The Problem with Medical Marijuana

[tongodeon]

A few thousand years ago the Greeks invented the Pill. At the time pills were simple balls of paste, but the invention of the pill was a breakthrough because it enabled a measured dosage of medication to be reliably administered. Greek patients no longer had to fumble with scales or guess how much to consume, they knew exactly how much to take

Comments

[ikkyu2]

I'm also baffled that Marinol (dronabinol), which is pretty much pure Δ-9-THC, doesn't come up more often in medical marijuana discussions. Both sides pretend it doesn't exist, the anti-marijuana side because anything euphorigenic is evil, the pro-marijuana side because they want to be free to smoke grass, not take a pill.

It turns out that dihydrocannibinols and other compounds in marijuana have pharmaceutical activity - some of them are responsible for part of the anti-glaucoma effect, others possibly for some of the antiepileptogenic effect - and to my mind this is worse, not better, for the medical marijuana advocates. Not only aren't they giving a standard dose, but they're giving a mixture of active compounds with uncertainty about the dose of each one.

If you have no need for therapy and are consuming marijuana for pure recreational enjoyment there is far less reason to require careful measurementThis is the only statement you made I'd really take issue with. I don't see how standardization and measurement of recreational

[tongodeon]

This is the only statement you made I'd really take issue with.

I'm being *really* generous with what I've written above, because you're right. The active ingredient in recreational products are metered and this is a good thing. The alcohol content in wine, the cocoa content in chocolate, the fat content of cheese, the nudity and violence content of film, the framerate and complexity of 3D games, the difficulty rating of climbing faces or ski slopes - all these things help the consumer decide what to select and how much of it they need to get high.

[swingland]

I liked this comment the best in terms of explaining what is needed and what should be provided.

[ikkyu2]

Thanks.

I have other ideas, too. What if, instead of a "psych E/R," we modeled psychiatric care on the model of the ICU (intensive care unit)? What if the idea was that someone who was seriously mentally deranged, instead of being sequestered from humanity in a locked room and sedated so he stopped thinking and moving, was put in a place with high tech monitoring, hugely skilled nurses, and a pharmacopoeia designed to be able to speedily and powerfully alter their state of mind for the better, so they could then participate in the talk therapy they needed to effect permanent gains? We do it for people having heart attack or aneurysm rupture or kidney failure. Why not for people undergoing mind failure?

As long as I am proposing these things, I would also like to propose that I receive a pony.

[sploof]

I've only really looked at it from a limited perspective, but I do believe that a chunk of medical marijuana users aren't interested in Marinol because of nausea that makes taking pills difficult or impossible.

On the other hand, it's certainly true that some advocates dismiss Marinol because they're primarily interested in being able to smoke recreationally.

[sploof]

Sounds like a possibility to me, but I'm utterly lacking in the expertise to speculate on how viable it might be.

What are the pros and cons of suppositories as a delivery mechanism for THC? What are the pros and cons of suppositories for people suffering from AIDS symptoms or chemo side effects or MS? I have no clue.