For the record, I personally don't care if marijuana is or is not medically efficacious. My basic take on the issue from the political standpoint is that it has always been a red herring and tremendous waste of resources. But from the medical standpoint, I say if it works for you, then great, go for it! After all, if we can have people having themselves stung by bees to treat pain, MS and various other ailments (which cannabis also seems to be effective for) -- while still others have bio toxins injected into their faces so they can pretend they aren't getting older -- then, surely, we can have people inhaling cannabinoids for their own purposes (medical or otherwise). Bottom line: if it works for you, then by all means, go ahead. Chronic pain is a horrible thing to deal with, and people in pain will literally try anything to make it go away (I know this personally, as I have been living in pain for the past 12 years). But make no mistake: our government doesn't want people to use marijuana for any reason. And they are prepared to go to great lengths and exercise great power against those who do.
The writing is on the wall, and it's time to pay attention: the FDA's recent announcement that smoked marijuana has no accepted medical use is going to result in some very ugly ramifications. The ugliest being that the DEA has just been given carte blanche to continue their campaigns against California's medical marijuana operations. All of you people are in very grave danger. The reason you are in so much danger is the confluence of several factors, among them: federal law trumps state law (otherwise known as abuse of the "commerce clause"), the DEA was petitioned long ago to re-schedule marijuana and deferred the issue to the FDA, and last -- the FDA just passed a death sentence on medical marijuana.
Add to the mix the fact that pharmaceutical preparations of natural cannabinoids extracted from marijuana are undergoing clinical trials in which they are being found medically efficacious, and it should be quite clear to the most thick-headed among us that California medical marijuana operations are in for a rash of raids from the DEA.
Yes, anyone studying the issue seriously will have no choice but to conclude that cannabinoids have medical utility. How else can it be explained that artificial THC is already an approved safe and effective medicine? However, the issue has been being debated since the 1970's, and all "progress" made by advocates of medical marijuana has been derailed by two factors: marijuana is irrevocably connected in the public mind to recreational substance use, and more importantly, there simply are not enough legitimate medical marijuana users to bring about the changes required.
The government won the propaganda war over medical marijuana long ago -- go back and read how they've adapted their language over the years. Once cannabinoids did prove themselves as medicine, the language of the propagandists adapted to it. They stopped saying that marijuana had no accepted medical use at all and started saying that smoked marijuana had no accepted medical use. They also went to great lengths to ensure that medical marijuana was viewed as a "backdoor to full legalization." Then they started adding in a little "science" by saying (rightly) that the actual dose received through smoking marijuana (or vaporizing it) could not be controlled with scientific rigor. It doesn't matter that a user can self-titrate based on the immediate feedback of inhaled cannabinoids. In the simplistic (and regrettably, entirely effective) jargon of drug war propaganda, marijuana as medicine is completely unscientific. Oh yeah, and "those people just want to get high."
By divorcing itself from the recreational movement, advocates of medical marijuana have dug themsleves into an untenable position, and they should literally start running for the hills -- 'cause there's a big assed target on your backs, and there simply are not enough of you to make a stand. Stop holding the recreational users at arms length and embrace the fact that their cause can include yours, but you have not allowed theirs to be part of yours. If you could just buy marijuana like beer, then you wouldn't have to go through all the political bullshit to use it for whatever ails you. Wake up already -- and, oh yeah, take cover! You're about to be under heavy fire.
Medical marijuana is dead. Sadly, it is likely that there will also be some humans dying along with it. We need a bigger army -- so it's time to unite for the one cause that makes sense: ending the war on drug users. Then people can use marijuana for whatever the hell they find it useful for -- as "God" intended.
