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On The Medical
Use of Marijuana ( Craig Douglas
Baker) weblog
Home I
need to respond to something I read in the
news media today (7-13-03) The bush administration would like to go after
doctors who inform their patients that the effects of chemotherapy can be alleviated
with the use of marijuana. They want their licenses to practice medicine revoked.
Now there are many things in this world that I don’t know a damn thing about
and must rely on what someone else says about it. The effects of marijuana on
chemotherapy, however, is not one of them. In the mid-seventies I had a series
of chemotherapy treatments for cancer. In 2001 I had two blasts of chemotherapy,
and currently I am undergoing a series of four treatments. Each treatment I received
was a different combination of drugs and each time the experience was, shall we
say, not fun…no fun at all. Unless of course your idea of fun is yo-yoing between
low-grade and high-grade nausea and vomiting, and generally your whole body feeling
lousy, fresh food smelling like garbage etc. And each time the use of marijuana
helped immensely. I thank God for marijuana and for a doctor (in 1977) who could
casually clue me in to the fact that a few puffs of pot will return a degree of
comfort to me and reduce the nausea. The reason the whole medical marijuana
debate has been going on for 30 plus years is because many sick people and many
medical experts as well, know what government policy refuses to acknowledge, that
this little green plant that grows in every 50 of the United States and has been
used by human beings for thousands of years, offers affordable relief for much
human suffering. Despite what the Drug Czar says. Now,
by federal mandate, in the United States of America, it is illegal for
us to be informed of this . As I sit in the treatment room I notice that
I am generally toward the lower end of the patient age bracket (51). Many of those
around me are from the generation that fought in W.W.II and Korea, some Vietnam.
They, or someone they loved, fought against fascism and/or communism, and for
freedom.... if by freedom you mean "It is illegal for your own physician to inform
you that there is a cheaper, effective, safer, natural alternative to the expensive
semi-effectual anti-nausea pills manufactured by pharmaceutical companies.
This natural alternative also has the advantage of being self-regulating. After
all, if you take a pill then vomit shortly therafter, the question arises whether
you should take another pill or not. Smoking is another matter. You smoke until
you feel better. You cannot "overdose" with marijuana.
"It would be unreasonable, arbitrary and capricious for DEA to continue
to stand between those sufferers and the benefits of this substance."
DEA Judge Francis Young
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