug use ... or even nose-picking.)
Marijuana use may lead to abuse of other substances -FoxNews
You should try reading your links: "The study team points out that these associations do not prove cannabis use causes other substance abuse problems."
Legal Weed Blamed For Transforming Colorado Town Into Panhandler Haven
Could Cannabis Legalization in Colorado Correlate With Increased Homelessness?
Legal marijuana drawing homeless to Colorado
These problems arise from being an EARLY legalizer - the more states that legalize, the fewer the homeless with pot-driven incentive to relocate, and the greater the dilution among the legalizing states of that lower number.
And you'll just die early with that smirk on your face.
I've got no problem with folks like you dying stupid and dying early.
It's just all the schlubs who follow the likes of you to equally early graves laboring under such deceptions for whom I have pity.
“And you’ll just die early with that smirk on your face.
I’ve got no problem with folks like you dying stupid and dying early.
It’s just all the schlubs who follow the likes of you to equally early graves laboring under such deceptions for whom I have pity.”
I’ll stay happy, productive, anxiety & depression regardless of the “doom” you predict. See, I’m not just a medical user of cannabis. I’m a thankful medical user of cannabis. Thanks be to God Almighty for giving us this wonderful plant.
I forgive you for the disparagement. Have a wonderful day :)
“And you’ll just die early with that smirk on your face.
I’ve got no problem with folks like you dying stupid and dying early.
It’s just all the schlubs who follow the likes of you to equally early graves laboring under such deceptions for whom I have pity.”
I’ll stay happy, productive, anxiety & depression free regardless of the “doom” you predict. See, I’m not just a medical user of cannabis. I’m a thankful medical user of cannabis. Thanks be to God Almighty for giving us this wonderful plant.
I forgive you for the disparagement. Have a wonderful day :)
Oh, so now you admit there is a problem after all, do you? As one who began by asking such uninformed questions you seem to have answered your own stupid questions yourself.
You should try reading your links: "The study team points out that these associations do not prove cannabis use causes other substance abuse problems."
That just says that it is not true in every instance as this team designed their study (don't do much science, do you?), but the trend of the association of cannabis with being the "gateway drug" to harder stuff and accelerated abuse of still other substances is something which has been well documented for many years and long suspected and that is what the article is about.
While you picked your nose feverishly looking for any excuse - any justification for your stupid position, you evidently missed this:
"Olfson and colleagues analyzed survey responses from a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults interviewed in 2001-2002 and again in 2004-2005. More than 34,650 people responded, almost evenly split among men and women, with a mean age of about 45.
In the first survey, 1,279 individuals reported using cannabis. Three years later, that was linked to a nearly three times higher rate of abusing alcohol compared to people who didn't use cannabis in the first survey. The risk of abusing other drugs or being dependent on tobacco was twice as high, and the risk of having a cannabis abuse disorder by the second survey was nine times higher."
You aren't in need of another hit, Stickboy, you're more likely just another excuse-making addict in need of a 12-step program.
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