Posted on 06/26/2006 8:22:44 AM PDT by bassmaner
So I guess when posters on this forum say that marijuana has never killed anyone, they didn't count this guy.
As opposed to the sterling record hospitals have of never misfiring meds or creating infections with needles and surgical instruments. What do you say we bring a sense of proportion to our concerns? Oh, excuse me, I forget we were drug warriors.
So I guess when posters on this forum say that marijuana has never killed anyone, they didn't count this guy.
Let me be the first to point out that the patient in question did not die of the effects of cannibus, which is generally the issue we'd be concerned about if we were actually interested in comparable harm, rather than scoring any propaganda opportunity that presents itself, no matter how irrelevant and feeble. If marijuana was legal, the FDA or the Dept of Ag would be supervising its purity at market, and something could have legally been done to prevent the death in question. Your patient is a victim of marijuana laws, not marijuana.
Try this link: http://www.chestjournal.org/cgi/content/abstract/94/2/432
Here's another one. This one lived.
"A 48 year old successful kidney transplant patient who heavily used marijuana immediately following his transplant developed invasive pulmonary aspergillosis (IPA), a fungus transmitted in the smoke of marijuana. Marks et al reported on their use of an experimental antifungal drug to effectively treat this life threatening condition (Transplantation, Vol. 61, 1771-1773, No. 12, June 27, 1996), and noted that IPA "is a devastating complication in the immuno-compromised patient" such as patients with AIDS, chronic granulomatous disease, bone marrow transplants and those receiving chemotherapy for small cell lung cancer. Aspergillosis has up to a 90% fatality rate if contracted by transplant patients."
I find drug-warriors amusing. This would be a symmetric phenomenon, except that my team doesn't have a track record of sweeping thru minority ghettos, putting every kid they can grab off the playground in jail and blighting their futures if they have reefers in their pockets. Unlike the treatment any federal official's kid gets for the exact same offense. What a laugh riot.
Yep, and it's normally not a problem with healthy people. But cancer patients on chemo, AIDS patients, transplants patients, and others with suppressed immune systems are susceptible and may become infected and die.
"If marijuana was legal, the FDA or the Dept of Ag would be supervising its purity at market"
Medical marijuana IS legal and is being recommended in eleven states and neither the FDA or the Dept of Ag is involved in supervising squat.
The thrust of the article in this thread is that the federal government should leave these states alone. To do what, kill immunosuppressed patients?
Medical marijuana IS legal and is being recommended in eleven states and neither the FDA or the Dept of Ag is involved in supervising squat.
Really? Why don't you ask the DEA if that's the case.
The thrust of the article in this thread is that the federal government should leave these states alone. To do what, kill immunosuppressed patients?
At the risk of repeating myself, the states aren't allowing these two patients to be killed due to the pharmacological effects of cannibus. The are being killed due to the pharmacalogical effects of a soil bacterium, that could have easily been obviated by perfectly ordinary, everyday ag department inspections.
Have you been keeping tabs on the War on Drugs? The (local) government gets their cut in the form of Fed. tax dollars.
So you're saying people will switch from alcohol to marijuana? Now why would they do that? People are going to take up smoking? They'll throw away the Glenlivet and grab some Acapulco Gold?
A lot of rednecks I know would switch from alcohol to marijuana in a heartbeat if it were legalized.
Bears repeating!
A lot of rednecks I know would switch from alcohol to marijuana in a heartbeat if it were legalized.
Why would they do that??? Why wouldn't they? In every historical case known, sea changes in the law cause sea changes in usage. And we have contemporary statistics to draw from in Switzerland, Jamaica, and Denmark, amongst others. The safety factor alone would be plenty enough reason for a rational user to substitute marijuana from alcohol. At the end of the Great Prohibition, the single most notable change in consumption was the return to wine and beer of the vast majority of the population, from the artificial popularity that Gin, burbon, Vodka, rotgut, and other hard liquers enjoyed because of prohibition. Lots of people factor safety considerations into their choice of recreational substances, even if the buzz per buck is of different sorts and intensities. Prohibition causes buzz per buck to be the primary economic consideration, because the only important costs to dealers are the cost of being caught--which makes delivering the most buzz per buck their most efficient leverage on their investment.
According to the article, they want the federal government to butt out. I don't see the states setting up any drug safety standards. The states ARE allowing these patients to be killed by contaminated drugs.
And whose ag department is going to go to 100,000 homes to inspect home grown cannabis on a monthly basis?
Which is spent on drug enforcement for ALL drugs, not just marijuana. Getting money for drug enforcement, hiring people to do drug enforcement, and then spending all the money you're given on drug enforcement is not what I call income.
Taxing drugs and putting that money in the general fund -- that's income.
"A lot of rednecks I know would switch from alcohol to marijuana in a heartbeat if it were legalized."
Sounds like a local thing and not something upon which to build a national policy. You don't happen to have any studies that show alcohol users would switch to marijuana, do you?
Not on me, next time I go out to the local biker bar, I'll do a survey for you.
The question is -- can you support your statement with any studies, facts, papers, cites, polls, anything? Other than your vague reference to "contemporary statistics", that is.
LOL!
Nice try but this reference is blowing smoke. It assumes marijuana smoke caused the problem but presents no lab report confirming that assumption. In any case it is irrelevant. More people die from infections contacted during their stay in the hospital than from marijuana. Smoking marijuana is less likely to cause an infection than visiting a hospital.
See post #47 by donh if you're worried about the fungus among us.
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Nice conflation of issues. They want the feds to butt out in the sense of not arresting their patients and suppliers.
I don't see the states setting up any drug safety standards. The states ARE allowing these patients to be killed by contaminated drugs.
The states don't have an ag department, in the sense of federally mandated uniform standards a' la' the Commerce Clause of the Constitution.
And whose ag department is going to go to 100,000 homes to inspect home grown cannabis on a monthly basis?
Oh, I don't know, the same ag department that governs how much and of what sort you can make home-grown alcohol right now?
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