Medical Marijuana Monday..

Irv Rosenfeld, one of only five Federal cannabis patients talks about medical mj.

Cannabis does relieve pain-UCSD study says

The website Science Daily has an article dated Oct 25, 2007 up about a recent study conducted at UC San Diego. This study specifically centered on neuropathic pain:

In the placebo controlled study of 15 subjects, a low dose of cannabis showed no effect, a medium dose provided moderate pain relief, and a high dose increased the pain response. The results suggest a "therapeutic window" for cannabis analgesia, according to lead researcher Mark Wallace, M.D., professor of anesthesiology at UCSD School of Medicine and Program Director for the UCSD Center for Pain Medicine.

The study used capsaicin, an alkaloid derived from hot chili peppers that is an irritant to the skin, to mimic the type of neuropathic pain experienced by patients with HIV/AIDS, diabetes or shingles -- brief, intense pain following by a longer-lasting secondary pain. The subjects were healthy volunteers who inhaled either medical cannabis or a placebo after pain was induced. The marijuana cigarettes were formulated under NIH supervision to contain either zero, two, four or eight percent delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC.)

Not to bore you with the details, but plenty of studies from Europe and Canada echo this same result; that cannabis can and should be used as an analgesic/pain reliever when it comes to different types of pain and the affects of other illnesses and diseases. This should not be something that needs to be studied ad-nauseum any longer my dear reader. Cannabis has virtually no long-lasting side effects nor will its constant use cause harm to other organs of the body, unlike many of the traditional medications prescribed to people with chronic pain such as myself. Cannabis has also been shown to be effective in reducing the nausea induced by cancer chemotherapy, stimulating appetite in AIDS patients, and reducing intraocular pressure in people with glaucoma. There is also appreciable evidence that marijuana reduces muscle spasticity in patients with neurological disorders. As for the ‘old wives tale’ that cannabis smoke is as dangerous to the lungs as tobacco smoke..bullshit my dear reader. There are also reports out there that blow that one right out of the water…not to mention there are numerous ways to ingest cannabis..but I digress. For HIV/AIDS sufferers, this news that cannabis helps neuropathic pain is welcome since their pain has a different methodology attached to it.

I suffer from a degenerative condition that so far has taken three of my lumbar discs from me, and is slowly destroying the three discs above those. It is bone against bone in my lower back; the discs are gone my dear reader. This creates a problem with the nerve root in my spinal column..just think about trying to shove 10 pounds of shit into a 5 pound bag…it doesn’t work well when constricted and my sciatic nerve causes me constant, debilitating pain as well down my left leg.

Plenty of chronic pain sufferers can no longer tolerate the traditional drugs prescribed for back and nerve pain. The known side effects of just one of the drugs I take daily are so lethal that I have to take additional drugs to counteract the anti-inflammatory medication not to mention the constant rotating of my pain medications to insure I do not become addicted to them. Pain medications like opioids and their derivatives have side effects that affect my body’s ability to metabolize my food correctly among other things. My liver has one hell of a time breaking down all the bullshit in man-made medications to boot.

Which brings me back to the pain-relieving properties of cannabis. It’s a natural occurring plant, and the human brain actually has receptors that interact with it to provide its pain-relieving properties ‘naturally’.

Yet we, as American’s, are forced to deal with a ridiculous set of federal laws that rate cannabis in the same class as morphine and it’s derivatives. We allow our federal government to do this without so much as a hearing. Our federal fuckwits at the helm will hold hearings on anything and everything..but not the classification of cannabis, a drug that has been shown to alleviate the suffering of patients with multiple sclerosis, AIDS, Alzheimer's disease and insomnia to name just a few in studies conducted in Canada and Europe.

Its wrong on every level..every stinking level. And when states such as my home state of California attempt to right the wrong..we get our dispensaries raided weekly by the DEA, just to remind us that THEY hold all the cards in spite of how California voters demanded an end to this bullshit over a decade ago.

Watch Irv Rosenfeld's Medical Marijuana Testimony at the top of my post. Listen to his common sense approach to the demonization of medical cannabis by our federal government. Another blogger is also blogging on the subject of cannabis, Robert Rouse at Left of Centrist. Please visit his blog for more on this subject.

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