Patients Flock to California Doctors Practicing Pot Medicine

November 8, 2009 – In Mississippi, where Dr. David Allen worked as a heart surgeon, authorities seized his home and ranch this year after finding $800 worth of marijuana and $1,000 in hashish. A grand jury is to consider a cultivation charge that could net him 30 years in prison under Mississippi’s drug laws.

In Sacramento, where he now lives, Allen is a legal, licensed member of a community of physicians that enables hundreds of thousands of Californians to lawfully consume or grow marijuana for personal use.

His recently opened cannabis evaluations clinic on Auburn Boulevard is a newcomer in an increasingly robust medical industry. Born with California’s Proposition 215 in 1996, the profession is newly energized by the federal government’s recent decision to relax enforcement policies for 14 states that have legalized medicinal use of marijuana.

Voters approved California’s Compassionate Use Act amid stories of AIDS patients needing marijuana to boost appetites and cancer patients needing it to counter nausea and other side effects of chemotherapy.

These days pot physicians, touting marijuana as a healthier alternative to pharmaceuticals, are writing medical cannabis recommendations for a far wider range of ills, from restless leg syndrome to psoriasis, from sleep apnea to menopause.

The widely available doctor’s “recommendations” – they’re not formal prescriptions – stir intense debate in the medical community, even among cannabis doctors.

Doctors argue over whether the recommendations, costing anywhere from $50 to $250 each, go to patients who truly need medical marijuana or help facilitate recreational drug users and provide hefty profits for the doctors writing the notes.

Doctors are barred by state law from giving out marijuana or instructing patients where to get it. But cannabis recommendations are necessary for patients to make their purchases at the pot dispensaries now sprouting like Starbucks in some communities.

The dispensaries must operate as nonprofits. The doctors are under no such constraints.

170,000 patients seen

Already, a lucrative medical industry is taking shape with pot evaluation networks such as MediCann, a “health and wellness service” started with one San Francisco clinic. It now operates 20 offices in California – including sites in Sacramento, Elk Grove and North Highlands – and has overseen the care of 170,000 cannabis patients since 2004.

“The growth has been steady. We open up a new clinic every few months,” said Matthew Desanto, MediCann’s marketing director. “Honestly, it’s just that patients need to use cannabis as medicine.”

In the past year, another group, Marijuana Medicine Evaluation Centers, opened clinics in 10 California cities. It advertises on “WeedMaps,” an Internet service for patients seeking doctors, dispensaries and other pot services.

The newfound visibility of the medical marijuana trade is pronounced on the eclectic boardwalk of Venice Beach in Los Angeles.

Along the boardwalk’s short span, greeters work the crowd in front of three oceanfront clinics, pitching the benefits of medical pot. One large beachfront house holds the Medical Kush Doctor physician’s office and the Kush Clubhouse dispensary. Another doctor’s walk-in clinic is next door to a dispensary entrance, where a woman shouts out: “Free hash bar – patients welcome!”

In his Sacramento office, where medical diplomas are displayed with a news article on a rare beating heart bypass surgery he performed in Mississippi, Dr. Allen is bullish on his career change to full-time pot doc.

Allen was living in California last February when his Mississippi ranch was raided. He denies participation in any illegal marijuana activities.

Jackson County, Miss., Sheriff’s Lt. Curtis Speirs said Allen is being investigated for felony cultivation and distribution.

“In the state of Mississippi,” Speirs said, “whether you think it’s for medicinal use or not, it’s against the law.”

In California, Allen charges $150 for medical evaluations and exults over his work with pot patients.

“Cannabis is a miracle drug that works so well for so many reasons, for so many people, that millions are willing to risk jail and property seizures to use the medicine,” he said.

He said he is dedicated to serving the people who tell him that cannabis “is better for my migraines, for my asthma, for my menstrual cramps” than traditional treatments. “How can you deny these patients?”

Construction worker Brent Bomia, 36, who said he had back surgery after a work-related fall, showed up with his medical records and got a recommendation from Allen.

“I’m happy he is here,” said Bomia. “I believe as a community this is a steppingstone to more people realizing medical marijuana really helps.”

Prop. 215 applied broadly

Under Proposition 215, physicians can recommend cannabis for cancer, anorexia, AIDS, chronic pain, spasticity, glaucoma, arthritis, migraines or “any other illness for which marijuana provides relief.”

Clinical support for pot’s potential health benefits comes from the likes of Dr. Donald Abrams, chief of oncology at San Francisco General Hospital and professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. Abrams conducted state and federally funded research that showed marijuana to be beneficial for patients with HIV and for pain from nerve damage.

“I see cancer patients every day who suffer from loss of appetite, weight loss, pain, anxiety, depression, insomnia and nausea,” he said. “With cannabis, I can recommend one medicine instead of writing prescriptions for six or seven.”

But Dr. Lee Snook, a Sacramento pain physician who serves on the public policy committee for the California Society of Addiction Medicine, is alarmed over the burgeoning use of medical cannabis.

Snook, who heads Metropolitan Pain Management Consultants Inc., said he encounters many patients with marijuana recommendations who don’t need them or are better served by other treatments.

“People go into an outpatient clinic, say, ‘I have chronic pain,’ pay $100 for a card,” Snook said. “That’s it. I see it as a business. I don’t see it as practicing medicine at all.”

The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws – which advocates easing marijuana restrictions – lists more than 160 California doctors and clinics as “medical cannabis specialists.” Their work, as with all doctors, falls under the scrutiny of the California Medical Board.

Since 1996, the board has investigated 81 complaints against doctors who recommended pot to patients.

Regulators revoked licenses for 10 physicians for violating guidelines published to ensure they conduct in-person “good faith” examinations and review patients’ health and medical histories when recommending cannabis. Some were sanctioned for failing to detect overt, drug-seeking behaviors.

Medical Board records indicate some pot doctors attracted attention after other physicians or psychiatrists complained. Other complaints came from undercover police who said they got cannabis recommendations with little or no medical exam.

All 10 license revocations were stayed and the doctors allowed to continue practicing under supervised probation.

In July, the Medical Board sanctioned Dr. Robert Cohen of Santa Monica for recommending cannabis without a physical exam or patient records for a board investigator who said she was a mother of five and needed pot to relax.

In August, the board found that El Dorado County doctor Marion Fry improperly recommended marijuana to a patient with chronic paranoid schizophrenia despite warnings from Merced County health officials that pot exacerbated his condition.

The board put Fry’s medical license on probationary status for three years. That action came two years after she and her husband were sentenced to federal prison for conspiring to grow and distribute marijuana. A trial revealed that her medical pot recommendations netted between $750,000 and $1 million over a 26-month period.

Even some pot doctors question whether the expanding industry has sufficiently established standards and oversight.

Dr. Frank Lucido, a Berkeley family physician and leader in the medical marijuana movement, worries about a proliferation of “quick-in, quick-out mills that pretty much give out cannabis recommendations to anyone 18 or over that has money.”

“It gives the industry a bad name,” he said.

Lucido said he pre-screens patients in a telephone interview, conducts 45-minute examinations and requires medical records documenting serious health issues.

Then, there is Venice Beach.

On an oceanfront featuring four new pot clinics, one employee drew in passers-by by handing out fliers adorned with a cannabis leaf and a list of medical conditions.

“Do you have any of these?” he asked. “We can get you a recommendation. It will only take a few minutes.”

Gilbert, a 42-year-old Los Angeles man who didn’t want his last name used, was in and out of the doctor’s office next to the hash bar. He got a cannabis recommendation minutes after a brief exam and blood pressure check.

“He asked me what medications I was on and what do I think marijuana would do,” said Gilbert, who said he smokes pot to alleviate pain and high blood pressure.

“Pot smokers are going to be pot smokers. If this is going to make them feel better, then so be it.” Source.

 

Report: Pot Use, Arrests Rising in California

November 8, 2009 – Marijuana arrests in California are increasing faster than the nationwide rate, and African Americans are being booked for pot-related crimes much more often than whites, a new report says.

But despite the rise in arrests and in the seizure of marijuana plants, use of pot in California has increased slightly, said the report, part of a nationwide study released Thursday by a Virginia researcher.

In both California and the United States as a whole, “we keep arresting more and more people, but it’s not having a deterrent effect,” said Jon Gettman, an adjunct assistant professor of criminal justice at Shenandoah University in Winchester, Va.

Nationally, Gettman said, marijuana arrests have doubled since 1991,but marijuana use is unchanged.

Gettman is a former director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. He said he favors the legalization of marijuana.

Gettman’s report came a day after state officials announced that the state-federal Campaign Against Marijuana Planting had seized a record 4.4 million pot plants in California this year, up from 2.9 million in 2008.

Gettman’s study is based on state and FBI arrest records and other government data from 2003 through 2007. It said California officers arrested 61,375 people on marijuana charges in 2003 and 74,024 in 2007, an average increase of more than 5 percent per year. Eighty percent of the arrests in 2007 were for marijuana possession, the report said.

Nationwide, the annual increase during the same period was just under 4 percent, the report said, although California’s marijuana arrest rate, compared to its population, remained among the nation’s lowest.

The report also found a large racial discrepancy in arrests.

African Americans were about 20 percent more likely than whites to use marijuana in 2007, but the arrest rate for blacks on marijuana charges was nearly 270 percent of whites’ arrest rate, the report said.

Gettman said he found similar disparities nationwide and in most major cities, including San Francisco.

“I don’t believe it’s racially motivated,” he said. Among the possible contributing factors, he said, are “more intensive patrolling” by police in minority neighborhoods, and the presence of marijuana when people are arrested for other crimes.

Overall, the report said, marijuana use increased in California by 0.73 percent a year in the four-year period, while nationwide use declined by 0.21 percent a year.

By geographic zone, the state’s northernmost counties, which include the prime marijuana-growing areas of Humboldt and Mendocino counties, ranked 12th out of 350 regions in the nation in pot use by their residents. A region consisting of San Francisco, Marin and San Mateo counties ranked 15th. Source.

Read the report

 

Hemp: An Alternative Fiber for Making Paper

November 7, 2009 – “Flax is so injurious to our lands, and so scanty produce, that I have never attempted (using) it. Hemp, on the other hand, is abundantly productive and will grow forever on the same spot.” -
Thomas Jefferson, Monticello, Journal Entry of December 29, 1815

A reaction to the loss of the world’s rainforests is an attempt to find alternate sources of fiber for paper – to replace wood fiber. One pro hemp group that some call the “industrial hemp movement” would have you believe hemp fiber is the answer to deforestation.

Some hemp supporters legitimately want to use hemp for manufactured products including paper. Others may be pursuing the agenda of legalizing Cannabis sativa C. Linnaeus for medicinal and recreational uses and are using the “alternative use” issue as an end-run to legalization.

Another name for this plant is marijuana.

The History of Hemp Fiber

The Chinese used hemp for paper as far back as 8,000 BC. Ancient documents have been retrieved that were totally hemp based. This is certainly a testament to the ability of hemp fiber to withstand the destructive nature of time.

Herodotus writes that Thracians used both the wild and cultivated fiber for cloth. He marveled at the garments made from hemp and compared it to linen. He also wrote about the purification rites associated with “vapor-baths” and breathing smoldering smoke from moist hemp seed.

Hemp’s by-product is tetrahydracannabinol (THC) and is a psychoactive chemical generally absorbed through the respiratory system or digestive tract with a significant effect on perception and cognitive abilities.

Thomas Jefferson and George Washington were advocates of Cannabis fiber and recommended their fellow countrymen to use the plant for lamp oil and fabric for uniforms and clothing. Jefferson found its cloth a rival to cotton, at much less cost and he used it to clothe his farm hands. George Washington was said to be more familiar with the plant as a drug.

The last legal hemp crop was harvested in 1957 due to competitive industrial product shifts and a restrictive U.S. Marijuana Tax Act of 1937. Today, in many countries, it is illegal to grow hemp without a government permit – and the permits are nearly impossible to get.

The Industrial Hemp Movement
There is now a worldwide revival of value-added hemp products as an alternative material for building, food products, health and beauty aids, fabrics, car fuel, and paper. It does not seem to be catching on as the Worlds demand for industrial hemp fiber is not increasing.

The Argument For Hemp Paper…

Dave Seber, in an interview for High Times magazine, indicated that being in the “lumber business for almost 15 years now…I have watched the forests being taken out here.” Seber has been a redwood logger and president of C&S Lumber, an R&D organization in Oregon dedicated to finding replacement fibers for wood.

“As I see it,” Seber says “we’ve got 10 to 20 years, tops, before the entire ecosystem, as we know it, will collapse because of what they are doing in these forests.” He goes on to suggest that the “environmental threat” to forests will worsen if no alternate fiber to wood is found. And, as you probably guessed, he thinks hemp is the answer.

Edit: This prediction was made in 1997.

Carol Moran heads a company called Living Tree Paper Company in Eugene, Oregon. She, according to an article in ENN Online, is convinced that hemp can “single-handedly stop worldwide deforestation.” Her company’s magazine is even printed on non-tree hemp paper.

Mary Kane, publisher of HempWorld, a quarterly journal of the hemp movement says that “eventually the DEA will be forced to relinquish the ban on hemp farming. It’s a plant that can provide alternatives to anything synthetic.” She further states that “hemp can save the world but we have to give it a chance.”

Hemp advocates argue that hemp fiber is more durable than wood and can be recycled more frequently than tree fiber. Hemp produces a highly nutritious seed crop that can be of comparable value to the fiber crop. Agriculturally grown hemp would fit well with natural forests and tree plantations.

The Argument Against Hemp Paper…

Detractors of the annual agricultural production of hemp fiber are just as vocal against growing hemp fiber. They contend that hemp farming is very demanding on the environment and would negate any possible benefits ascribed to it. Hemp fiber would be cost prohibitive when compared to silvicultural production of wood fiber.

Any annual crop demands a period of establishment and reestablishment, during which the site has to be intensely cultivated and treated for weeds and pests. This has to be repeated until the crop is properly established and done on an annual basis for crops like flax, wheat, cotton, or hemp. Most tree species, even if grown on a fast rotation, would mean less site disturbance and have much less need for chemicals; Trees are more forgiving of site preparation, chemical support, and revisits after planting.

Large areas of cultivated fields would be necessary. This would, in itself, mean clearing land of trees and would comprise the best land in terms of fertility and topography. Irrigation would become necessary in some areas for best production. Tending hemp would be expensive and compete for land and other resources.

Dr. Patrick Moore writing on the subject on his web site Greenspirit indicates that “at least twice as much nutrient must be available in an easily assimilable form as will finally be removed from the soil by the leaf-free harvest”. Hemp is a nutrient sponge. Crop rotation and the added expense of stripping leaves and flowers would be the desired method of nutrient replacement. All this adds to increased disturbance of the site, the addition of either manure crops or chemical nutrients, and an increase in per acre expense.

The last little kink in the use of hemp for fiber is a significant concern called cost. According to Austrialia’s NAFI and Heike Von Der Lancken, “hemp pulp costs $2,500 per ton as compared to $400 per ton for typical bleached wood pulp.” This would create the need for another farm subsidy to make costs match. By Steve Nix. Source.

 

Restrictive Laws Wall Off Hemp Bricks

November 7, 2009 – Assess for us, if you would, the qualities of this sustainable construction material:

* Bio-negative manufacturing (more carbon dioxide is locked up in the process of growing and harvesting the component materials than is released during the production of the binding ingredient)
* 100% recyclable (can be used as fertilizer after being demolished)
* Waterproof
* Fireproof
* Insulates well
* Does not rot when used above ground

What is this mysterious construction material, and why isn’t it in your home? The material is hemp, and it’s not used in the United States because of laws prohibiting growing of so-called industrial hemp. Hemcrete bricks, made from hemp, lime and water, have been used in Europe for years now. Growing hemp—even low-THC varieties specifically raised for food, fiber and industrial use—is illegal in all but a handful of states in America, making construction with sustainable hemp bricks prohibitively expensive. Figures from the Hemp Industries Association show that virtually 100 percent of the hemp used in American hemp products last year—products worth approximately $360 million in retail value—were imported.

Progress toward legalizing industrial hemp farming in the United States is crawling. Oregon recently became the ninth state to remove legal barriers to industrial hemp farming. Reports StoptheDrugWar.org:

Hemp is a member of the cannabis family, but is distinguished from smokeable marijuana by its low THC content and its lanky, fibrous appearance. The Oregon law specifies that industrial hemp must contain less than 0.3% THC. So does pending federal legislation, HR 1866, sponsored by Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), which would remove low-THC hemp from the Controlled Substances Act and thus the DEA’s domain. The eight other states that have removed barriers to hemp production or research are Hawaii, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Montana, North Dakota, Vermont and West Virginia. Oregon joins North Dakota as the only states that do not require farmers to obtain federal permits from the DEA to grow hemp. By Lisa Poisso. Source.

 

Marijuana May Help Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Patients

November 7, 2009 – The use of marijuana (cannabinoids) may be helpful in treating patients who have post-traumatic stress disorder, according to a new study released by the University of Haifa’s Department of Psychology. Post-traumatic stress disorder is especially a concern among war veterans.

Post-traumatic stress disorder:
Nearly 7.7 million Americans have post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) at any given time, according to the National Institute of Mental Health, which also notes that about 30 percent of men and women who have spent time in war zones experience the disorder. PTSD is a debilitating condition that often follows a horrifying emotional or physical event, which causes the individual to have persistent, terrifying memories and thoughts, or flashbacks, of the situation. PTSD was once referred to as “shell shock” or “battle fatigue” because of its high prevalence among war veterans.

For people who have PTSD, the most prominent symptoms include reawakened trauma, avoiding anything that could recall the trauma, and psychological and physiological disturbances. It is difficult to treat PTSD patients because they are frequently exposed to additional stress, which hinders their efforts to overcome the trauma.

Marijuana and PTSD study
In the study from the University of Haifa, the researchers examined the efficiency of cannabinoids as a medical treatment for coping with the symptoms of PTSD. The researchers used a synthetic form of marijuana that has properties similar to those in the natural plant, and chose a rat model.

During the first stage of the experiment, the researchers noted how long it took for rats to overcome a traumatic experience without any intervention. Briefly, the experiment involved placing some rats in a cell colored white on one side and black on the other. The rats were placed in the white area, but when they moved to the black area, which they prefer, they received a light electric shock. The researchers brought the rats to the white area over a series of days. Immediately after the rats were exposed to the shock, they stopped moving to the black area voluntarily. However, after a few days of not receiving further electric shocks in the black area, they moved there without hesitation.

During the second phase of the experiment, a second group of rats were placed on a platform after receiving the electric shock, which added stress to the traumatic situation. The rats avoided the black area for a much longer time, which showed that exposure to additional stress hinders the process of overcoming trauma.

The third phase of the experiment involved another group of rats that were exposed to the electric shock and additional stress, but before they were placed on the platform they received an injection of synthetic marijuana in the amygdala area of the brain, which is connected to emotional memory. These rats returned to the black area after the same amount of time as the first group, which indicated that the marijuana eliminated the symptoms of stress. Even when the researchers administered marijuana injections at different times to additional groups of rats, the stress symptoms did not return. When the researchers examined hormone levels in the rats during the experiment, they found that synthetic marijuana prevented the release of the hormone produced by the body during times of stress.

The University of Haifa investigators believe their results indicate that marijuana can have an important role in treating stress-related conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder. Individuals who worry that using marijuana for PTSD may encourage illicit drug use can turn to another study in which researchers examined the relation between PTSD symptom severity and motives for marijuana use among 103 young adult marijuana users. After considering other variables, including cigarette and alcohol use, the investigators found PTSD symptom severity was significantly related to marijuana use coping motives but no other motives for its use. Source.

SOURCES:
Bonn-Miller MO et al. Journal of Traumatic Stress 2007 Aug; 20(4): 577-86
University of Haifa news release

 

16 ways with Hemp

November 7, 2009 – To begin, a little refresher: Hemp is marijuana’s straight-laced cousin. Marijuana and hemp come from the same species of plant but from different varieties of it. It’s a bit like how a house cat and mountain lion are related and yet are rather different. Specifically, there is not enough of any psychoactive ingredient in hemp to get you high.

It’s currently illegal to grow hemp without a permit from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, which tends to view hemp as undesirable, in part because growers could mask their marijuana operations with hemp crops, since they look so alike. Britain, Germany and Canada have lifted similar bans. And while 16 states have passed pro-hemp legislation for industrial hemp production, it’s still illegal in most of this country. Many hemp advocates and environmentalists think this is a damn shame since hemp is so versatile (see below).

Some, such as Hemp Global Solutions and USA Hemp Museum founder Richard Davis, advocate planting hemp on a wide scale to reduce climate change. They claim that a ton of hemp grown represents 1.63 tons of carbon dioxide absorbed from the atmosphere, though we’ve found no scientific studies to back up that figure.

What is well-established is that hemp grows quickly with little need for the pesticides and herbicides; it’s best planted in rotation, which is a more sustainable growing method than mono-cropping; and nothing need go to waste with a hemp plant—everything from it’s stalk to its seed oil can be used for industrial production. It is legal to use products made with industrial hemp, a number of which can be found at natural foods stores. Here are a few of the ways you could use hemp:

1) Stash your cash in hemp wallets and purses.

2) Keep your pants on with a hemp belt.

3) Knit your grandma a sweater with hemp yarn

4) Go eco-chic. From sweaters to pants to sandals, hemp fibers are often blended with silk, cotton or wool for a wide range of clothing.

5) Sleep with it: hemp bedding, from pillowcases to sheets and comforters.

6) Pucker up with hemp lip balm.

7) Burn it as biomass used for fuel, or make biofuel or ethanol from hemp seed oil.

Drive your cat crazy with a hemp mouse toy stuffed with catnip.

9) Play tug with your pup with a hemp rope chew toy.

10) Start the day off right with hemp-fortified waffles or pancakes.

11) Sling on your guitar with a hemp guitar strap.

12) Write on it: hemp paper.

13) Make a hemp necklace or bracelet (as if you weren’t hippie enough with your hemp sandals and waffles).

14) Make a vinaigrette. Reap the benefits of Omega 6 and Omega 3 essential fatty acids with the nutty taste of hemp seed oil.

15) Drink it: There’s hemp beer, wine, vodka, brandy, rum and other forms of alcohol to be found.

16) Build a house: From hempcrete to hempbales and hemp-lime construction materials, hemp is popping up as an alternative building material.

 

Telling Teenagers the Truth about Smoking Pot

Lying to Teens about Marijuana does more harm than good.

I think it’s wrong for society to lie to teenagers about smoking marijuana. I find it frustrating when I hear ads from places like “Partnership for a Drug Free America” running commercials against Pot that just aren’t true. I don’t like it when people warn teens about using “Marijuana and Cocaine” when Pot is almost harmless and Cocaine is a dangerous drug. When people lie to teens about Marijuana then teens assume they are lying about other drugs too and I think they are more likely to do drugs they shouldn’t do. So I think it’s time to come clean and tell the truth. If teens are going to do drugs, they should have truthful and accurate information. So I have decided to tell it like it is. Best decisions are made when the real facts are presented.

For those parents who are reading this in horror, I am not trying to get kids to smoke Pot. What I am doing here is trying to tell them the truth, and tell you the truth about a widely misunderstood substance. This is an opportunity for everyone to have a better understanding of reality. If you can’t handle reality, stop reading this web page. There are plenty of other web sites that will tell you what you want to hear. This is not one of them.

How bad is Marijuana Really?

As compared to most drugs, Pot is the least dangerous. Pot is not an addictive drug. For those who claim it is, anything is theoretically addictive, and there are some people who can become addicted to spring water. So to put it in perspective, Pot is less addictive than coffee. I have become addicted to coffee myself and have broken the habit. You get mild headaches for a few days. I have never had any symptoms for withdrawal from Pot.

Pot will cause some short term memory loss.
It’s harder to remember a 10 digit phone number. Beer causes the same memory loss as Pot. The effect is temporary and wears off completely. Pot has no long term affects on the brain. I have been smoking Pot for the last 25 years and I still test as a genius on IQ tests. My mental abilities have increased over the years.

Pot will give you the Munchies.
ou may eat more than you would normally. If you are on a diet, you should factor this in when deciding to smoke Pot. It could cause you to gain weight.

Pot is a sexual stimulant.
It removes a persons inhibitions. You are more likely to agree to have sex when you are stoned. You are also more likely to not use birth control while stoned. Sometimes people get others stoned to try to get them to have sex when they normally wouldn’t. If you are getting stoned with members of the opposite sex, be aware of this and realize that it can have this effect on you.

If anyone asks if you smoke Pot, Just say No!
Never drive while doing any drugs or alcohol, or many prescription drugs for that matter. Alcohol causes you to wreck your car. Pot has a much lesser effect on driving than alcohol, but it has some effect. You are more likely to pull out in front of someone or run a red light than lose control of the vehicle. Pot might also cause you to get lost. Don’t drive while stoned.

Smoking Pot increases your risk of cancer. But most people smoke very little Pot. If you use Pot moderately you don’t have anything to worry about. Moderate means a joint every few days.

Pot will give you dry mouth. Have something to drink when smoking Pot.

The most dangerous thing about Pot is getting caught with it. You can go to jail. People get very weird about Pot and you can get in a lot of trouble over it. So if anyone asks if you’ve been smoking Pot, Just Say No!

Benefits of Marijuana

Marijuana is the safest of all drugs. It is far safer to smoke a joint than to have a beer. Pot is the drug of choice for people who want to get high, but be responsible in getting high. There are people who do no drugs at all, and that’s fine. But for those of you who want to get high and be responsible, Pot is a very good choice.

Marijuana make most people more relaxed. It relieves the clutter and tension after a hard days work or school. It mellows you out and makes you more relaxed. It heightens the imagination and improves creativity. If you have a problem with anger, Pot is usually a good drug to reduce it.

Marijuana has other medical benefits. It helps reduce problems with glaucoma. If you have cancer, it reduces nausea from chemotherapy. I had a close friend who died of cancer. His doctor prescribed Pot even though it wasn’t legal. I gave him some and it allowed him to eat food again. This was three weeks before he died. I think the Pot gave him another week of quality life.

Marijuana is also safer, more effective, and has less side effects than many prescription antidepressants. Shortly after my divorce when I learned that I got a judgement for more that 100% of everything I owned, my doctor put me on Pamalor, a common antidepressant. Pamalor turned me into a zombie and made me practically impotent. I merely existed and felt nothing, had no motivation, couldn’t accomplish anything, and became basically useless. After two weeks of that I got off it. Getting stoned and laid a couple time a week had a much better result. I was alert, motivated, effective, sharp, got better sleep, happy, and alive. Not all antidepressants have this same effect. However, these drugs are over-prescribed and in many cases I think that an occasional joint is a better alternative to antidepressant drugs.

Marijuana is especially good for those with high stress lifestyles. The brain has a tendency to lock on to a problem and your mind gets into a mental loop where you can’t stop thinking about work or some other problem. Pot can help you break the cycle and see the problem from a different perspective, or allow your mind to move on and rest allowing you to enjoy life so that you can recover and have a fresh perspective for the next day.

Marijuana can make you Smarter

Marijuana enhances certain mental abilities. Although it cuts into short term memory, it reallocates mental resources allowing you to become more imaginative and to come up with new solutions to problems that you wouldn’t normally think of when you’re not stoned. Much of my creative writing starts from things I though of while smoking Pot. For example, my web page on Teen Cigarette Smoking is a very effective web page that has resulted in thousands of kids decided to not smoke cigarettes. I wrote most of it while I was stoned. And I came up with the concepts as to why it would work as a result of smoking Pot. My smoking Pot has resulted in a decrease in teem smoking.

When used correctly and responsibly, Pot can actually increase your ability to find new and innovative solutions to problems. There are hundreds of web sites targeted at discouraging kids from smoking cigarettes and they all have the same message, “Smoking causes Cancer and will kill you.” There’s nothing wrong with that message and I’m sure that it reaches a lot of teens. However, a huge number of teens still smoke and it’s not because they haven’t got the cancer message. Traditional thinking results in repeating the message more times. The idea being is that if these kids actually understood the health issue, they would quit smoking. This kind of reasoning is an example of what is known as “thinking inside the box”.

Marijuana helps you think “outside the box”. This concept of thinking “out of the box” is an ability sought after by corporations who want to hire people with new an innovative ideas and actually invent a better mousetrap. However, by having drug testing policies the corporations are actually excluding the very people who they seek to hire. I believe that if some of these corporate policy makers were to smoke some Pot themselves, they would realize that Pot, when used responsibly, actually enhances a persons ability to make strategic decisions.

Going back to my anti-smoking page and thinking outside the box, I want to now describe the mental processes behind developing this web page while smoking Pot. While I was stoned I wondered why anyone would want to start smoking cigarettes. Although cancer and addiction were reason enough for me to not smoke, obviously there were a lot of people who are not like me. If everyone thought like I do, no one would smoke. I considered the idea that perhaps there were people who didn’t know about cancer and addiction and quickly dismissed that. It seem pretty obvious that everyone has got that message. Therefore, I reasoned that to continue to repeat the same argument isn’t going to gain ground among those who have already rejected it. It was logical that in order to gain ground, I needed to come up with other reasons to not smoke than those that everyone already knows.

People who think “in the box” would conclude that cancer and death are the strongest arguments and that if that doesn’t work then other issues wouldn’t be important. But what these in the box thinkers don’t realize is that they are coloring things from their perspective. They are for the most part non-smokers who have bought the cancer and death argument and wrongly assumes that everyone else thinks like they do. But smokers see things differently. Most smokers don’t even know why they started smoking because they can’t remember a rational process that caused them to decide to start to smoke. That’s because most people smoke because of instinctive forces which are more powerful in humans than we would like to admit. People are herd animals, and the instinct to be part of the herd is more powerful than reasoning. And those who advertise tobacco product know this all too well.

My approach on my anti-smoking web page was to address the social and lifestyle issues involved in smoking. To expose how the tobacco companies are manipulating your mind and taking advantage of you. My web page creates mental defenses in the mind of the reader so that in the future when the reader is being seduced by tobacco, that their brains are programmed to recognize the seduction and to branch to a mental process that causes outrage that they are being manipulated and results in them not deciding to smoke. In addition, I made strong argument about the smokers lifestyle that add many new strong arguments as to why to not smoke in addition to cancer and death. The problem with cancer and death is that those are long term arguments and many young people don’t respond to it. My additional arguments are short term effects that will start immediately and are more relevant to young people.

Am I saying that my web page is better than the addiction, cancer, and death web pages? No. I think those reach most people. But my Pot inspired web page reaches a significant number of additional teens that the cancer and death pages don’t reach. My point in this and I hope you as the reader have understood it, is that Pot inspires this kind of analytical thinking that results in being able to think outside the box and to come up with new approaches to problem solving that compliment traditional solutions. I hope that I have made it clear by example that Pot, when used correctly and responsibly, has a mind enhancing effect. But I want to stress to all you read this that any drug, legal or not, prescription or not, from coffee to LSD, should only be used correctly and responsibly.

Marijuana can make you Dumber

Pot affects everyone differently. Just because Pot has some beneficial effects on me doesn’t mean that it will do the same for you. Everyone is different and drugs affect different people in different ways. Obviously, if you have tried Marijuana and it had a bad effect on you, don’t continue to use it.

Marijuana use has been associated with turning teens into mental zombies who lose all motivation. They claim that it makes it so that all you want to do is lay around and get high, that you will become like Cheech ‘n Chong. There is a real correlation with lazy dopers and Pot but I’m not sure if the Pot makes you a lazy doper or if you are a lazy doper type first and are therefore attracted to Pot. Some people experience fear and paranoia while high on Pot. Some people get headaches. Marijuana does compromise certain mental abilities on a short term basis. You don’t want to smoke a joint before taking a test. Therefore, if Pot is messing up your life, or you don’t have the self control to use it moderately and appropriately, don’t use Pot.

Drug Abuse is a Bad Idea

Marijuana is a drug to be used, not abused. Just because Pot isn’t addictive doesn’t mean that you should get stoned every day. It doesn’t mean that it’s totally safe. It doesn’t mean that you should go out and start smoking Pot. And just because it makes me more mentally effective under some circumstances doesn’t mean that it’s going to have the same effect on you. There are a lot of people who experiences the opposite effect and if your one of those, Pot isn’t for you. Pot affects different people in different ways and if Pot is having a detrimental effect on you, you should not smoke it.

Drugs of all kinds have varying degrees of danger. You have to be mature and responsible when experimenting with any drug. You should never do a drug that you don’t know what the effects are. And drugs should be used in moderation and under the right circumstances. You should never do any drug while driving a car, especially alcohol. If you are a teenager, one beer can make you wreck your car.

Many drugs out there are highly addictive. The most addictive drug that kills more people than any other drug is Tobacco. This drug is to be avoided at all costs. The addiction to Tobacco is much harder to break if you get hooked at a young age. Besides cancer and death, Tobacco will totally change your lifestyle. Your whole life will revolve around scheduling when and where you’ll be able to smoke next.

LSD is not an addictive drug but it is very mind altering. It can be viewed as having similar characteristics as Pot by much more powerful. Mushrooms, Mescaline, and Peyote are also in the non-addictive psychedelic class of drugs. They are similar to the neurotransmitters in the brain and are more mind altering than any other drug. The experience can have a profound effect on you and should be used only with extreme caution.

Once you become addicted, you can’t just quit. You become a slave to the drug. Your life revolves around getting it. This includes cigarettes. Cocaine and Crack are extremely addictive. So is Methamphedamine. These drugs are very dangerous in that they are stimulants and require larger doses to produce the same effects. Heroine and Morphine are opiates and are also very addictive. Valium and Alcohol are depressants and are also addictive. Addiction to depressants take a lot longer that addiction to stimulants and opiates. Cocaine and Heroine can hook you from the first dose. Even coffee is addictive. I’ve had to break that habit a few times myself.

I personally avoid all addictive drugs except Alcohol. I like to drink some Beer and Wine, but I don’t like to get drunk. Other people have a different reaction to Alcohol than I do and enjoy getting drunk. Those who enjoy it are more likely to become alcoholic than those who don’t. Addiction makes you a slave to the drug and controls your life. I never met an addict that was glad they got addicted. If the people who are hooked wish they weren’t, what would you want to start?

Teens usually have a stronger tendency to follow the crowd than adults do. You may find yourself in a situation where everyone else is doing a drug that you don’t want to do. You find yourself tempted because you don’t want to go to the trouble to not go along. What you may not realize is that it’s kool to say that you just don’t want to do whatever everyone else is doing, and not make a big deal out of it. Usually the others will just say OK and it’s no big deal. In other words, you really can “Just say No.” If you don’t want to do a drug, don’t do it. If someone gets pushy about it, tell them to fuck off!

It’s your Life! Be Responsible!

Most people will bullshit you about the truth about drugs. I have been honest about it here. In fact I’m being honest at great personal risk because there are a lot of people out there who would persecute me personally for saying the things I’m saying here. But what I’m saying is the truth and I’m standing by it. I’m sure that the government, particularly the moralists would like to classify this page as “harmful to minors” under their new censorship laws, would like to see me shut down and probably jailed. This page not harmful to minors, it’s helpful to minors. Telling minors lies about drugs is harmful to minors.

What I want to make clear to you who read this is that people make choices in their lives that affect who they are and who they will become. If you make the right choices you are more likely to have a better life than if you make the wrong choices. Although you can make all the right choices and still be killed in a car accident because someone else ran a red light. But if you are smart about what you do then the odds are in your favor.

The most important thing a Teenager needs to learn is how to say NO and mean it.
These choices are yours alone and it’s your responsibility to make good choices and make your life meaningful. You may have had a hard beginning and you may have to work hard climbing up the ladder of life to become successful. But ultimately you become who you decide to become and you can choose to be better than what you are raised to be. The choices you make are ultimately yours and you have to be responsible and take your choices seriously. If you smoke cigarettes, you will become a smoker. If you get pregnant, you will become a parent. If you get hooked on Meth, you will become a drug addict. It’s your choice and if you choose to fuck up your life, it’s your fault. But if you want to become great then you can be great, even if you come from unfortunate conditions. And the difference between those who become great and those who don’t is that great people take control of their lives, take responsibility for their decisions, and through pure force of will, looking into the future, and through self discipline, lift themselves up and achieve greatness. And every one of you who read this can do the same thing.

It’s your life. If you screw it up, you’ve screwed it up. It’s your fault.
There was this kid born to a single mother. His father died in a car accident a few months before he was born. The lived in a trailer in a small hick town in the south. His mother went to nursing school and left him to his grandmother for a few years. Then his mother married a drunk and had another kid. The father would often get drunk and get violent. The younger brother grew up and became a Cocaine addict. But this kid decided that he was going to rise above his upbringing as a poor southern white trash stepson of a drunk and make something of himself. He worked hard and got good grades in school and in 1962 his class went on a trip to Washington where he shook hands with President Kennedy. At that moment that poor kid from Arkansas decided that some day he was going to be President of the United States, and he went out and did it. If this kid could become President, surely you can decide to grow up and not get hooked on drugs. It’s your life, and you can be what you want to be.

Why Marijuana should be Legal

Legalizing Marijuana would be a benefit to society. We as a nation would be improved by it. There are several reasons I make this claim. Although Pot has it’s problems, it’s benefits for outweigh it’s consequences.

If Pot were legal, many people would switch from alcohol to Pot. I think that a lot of Alcohol abuse come from the fact that it is the only legal drug and therefore is overused. Alcohol is highly addictive, physically and psychologically destructive, and is a severe drag on society. I think that if Pot were legal that many people would switch to Pot and be much better off. I think one side effect of legalizing Pot would be a major reduction in the abuse of Alcohol and that the number of traffic deaths would drop dramatically.

The only reason Pot isn’t legal is because there are a lot of people making money because it’s not legal. Another reason is to save the huge cost in tax dollars wasted in prohibiting Pot and enforcing drug laws that have no benefit to society. If Pot were legal you immediately eliminate the illegal Pot market and get rid of crime associated with Pot money. You could also release from jail all those convicted from Pot related offenses and cut the costs of having to build new prisons to incarcerate normal people. Because of mandatory drug sentencing laws, many states have to release violent offenders to make room for Pot smokers. That’s stupid!

Pot has many other uses. Before the lumber industry lobbied Congress to make Pot illegal, Marijuana (known as Hemp) was the primary source of fiber for the production of paper. The United States Constitution is printed on Pot. With today’s technologies this fiber can be processed into construction materials that would replace wood products saving our forests and lowering the costs of construction while producing byproducts useful in making fuels to run cars and generate electricity. Hemp is a very hearty plant and would be a good cash crop for our nation’s farmers.

Who opposes legalizing Marijuana and why

There are many types of people who oppose legalizing Marijuana for a variety of reasons. Many of these groups have some very strange reasons and selfish interests. Many are just ignorant of the facts. Here’s some of the opposition:

* The Uninformed – People who believe the misinformation that Pot is harmful to society.

* The Government – Pot has been illegal for so long that no politicians have the political courage to tell the truth about Pot. The ones that do tell the truth are defeated by their opponents that paint them as a druggie. Many of these anti-drug politicians are funded by the Alcohol lobby.

* Religion – Anything fun is sin and of the Devil. Churches might lose members as people figure out that God can’t be that stupid.

* Moralizers – The morally superior who enjoy looking down their noses at the less fortunate and get a sadistic thrill in putting people in jail.

* People who do no Drugs – These people who don’t drink, don’t smoke, in some cases don’t even drink coffee. They just don’t understand why anyone would want to smoke anything or do any drug. From their perspective the world would be better off if no one did anything.

* The Alcohol Lobby – Legalizing Pot would seriously cut into the sales of Beer. Pot would become the recreational drug of choice because it is safer than Beer.

* The Tobacco Lobby – Pot has the ability in some people to help them break the addiction of nicotine. Pot smoking could actually reduce the number of tobacco addicts.

People before Lawyers
* Law Enforcement – There are a lot of people who make a living fighting Pot who would have to go get a real job if Pot were legalized. Police departments get a lot of funding to fight Marijuana and those funds could be returned to the taxpayer if Pot were made legal. Cops would have to chase robbers, rapists, and murderers.

* Government Agencies – Using unconstitutional civil forfeiture laws the government has been able to use the presence of Pot to steal billions of dollars of private property from the People. Drug laws have been an excuse to circumvent our constitutional right and justify wire tap laws, the erosion of protection from illegal searches, key recovery encryption, and domestic spying. If you take a politically unpopular position like this one I’m taking now, the government can plant drugs on you and put you away.

* Pot Dealers – If Pot were legalized then people making money off of selling Pot illegally would be out of business. Pot prices would drop to $10 a bale. Crime relating to illegal Pot money would vanish.

* Wood Industry – Hemp would become the primary source of fiber for paper products as well as a new source for building materials. We wouldn’t have to cut down every big tree in the world.

* Private Prisons – If Pot were legalized the private prison industry would be hurt. They would no longer jail Pot smokers. It could free up space for violent criminals.

* Trial Lawyers – Normal people caught with a joint spend billions each year on lawyers to get them off of criminal charges after getting caught with a joint. Lawyers get rich off of the Marijuana laws. If Marijuana were legal this money could be spent sending your kids to college.

* Mental Hospitals – There’s a big industry treating people for problems they don’t have. If you have insurance, you’re crazy until the insurance coverage runs out. If you smoke Pot then you have mental problems. If Pot were legal some of these people would have to get real jobs. We should start treating people who are addicted to 12 step programs.

* Republicans – Pot helps you see reality the way it really is. It’s harder to con a Pot smoker on political issues. Once you get stoned it’s harder to want to hate Liberals, Queers, Blacks, Pregnant Teens, Draft Dodgers, President Clinton, Feminists, Lesbians, Pot Smokers, and other people the Republicans want you to hate. When you’re stoned it’s harder to like Newt Gingrich, John Ashcroft, the KKK, the Christian Coalition, Jerry Falwell, Pat Buchanan, Reverend Sun Myung Moon, People who beat Gay’s to Death, People who blow up Abortion Clinics, and the morally superior in general.

* Political Cowards – Politicians like to pose with police as somebody who is “against drugs” promising to lock up all the pot smokers and throw away the key. These people need an artificial issue to be against so they don’t have to face real issues like how to protect the public from crooked lawyers and crooked judges. Political cowards cross all party lines when it comes to pot and includes President Clinton.

* Others – These groups could also be hurt by legalizing Pot. Car body shops would get less alcohol related wrecks to fix. Hospitals would get less alcohol related business as would alcohol treatment centers and funeral homes. It could hurt cemeteries and tombstone makers as well.

Important People for Legalizing Marijuana

There have been several people who have come out in favor of legalizing marijuana in the last year or so. These people have shown courage in the face of this artificial drug hysteria.

* Governor Jesse Ventura of Minnesota – Governor Ventura, the first governor elected by the Reform Party, is the famous ex-wrestler/Navy Seal who is known for telling it like it is.

* Governor Gary Johnson of New Mexico – The Republican governor has come out in favor of legalizing pot. This is an especially brave move for a Republican as the Republican Party has been especially abusive of Marijuana users.

* Hugh Downs – ABC News 20/20 co-anchor and respected journalist for more than 60 years retired. On his last show he was asked if he had any opinions of his own that he’d like to express. He responded the marijuana should be legalized.

Oppressing Pot Smokers is the Real Crime

The time has come where ‘We the People’ have to stand up to the government and tell them that we are no longer going to put up with the jailing and oppression of pot smokers and this artificial war on drugs. They teach you that there are three branches of government by in fact there are four branches. The fourth branch of government is the people. The time has come for reasonable people to rise up against the government and to force them to justify the reason for oppressing pot smokers and drug addicts. People in America have been to complacent for to long and the time has come to stand up and get in their faces and demand satisfaction.

Myths about Marijuana

The most common myth is that “Marijuana Leads to Harder Drugs.” Critics say the medical marijuana movement promotes drug abuse and criminal behavior by ushering young people into what one judge has called “the kindergarten of the drug industry”. They call Pot the “gateway drug” and say that once you do Pot that you will need to move on to harder drugs like LSD, Heroine, and Cocaine to get the same “thrill”. Sounds good, but it just isn’t so.

Marijuana does not lead to harder drugs!
Actually, if there is anything that’s a gateway drug, it’s nicotine. Tobacco is the first drug that kids use. It’s illegal for kids and, unlike Pot, it’s addictive. Once a kid is hooked on nicotine they have joined the ranks of drug addicts. As an addict already it’s easier for them to move on to other addictive drugs like Alcohol, Cocaine, Crack, Meth, and Heroine.

Marijuana on the other hand is the choice of the responsible drug user. A person who wants to get high on something that isn’t addictive and doesn’t have any long term health effects for the moderate user would likely choose to smoke Pot. This is the drug of choice for those who don’t want to be on the path of drug addiction.

Another common myth is, “there is no official proof to back the contention that marijuana can help ease symptoms of AIDS, cancer, multiple sclerosis and other serious diseases.” But the reason there is no proof is that the government is actively avoiding the funding of medical research into medical uses of Marijuana because they are afraid that they will indeed discover what doctors already know and it would undermine the laws criminalizing Marijuana and lead to legalization. If you want to read something amusing, read the study from National Institute of Health. Here’s pages and pages documenting the results of doing nothing to research the medical benefits of smoking Pot. I’ve never seen such a long paper documenting what the government hasn’t investigated or tested. If the government weren’t afraid of legalizing Pot they would test it. The fact that the government won’t do medical tests on Pot proves that they don’t want to know the truth.

What’s more outrageous is the claims that the government makes about Marijuana when they refuse to make any medical or scientific tests. They claim that smoked Marijuana damages the brain, heart, lungs and immune system, but they don’t know that. There have been some tests done indicating that Marijuana can cause lung cancer, even more so than cigarettes. But those test don’t take into account that the usage isn’t 100th as much as cigarette smokers. If the government wants to make medical claims about Pot they should test it and look at the scientific data. I challenge the government to do the research and then we’ll talk about reality.

Twisting Logic

I find it amazing how the anti-pot organizations twist logic to try to justify their positions that pot is a dangerous drug. And these people wonder why teenagers don’t take their message seriously. Teens just aren’t that stupid. And when you try to pull stupid logic tricks on teens they resent it and ignore you. If they are going to accuse us of being brain damaged, the sure aren’t setting a very good example of what “normal” is supposed to be. Here some examples of tortured logic:

* “90% of drug addicts smoked Marijuana first. Therefore, smoking Marijuana leads to harder drugs.”

Wow! This is really brilliant. Based on that reasoning, 99% of drug addicts attended church before becoming a drug addict. Therefore going to church leads to harder drugs. What else did over 90% of drug addicts do first? Over 90% of drug addicts smoked a cigarette, most still do. They drank alcohol, most still do. How about watched television, voted for a Democrat, had a pet, had sex, owned a bicycle, chewed gum, participated in sports, celebrated Halloween, had a religious experience, took something that didn’t belong to them, voted for a Republican, told a lie, wondered if they might be homosexual, or ate too much white sugar. Using the same reasoning, all these activities must also lead to harder drugs.

* “There are over 400 chemicals in the marijuana plant.”

There are over 400 chemicals in every plant. There are over 700 chemicals added to American cigarettes.

* “When a user begins to feel that he or she needs to take the drug to feel well, that person is said to be dependent or addicted to the drug.

I suppose I’m addicted to aspirin. When I get a headache, I need aspirin to feel well. Everything that feels good is addictive and there’s a 12 step program out there for every one of them. And if you don’t believe it, you’re in DENIAL! Since they know that Pot isn’t addictive, they try to redefine the word “addiction” and try to make Pot fit the new definition. The fact that the need to twist the definition indicates that they know that Pot doesn’t fit the traditional definition of addiction.

Drug addiction occurs when the drug affects the body in a way that causes the body to become dependent on the drug and causes a negative reaction when the drug is removed. Marijuana, LSD, and magic mushrooms are examples of non-addictive drugs. Cocaine, Heroine, Methamphedamine, Alcohol, Tobacco, and Caffeine are examples of addictive drugs. Telling lies about what drugs are addictive is not going to help solve the drug problem.

Source.

 

Tripping on wombs: Cannabis for Pregnancy Nausea?

November 7, 2009 – Imagine, if you will, a dream-universe where every moment is idle, floaty, warm and comforting. And smells kind of like hippies. Someday, that fantasy-world could be more than just the average day in a stoner’s basement: fetuses might be tripping in a THC womb, if researchers at the University of Victoria have their way.

In a study done in 2006, but republished this November in the Journal of Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice, a research team set out to determine whether medical cannabis could help expectant moms with symptoms of morning sickness. They polled a group of 84 women who used medicinal cannabis, of whom 79 had already been pregnant. In fact, of those 79, 65 percent had used cannabis for pain relief during the pregnancy (but let’s not kid ourselves – the study was done in B.C.). A whopping 97 percent of the pregnant THC-lovers said the drug was “extremely effective” at treating nausea and vomiting.

This is excellent news for me, and thousands of other young women who are very reluctant to consider carrying a baby if it’s accompanied by nine months illness or discomfort. And hell, if I’m going to gain pregnancy pounds, I might as well do it with Doritos and cereal by the boxful.

Of course, as I mentioned earlier, this study was done in British Columbia. Which, growing up in Canada, I can attest to as the North American marijuana mecca. So if you want to ride out your pregnancy in style and comfort, ladies, venture north: we’ve got fields of anti-nausea medication selling at competitive, Canadian rates. By Katie Drummond. Source.

 

I Used To Smoke Pot – Can I Tell My Teen Not To?

November 7, 2009 – Even if you used to toke, you still need to confront your kid – especially if it’s posing problems at school.

Dear Dr. Wolf,

My teen smokes pot, plain and simple. He’ll never admit it, but I’ve found rolling papers and empty Ziploc bags in his room, and sometimes he smells like it when he comes home. He just started Grade 11, which is a big year.

My biggest issue is his moodiness and lack of ambition at school. I want to speak to him about the pros and cons, but I can’t lecture him because I did the same at his age. I got an education and a good job and stopped after university, but I had a lot of high-school friends who veered down the wrong path. How do I start this conversation with my son?
- -Pothead’s Pop

Dear Pothead’s Pop,

Many parents today feel conflicted about their children and marijuana use – especially if they themselves were marijuana users ( and perhaps still are ), and don’t feel that marijuana was ever a significant problem in their lives.

They may even think of it fondly. “What can I say? Had a really good time. I liked that part of my life.”

Even so, whether they smoked pot or not, most parents also know of at least one cautionary tale.

“Yeah, Jack Redburn. Good guy. But when he got heavily into pot in high school, he just kind of drifted. Even up to today, he’s always had just kind of dead-end jobs.”

And most parents are just not comfortable with the idea of their kid smoking pot, especially on a regular basis.

The problem, of course, is that there is a double standard. The risks that we were willing to take when we were teenagers is some. The degree of risk that we are comfortable with for our teens is none. “Yeah, let him sit home and play video games.”

“You don’t mind it if your kid has a totally boring, not really happy adolescence?”

“No, as long as he’s safe.”

Here’s the bottom line: If you feel your kid has a problem with marijuana – maybe you’re right, maybe you’re wrong – and you aren’t comfortable with it, then you need to act.

Do not ignore it. Do not suffer it. This is one of those tough teenage issues that has no absolute, guaranteed-to-work answers. But that does not mean that there aren’t things that you can and should do. Number one, you should confront them. Repeatedly. Regardless of your reception.

No, you probably won’t get this: “Oh, here for the marijuana talk again. I’m all ears.”

More like this: “Omigod, not this again. I don’t smoke marijuana. I don’t have a problem with marijuana. I would appreciate if you would just leave. I’m not going to listen anyway.”

Do not be deterred. Your point is to place your words in their head. And to keep placing them there. They would like to ignore them. But they can’t. Your words do create a negative awareness.

“Everything Dad says is totally stupid. I don’t care what he says, I’m going to do what I’m doing.”

But the unpleasant – for them – thoughts are in there. You are not going along with their total denial, and that’s what’s important.

Clinical psychologist Anthony E. Wolf is the author of six parenting books, including Get out of my life, but first could you drive me and Cheryl to the mall?: A Parent’s Guide to the New Teenager.

*

How to have a conversation with a possibly pothead teen

Go to them and start right in. Your point is not to try to convince them and to convey to them what you think. What you say should be short and simple. Here’s a sample.

1 ) “I’m concerned. I think you smoke and I think it’s a problem.”

“This is so crazy, Dad. I don’t smoke and I don’t have a problem.”

Do not argue with them. You are simply stating what you think.

2 ) “You may think you have control over your marijuana smoking. But with many pot smokers the way that it works is that you think that it is you who is choosing to smoke or not, but it isn’t. I worry that it is this way with you.”

“You so much don’t know what you are talking about.”

Again, do not touch it.

3 ) “I feel that your marijuana smoking is having a bad effect on you. I see your effort slipping in school. I see you having less ambition. And I see you more moody and more negative when you are home.”

“Marijuana has nothing to do with it. School is really stupid.”

4 ) “I worry that if you continue the way you’re going, you could end up not doing as much with your life as you should. Selling yourself short.”

And now you want to end. Your words are in their head.

And what do you say if you have been a marijuana smoker, especially if they ask. Be honest. Also, if you liked it and don’t feel that it was a big problem for you, but worry about the real risks for them, say that. You can say you feel you were fortunate, but that you believe marijuana smoking does have very real risks, and tell them what you think they are.

If you continue to be concerned, find out about resources in your area for teens with drug issues. Local hospitals and family doctors are usually good sources to find out what exists in your area. Source.

 

Hemp Making a Comeback Despite Idiotic Pot Laws

November 6, 2009 – The symptoms and side effects of reefer madness are now clearer than ever.

Politicians, even those who never inhaled, suffer paranoid delusions. Over the past century, Canada’s ludicrous and draconian marijuana policies wasted billions in criminal-justice resources.

Crime gangs got rich and recreational marijuana users–about as dangerous as contented cats–were fined and jailed by the thousands.

But that’s only half of it. What we now know is that the government’s marijuana paranoia cost this country a cash crop of boundless potential.

I don’t mean marijuana, though some of us wish pot was grown and taxed by government so the windfall could enrich society instead of gangsters.

I refer instead to hemp, a benign super-plant and casualty of Canada’s war on drugs.

Fortunately, hemp is finally making a comeback, in part because of the work of the Alberta Research Council.

ARC plant physiologist Jan Slaski is as keen on hemp as he is tired of reefer jokes.

Slaski isn’t laughing, he says, because the jokes only perpetuate a bad myth.

Hemp, or industrial hemp as Slaski calls it, is not marijuana. Two different plants.

Slaski says the hardy hemp plant has been cultivated for more than 8,000 years. Its plant fibres were used in everything from clothes to shoes to rope. Its seed oil is rich in health Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acids.

When Ukrainian settlers came to Canada, they brought hemp seeds. One record in the archives talked about pioneers using hemp to create a soothing tea.

But while industrial hemp has some of the psycho-active THC found in marijuana, the amounts are far less intoxicating than all-ages, de-alcoholized beer.

Slaski says THC concentrations in hemp are a fraction–one per cent or less–of that in marijuana. You’d die of smoke inhalation trying to get high.

Still, one of the research council’s aims is to breed a hemp plant with no detectable THC. Why? Because of marijuana paranoia.

In 1998, 60 years after the feds prohibited the growing of hemp as part of its war on drugs, controlled plots were again allowed.

Modern hemp growers had to jump through high hoops, including a criminal record check and detailed license application to Health Canada.

The lingering hemp hysteria is summed up nicely by one of Health Canada’s rules: No hemp can be grown within one kilometre of a school.

So why is the research council working so hard to redeem hemp? Well, because of its potential to not only give Alberta farmers an economic edge, but also help save the environment.

Hemp literally grows like a weed. It can reach or exceed three metres in height during our short growing season.

It produces biomass–usable plant material–like nothing else.

Researchers have yet to identify a pest threat to hemp. It’s early season vigour allows it to out-compete weeds. So unlike cereal crops, hemp is organic, requiring no pesticide applications.

“It truly is a super crop,” Slaski says.

Forget hemp’s healthy food-oil potential for a moment. That may come if people can get over the fear of taking a trip on hemp-fried foods.

But the fibre from hemp could be used in everything from pulp-and-paper to textiles. Alberta is only one of many jurisdictions in the world that clear-cuts forests for pulp.

Forest companies must travel further and further from the pulp mill to retrieve feed stock, which then takes at least 60 years to regrow.

Put enough hemp in production and you’d get an annual, renewable fibre supply for paper production.

Hemp could also replace cotton, which requires large applications of pesticides. Hemp could also replace glass fibre, which is used in the making of composite materials, like plastics for the automotive industry.

Glass fibre requires high heat and energy in its industrial production. Hemp? Rain and sun. Glass fibres aren’t biodegradable like hemp. Hemp fibres are lighter. Lighter cars require less fuel.

The use of hemp in composite plastics is being studied in earnest by the ARC. Slaski has talked to automakers who say they’ll sign contracts if hemp composites meet strict requirements. And if production levels can be guaranteed.

The first requirement is being met ARC labs. But we’re a long way from widespread hemp farming, largely because of its undeserved reputation.

But then again, marijuana also has an undeserved reputation. It’s obvious to anyone who looks objectively at the facts that marijuana causes less harm than alcohol, both to the individual and society.

Is marijuana safe? Any psychoactive substance can be abused. But marijuana doesn’t kill brain cells or inspire violence like alcohol does.

So when you consider how this society promotes and celebrates the use of a more dangerous drug, alcohol, our marijuana policies appear silly.

But even sillier is that industrial hemp got caught up in the madness.

In case you’re wondering, the answer is no. I don’t smoke pot. I tried it as a teenager but I found it made me paranoid. By Scott McKeen. Source.