Talk:Medical marijuana

(create an archive)

Negative Slant

I'm reluctant to rewrite a whole article and I'm not sure how much of this is my personal (pro marijuana) bias but this article seems to imply that medical majiuana is alterntive medicine and quackery. To quote (steal) from WP (excuse the broken links)

Dozens of medical organizations have endorsed allowing patients access to medical marijuana with their physicians' approval. These include, but are not limited to, the following:

• The American College of Physicians - America's second largest physicians group
• Leukemia & Lymphoma Society - America's second largest cancer charity.
• American Academy of Family Physicians
• American Public Health Association
• American Psychiatric Association
• American Nurses Association
• British Medical Association
• AIDS Action
• American Academy of HIV Medicine
• Lymphoma Foundation of America
• Health Canada

Doesn't this imply that medical marijuana is a valid, medically endorsed treatment? Silver Sloth 10:55, 12 June 2008 (EDT)

The article is a bit weird, it looks like it might have been written by duelling "argue by editing" authors. Anyway, the bit about Laetrile at the end is weird, and the "main arguments" for legalizing MM are that it actually has genuine uses. I added the AIDS appetite thing, also, it can be used as a simple analgesic-type thing - to alleviate pain/suffering due to some conditions. It also makes Pink Floyd sound like they play fast songs. ħuman 18:44, 30 March 2009 (EDT)

And I really don't understand why it is catted as "alternative medicine". ħuman 18:45, 30 March 2009 (EDT)

It's alternative medicine for the same reason someone taking any other herb in its natural form is alternative medicine. If the active ingredient in medical marijuana (presumably THC) were isolated and manufactured to strict pharmaceutical standards in measurable doses, that would be a different story. The difference between the two would be the same as the difference between willow bark and aspirin. One is a known quantity taken in a standard dosage, the other could contain any of a wide range of the active substance and preference for it over the pharmaceutically-manufactured stuff is in any case a bunch of nature woo. Secret Squirrel 21:47, 30 March 2009 (EDT)

Yes, but Big Pharma is working on the "active ingredient" pill, to avoid the side effects (of smoking, and other chemicals). Sorry, but I have to disagree with you, SS - MM is not "nature woo", it's as valid as "willow bark makes my teeth not hurt" - a genuine observation (smoking pot makes me hungry, which is good since my AIDS makes me not so), that science is struggling to isolate and improve upon - while dealing with an "illegal substance". ħuman 22:20, 30 March 2009 (EDT)

I think the point, though, is, do you actually chew willow bark to make your teeth stop hurting, or do you go out an get an aspirin? The variables in even eating high-THC cannabis, much less smoking it, make it an alternative medicine. Sake Fueled (talk) 15:57, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Its very hard to follow what this article is saying it's jumping all over the place and it has absolutely no flow to it. Also I think the use of the word alternative medicine needs to be clarified because of the negative connotations it holds. While I agree with the user above who pointed out the difference between alternative medicine and pharmaceuticals it has been proven that medicinal marijuana does have bona fide uses unlike other alt medicine "treatments" like echinacea that are completely useless. Sammygirl

The last sentence should be the first(with links to stories), the rest is just seems like the article is arguing with itself ^{— Unsigned, by: 99.9.128.56 / talk / contribs}

Did you read the above comments? Sometimes that's what our articles go through (and some never come out of it...) ħuman 05:04, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Medical woo

As this is rationalwiki,I was expecting more of a IT'S WOO slant, not a "its a good idea" slant. There are no serious benefits of marijuana, aside from Placebo effects.23.16.216.31 (talk) 22:13, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

"But I thought this was supposed to be RATIONALWiki!" Drink! ^narchist 22:40, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

So cannabinoids are placebos now, I wonder what's up with having an entire cannabinoid system in our brains if it's all placebo. C6541 (talk) 23:25, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

The essay states 'The main argument in favor of medical marijuana is a moral one: that the government should not be dictating what an informed person can and cannot put into their own body' This surely is the main argument against. Medical drugs are always illegal except when sanctioned by the state by a 'prescription'. Do we really need to go to the authorities in order for them to 'allow' us to toke on a spliff? WTF! http://www.szasz.com/cannabis.html " The advocates of medical marijuana have embraced a tactic that retards the repeal of drug prohibition and reinforces the moral legitimacy of prevailing drug policies. Instead of steadfastly maintaining that the war on drugs is an intrinsically evil enterprise, the reformers propose replacing legal sanctions with medical tutelage, a principle destined to further expand the medical control of everyday behavior." --Dirk Steele (talk) 17:18, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Not even wrong. NSAID's are available OTC. Don't try to claim they aren't "medical drugs." Wanker. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 17:23, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Ok I accept that. I love to take aspirin rather than smoke opium. But what have the Romans ever done for us? Dirk Steele (talk) 17:28, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Roman Red was a pleasant fiction. Take your polemics somewhere else. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 17:38, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

What have I said that is controversial? Dirk Steele (talk) 17:42, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

As usual Sprocket - what you do not say is always more profound than your words. Dirk Steele (talk) 17:58, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Anticonvulsant? Also Marinol?

Isn't it touted as an anticonvulsant as well? I don't see any mention of this on the page. (I believe research says no.)

Also, the article mentions Marinol, but it fails to point out that it is in fact legal (to prescribe - Sched. III), so all of this is the equivalent of touting opium over morphine. 75.67.160.30 (talk) 04:34, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Woo?

Medical Marijuana isn't woo, it's known to work, and there is scientific research to back it up. I think we need to distinguish between something having woo about it and something actually being woo. Master Necromancer^{What is dead may never die} 18:38, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Yes, it has both actual uses and woo aspects. I find it's the best intervention for a panic attack, as it takes effect much faster than any pill and can therefore quell the attack while it's still rising. It's also great for pain relief, both on its own and as a synergistic adjunct to more conventional pain meds — I've used it for that too when I need heavy pain relief, as I truly hate the mental effects of opioids. (Given the choice between pain and opioids, I'll take the pain almost every time, unless it's something really huge like a kidney stone. Medical marijuana gives me another choice.)

On the other hand, there are those people around who will tell you very insistently that smoking weed will cure cancer, AIDS, malaria, Ebola, and the dreaded knee lurgy (if you live in Portland, OR, as I do, you will spend time near one of these people almost every day whether you want to or not). Personally, I'm happy about legalisation; I'd come to feel quite scornful toward the all-too-many "medical marijuana clinics" that were clearly in the business of dreaming up a diagnosis for anyone who walked in the door with money and wanted a medical marijuana card to make it "legitimate". I have also come to loathe the sort of "medical" marijuana users who treat a medical marijuana card as a license to stay blasted 24/7 and bullshit everyone around them that it's "medicinal", when it's perfectly obvious that the only unpleasant condition they're treating with it is sobriety. These give genuine medical marijuana users like me a bad name. With legalisation, I can at least hope these will start to chill out and ditch the bullshit. I have no objection to people using it recreationally, and no objection to people using it medicinally, but people who do the former and pretend it's the latter burn my gut. You see, I have this severe allergy to bullshit.

There's actually some compelling evidence that THC can shrink and even cure cancer. A major research issue as the other drugs and chemo came before in almost all cases, so it can be hard to distinguish. Pbfreespace3 (talk) 02:12, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

Well, that's a half-truth. There are certain cannabinoids that have positive effects on some kinds of cancer. (There are so many different kinds of cancer that respond in so many different ways to different chemicals that anyone who says baldly that "X cures cancer" is to be presumed full of shit until proven otherwise; this is a prime marker of cancer woo.) That's a long way from saying that smoking or eating any amount of weed on a daily basis is going to provide a consistent therapeutic intake of those particular cannabinoids. That would be rather like suggesting that someone with heart arrhythmia could chew some foxglove and eat it instead of getting digitalis from a pharmacy. Marijuana itself is only a symptomatic palliative, even if it is quite a good one in some domains; as far as curing specific disease goes, it's going to be a source for specific pharmaceuticals that will be extracted and purified, or synthesised and eventually modified, to be administered in pure form at a controlled, consistent dose for good effect. There's a big difference between the two, and conflating them is not going to do anyone any service.

You essentially say that it's hit or miss, depending on the case. The same is true with chemotherapy. Pbfreespace3 (talk) 03:03, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

The difference is that chemo has been tested in controlled trials, has a known mechanism for efficacy, and even some pharmacogenetic research showing why it's "hit or miss". Medical marijuana isn't that well known yet. There is some research and more on the way (particularly in Colorado) but not enough to prove the woo case. MarmotHead (talk) 03:09, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

That's why the government needs to significantly change its policy and decriminalize marijuana and marijuana research, so research institutions can conduct massive controlled research to determine medical marijuana's efficacy. Specifically, take it off the Schedule and push for state-level repeal of marijuana statutes. Are you with me on that? Pbfreespace3 (talk) 03:14, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

Yup. I'm with you there. Actually state-funded randomized medical marijuana research funds a small part of my job right now. MarmotHead (talk) 03:18, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

Cool. Pbfreespace3 (talk) 03:20, 26 March 2016 (UTC)