Medical Marijuana: Coming In The Fall, Y’all? (Guest Voice)
Medical Marijuana: Coming In The Fall, Y’all?
by Danny Tyree
According to the Associated Press, on November 6 Arkansas will become the first southern state to let voters decide whether they want to legalize medical uses for marijuana. Backers hope success in the Razorback State will lead to a domino effect of resistance fading in other parts of the old Confederacy.
As a lifelong Tennessean, I am keenly interested in how this vote turns out.
Many characteristics of the South have frustrated advocates of marijuana reform. For example, there are lingering Bible Belt influences. (“I feel for those seeking pain relief, but God meant for fallen man to suffer, and — Hey, deacon! If we don’t get those new comfy pew cushions, I’m cutting my donation in half!”)
A southern overemphasis on cardiac matters sometimes leaves little room for sympathy. (“Bless his heart — but his cancer-ridden OTHER organs can just suffer without dope!”)
Macho posturing is another factor, with would-be coaches advising glaucoma patients, “Walk it off! Walk it off!”
Southern cooks with a fear of embarrassment also contribute to the glacial progress of marijuana laws. (“But…but…what if we don’t have enough equipment to DEEP-FRY all that medical marijuana?”)
Many southern officials are sincerely concerned that looser marijuana laws would send the wrong message to our youth: that SPEED TRAPS are the only way to keep the ticket count high.
I have a grudging respect for the grassroots pro-reform movements that spring up naturally in given states, but I worry about the influence of outside agitators. I’m not sure we need a condescending education from outsiders who buy into the stereotype that all southerners are toothless, barefoot and need the Church of Scientology to match them up with their cousins.
I believe there are many sincere people on both sides of the issue, but some individuals really should recuse themselves from the debate because of vested interests. For example, if you actually thought you saw President Obama in that chair Clint Eastwood was talking to, YOU JUST MIGHT BE INELIGIBLE.
I respect those who have a personal stake in using medical marijuana to handle a terminal illness, or who want a safe environment for others in that situation. I’m not so sure about voters who get giggles and vicarious thrills from the notion of a “trickle-down” effect, who treat marijuana reform as one more way to Stick It To The Man or who convince themselves, “Golly, if I vote for it, then maybe the COOL voters will let me hang out with them at the malt shop and eat pecan pie and…”
The issue has made for some strange bedfellows. Despite 17 states and the District of Columbia having already adopted some form of medical marijuana program, distribution is still a violation of federal law. So it’s a STATES’ RIGHTS issue. I wonder how supporters will feel if there are separate smoking areas for “whites” and “coloreds”?
I welcome a debate about side effects, the costs of criminalization, the costs of regulating dispensaries and other issues. Just as long as we don’t adopt a carefree “Hey, what could possibly go wrong?” attitude.
I would rather not see the rallying cry of the South become “The South’s Gonna Do It Again…because, frankly, we sort of forgot that we had already done it, dude.”
©2012 Danny Tyree. Danny welcomes reader e-mail responses at tyreetyrades@aol.com and visits to his Facebook fan page “Tyree’s Tyrades”. Danny’s’ weekly column is distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons Inc. newspaper syndicate.
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I am all for relieving the pain of any terminal patient. I have read and been told that the stuff helps glaucoma patients as well (although I think it might be a good idea to see if some way can be found to get the effect w/o lighting up carcinogens). I have also been told (by a police officer when I was in college, so…sorta believable, since he also insisted that there was no way to halt the illicit drug trade) that marijuana smoke is 10x more toxic than tobacco.
Aspirin, if it were discovered today, would not even get past Phase II trials in the pharmaceutical industry. What kind of label do we put on marijuana cigarettes? Do we have pictures 10x the size of the ones (proposed to be) on cigarette packages?
I would and will support the legalization, but I don’t want users to be suing the makers later. They should be told (and thus know) what they are getting into.
Brownies!!!
10x more toxic? I seriously doubt that. In any case, marijuana isn’t smoked with the frequency tobacco is. Even a couple inhalations of today’s potent marijuana is enough to “medicate” most people so there is considerably less smoke being taken into the lungs. I agree the laws are archaic though and have to wonder how much of the reason they still exist relates to asset forfeiture laws (“revenue” for local police depts).
IF you are OK with legalized smoking and drinking AND NOT OK with legalized marijuana use
THEN you must acknowledge a logical consistency.
smoking cigarettes is worse for your health.
drinking is more dangerous for yourself and others.
Would not have a moments hesitation in voting for medical marijuana…..
Know a number of people who have received great assistance with cannabis for physical challenges . Two friend with cancer for nausea, a friend with MS for pain and greater range of motion, a man with ALS with great anxiety as his ability to breathe was progressively restricted, a woman with severe back pain. She was over medicating on prescription drugs with great loss of life quality that returned with a reduction of meds and cannabis.
Also want to go on the record again to say i do not see humor in the above mentality that belittles Southern culture as stupid and backwards. Am amazed each time these kinds of slur and prejudicial post come forth… People are people, America has room for diversity of beliefs and expression without arrogant ridicule. Southern Whites, most often male are the last acceptable group for racial and class prejudice. I wonder why this remains acceptable???… People are people.
Personally have little desire to live in Southern culture. Yet if prejudice, rankism, and classicism is wrong for one group it is wrong for all groups.
People are people.
Also….
” The American Medical Association tried to argue for the medical benefits of hemp. Marijuana is actually less dangerous than alcohol, cigarettes, and even most over-the-counter medicines or prescriptions. Marijuana, in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man. By any measure of rational analysis marijuana can be safely used within a supervised routine of medical care. For marijuana to be illegal in the United States when alcohol poisoning is a major cause of death in this country and approximately 400,000 premature deaths are attributed to cigarettes annually. A Person that drinks an extreme amount of alcohol will experience and inability to stand or walk without help and may result in unconsciousness or death. Even though these effects occur only under an extreme amount of alcohol consumption, the fact is smoking extreme amounts of marijuana will do nothing more than put someone to sleep, while drinking excessive amounts of alcohol will kill someone. The most profound activist for marijuana’s use as a medicine is Dr. Lester Grinspoon, author of Marijuana: The Forbidden Medicine. According to Grinspoon, “The only well confirmed negative effect of marijuana is caused by the smoke, which contains three times more tars and five times more carbon monoxide than tobacco. But even the heaviest marijuana smokers rarely use as much as an average tobacco smoker.” Marijuana also relieves nausea suffered by cancer patients undergoing powerful chemotherapy. It is also used by patients who have multiple sclerosis and AIDS. Marijuana also proved to be effective in the treatment of glaucoma because its use lowers pressure on the eye. “
You don’t have to smoke it. There are also fun non smoke processes.
If someone actually thought they saw Obama in that chair, they were probably smoking something far more powerful than marijuana.
Quite frankly marijuana is less harmful on the body than alcohol and marijuana doesn’t have all the toxins that cigarettes have.
Here’s a link to a list of the hundreds of additives (toxins) in cigarettes though not every cigarette has every toxin. So who knows what you’re smoking?
http://quitsmoking.about.com/cs/nicotineinhaler/a/cigingredients.htm
http://quitsmoking.about.com/cs/nicotineinhaler/a/cyanide.htm
I personally feel that if we allow tobacco smoking and drinking, then we should allow marijuana smoking (and not just for medicinal purposes). And no…. I don’t smoke marijuana so I’m not trying to get a law passed for “my own purposes”. But I think if you sit back and take all the facts into consideration, then it is silly to have marijuana laws. And given that there are controlled substances used as medicine that are far worse than marijuana (or tobacco), it’s particularly inane that marijuana isn’t even allowed for medicinal uses.
Every medical marijuana article that has opened comments, is followed by post after post of “enlightened” Americans that proclaim how Cannabis is safer than tobacco and alcohol.
Please WAKE UP…
The government doesn’t care how safe Cannabis is. They use the “safety” issue to program their prohibitionist parrots. Not safe, and a danger to kids is their main rallying cry. But it’s ok to stock the medicine cabinet at home with xanax and oxycontin, well within junior’s reach.
The drug war, is a war against American citizens, that is also funded by the same people that are persecuted. Police departments all over the country depend on marijuana eradication grants that the sheeple gladly pay, under the guise of crime fighting. The police NEED that money, to keep more officers employed with a decent wage. There are many criminal defense lawyers that depend on marijuana cases to make their living. And many many MORE criminal charges are initiated with the smell of Cannabis being probable cause to investigate further.
Private prisons make a lot of money locking up the non violent drug offenders. Probation officers, and drug counselors make their living from court ordered marijuana offenders.
There aren’t enough jobs for the next generation of college graduates, so marijuana convictions are essential in screening the “undesirables”.
There’s just too much money at stake with the governmental punitive system to risk it all by allowing people to self medicate with an herbal medicine that actually works.
And it’s really just the tip of the iceberg, when one thinks of all the big money business interests willing to fork over huge piles of cash to keep marijuana illegal under any circumstances.
So in the big picture, it really doesn’t matter if Cannabis is safer than other medicines, or other recreational drugs. Doesn’t matter if people that really need relief are getting it…
What really matters, is the all mighty dollar-
Concerns as to the carcinogenic qualities of marijuana smoke are not valid in light of the facts. The largest study to date, carried out by UCLA pulmonologist Dr. Donald Tashkin. He found that people who smoke only marijuana are less likely to develop lung cancer than people who smoke nothing at all. Cigarette smokers who also smoke marijuana are less likely to develop lung cancer than those who smoke only tobacco. It appears that the anti-tumor effects of THC more than counter any carcinogenic factors in the smoke.
A lot of the producers are terrified that if it is legalized widely, their ability to compete with Phillip Morris and Camel will be nil, which is certainly a concern. However, I think making it available to medicinal users is important. As face it says, we have far more dangerous drugs available in our own medicine cabinets, and it really is such a god-send to people in chronic pain or undergoing chemo, etc. I certainly don’t buy that it’s any safer to drive while under the influence, and I’d still have a big problem with users of heavy machinery bein high during their work, but the same goes with drugs like Ambien or Xanax. Control it, tax it if you need, but make it available to those who need it.