Cannabis and the Physician

 

"Cannabis indica must be looked upon as one of the most important drugs of Indian Materia Medica." 

- Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1894-95

'This system, however - deliberately poisoning our food, then policing the result - is too reminiscent of Lewis Carroll's White Knight who thought of 'a plan to dye one's whiskers green, and always use so large a fan that they could not be seen.' The ultimate answer is to use less toxic chemicals so that the public hazard from their misuse is greatly reduced.' 

- Silent Spring, Rachel Carson, 1962  

 

Healthiness and sickliness: but here we have to be careful! The standard remains physical efflorescence, intellectual agility, courage and cheerfulness - but also, of course, how much sickness one can put up with and overcome - how much of it one can transform into health. The very things which would ruin a man of more delicate constitution are among the things which stimulate great health 

 - Friedrich Nietzsche

 

"Out of a total of 1,193 European and Native witnesses before the Commission, little less than two-thirds refer to the use of hemp drugs by the Vedanti and Yunani schools of native physicians and native doctors generally...If the number of witnesses who speak of this use in each province may be taken as approximately indicating its extent, then it would appear that the medicinal use is well known throughout India." 

- Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1894-95

 

'A new analysis of cannabis research funding in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom has found that $1.56 billion was directed to the topic between 2000 and 2018—with about half of the money spent on understanding the potential harms of the recreational drug. Just over $1 billion came from the biggest funder, the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), which doled out far more money to research cannabis misuse and its negative effects than on using cannabis and cannabis-derived chemicals as a therapeutic drug'

- Science Magazine

 

The physician is at the center of the medical industry. He is like a conductor, who orchestrates the symphony of the various components of the medical industry, at least theoretically, since he is the person who diagnoses what is disease, decides what is good medicine and how a person in ill-health can be brought back to good health. Who is the medical industry? The medical industry consists of doctors, nurses, support staff, hospitals, pharmacists, medical insurance companies, regulators, medical equipment manufacturers, medical media, policy makers, lobbyists, medical and health related departments of governments, medical research bodies, NGOs related to medicine, etc. As is obvious, the medical industry is massive. It is omnipresent in its reach and over riding in its influence on all decisions related to public health and medicine. Let me stress here that by the medical industry I specifically mean the industry based on the western system of medicine since all other systems of medicine pale in significance, or are non-existent, compared to it.

In many ways the vast network of resources and personnel that this system possesses should be a great asset in providing universal healthcare for the world. But the sad fact is that this is not the case. This is because the medical industry is, in fact, an industry. The service to life, above all else, is an often touted and displayed noble goal of the medical profession but the industry functions far from the goal. The motivation and goal of the industry is, in almost all cases, profit. There was a time, in the not too distant past, when the medical profession was regarded as noble. Even today among vast sections of society, the doctor is almost akin to god. His word is the truth. 

Yes, there may have been times when this image of the doctor as healer, and his medicine as a boon. were justified. In the early days, it was quite common to find a physician who belonged to the working classes. Today it is very rare. One must come from a wealthy family to pay the fees for education. And that is not enough. One must also come from an influential family, preferably with a history of physicians in it. This exclusive club makes it very tough for an outsider to break into. A person from the lower classes or castes who manages to get into this elite club faces severe discrimination and harassment from the elites who view this as an intrusion into their domain. For the physician who pays through his nose to get a medical education, the goal is to start making returns on the investment as soon as possible. Today, globally, the doctor is a person who has gotten into medical college, more often than not, through the use of wealth and influence and the ability to work with a system that focuses on profit. The medical college as an institution works to serve those who fund it - primarily multi-billion dollar hospitals, pharmaceutical and medical equipment industries. The persons who fund and support medical institutions dictate the course curriculum, areas of research focus, and scholarship grants to students and teachers at medical colleges. The medical student - who very often has neither the aptitude nor the desire to pursue the noble ideals of the profession - is pushed into taking up medicine as a career path to fulfill his, or his family's, economic and social aspirations. The huge sums of money invested in medical education is seen by the doctor, and his or her family, as a cost that must be recovered. The way to recover the costs is to plunge headlong into the world of promoting expensive synthetic pharmaceutical drugs, drawing fat salaries, and gaining employment in the richest hospitals.

The motivations and the career story of the nurse, pharmacist, and medical researcher are also the same as that of the doctor. 

The primary reasons for this sorry state of affairs of the medical industry is: the rise of giant pharmaceutical companies and medical equipment manufacturers with multi-billion dollar research departments; increasingly sophisticated, expensive diagnostic and treatment related equipment and technology; and the complete bias towards western medicine as the de facto standard at the cost of all other systems of medicine - especially the indigenous and traditional systems of natural medicine.

With its financial clout on the world stage, the western medical industry has painted its own version of the truth, where the only scientific and effective medicine is the one that a pharma company produces, the only good doctor is the one who earns millions treating the world's elite, and the only good hospital is the one that has the closest resemblance to a seven-star hotel.

The fact that traditional and natural systems of medicine are the most sustainable, tried and tested and inexpensive means of providing the universal access to medicine and health for billions of the world's majority - who cannot afford the expensive models of treatment approved and promoted by the world's elite - is lost in the pursuit of wealth in the name of medicine and health care.

Cannabis is as much a threat to the medical industry, as it is to the synthetic pharmaceutical industry. The medical industry is the elitist business that it is today mainly due to the money that has been pumped into it by the synthetic pharmaceutical industry. The pharmaceutical industry raises the economic bar for entry into the medical industry. With its sponsorships and lobbying, the pharmaceutical industry has ensured that only the very rich upper classes can enter the medical industry. The synthetic pharmaceutical industry ensures that money flows smoothly into the hands of physicians through the sales of their products, as recommended by the physician.  The physician today is the front line salesman for the pharmaceutical industry. He is the last link between the pharma industry and the patient. He prescribes the medicine that the patient must go and procure from the pharmacy. The patient completely trusts the doctor and has faith in him, willingly buying whatever ensures the doctor's sales incentives for the month. For many, the physician is god, and can do no wrong. To top it all, there are only specialists these days, with hardly a general practitioner around. Some time back there were actually physicians who took to the profession to provide care for the sick and the needy. Today, it is to make money, raise one's status in society, get married to someone from the upper class, get a job abroad, and various other such reasons that drive a person to take up the medical profession. The field of natural medicine, and its practice, is considered unscientific and quackery by this class of people, who have coupled themselves completely with the synthetic pharmaceutical industry. Medical education itself is education in synthetic pharmaceutical drugs. 

The modern medical industry caters to possibly 5% of the world's population, yet it makes decisions for the entire 100%. It does not work along with other medical systems in collaboration to provide affordable, safe and accessible healthcare to the entire world's population which should be its goal. Instead, it works to ruthlessly eliminate all competition to synthetic pharmaceuticals, and views its market as primarily the 5% of the world's population who can enable the industry to post ever increasing earnings and profits.

The medical industry does not recognize the value of natural medicine. They have vast belief in the synthetic pharmaceutical drugs that have been approved by regulatory bodies, after pharma companies pump in billions of dollars on research, marketing and lining the pockets of both regulatory bodies and physicians. This is the age of specialists, where a generic medicine like cannabis finds no place, especially when it is just a plant that can be grown in anybody's home, and not a synthetic medicine backed by perks and commissions. What Rachel Carson wrote about economic entomologists, in her book Silent Spring in 1962, is very much relevant in the field of the medical industry as well. She says 'It was reported in 1950 that only 2 per cent of all the economic entomologists in the country were then working in the field of biological controls. A substantial number of the remaining 98 per cent were engaged in research on chemical insecticides. Why should this be? The major chemical companies are pouring money into the universities to support research on insecticides. This creates attractive fellowships for graduate students and attractive staff positions. Biological control studies, on the other hand, are never so endowed - for the simple reason that they do not promise anyone the fortunes that are to be made in the chemical industry. These are left to state and federal agencies, where the salaries paid are far less.' Even though every physician is well aware of the dangers of synthetic pharmaceutical medications, especially from prolonged use, as well as the costs of medicine involved, and the inaccessibility of these medicines for the non-elite classes, they work as marketing persons for these synthetic pharmaceuticals. Rachel Carson writes in Silent Spring - 'The current vogue for poisons has failed utterly to take into account these most fundamental considerations. As crude a weapon as the cave man's club, the chemical barrage has been hurled against the fabric of life - a fabric on the one hand delicate and destructible, on the other miraculously tough and resilient, and capable of striking back in unexpected ways. These extraordinary capacities have been ignored by the practitioners of chemical control who have brought to their task no 'high-minded orientation', no humility before the vast forces with which they tamper.' Given the complexity of even a single pharmaceutical drug, it is shocking how physicians prescribe cocktails of pharma drugs, with scant disregard for the risks involved in the interaction of these various drugs. Some synthetic medications show greater toxicity when they come in contact with the chemical cocktails that the widespread use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers causes. Rachel Carson writes that 'What of other chemicals in the normal human environment? What, in particular, of drugs? A bare beginning has been made on this subject, but already it is known that some organic phosphates (parathion and malathion) increase the toxicity of some drugs used as muscle relaxants, and that several others (again including malathion) markedly increase the sleeping time of barbiturates.'

This is the sad context within which cannabis as universal, traditional, safe, inexpensive, accessible medicine finds itself today. The medical industry, based on the system of western synthetic pharmaceutical medicine, is very strongly opposed to the legalization of cannabis, not only because it does not care about the health and welfare of the vast majority of the world but also because it fears that cannabis as medicine is potent enough to eat into its market of the wealthy elite classes of all nations that provide the bulk of its earnings. The alarming fact that today's medical industry lives in an unsustainable bubble of its own lies and creations, and is not willing to look beyond its earnings and profits at the suffering of the vast majority of the world and what is needed for their welfare, makes it one of the most formidable opponents to cannabis legalization and the reform of the medical industry itself.

Cannabis was the foremost of natural medicines until the 19th century in India. The British doctor O'Shaugnessy discovered the extensive usage of cannabis for medical purposes in India in the 18th century, and used it in Britain to treat various illnesses like tetanus. The usage of cannabis as medicine was so widespread in 19th century India that it led the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission in its report of 1893-94 to state that  - 'The use of hemp drugs by native physicians, as evidenced from replies of witnesses received by the Commission, may be considered under two main heads—(a) as specifics in the treatment of diseases, and (b) in their general therapeutic applications; while a few uses of the drugs which do not fall within these divisions are also occasionally mentioned. It is hardly necessary to premise that the use of hemp drugs by hakims, etc., is wholly empirical, the drugs being used apparently haphazard for the most diverse diseases. It is interesting, however, to note that while the drills appear now to be frequently used for precisely the same purposes and in the same manner as was recommended centuries ago, many uses of these drugs by native doctors are in accord with their application in modern European therapeutics. Cannabis indica must be looked upon as one of the most important drugs of Indian Materia Medica.' Cannabis was extensively used by native Indian physicians to treat a variety of diseases for young and old alike, for men and women, for rich and poor. Many people had cannabis plants growing in their own houses, while for others, the extensive cultivation of cannabis through the length and breadth of the country ensured that they could always buy their cannabis from any retail outlet, like other herbs. Even the poorest could afford and access cannabis. In fact, cannabis was the intoxicant and medicine for the poorest people in India. Once synthetic pharmaceutical medicines won acceptance among India's ruling and upper classes - like alcohol, tobacco and opium - cannabis was quickly prohibited to make all the other classes also switch to the synthetic pharmaceutical drugs. Physicians grew rich selling western pharmaceutical medicines. The pharmaceutical companies got richer and started influencing the very idea of medicine, creating the narrative that natural medicine was ineffective. They influenced medical schools to adopt their way, and lobbied extensively to ensure that cannabis remained prohibited and maligned.

Cannabis presents an opportunity for the medical industry to align itself with the goals of sustainable, affordable, equitable, universal and safe health and medicine for all. Already in 38 states in the US, as well as countries such as Germany, Israel and Australia, cannabis is increasingly being used as medicine to treat a number of health conditions across genders, age groups, ethnic and economic backgrounds. Cannabis is starting to be covered by medical insurance in many places. Many of the top physicians, medical institutions and research bodies are starting to support cannabis as a treatment option. Quite often, the change is driven by patients demanding better medicine than what the industry currently has to offer. What is needed is for physicians and the top decision makers in the medical industry to understand the path that cannabis offers for truly universal, sustainable, affordable and safe medicine. Besides the understanding, there is also the need of the hour to look beyond profits and financial returns and to promote the usage of the plant globally.

Today, in places where medical and/or recreational cannabis has been legalized, patients are driving the change back to cannabis as natural medicine. The patient asks for cannabis - in place of synthetic pharmaceutical medications - often cutting down the number of different medicines consumed for various conditions and sometimes one condition. It is not uncommon for a patient to replace dozens of synthetic pharmaceutical medications with cannabis. NORML reports that 'Authors further reported that cannabis therapy was associated with a reduction in subjects' use of prescription medications – a finding that is consistent with prior studies. Overall, participants discontinued taking a total of 39 prescription medicines during the study period. Patients were most likely to eliminate their use of opioids, anxiolytics, and anti-depressants after initiating cannabis therapy. They concluded, "We found an overall improvement in the patients, including of their symptoms and medical conditions, cessation or reduction of traditional drug usage, and a general improvement in life quality. ... Overall, 39 dosages of prescription drugs were cancelled for the 19 elderly individuals included in this research, indicating that medical cannabis can be an effective treatment that also reduces environmental drug load."' There are about 30 medical conditions for which cannabis can be used as medicine in the US alone. As Lester Grinspoon's website says, as early as in 1993 - 'When we reviewed its medical uses in 1993 after examining many patients and case histories, we were able to list the following: nausea and vomiting in cancer chemotherapy, the weight loss syndrome of AIDS, glaucoma, epilepsy, muscle spasms and chronic pain in multiple sclerosis, quadriplegia and other spastic disorders, migraine, severe pruritus, depression, and other mood disorders. Since then we have identified more than a dozen others, including asthma, insomnia, dystonia, scleroderma, Crohn’s disease, diabetic gastroparesis, and terminal illness. The list is not exhaustive.' For the medical industry, the legalization of cannabis will mean that patients will want cannabis prescribed as medicine, instead of synthetic pharmaceutical drugs. This means that the sales of synthetic pharmaceutical drugs will come down drastically, and consequently the money that flows into the medical industry from the synthetic pharmaceutical industry.  Cannabis, as medicine, has the potential to replace whole classes of synthetic medicines - analgesics, anti-cancer drugs, anti-nausea drugs, sedatives, stimulants, anti-epilepsy drugs, anti-autism drugs, anti-HIV drugs, antibiotics, wellness and cosmetic drugs, etc., etc. Hence, both the medical industry and the synthetic pharmaceutical industries fear the legalization of cannabis the most. It is not because cannabis will cause damage to society, as the myths created by these industries tell you. It is because the inflow of revenue will greatly reduce for these two industries, society will become healthier, and the need for the physician and synthetic pharmaceutical medicines will become less. 

In the US, in the 38 states where cannabis has been approved for the treatment of nearly 30 medical conditions, most doctors cite inadequate knowledge about cannabis as one of the main reasons for not recommending it as treatment. It is, quite often, the patient, or the patient's family, that requests the physician to prescribe cannabis. They face resistance from the physician. Epilepsy Behavior reports that 'Parents sought medical cannabis as a treatment because of a perceived unmet need stemming from the failure of antiepileptic drugs to control their children's seizures. Medical cannabis was viewed as an acceptable treatment, especially compared with adding additional antiepileptic drugs. After learning about medical cannabis from the media, friends and family, or other parents, participants sought authorization for medical use. However, most encountered resistance from their child's neurologist to discuss and/or authorize medical cannabis, and many parents experienced difficulty in obtaining authorization from a member of the child's existing care team, leading them to seek authorization from a cannabis clinic. Participants described spending up to $2000 per month on medical cannabis, and most were frustrated that it was not eligible for reimbursement through public or private insurance programs.' Tand Online reports that 'Overall, this study finds that the adoption and diffusion of [Medical Marijuana Laws] MMLs is mainly determined by the opinions of citizens rather than the political ideology of elected officials or the government’s fiscal health conditions.' Where cannabis is legal for medical purposes, it is often only the wealthy who can afford or access it. In UK, The Guardian reports that 'Wealthier families and those who can successfully raise funds pay about £2,000 a month to access full-leaf cannabis medicines via private prescription for children with rare forms of treatment-resistant epilepsy, while poorer parents are unable to afford the prescriptions.  Experts say that, despite the drug’s legality, rigid prescribing guidelines for doctors set by the British Paediatric Neurological Association – which cite a lack of clinical research and reference disputed theories about the mental health effects of cannabis – make getting hold of the medicine on the NHS difficult in practice.' NORML reports that 'Consistent with prior research, authors reported, “Only 18 percent of participants rated their PCP’s [primary care prover’s] knowledge about medical cannabis as very good or excellent and only 21 percent were very or completely confident in their PCP’s ability to integrate medical cannabis into their treatment.” As a result, most subjects (86 percent) reported obtaining their medical cannabis recommendation from a doctor specializing in cannabis rather than from their primary care provider.' Springer reports that 'Although a majority of radiation oncologists believe there are benefits to therapeutic cannabis, many are hesitant to recommend for or against its use. Radiation oncologists appear to be interested in learning more about how therapeutic cannabis may play a role in their patients’ care.' NORML reports that 'Authors concluded: “We show that physicians from a university-affiliated health system in a state with legal recreational and medical cannabis have generally low levels of factual knowledge about medical cannabis. … Our results highlight the mismatch between physician knowledge and medical cannabis policy. Despite numerous long-standing medical cannabis laws (11 years in the state of the current study), physician training and education has insufficiently prepared physicians on cannabis-related knowledge. This is especially true for dosing, as most respondents were unsure about effective doses (in mg) of THC or CBD. … This lack of knowledge has contributed to general discomfort with integrating cannabis into medical practice. This discomfort likely pushes patients to turn to other sources to obtain cannabis-related knowledge, including the popular press, personal research, or from dispensary staff who receive little or no medical training. As such, more comprehensive training is necessary for physicians to bridge the gap between cannabis policy and clinical care.”' BMC reports that 'This review indicates that GPs [general physicians] and hospital physicians from various specialties frequently experience patient demands for medical cannabis and to some degree show openness to using it, although there was a wide gap between studies in terms of willingness to provide. Hospital physicians and GPs’ experienced in prescribing are more convinced of effects and less worried of adverse effects. However, most physicians experience a lack of knowledge of beneficial effects, adverse effects and of how to advise patients, which may comprise barriers towards prescribing. More research, including larger studies with cohort designs and qualitative studies, is needed to further examine facilitators and barriers to physicians’ prescribing practices.' Wiley Publications reports that 'Among nurses and physicians, stigma towards medicinal cannabis users mediated the relationship between attitudes towards the medical use of cannabis and the intention to recommend medicinal cannabis for patients with qualifying conditions, whereas subjective norms moderated this relationship. Effective treatment with medicinal cannabis might be compromised by health-care providers' negative attitudes, stigma and subjective norms'. NORML reports that 'A majority of physicians say that they lack the skills to adequately counsel patients on the potential use of medical cannabis, according to survey data published in the journal Cannabis and Cannabinoid Research. Researchers affiliated with the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor surveyed 244 physicians regarding their willingness to engage in discussions with their patients about cannabis. Consistent with prior surveys of health care professionals, most respondents perceived themselves as possessing “low knowledge and competence” with respect to the use of medical cannabis. When discussing the issue with their patients, most doctors limited their conversations to those involving cannabis-specific risks rather than safe use practices. Only a minority of those surveyed acknowledge having ever recommended medical marijuana to their patients. Those doctors that were willing to do so tended to be younger and were more likely to have “completed a formal course on medical cannabis.”' Due to the federal illegality of cannabis in the US, many hospitals, especially those that receive federal funding, are reluctant to prescribe cannabis, even in US states with legalization adult recreational use. Marijuana Moment reports that 'Hospitals that receive [Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)] accreditation are generally expected to comply with local, state and federal laws in order to qualify for certain reimbursements. And so because marijuana remains federally illegal, “many healthcare facilities have adopted policies prohibiting cannabis on their grounds out of a perceived risk of losing federal funding if they were to allow it.” In general, the attitude of most physicians is very much anti-cannabis today, after years of the anti-cannabis propaganda, and the tight coupling of the synthetic pharmaceutical industry with the medical industry everywhere. William S Burroughs, writing in his book Junk in 1952, says 'Federal and state narcotic authorities put every obstacle in the way of addicts who want a cure. No reduction cures are given in city or state institutions. Two hundred dollars is minimum for a ten-day cure in a private sanatorium. Hospitals are forbidden by law to give addicts any junk. I knew an addict who needed an operation for stomach cancer. The hospital could not give him any junk. Sudden withdrawal of junk plus the operation would likely have killed him so he decided to skip the operation.'

Most national and international medical associations - if not all - are against cannabis legalization, especially for adult recreational use. Regarding the American Medical Association (AMA)'s opposition to cannabis, CNN reports that 'The organization's current position will not stop the nation's march toward cannabis legalization. But make no mistake: Its active opposition to legalization prevents cannabis regulation and delays the end of this racially biased policy. The AMA's blindness to its own institutional racism is a moral stain on our profession. And with every passing year -- every day -- a heavy cost is paid in Black lives. Voters around the nation approved all five cannabis initiatives on the ballot in November -- three for adult use, one for medical use and one for both uses -- so the need to properly regulate this drug has never been greater. If the AMA is serious about righting the wrongs of its past, it must renounce the racist war on drugs and support effective regulation of cannabis as the only logical alternative to the destructive policy of prohibition.' Many medical associations have failed to back legalization attempts by the people, and have in some cases, worked directly with the government to revoke ballot and referendum based legalization initiatives by the public. Marijuana Moment reports that 'Two medical associations are throwing their support behind a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the medical marijuana ballot initiative that Mississippi voters overwhelmingly approved in November, arguing that it creates “risks to public health” and places a “burden” on physicians. The American Medical Association (AMA) and its state affiliate, the Mississippi State Medical Association (MSMA), recently filed an amicus brief backing the legal challenge being considered by the state Supreme Court, which was brought by the city of Madison just days before the election.' In New Zealand, where nearly 50% of the people voted in favor of cannabis legalization, the government still refused to respect the choice of nearly half its people, because those who opposed it constituted a fraction of a single percent more than those who wanted it. The New Zealand Medical Association surely was one of the factors for the failed legalization attempt. After initially stating that it backed the referendum, the Association then changed its stance, owing to pressure from members of the association who feared the threat of legal cannabis to their fat paychecks sponsored by the pharmaceutical industry. RNZ.CO.UK reports that 'The New Zealand Medical Association has backtracked on its stance opposing the cannabis referendum, and apologised to doctors who feel they were misrepresented. It now says it is not taking a position on the referendum.' According to GrapeVine, the Icelandic Medical Association, along with law enforcement is opposed to drug decriminalization in Iceland, which I read as opposition to cannabis legalization as well. The report says 'The National Commissioner of Police and the Icelandic Medical Association oppose a bill by the Minister of Health on the decriminalization of drug consumption, RÚV reports. According to the bill, which has majority public support, possession of narcotics and drugs in limited quantities will not be punishable. The National Commissioner of Police says they cannot support the bill in its current form because it offers different interpretations that may make it more difficult for the police to enforce the law. The Icelandic Medical Association believes that the way proposed in the bill will increase the “drug problems of Icelandic young people from what it is now”. NORML reports '“In the lead up to legalization, professional associations … suggested that legalization posed a threat to public health, advocated for the legal age for cannabis use to be set at a minimum age of 21 or 25, or that Canada should not legalize at all because it would place youth at greater risk of harm. With such categorical fears now shown to be largely unfounded, this should provide the basis to move forward on more nuanced grounds. … [O]n the balance, cannabis legalization – especially when considering the severe adverse social impacts of criminalization, and especially for youth – continues to offer the potential to better protect and achieve consequential net benefits to public health and welfare of cannabis users and society at large.”' Despite the global crisis of misuse of legal and illegal pharma drugs, the INCB still thinks that cannabis must remain prohibited, citing international treaties, despite the well-known fact that the inclusion of cannabis in the list of controlled substances was unscientific and unreasonable. MJBizDaily reports that 'The INCB’s president, Dr. Viroj Sumyai, noted in the foreword to the report that the conventions allow only for the medical and scientific use of cannabis, noting: “The legalization of the use of cannabis for nonmedical purposes in some countries represents a challenge to the universal implementation of the treaties, a challenge to public health and well-being, particularly among young people, and a challenge to the parties to the treaties.”'

Much of the anti-cannabis propaganda is created, spread and maintained by the medical industry. In India, The Hindu reports that 'The blood and urine samples of the first-year medical student who was found in a semi-comatose state at the AIIMS auditorium on September 18 and is battling for life have revealed traces of cannabis, also known as marijuana.' NYPost reports that 'In an email blasted out last week to city doctors and public health officials, DOH chief medical officer Dr. Michelle Morse described a troubling uptick in kids puffing on pot, e-cigarettes and hookah. Though just 3.3 percent of city public high school kids smoke cigarettes, 17.7 percent reach for reefer, Morse wrote in the email, a copy of which was obtained by The Post. An “alarming” 15.2 percent use e-cigarettes, 6.3 percent puff on cigars or cigarillos and 5.6 percent fire up the hookah, Morse added, citing unpublished data from a 2018 youth tobacco survey.' Most physicians who claim lack of knowledge when asked to prescribe cannabis for a medical condition, will be quick to speak about its so-called harms at the drop of a hat, or to be more specific, a few bucks. Hunter Thompson, writing in his book Fear and Loathing at Las Vegas, describes a typical anti-cannabis medical expert, who does the lecture circuit speaking to receptive audiences about the harms of cannabis. He says 'According to the book jacket, he is an "Associate Clinical Professor of Surgery (Anesthesiology) at the University of Southern California School of Medicine"...and also "a well known authority on the abuse of dangerous drugs." Dr. Bloomquist "has appeared on national network television panels has served as a consultant for government agencies, was a member of the Committee on Narcotics Addiction and Alcoholism of the Council on Mental Health of the American Medical Association." His wisdom is massively reprinted and distributed, says the publisher. He is clearly one of the heavies on that circuit of second-rate academic hustlers who get paid anywhere from $500 to $1,000 a hit for lecturing to cop-crowds.' The UNODC, which like regulatory bodies, must focus on the dangers of synthetic drugs and their proper control and regulation, instead continues to treat cannabis like a human-made synthetic drug. THC, the most medicinal compound in the cannabis plant, is especially targeted for propaganda and misinformation. UNODC, in its World Drug Report 2020, reports that 'The current public discourse around cannabis tends to conflate the non-medical use of cannabis products containing high levels of THC (vapes and concentrates) with medical use of preparation such as dronabinol and nabiximols containing THC and CBD for treating and managing health conditions, including chronic pain, multiple sclerosis and spasticity symptoms, as well as sleep disturbances associated with fibromyalgia and chronic pain. Personal testimonies on the use of cannabis products to self-medicate and alleviate health conditions cannot be heeded in lieu of rigorous clinical trials on the effectiveness of cannabis products in treating certain health conditions. Moreover, CBD, a cannabinoid that is not a psychoactive agent and is often promoted as a health and wellness product, should not be confused with THC, a very different and psychoactive cannabinoid, or with cannabis per se, which contains many different compounds. Policy, legislation and public debate would do well to address these very different issues with greater clarity.' We must not forget that the cannabis causes insanity myth created in 19th century India was broadcast worldwide primarily by physicians. This one myth was the most wide ranging reason for many nations prohibiting cannabis subsequently. The Indian Hemp Drugs Commission  in 1895 stated that - 'Over and over again the statistics of Indian asylums have been referred to in official documents or scientific treatises not only in this country, but also in other countries where the use of these drugs has demanded attention. Other alleged effects of the drugs have attracted but little attention compared with their alleged connection with insanity.' At the time that the Indian Hemp Commission was conducting its work, Burma was the only place where cannabis insanity had been stated as the justification for cannabis prohibition, based on the statistics from the Dacca Asylum. These statistics were produced and quoted by the asylum superintendent, Surgeon-Lieutenant-Colonel Crombie, in numerous instances - including before the Opium Commission - to emphasize that cannabis was most deleterious. It is interesting to note that Burma was a vital conduit for opium trade between China and Britain, and that there were more than a few Chinese and British who viewed cannabis as a threat. The Commission states that "Although these statistics have been discussed seriously from year to year, they have not been much used as the basis of measures of ganja administration except in the case of Burma. In this case the Commission found that the measures taken in Burma were ostensibly based on the lunatic asylum returns which were quoted by more than one Chief Commissioner, special reference being made to the figures for the Dacca Asylum. This special reference to this asylum and the fact that it is situated in the most important ganja-consuming tract in India were among the reasons why the Commission summoned Surgeon-Lieutenant-Colonel Crombie (Bengal witness No. 104) as a witness; for he had been seven years Superintendent of that asylum. Before the Opium Commission also, and in an interesting discussion on opium published as a Supplement to the Indian Medical Gazette of July 1892, Dr. Crombie had incidentally spoken strongly of the evil effects of hemp drugs as seen in his asylum experience. The Commission hoped therefore that Dr. Crombie might be found to have devoted special attention to his asylum work, and to be able to speak with exceptional authority. He informed the Commission in his written evidence that "nearly thirty per cent. of the inmates of lunatic asylums in Bengal are persons who have been ganja smokers, and in a very large proportion of these I believe ganja to be the actual and immediate cause of their insanity." On oral examination by the Commission of Dr. Crombie, who used the Dacca asylum statistics to justify cannabis as a cause for insanity, it was found that 9 of the 14 cases attributed to cannabis insanity were inaccurate, and the remaining 5 appeared doubtful. Even if one considered the 5 cases, it only constituted 9% of the total cases and not the 30% that Dr. Crombie stated in his written evidence to the Commission.

Not all physicians are bad apples, though most appear to be. It is only a few rare cases of physicians who are willing to go against the general anti-cannabis propaganda, and speak in its favor. When Bruce Lee's death was attributed to cannabis in Hong Kong by the authorities who view cannabis as the greatest threat to their opium culture, it took two western physicians to disprove the cannabis theory as cause of Lee's death. Ben Block, in his 1974 book, The Legend of Bruce Lee, says that 'Clinical pathologist Dr. R R Lycette of Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Hong Kong testified Lee's death could not have been caused by cannabis poisoning, but was more likely due to hypersensitivity to one of the elements of Equagesic. Dr. Lycette, who performed the autopsy on Lee, explained hypersensitivity is an adverse reaction of a body to a foreign substance. "The substance which Lee could have been hypersensitive to might have been contained in Equagesic - a tablet he took - but I can't definitely say which compound in the tablet Lee was hypersensitive to," said the doctor.' Another British doctor also refuted the cannabis theory, implicating the pharmaceutical drug Equagesic. Block further writes 'The top expert brought in on the case was Professor R D Teare, the professor of forensic medicine at the University of London. He ridiculed the theory that cannabis contributed to the collapse the actor suffered on May 10 or to his death on July 20. He said cannabis had been taken in various forms for centuries, and deemed it pure coincidence that shortly before the onset of Lee's collapse in May and his death he had taken cannabis. "It would be irresponsible and irrational to ascribe the causes of death to cannabis sensitivity, if over the years there had been no previous record of such a happening," the professor stated. Professor Teare said that his opinion was that the cause of death was acute cerebral edema (brain swelling) due to hypersensitvity to either meprobamate or aspirin, or possibly the combination of the two, contained in the drug Equagesic.' The image of cannabis had, however, already been tarnished by the police and media in Hong Kong by this time. How many people were even aware of the link between the synthetic pharma drug, not cannabis, to Lee's death is anybody's guess.

We see, especially in the US, more physicians coming out in favor of cannabis. This is possibly due to the widespread support for cannabis legalization among the people of the US, as well as the vast troves of emerging scientific evidence regarding the benefits of cannabis and the falseness of the propaganda created against cannabis. Marijuana Moment reports that 'A physician who once served at the U.S.’s top medical official is speaking out for the legalization of marijuana, saying that mere decriminalization is not good enough. “The war on marijuana exacerbates poverty, which is strongly correlated with— among other problems—reduced access to health care. The unjust prohibition of marijuana has done more damage to public health than has marijuana itself,” Dr. Joycelyn Elders, who served as U.S. surgeon general during the Clinton administration, wrote in a new article in the November issue of the American Journal of Public Health.' NCBI reports that 'Greater than 70% of physicians who took this survey believed that MMJ [medical marijuana] should be an option available to patients. Many have patients who inquired about or already used cannabis for symptom control; however, the respondents' familiarity with the NY program and the eCB system was modest.' NORML reports that 'Researchers with the University of Washington School of Nursing surveyed a random sampling of actively licensed health care professionals legally permitted to provide medical cannabis authorizations in the state of Washington. Of eligible respondents, 72 percent agreed with the statement, “Medical marijuana should be used to reduce the use of opioids for non-cancer pain.” Several studies [links] report that pain patients enrolled in state-sponsored cannabis access programs reduce or eliminate their use of opioid pain relievers over time.' NORML reports that 'The percentage of US adults who acknowledge possessing a doctor’s authorization to use cannabis products doubled between the years 2013 and 2020, according to data published in The American Journal of Preventive Medicine. A pair of researchers affiliated with Yale University School of Medicine assessed data provided by the National Survey on Drug Use and Health. They reported that the percentage of adults who self-reported consuming cannabis under the authorization of their physician increased from 1.2 percent in 2013 to 2.5 percent in 2020. Based on 2020 census data, that percentage calculates to approximately 8.3 million people.' The University of Alabama published a study result, stating that 'Up to date, a total of 450 of physicians of diverse medical specialties took part in the study. Preliminary results demonstrate strong support among Alabama physicians for medical cannabis legalization. As shown in Figure 1, almost 70% agreed with the statement about legalization of medical cannabis use per recommendation of a medical provider. Conversely, about 26% disagreed with the statement. As expected, the level of support for recreational cannabis legislation among Alabama physicians is markedly lower than for medical cannabis legislation. Still, as shown in Figure 2, about 43% of the survey respondents agreed with the statement regarding legalization of recreational cannabis for adult use.' NORML reports that 'Authors concluded: “This is among the first studies to assess clinician beliefs and practices related to medical cannabis in a U.S. multi-state sample. … Over two-thirds (68.9 percent) of clinicians surveyed believe that cannabis has medicinal uses and just over a quarter (26.6 percent) had ever recommended cannabis to a patient. … Results from this study suggest that the highest prevalence conditions where clinicians indicated they believed cannabis could be medically used were scientifically based – pain, nausea, appetite activation, anti-seizure, and spasticity.' Marijuana Moment reports that 'The nation’s top doctor said on Sunday that it’s time to stop incarcerating people for marijuana use. “When it comes to decriminalization, I don’t think that there is value to individuals or to society to lock people up for marijuana use,” Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said in a CNN appearance. “I don’t think that serves anybody well.”'

Two pioneering physicians who have helped change the negative perception around cannabis are the Harvard physician Lester Grinspoon and the Israeli researcher Dr. Mechoulum. Lester Grinspoon understood the benefits of cannabis during the palliative treatment of his own son for cancer. He later went on to become one of the leading cannabis advocates, dispelling many of the myths that exist regarding cannabis. Leafly reports that 'Yes, of course, reasoned arguments and statistical data have their place in fomenting political change, and we never could have gotten this far in the legalization movement without them. But all the same salient facts existed back in 1971, when a Harvard Medical School professor named Dr. Lester Grinspoon published his seminal book, Marihuana Reconsidered. Grinspoon originally set out to research the subject in an effort to convince his best friend, famed astronomer Carl Sagan, to stop smoking so much weed. Instead, the good doctor came away convinced that the government’s case against cannabis was based on lies and propaganda. Assuming that an impeccably sourced scholarly work exposing this terrible injustice would lead to rapid societal change, he first gave a private mea culpa to his best bud, then set out to share his findings with the world.' Regarding Dr. Mechoulum, NORML writes 'Dr. Mechoulam began conducting pioneering scientific experiments with cannabis in the 1960s. His research team was the first to isolate THC, among other cannabinoids. In later years, his research played a key role in the discovery of the endogenous cannabinoids and their receptors. For nearly five decades, Dr. Mechoulam served on the faculty of Hebrew University in Jerusalem. In the 1990s, he was among the founding members of the International Cannabinoid Research Society and the International Association for Cannabinoid Medicines.' We cannot forget the efforts of the Harvard psychologist Dr. Timothy Leary to move the US Supreme Court to legalize cannabis as a violation of civilian rights. He succeeded, only to have Richard Nixon create the 1970 Controlled Substances Act, where it now remains in the most restrictive schedule, Schedule I.

Most physicians are much more comfortable with medical cannabis legalization than adult recreational use legalization. This is because, with legalization for medical use only, the public still needs to come to the physician for consultation and recommendations. With medical cannabis, cannabis is sold as a patented pharmaceutical medicine by a pharma company, so it can still ensure vast profits to the pharma industry. This means that the pharma company can pay the physician commissions and perks even if the physician is prescribing cannabis-based medicine, as is the case with GW Pharmaceuticals and its cannabis-based medicine Epidiolex. With legalized adult cannabis, the need for the doctor as middleman, and the need for a prescription to purchase cannabis, is done away with. So, even though the adult legalization of cannabis will benefit society as a whole - especially the poor - medical associations and physicians oppose it, but speak more favorably about medical cannabis. In US states like New York, the public faced stiff resistance from the medical cannabis industry during their efforts to bring about adult use legalization of cannabis. Physicians even find various roles in the medical cannabis industry. For example, Marijuana Moment reports that 'On the retail side, only one other company has received as many permits as Holistic did under the state program that its consultant Gupta once oversaw. It’s unclear at this point what role, if any, Gupta played in helping Holistic to secure those approvals. According to the disclosure documents, he earned $10,000 for his services to the company. “Dr. Gupta’s work for Holistic Industries involved consulting on regulatory compliance matters for prescribing medicinal cannabis in West Virginia where medical cannabis had already been legalized,” a White House spokesperson told CNN. “He had overseen the development of such a program in the state as required by state law.”'

Amusingly, even though medical associations like the American Medical Association (AMA) and National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) maintain a strong anti-cannabis stance, their own researchers and leaders are producing results and making statements that are to contrary. A report says that 'The study, which received partial funding through a federal National Institutes of Health grant, also found that youth cannabis consumption decreased in states where recreational legalization had been in place for two years or more. “Consistent with estimates from prior studies, there was little evidence that RMLs or MMLs encourage youth marijuana use,” the [AMA] researchers said. “As more post-legalization data become available, researchers will be able to draw firmer conclusions about the relationship between RMLs and adolescent marijuana use.” The study authors didn’t attempt to explain why youth might not be using marijuana more frequently in states that have legalized, but it’s a trend that doesn’t surprise advocates who have long reasoned that permitting sales in a regulated environment would detract from the illicit market and minimize youth access.' Marijuana Moment reports that '[AMA study finds] '“The absolute reduction in arrests among states with policy reform could have important implications for social equity. As noted, many argue that the severe consequences of possession convictions are more harmful than the health effects of cannabis use. Policy reform would not only reduce or eliminate monetary fines, but reduce court appearances, jail time, and probation, as well as the associated stigma. Further, with policy reform, steps could and should be taken to remedy cases in which individuals are currently serving time in jails or prisons because of possession arrests… Therefore, the short-term and long-term social equity effects of cannabis policy reform are widespread and multiplicative. Importantly, results suggest that these benefits will not be seen among states that do not implement any policy reform, as disparities in these states continue to increase.”' Marijuana Moment further reports that 'There is “no statistically significant increase” in psychosis-related diagnoses in states that have legalized marijuana compared to those that continue to criminalize cannabis, a new study published by the American Medical Association concluded. Researchers at Stanford University, the University of Pennsylvania and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) carried out an analysis of more than 63 million health insurance beneficiaries from 2003-2017 to address the idea that cannabis reform could be linked to higher rates of psychosis, which certain prohibitionists have cited to argue against legalization. The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Psychiatry, determined that, “compared with no legalization policy, states with legalization policies experienced no statistically significant increase in rates of psychosis-related diagnoses.”' Isreali research into cannabis as medicine, led by Dr Raphael Mechoulum, makes it the world's leading medical cannabis country. Forbes reports that 'Meiri is best known for his work matching specific components of cannabis to affect different types of cancer. But when the interviewer asked the Israeli researcher which areas of medicine he thought cannabis offered the most promise, the answer was surprising. On top of what is already known and treated… pain, sleep, epilepsy, anxiety and these kinds of things, I think that one of the things that is still not being treated with cannabis … and I really, really believe in it, and in my lab I have phenomenal results, is dementia and Alzheimer’s.' Recreational cannabis is still not acceptable to the Israel however. Maybe the fear that the Palestinians would use it freely, and become stronger and healthier, keeps the government from legalizing it fully. With the current medical cannabis policies, the elite ruling and upper classes of Israel can access and afford their cannabis, while the majority of the people remain without it. Israel even has enough cannabis to export to various other nations as a leading exporter of medical cannabis.

The US NIDA's director Nora Volkow exemplifies the contradictory nature of so-called medical experts when it comes to cannabis. According to Marijuana Moment's report, ''When it comes to the war on drugs, there’s no need for further research to prove that such criminalization has disproportionately impacted communities of color, a top federal drug official said in a new interview. National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) Director Nora Volkow has on several recent occasions discussed the harms of the drug war and the need to take an alternative approach, in part by decriminalizing substance misuse and promoting treatment through a public health-focused model.'  In another report by Marijuana Moment, it states that 'Volkow said on Drug Policy Alliance founder Ethan Nadelmann’s show that she was “expecting the use of marijuana among adolescents would go up” when states moved to legalize cannabis, but admitted that “overall, it hasn’t.” It was reform advocates like Nadelmann who were “right” about the impact of the policy change on youth, she said. She also acknowledged that changes to cannabis laws are having a broader range of diverse impacts, saying that some “states that have legalized actually have better outcomes” while “the adverse effects of marijuana use are much worse in some states.”' This medical expert makes these statements on certain platforms when confronted with the anti-cannabis propaganda that is being disproved by scientific evidence, but her organization as a whole is firmly committed to create and spread further anti-cannabis propaganda, thus keeping cannabis federally prohibited in the US as long as possible. Science Magazine reports that 'A new analysis of cannabis research funding in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom has found that $1.56 billion was directed to the topic between 2000 and 2018—with about half of the money spent on understanding the potential harms of the recreational drug. Just over $1 billion came from the biggest funder, the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), which doled out far more money to research cannabis misuse and its negative effects than on using cannabis and cannabis-derived chemicals as a therapeutic drug.' Marijuana Moment reports in another article that '“I think it’s 100 percent necessary that we actually have an understanding of the consequences of legalizing marijuana are going to have into the children and adolescent brain and what are the consequences,” Volkow replied. “We owe it to the public to actually provide that information.”' This is at a time when cannabis is being used to treat autism, cancer and debilitating epilepsy in children, and when teenage cannabis consumption rates have been dropping in states that have legalized cannabis. In terms of evidence of the usage of cannabis for treating diseases in children, the Indian Hemp Commission's report of 1894-95 documents the medical use of cannabis to treat insomnia, pain and restlessness in children, highlighting the harmlessness of cannabis as compared to modern synthetic pharmaceutical medicine. But then, government agencies work for their political masters and the businessmen who fund them, not for public health and safety. 

When cannabis prohibition was proposed in 19th century India, most senior officers in the administration were against prohibition. An overwhelming 83% of the witnesses were opposed to prohibition. Among the 17% who were for prohibition, we find junior medical officers, hospital assistants and a few civil surgeons. When the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission studied the use of cannabis, and the feasibility of its prohibition, it relied on the evidence of medical experts, especially the senior ranking British experts. Many senior British medical experts were of the opinion that cannabis is not as harmful as alcohol, tobacco and opium; and that the moderate use of cannabis was actually beneficial. William O'Shaughnessy, the 19th century British physician, in his introduction to certain experiments with hemp drugs remarks: "As to the evil sequelæ so unanimously dwelt on by all writers, these did not appear to us so numerous, so immediate, or so formidable as many which may be clearly traced to over-indulgence in other powerful stimulants or narcotics, viz., alcohol, opium, or tobacco." From the answers of the medical experts, one gets a clearer picture of reality, minus the noise, bias, discrimination and myths that accompany the answers of non-medical witnesses. The medical experts have the backing of general medical experience, a formal medical education and scientific approach to the questions, even if most do not have direct experience with the cannabis plant. This reliability of data is especially evident in the responses from the Indian Native Army, where most responses have been provided by qualified medical officers. As the Commission states, regarding the reliability of witnesses - 'In regard to these definite physical results, the only evidence to which much weight can be attached is the evidence of the medical witnesses. From their training and opportunities of observation they are the only witnesses qualified to give reliable evidence.' Reiterating their confidence in the evidence of medical experts regarding the harmful physical and moral effects of moderate use, the Commission states - 'The most striking feature of the medical evidence is perhaps the large number of practitioners of long experience who have seen no evidence of any connection between hemp drugs and disease, and when witnesses who speak to these ill effects from the moderate use are cross-examined, it is found that (a) their opinions are based on popular ideas on the subject; (b) they have not discriminated between the effects of moderate and excessive use of the drugs; (c) they have accepted the diseases as being induced by hemp drugs because the patients confessed to the habit; and (d) the fact has been overlooked that the smoking of hemp drugs is recognized as a remedial agent in asthma and bronchitis...[F]or the vast majority of consumers, the Commission consider that the evidence shows the moderate use of ganja or charas not to be appreciably harmful, while in the case of moderate bhang drinking the evidence shows the habit to be quite harmless.'

Some physicians seem to think that the intoxicating effect of cannabis is what is harmful about it. This seems to arise from the thinking that intoxication is bad for health. This sort of thinking mirrors that of the religious orthodoxy and does not have any place in medicine. It is a well known fact that numerous doctors indulge in alcohol, and that early itself in their careers doctors figure out which medications give them the pleasure that they seek. The doctors themselves seem to be addicted to the opium that they prescribe. This accounts for their staunch support of opium, and opposition to cannabis legalization. The Hindu reports that '“Long stressful work hours, easy access to painkillers and drugs such as Morphine, a habit of self-diagnosis and self-medication — that is, unwillingness for a doctor to be the patient — are contributing factors for doctors taking up tobacco or other drugs,” he said, adding that a recent study showed that 43 per cent of doctors who admitted using opioids had kept it hidden from society for over two years.' Intoxication has been a part of human behavior even when we were still evolving from the apes. Many other species are known to seek and enjoy intoxication. The thinking that intoxication is bad is one of the reasons why cannabis has been prohibited, and why many physicians are against cannabis legalization. This moral standpoint is completely irrational when one considers the number of persons who die each year from opium, alcohol and tobacco. Friedrich Nietzsche, writes in The Will to Power - 'The state of pleasure which we call intoxication is precisely a supreme sense of power...Perceptions of time and space are altered; tremendous distances are surveyed, and first become perceivable, as it were; the expansion of the vision to encompass greater masses and distances; the refinement of the faculty for the perception of the smallest and most transitory things; divination, the power of understanding at the slightest hint or suggestion, that is, an 'intelligent' sensibility...Strength as a sense of muscular control, as suppleness of, and delight in, movement, as dance, as ease and presto; strength as a desire to prove one's strength, as bravado, adventurousness, fearlessness: the strength of a heedless creature...All these elevated moments of life stimulate each other; the imagery and imagination of one suffices as a suggestion for the other...Such states which are perhaps better kept apart finally intertwine with each other. For example, the sense of religious rapture and sexual excitement (two profound sensations which are found in combination to an extant which is well-nigh amazing. What is it that pleases all pious women, both young and old? The answer: a saint with handsome legs, still young, still an idiot.)' The experience of intoxication that he describes here is an apt description of cannabis intoxication, one of the reasons why it is the world's most popular intoxicant, despite being illegal everywhere.

There are a significant number of physicians who consume cannabis, in all its forms. These physicians use cannabis surreptitiously, for fear of losing their medical licence, or for fear of social stigma that would prevent them from continuing their trade as the upper class gods of society and salesmen for the synthetic pharmaceutical industry. The reasons that they use cannabis are the same reasons that every other human being uses cannabis. This includes relaxation, sleep, reducing anxiety and pain, concentration, stress-relief, intoxication, and so on. Yet, in the public domain, these physicians maintain a strong anti-cannabis rhetoric, opposing and condemning the plant and its users, thus providing so-called expert medical advise to the public that cannabis is harmful. This hypocritical behavior of the physician is one of the main reasons why cannabis remains prohibited. If physicians - whom the public and policy makers respect - would be truthful about cannabis, then its prohibition would be long gone. But then, there is the threat to flow of income, so money first, not public health. The physician anyway has the money and the contacts to get his ganja home delivered, whatever be the cost. So what if it means hiding in the room, under cover and smoking, acting like a upper class man taking the services of a low cost sex worker that he is ashamed to reveal in public...So what if hundreds of millions of humans die every year from lack of cannabis as medicine, from synthetic legal and illegal drugs, alcohol and tobacco? It is the poor anyway that are dying from lack of cannabis. The rich are dying from legal and illegal synthetic drugs, alcohol and tobacco - which is not so bad really since their ill-health represents opportunity for the medical industry to cash in. It is the money that matters the most...I personally know a handful of practicing physicians who smoke ganja and hashish, all done very stealthily, while keeping their elitist social status intact. It is quite shameful that these people who profess to be medicine men behave like this.

Many physicians cite the lack of information and knowledge of cannabis as one of the reasons why they do not prescribe cannabis. Yes, it is true that medical education is completely distorted with the use of synthetic pharmaceutical drugs as medicine, and that the general awareness in society still belongs to the era of reefer madness. But these days, with numerous countries progressing towards the medical use of cannabis, and with vast studies available, lack of knowledge is no longer any excuse. A physician who is truly concerned with public health and the well-being of his patient will go beyond what the curriculum states regarding medicine, especially a curriculum that has only the profits of the synthetic pharmaceutical industry in mind. Even if individual doctors are in favor of the use of cannabis, the medical associations are clearly opposed to it. Fear of losing one's licence and the perks that come along with the job appears to be a key factor that determines the doctor's position with regard to cannabis. Wiley Publications reports that 'Results: In total, 122/259 (47.1%) physicians completed the survey. Although 62.2% of the physicians completed some form of training about medical cannabis, nearly all (95.8%) desired to know more about the dosing, side effects, and safety of cannabis. Physicians identified a potential role of cannabis in the management of nausea and vomiting (85.7%), chronic pain (72.3%), cachexia/poor appetite (67.2%), and anxiety or depression (42.9%). Only four (0.3%) physicians recognized cannabis to be potentially useful as an anticancer agent. Nearly all physicians reported that cannabis-related research for symptom relief is essential (91.5%) in pediatric oncology, whereas 51.7% expressed that future studies are necessary to determine the anticancer effects of cannabis. Conclusions: Our findings indicate that most pediatric oncologists and palliative care physicians recognize a potential role for cannabis in symptom control in children with cancer. Well-conducted studies are required to create evidence for cannabis use and promote shared decision making with pediatric oncology patients and their caregivers' Science Direct reports that 'Forty nine percent (68/140) of schools and colleges completed the survey and 62% (44/68) include medical marijuana content in their curriculum. Of the schools and colleges that do not include it, 23% (6/26) plan to incorporate medical marijuana topics within the next 12 months. In regards to perceived importance of specific topics related to medical marijuana, all topics received a median score of three on a scale of one to five, with one being of high importance.' Marijuana Moment reports the difficulties that CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta faced when trying to find information on cannabis, and the bias that exists in state narratives regarding cannabis. Marijuana Moment reports that 'But to find the science that ultimately convinced him of the therapeutic potential of cannabis, he had to look internationally, because there seemed to be a “very biased set of data” in the U.S. that focused almost exclusively on the potential harms rather than benefits. “If you’re just looking at papers—well, this one [says there’s] potential long harm, this one possible addiction, this one gateway—you know, you’re seeing all those individual studies, but at a broader level, one step upstream, you realize that most of the studies that are getting funded are designed to look for harm,” Gupta said. “When I saw that, that was the first time I thought, ‘well, why are the studies that are getting out there, why are they all designed to look for harm?” he said. “Then I started looking at other countries, and some really good research out of places like Israel in particular.”'

The role of the medical industry in opium's global spread

The world wide proliferation of opium and the current opioid crisis could not have been brought about without the roles played by the physician and the pharma industry. One entity writes the prescription scripts, and the other entity supplies the opium. Together, they ensure that a patient becomes addicted to opium. Together, they ensure that governments get a big cut of the profits, thus ensuring that things remain rosy and that no threat to the global opium industry materializes. The scientific journal, Nature reports that 'Large-scale surveys show that there is a similar prevalence of pain in France and Italy as there is in the United States. But according to data from the United Nations, US doctors write five and a half times more prescriptions for opioids than do their counterparts in France, and eight times more than do physicians in Italy. Humphreys says that this might be because people in the United States expect to receive a prescription when they go to the doctor with a health concern. Meanwhile, direct advertising of pharmaceuticals to consumers (permitted only in the United States and New Zealand) encourages them to ask doctors for specific drugs.'  Toronto Life reports on a recent instance - 'George Otto claims he never would have entered the illegal opioid trade if it weren’t for a pharmacist named Shereen El-Azrak. By March 2015, El-Azrak was spiralling from one crisis to another. She co-owned Weston PharmaChoice on Lawrence Avenue near Jane, and the doctor in the adjoining clinic had recently vacated his office. Like many pharmacists in Ontario, El-Azrak needed a physician nearby to write the prescriptions that would make up the backbone of her business. Otto had visited her pharmacy before, and she wanted to form a partnership. It was a common arrangement between doctors and pharmacists: she’d send him patients, he’d send her scripts.'

The global opioid crisis was brought about largely by physicians working hand in hand with the pharmaceutical industry. This is not a recent crisis, but one that has been eating into the lives of the wealthy for a long time now. It is only when the deaths can no longer be hidden or attributed to some other cause, that the opioid crisis has been openly acknowledged by the medical industry. Speaking about the developing opioid crisis in 1952, William S Burroughs writes in his book Junk about the role played by physicians in creating the crisis. He calls a physician a 'croaker.' He says 'There are several varieties of writing croakers. Some will write only if they are convinced you are an addict, others only if they are convinced you are not. Most addicts put down a story worn smooth by years of use. Some claim gallstones or kidney stones. This is the story most generally used, and a croaker will often get up and open the door as soon as you mention gallstones. I got better results with facial neuralgia after I had looked up the symptoms and committed them to memory. Roy had an operation scar on his stomach that he used to suport his gallstone routine.' He says 'Generally speaking, old doctors are more apt to write than the young ones. Refugee doctors were a good field for a while, but the addicts burned them down.' Describing the typical opium prescribing physician, he says 'The doctor's office was in junk territory on 102nd, off Broadway. He was a doddering old man and could not resist the junkies who filled his office and were, in fact, his only patients. It seemed to give him a feeling of importance to look out and see an office full of people. I guess he had reached a point where he could change the appearance of things to suit his needs and when he looked out there he saw a distinguished and diversified clientele, probably well dressed in 1910 style, instead of a bunch of ratty-looking junkies come to hit him for a morphine script.' Describing another doctor, he says 'There was one oldtime doctor who lived in a Victorian brownstone in the West Seventies. With him it was simply necessary to present a gentlemanly front. If you could get into his inner office you had it made, but he would write only three prescriptions. Another doctor was always drunk, and it was a matter of catching him at the right time. Often he wrote the prescription wrong and you had to take it back for correction. Then, like as not, he would say the prescription was a forgery and tear it up. Still another doctor was senile, and you had to help him write the script. He would forget what he was doing, put down his pen and go into a long reminiscence about the high class of patients he used to have. Especially, he liked to talk about a man named General Gore who once said to him, "Doctor, I've been to the Mayo Clinic and you know more than the whole clinic put together." There was no stopping him and the exasperated addict was forced to listen patiently. Often the doctor's wife would rush in at the last minute and tear up the prescription, or refuse to verify it when the drugstore called.' He says 'Doctors are so exclusively nurtured on exaggerated ideas of their position that, generally speaking, a factual approach is the worst possible. Even though they do not believe your story, nonetheless they want to hear one. It is like some Oriental face-saving ritual. One man plays the high-minded doctor who wouldn't write an unethical script for a thousand dollars, the other does his best to act like a legitimate patient. If you say, "Look, Doc, I want an M.S. script and am willing to pay double price for it," the croaker blows his top and throws you out of the office. You need a good bedside manner with doctors or you will get nowhere.'

Even though doctors apparently run the risk of losing their license for inappropriate prescriptions, that is generally a rare occurrence. Burroughs says 'All croakers pack in sooner or later. One day when Roy came for his script, the doctor told him, "This is positively the last, and you guys had better keep out of sight. The inspector was around to see me yesterday. He has all the R-xes I wrote for you guys. He told me I will lose my license if I write any more, so I'm going to date this one back. Tell the druggist you were too sick yesterday to cash it.' When the heat is on them, physicians generally tend to become more circumspect in terms of what they prescribe and to whom. Burroughs says 'Our croaker had packed in. We split up to comb the city. We covered Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens, Jersey City and Newark. We couldn't even score for pantopon. It seemed like the doctors were all expecting us, just waiting for  one of us to walk into the office so they could say, "Absolutely no." It was as though every doctor in Greater New York had suddenly taken a pledge never to write another narcotics script. We were running out of junk.' There however never seems to be a shortage of doctors willing to oblige a paying patient. Burroughs says 'He located a doctor in Brooklyn who was a writing fool. That croaker would go three scripts a day for as high as thirty tablets a script. Every now and then he would get dubious on the deal, but the sight of money always straightened him out.' Sometimes, non-monetary benefits work just as well as money. Burroughs says 'Ten minutes later Herman arrived. The brother-in-law was giving him the same treatment when Herman pulled out a silk dress he had under his coat - as I recall somebody unloaded a batch of hot dresses on us for three grains of morphine - and turning to see the doctor's wife who had come downstairs to see what all the commotion was about, he said, "I thought you might like this dress." So he got a chance to talk to the doctor who wrote him one last script. It took him three hours to fill it. Our regular drug store had been warned by the inspector, and they would not fill any more scripts.' For the well-connected it is never a problem locating the "write" physician, always willing to help, no matter where in the world they are. Burroughs says 'One of the script-writing doctors suggested to Ike that he apply for a government permit. Ike explained to me that the Mexican government issued permits to hips allowing them a definite quantity of morphine per month at wholesale prices. The doctor would put in an application for Ike for one hundred pesos. I said, "Go ahead and apply." and gave him the money. I did not expect the deal to go through, but it did. Ten days later, he had a government permit to buy fifteen grams of morphine every month. The permits had to be signed by his doctor and the head doctor at the Board of Health. Then he could take it to a drugstore and have it filled.' Sometimes, the use of innovative techniques can get the doctor to oblige you. He says 'I got a codeine script from an old doctor by putting down a story about migraine headaches. Codeine is better than nothing and five grains in the skin will keep you from being sick. For some reason, it is dangerous to shoot codeine in the vein.' The story remains the same today as it was in the US of the 1950s. In fact, the prescription of opioids has only escalated exponentially in the last few decades. UNODC reports that 'The rate of prescription of opioids in the United States fell to 51.4 prescriptions per 100 persons (a total of more than 168 million opioid prescriptions) in 2018 from a peak of 81.3 opioid prescriptions per 100 persons (or 255 million opioid prescriptions) in 2012. The opioid prescription rate in the southern United States remains high, however, with most states in the region reporting opioid prescription rates of 64 or more per 100 persons in 2018. A number of factors at work, including advertising by the pharmaceutical industry, physicians’ prescription practices, dispensing and medical culture and patient expectations have, since the new millennium, resulted in high prescription rates and dosages of opioids given for an extended duration of care, primarily for the management of acute to chronic non-cancer pain. These practices have also enabled the diversion and misuse of pharmaceutical opioids, together with a greater risk of opioid use disorders among those with a legitimate prescription.'

So, it is big business to keep the opioid trade alive. And not just opioids, but all synthetic pharmaceuticals, since they follow the same model. A person is initially prescribed a synthetic pharmaceutical drug for a particular medical condition, and asked to consume the drug for a few days. By this time, the person develops a dependency on the drug. Even if the patient is reluctant to continue the drug, the physician warns her that stopping the drug will lead to adverse consequences, and even death. Out of fear, the patient becomes a lifelong consumer of that particular pharmaceutical medicine, becoming a regular contributor to the revenue stream for physician and pharma company. It is usually only when the regulators decide to ban the drug due to the alarming nature of adverse side effects that can no longer be kept hidden from the public that the physician decides to change the drug prescribed. Alternately, a competing pharma drug company introduces another drug for the same medical condition, offering the physician better commissions for prescribing the new drug, and the physician willingly obliges. In this, we see parallels between the legal and illegal synthetic drug industries. What synthetic pharmaceutical companies do with pharma drugs, illegal pharmacists or "cooks" do with drugs like methamphetamine, fentanyl and synthetic cannabinoids. The root cause for both these problems - the abuse of legal and illegal synthetic drugs - is the same. It is the banning of natural medicinal plants, especially cannabis, and the move from using nature as the basis to make medicine to using synthetic laboratory-made compounds as the basis.

Covid as an example of the greed and incompetence of the medical industry

The year 2020 provided the perfect setting to highlight the state of today's medical industry. A previously unknown virus was suddenly discovered and its apparent spread worldwide followed with much hysteria and panic. In spite of the fact that the virus killed at rates comparable to other viral infections, and in spite of the existence of many other, much more fatal and infectious diseases that plagues the human race today demanding constant attention, this particular virus was selected for special focus. The entire world was locked down on the basis of the inputs provided by the medical industry. Hundreds of millions of people were rendered homeless and jobless within days.

The medical industry functioned the way it knows best. Expensive and dangerous medications of all kinds were pumped into willing and unwilling people even as diagnostic equipment were being developed. Deccan Herald reported that "A typical prescription for Covid-19 in India includes azithromycin, doxycyline, ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, vitamin C, vitamin D, zinc, acetylcysteine, and inhaled budesonide, or dexamethasone. The antiviral favipiravir became the top-selling drug in India in April 2021, despite not being recommended for Covid-19 by any major guidelines," researchers from the George Institute of Medical Sciences wrote recently in a commentary in the Lancet.' Test kits with success rates of about 50% were created and sold worldwide. Pharma companies used the situation to position many of their dangerous drugs as potential treatment. The sale of drugs and medical equipment soared. All other diseases were ignored and nearly every hospital in the world focused on the new virus. Persons who could afford the treatment were welcomed into hospitals and pumped with all kinds of medications and tests. Many died and a few survived the onslaught. The few who survived were used as propaganda to demonstrate the great work done by the medical industry and the services it rendered to society. The hundreds of millions of the poorest who were turned back because they had no money were not mentioned anywhere. All the pharmaceutical companies of the world got into a race to develop a vaccine for the virus believing that the ones that succeeded would become rich beyond their wildest dreams. While the internal battle to develop a so-called cure for the virus continued, the industry presented a united front when it came to any competition that any other system of medicine represented. Even though the modern medical industry did not have any answers to the virus, it was brutal against any traditional system that even suggested a way to reduce the risks of infection or build immunity, let alone directly combat the virus. All this at a time when a majority of the world's population struggled to find basic food, water and shelter, let alone medicine.

There was hardly a voice that was raised within the medical industry about the scam, and there still has hardly been any - more than two years after the scam. Doctors were either clueless about what to do, or they went with their medical associations and government orders prescribing every possible medicine in the pharmacy, thus ensuring that the pharmaceutical industry doubled its wealth in just two years. I am sure that doctors too made a handsome profit. Only a few physicians warned of the dangers of he entire exercise. Yahoo reported that 'A group of medical experts have submitted a report to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, warning that mass, incomplete, and indiscriminate vaccination can stimulate the emergence of mutant viral strains of COVID-19. The public health specialists belonging to Indian Public Health Association (IPHA), Indian Association of Preventive and Social Medicine, and Indian Association of Epidemiologists have also suggested that there is no requirement of vaccinating individuals who have previously recovered from COVID-19, as per a PTI report.' This was a rarity. Most physicians were firmly a part of the Covid conspiracy, either knowingly or unknowingly. They exhorted the public to buy the products of the petrochemical industry - such as masks, sanitizers, handwash, etc., - and threatened patients that all treatment would be suspended unless a patient was vaccinated for Covid. Many medical students and junior doctors were coerced into taking vaccinations, under threat of losing their admissions or jobs. The government put up huge hoardings and advertisements portraying those doctors who went out of the way to ensure that the scam was a success as Covid Warriors. Many physicians showed where their loyalties clearly were, in their real roles as the leading marketing agents for the Covid vaccine. Never mind that this was a new, fast tracked drug that pharma companies were testing out on diverse populations and age groups. No one knew the effects of adding it to the existing array of pharma drugs (which change as per the incentives doled out by pharma companies) that all their patients are hooked onto for decades, fearing death if they stop taking them for even a couple of days. Never mind that most patients had livers, kidneys and hearts in precarious health and cancers through the long term addiction to these synthetic prescription pharmaceutical drugs. 

The corona virus had a global reported death rate of 2% of those infected. The untold truth is that almost all deaths attributed to Covid were due to pharma drugs administered for decades and the newer Covid drug cocktails that were pumped indiscriminately into vulnerable people. Nothing will ever justify the harms done to the world by governments and health officials in the name of Covid. To list a few of the harms:

• Hundreds of millions, especially the poor, the laboring classes, the sick and elderly, had their lives decimated
• Almost the entire global child and youth have lost a whole precious year of education and the joys and freedom of childhood and youth
• Hundreds of millions needing food and urgent medical care for serious illnesses like TB, cancers and heart disease, that kill many times more people annually than Covid, have been denied.
• Millions of the world's working classes have been coerced to become guinea pigs for the untested vaccines. Pharma companies have pocketed vast amounts of taxpayer's money for this
• Petrochemical and synthetic based non-biodegradable waste has been poured onto the planet as masks, PPEs, sanitizers, disinfectants, needles and syringes, swabs, etc.
• Almost every human being continues to suffer the oppression of curbs to basic rights and freedoms while politicians and the elites flout every single norm.
• Every government, not just the authoritarian ones, has used the opportunity to tighten their grip on power and the world's people.
• The wealth of the elites has grown tremendously, even as the world's majority have slipped into greater poverty and despair

But who cares? It's all just collateral damage on the road to wealth and power...

How many persons have died as a result of mucormycosis after getting infected at hospitals when brought in for Covid treatment? How many hospitals can claim to be free of this infection? The root cause of this fungal infection is, guess what, prolonged use of pharma drugs such as diabetes, cancer and steroid drugs. Yes, the same steroids that were also being given to persons brought to potentially fungus infected hospitals for Covid treatment. BBC reported that 'Doctors believe mucormycosis, which has an overall mortality rate of 50%, may be being triggered by the use of steroids, a life-saving treatment for severe and critically ill Covid-19 patients. Steroids reduce inflammation in the lungs for Covid-19 and appear to help stop some of the damage that can happen when the body's immune system goes into overdrive to fight off coronavirus. But they also reduce immunity and push up blood sugar levels in both diabetics and non-diabetic Covid-19 patients. It's thought that this drop in immunity could be triggering these cases of mucormycosis.'

I estimate the total global deaths in 2020 to be somewhere in the range of 60-70 million people from all causes of death such as non-communicable diseases, communicable diseases and injuries. Covid with approx. 2 million deaths in 2020 would account for something like 3-4% of all deaths. Compare that with the top cause of death in 2019, ischaemic heart disease, that I estimate accounts for around 9-10 million deaths or 15-16% of deaths in 2020. So the world stopped addressing causes of death that were responsible for 96-97% of deaths and focused completely on an alleged disease that accounted for 3-4% of deaths. To top it all, I firmly believe that many of the persons who died in 2020-2022 from other causes of death were given the Covid tag as cause of death to boost the fatality numbers, and thus support the global havoc that governments, health officials, the medical industry, pharma industry and petrochemical industry have wrecked. Even if this was not the case, Covid only accounted for under 5% of all causes of death, totally not acceptable or justifiable for the oppression that has happened in the name of Covid...What a terrible global crime by these charlatans...the second worst in human history in terms of global impact after prohibition of cannabis. Cannabis would have not only mitigated such global crimes by clipping the wings of these charlatans but even addressed most, it not all, leading causes of global deaths...

So, do you think any government, health official or regulatory body is going to come out and speak the truth that all deaths attributed to the coronavirus were, in fact, deaths due to decades of abuse of legal and illegal synthetic pharmaceutical drugs, and of wrongly prescribed medication for coronavirus including the vaccines? That the virus was weaponized to benefit the medical industry, pharmaceutical industry and authoritarian governments ? That the virus by itself was not life threatening unless combined with an immune system compromised by prolonged use of synthetic drugs? Not a chance, because these very same institutions enabled the monstrosity called the synthetic pharmaceutical drug industry to reach its current proportions. Together they bullied and destroyed all other systems of medicine and today continue to do so even as the world totters from their poisons. The story is the same as that of the chemical fertilizer and pesticide industry, the petrochemical industry, the arms industry. Knowing the truth, knowing that one is going wrong, but still walking the wrong path. Not just that, getting more people to walk the path, because one cannot admit that one has gone wrong, no matter what the increasingly terrible outcomes are. Getting more people to believe the lie might make it easier to live with, these people think...To lose face means to lose the power that they enjoy currently, and hope to enjoy forever...

With demands for ex-gratia compensation for Covid deaths increasing, we saw the reported cause of death as Covid rapidly dropping, and the real causes of death such as liver, kidney, heart and lung failure due to the excessive administering of synthetic pharma drugs once again rising to the real levels obscured behind the smokescreen of this man-made charade...It will be interesting to see how many death certificates issued with Covid as cause of death will be honored by the government in releasing compensation...And then there was Omicron, the variant of Covid that knocked the steam completely out of the Covid conspiracy. Omicron was resistant to nearly all vaccines produced till then, resulting in governments, the medical industry and the pharmaceutical industry deciding that they had flogged the Covid horse long enough, and that it was now time to move on to other innovative ways of milking the herd...

It took decades for human-induced antibiotic resistance to build in bacteria but humans have achieved the fantastic feat with viruses in just a couple of years. We owe this wonderful achievement to the sustained effort of the pharmaceutical industry, medical industry, petrochemical industry, governments and media, and ourselves for managing to raise a relatively harmless virus to the status of death incarnate. In the process we dozed vast numbers of humanity with vaccines, antibiotics, antivirals, antihistamines, steroids, opioids, antifungals, anticoagulants, and numerous other dangerous drugs, coercing our civic workers, students, elderly, hotel staff, domestic and corporate employees to vaccinate themselves. We filled our already crippled environment, including our precious fresh water supplies with these drugs. We flooded the world with plastics and dangerous synthetics using our test kits, synthetic masks, PPE kits, disinfectants and hand sanitizers gaily to the beat of songs specially created for this purpose. Hundreds of millions lost their jobs, millions lost their lives to improper synthetic pharma drug medication, all children lost two years of precious education. Governments, health experts and media created mass hysteria, shutting down the whole world, locking up its citizens and amassing wealth at the expense of everything...One fine day, except in China,  where humanity appears dead, it all stopped - the number of deaths, the fresh cases of infection, the TPR, the number of vaccinations administered, everything. These statistics now do not even find a passing mention in media. Governments have moved on to other important businesses like elections, wars and petrochemical supply control, now funded with the fake pandemic wealth and emboldened by the people's timidity. What caused the change in status of Covid from most deadly threat to humanity to history so quickly? Was it omicron, the variant that emerged immune to nearly all vaccines as a result of virus mutations from unprecedented vaccinations? Was it that the pharma companies and petrochemical companies had met their profit goals? Was it because governments had gained enough control over the people? Was it because people said enough is enough? Was it because the sales of arms, funded by the fake pandemic, had reached a level where a real war of catastrophic proportions could now take place, providing vast profits for the arms and petrochemical industries, as clearly signaled by the Russian invasion of Ukraine? Whatever the reason, humanity appears to have recovered from the Covid insanity, forgotten it like it never even happened, and is now ready to be fooled again, because it is so gullible, unable to comprehend the significance of life on a much larger scale, because every individual is only able to focus on ensuring that one's own ass is taken care of at all costs...Mass human insanity in full public display for all to see...Covid, anyone?

In the two years of 2021 and 2022 humans witnessed, and were a part of, biological warfare against the world's people by its rulers - the autocrats, pharma companies and petrochemical companies, on a scale unprecedented in the known history of humans...What became first visible as China's attack on its people's attempt at democracy, soon revealed itself on a global scale. The US, under Donald Trump, Russia, India and Britain quickly ramped up their attack on their own people as well as the people of the world. The ingenuity of this biological warfare was that it was disguised as a cure for illness. Never before has humanity queued up to voluntarily get itself dosed by biological weapons as enthusiastically as this. No genocide in the world's history even comes close to this. The short terms effects that can now be seen of this war are tremendous growth in the wealth and power of the autocrats, pharma and petrochemical companies while the world's people experience fevers, colds, lung infections and body pain that have become chronic on a global scale. Our water, food and air are now completely contaminated by the assault while deaths due the adverse effects of this attack have been swept under the carpet. Children's education was disrupted like never before as were the livelihoods and health care of hundreds of millions. Now the same entities, with Biden in place of Trump in the US, play out war games to distract the world's people while continuing to exhort them to further dose themselves with these biological poisons...The long term effects of this war on humans is only starting to unravel...Humanity, by and large, remains completely oblivious of what it experienced and witnessed...

What is the way forward?

So governments, the pharmaceutical industry and the medical industry have cut off the supply of natural intoxicants like cannabis, opium, coca and palm toddy. They create refined and much more potent extracts from these natural materials. They control the supply and stock of these chemical drugs. They use the doctor-pharmacist route to administer these drugs to the public legally and the peddler-narcotics agent-rehabilitation center route to administer these drugs illegally. The individual is not allowed to grow or procure these intoxicants from nature. He must rely on the system to get his intoxicant and pay the maximum price for it. To realize more and more profits the system creates more and more potent chemical intoxicants moving further and further away from natural territory into synthetic chemically constructed territory. As the toxicity and addictive power of these drugs increase, the public gets addicted to an even greater extent and pays even more for any available intoxicant. Profits rise and fuel the growth of the system tremendously. The individual pays for the system, pays for the synthetic drug, pays for the treatment which is further synthetic drugs and eventually pays with his life...

There are fatal flaws in the global healthcare system. It is dominated by pharmaceutical drugs created in a chemist's labs and physicians trained only on these drugs. Traditional plant medicine figures nowhere in the scheme of things. The money involved ensures that all governing bodies, pharmaceutical companies, physicians and medical institutions work together to promote this system. It is a sports league completely dominated by one club who owns the players, officials, governing body and the rules of the sport. The audience i.e. the public have no choice but to play along. A truly global healthcare system must be a balance of all medical systems. I recommend that the WHO be reorganized into at least two entities, the World Synthetic Drugs Control Board (WSDCB) and the World Disease Control Board (WDCB). Other entities such as the UNODC and the INCB should merge with the WSDCB. Its focus should only be on synthetic drugs emerging from the chemist's lab - legal or illegal. Natural medicine - such as cannabis, the opium plant and psilocybin - must be removed from its scope. All physicians must be trained and knowledgeable in both. Controls to prevent bias towards chemical medicine must be in place. Emphasis must be more on natural medicine to ensure universal access, affordability and sustainability.

There is a need to completely overhaul the medical education system globally. Cannabis must be included in the curriculum for all medical education. Cannabis, as medicine, can replace whole classes of synthetic medicines - analgesics, anti-cancer drugs, anti-nausea drugs, sedatives, stimulants, anti-epilepsy drugs, anti-autism drugs, anti-HIV drugs, antibiotics, wellness and cosmetic drugs, etc., etc. The action of cannabis on the endo-cannabinoid system (ECS) that has high concentrations in the brain, skin, digestive system, etc., needs to be included in medical education. We are talking about a complete revamp of the current medical education system, one in which the natural medicine, cannabis, becomes a part of the syllabus. I am sure that such an integration is not difficult. It has been done with opium before. It can be done with cannabis. Opium however is a single dimensional drug. With cannabis however we are talking about a complex drug with multiple characteristics capable of acting on diverse body systems. The inclusion of cannabis in medical education will in one way add a whole new area, but in other ways, it will simplify medical education, by taking out the thousands of synthetic pharmaceutical drugs that must be studied, even as thousands of new synthetic pharma drugs are being added every day, while nearly an equal number is taken out of the system for the multiple adverse side-effects.

I don't have anything against those who want to do their synthetic pharmaceutical drugs, their ponzi schemes and charades provided it does not inflict harm on those who do not want to play that game and provided that it does not inflict harm on the planet which is home to all. To each his own. But when the lovers of synthetic drugs coerce others to be a part of their harmful games, with its deception of masks, hand sanitizers, tests, vaccines and curbs on individual freedoms then a line has been crossed. There is a transition from enjoying one's right to freedom to infringing upon another. By prohibiting me from using my natural herb cannabis, while enjoying the synthetic drugs that you prefer, and trying to force me to become like you, is a similar infringement on my right to freedom by you...you wear your masks and inject yourself with whatever gets you off to ensure your protection...I will choose my means...if your methods are so sound then they will protect you and what I do to protect myself is none of your business...

The permanent members of the UNSC - the US, UK, Russia, China and France -  are the world's biggest arms traders. India,  - the eternal aspirant to the elite warmongers council in an organization meant to promote global equity, liberty, peace and harmony - along with Israel and Saudi Arabia are the world's leading arms purchasers. Now, that is not all. Recognize the names and their links to global wars and instability. They are the world's leading legal synthetic drug (known by the much revered name pharma drugs) traders. They are the leading traders of petrochemicals and fossil fuel based energy. They are the world's leading emitters of carbon dioxide and other global warming gases. They are the world's leading traders of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. All of them are ruled by authoritarian governments. They are the countries that staged the Covid scam, originating the story, linking their pharma deaths to Covid and then claiming to produce vaccines that will stop the virus. They are the countries instrumental in bringing about the global prohibition of cannabis. They continue to be the leading opposition to global cannabis legalization. They are the leading violators of human rights and liberties through their use of law, incarceration and execution of cannabis users and traders. They are the leading destroyers of cannabis plants and varieties beyond number....

Let me restate once again that the coronavirus is not the ultimate danger to human life that we are making it out to be. There are far more serious threats to human life that we are neglecting. Pharma industry induced death through destruction of the human immune system and the resulting increased vulnerability to every other cause of death, the failures and cancers of key organs like livers, kidneys, hearts, pancreas, intestines, lungs and brains all brought about through the chronic and excessive use of pharmaceutical synthetic drugs, poses a far greater threat than the coronavirus. Petrochemical industry induced death through climate change, pollution of air, water, land and food and the resulting damage to the human body and mind, as well as the increase in climate change related environmental disasters pose threats of mind numbing proportions. The insects, viruses and bacteria all face the same common enemy as us in this man made dual threat of unheard of proportions to all life on earth. This dual threat is what we must direct all our efforts to fight against. Instead, in the name of public health, we are joining forces with the pharma and petrochemical industry speeding up the advent of death for all. Now that is what one should be really fearful of...Let me also restate that cannabis is the most potent ally we have to address these dual threats...

The same denial that we have seen all these years regarding climate change, is now also evident when it comes to public health and the damage caused by synthetic pharmaceutical drugs, chemical pesticides and fertilizers...Two years on, the public is still fed the narrative that vaccines and the numerous lethal pharmaceutical drugs that have been injected into humans, in the name of the so-called Covid pandemic, are all beneficial, and that there have been no adverse effects from all these...The narrative is that without all these man-made poisons, the human race would cease to exist, while in reality, it is these very poisons that threaten not just humans, but all life on earth...It is not surprising that the denial is the same, since the culprits in both cases, climate change and failing public health, are the same - the authoritarian governments, petrochemical and fossil fuel industry, medical industry and the synthetic pharmaceutical industry...One common thread that runs through this entire goon-gang of death merchants is the hilarious delusional belief that man is superior to nature, and anything man-made is superior to anything that nature creates...The source of this delusional belief is very likely the over-indulgence in, and addiction to, the aforesaid synthetics...

One of the root causes underlying the vast number of human made problems we see around us today, is the fact that the human mind has, in most people, completely lost its connection with nature. It has become unhinged, over smart, over confident, incapable of reasoning, inattentive, preferring deception over truth and material wealth above all else. Even rural areas, where one once found a large number of people with simple and wise ways, have increasingly become afflicted, mainly through the seeking of short cuts to the imaginary better life built on money. Maybe the isolated indigenous tribes in a few places retain their sanity, anchored in the only thing that can save it, nature. For the rest of us, no amount of vaccines or synthetic drugs will heal our mental illnesses. The medicine of the mind, nature's cannabis, offers one way to re-establish the connection between our minds and nature. For some, the dosage required may be very, very large and even that may not work...

Cannabis can replace or, at least, reduce the usage of whole categories of harmful, synthetic medicines that are manufactured at great cost to the environment and administered at great cost to human health, besides the health of other animals involved in the testing and trials of the same. Analgesics such as opioids, anti-depressants such as benzodiazepines, stimulants such as cocaine and methamphetamine, sedatives, anti-emetics, diabetes medicines such as insulin, anti-obesity medications, anxiolytics, anti-inflammation medicines, anti-HIV medication are just some of the categories that I am talking about here. The switch over to plant based medicine in the form of cannabis will result in great reduction in damage to environment and public health from the manufacture, use and disposal of many of these classes of synthetic pharmaceutical medicine that form the bulk of the global synthetic pharmaceutical market.

Even in the case of medical equipment, much of the equipment can be manufactured using sustainable hemp based materials rather than the unsustainable, non biodegradable and expensive petrochemical and other synthetic based materials. Look no further than the synthetic PPE suits and masks that flooded the world during the Covid phase and the fact that most of these materials will end up in land fills, enter our food and water systems and even reach the bottom of the already polluted ocean floor. The entire medical equipment industry can be revamped with a focus on hemp based materials ranging from the basic paper and masks to sophisticated diagnostic and support equipment. Somehow this medical equipment industry seems to enjoy an immunity from responsibility for the sustenance of the planet arguing that it is in the business of saving human lives.

Locally grown and available cannabis as medicine can easily shift the burden of public health care from expensive, and largely inaccessible modern hospitals in urban areas to the local public health care center in every village and small town, no matter how remote and in whichever part of the globe. Such a shift will make medicine truly accessible to the poorest persons, minorities, indigenous communities, elderly, the sick and women. These are the categories of people who never get to see any of the creations of the modern medical industry that aims only to reach the wealthy. In one way, it may be good as these vast numbers of people are saved from the toxic medicine that the rich pay quite readily for. But that does not mean that the majority of the world should be deprived of any medicine. It is not a case of either modern pharmaceutical medicine or nothing else. By banning cannabis globally, what would have served amply as wholesome, safe, enjoyable, affordable and accessible medicine to anyone and everyone, is kept out of the hands of the people who need it the most. The recreational legalization of cannabis so that individuals can grow the plant at home will mean that nobody has to go too far to access it.

The medical industry must recognize this and, instead of working to oppose global cannabis reform, must work to make it a reality through their associations, organizations and influence over governments, policy makers and public. The vast tradition and rich heritage of cannabis as plant medicine must not be overlooked at this crucial time. The opportunity presents itself to make the medical industry what it should be - a means of providing universal, safe, affordable, accessible, equitable and sustainable health care for all.

Related articles

Listed below are a set of articles from various -sources related to the subject. Words in italics are the thoughts of the author at the  time of reading the article.

'A majority of physicians say that they lack the skills to adequately counsel patients on the potential use of medical cannabis, according to survey data published in the journal Cannabis and Cannabinoid Research.

Researchers affiliated with the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor surveyed 244 physicians regarding their willingness to engage in discussions with their patients about cannabis.

Consistent with prior surveys of health care professionals, most respondents perceived themselves as possessing “low knowledge and competence” with respect to the use of medical cannabis. When discussing the issue with their patients, most doctors limited their conversations to those involving cannabis-specific risks rather than safe use practices.

Only a minority of those surveyed acknowledge having ever recommended medical marijuana to their patients. Those doctors that were willing to do so tended to be younger and were more likely to have “completed a formal course on medical cannabis.”'

https://norml.org/news/2023/05/04/survey-most-physicians-are-uncomfortable-integrating-medical-cannabis-into-their-patients-treatment-regimens/

 

'Conclusions
Among nurses and physicians, stigma towards medicinal cannabis users mediated the relationship between attitudes towards the medical use of cannabis and the intention to recommend medicinal cannabis for patients with qualifying conditions, whereas subjective norms moderated this relationship. Effective treatment with medicinal cannabis might be compromised by health-care providers' negative attitudes, stigma and subjective norms'
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/ijn.12836

 

NORML is saddened to report on the passing of Dr. Raphael Mechoulam, the “Father of Cannabis Research.” He was 92 years old.

Dr. Mechoulam began conducting pioneering scientific experiments with cannabis in the 1960s. His research team was the first to isolate THC, among other cannabinoids. In later years, his research played a key role in the discovery of the endogenous cannabinoids and their receptors.

For nearly five decades, Dr. Mechoulam served on the faculty of Hebrew University in Jerusalem. In the 1990s, he was among the founding members of the International Cannabinoid Research Society and the International Association for Cannabinoid Medicines.

https://norml.org/blog/2023/03/10/norml-remembers-dr-raphael-mechoulam/
 

The percentage of US adults who acknowledge possessing a doctor’s authorization to use cannabis products doubled between the years 2013 and 2020, according to data published in The American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

A pair of researchers affiliated with Yale University School of Medicine assessed data provided by the National Survey on Drug Use and Health. They reported that the percentage of adults who self-reported consuming cannabis under the authorization of their physician increased from 1.2 percent in 2013 to 2.5 percent in 2020.

Based on 2020 census data, that percentage calculates to approximately 8.3 million people.

Commenting on the findings, NORML’s Deputy Director Paul Armentano said: “Cannabis has established efficacy in the treatment of multiple conditions, including chronic pain, and it possesses a safety profile that is often superior to other controlled substances. So it is no wonder that an increasing number of Americans are choosing it as a therapeutic option, and in many cases, they are substituting cannabis in lieu of other potentially less effective and more harmful substances.”

The production and dispensing of cannabis products is currently regulated in 37 states and in the District of Columbia. Several additional states regulate access to low-THC/high-CBD formulations of cannabis.

https://norml.org/blog/2023/03/14/analysis-percentage-of-americans-acknowledging-medical-cannabis-use-has-doubled-since-2013/

 

'Gosh darn that fiendish LSD! Dr. E.R. Bloomquist, MD, was the keynote speaker, one of the big stars of the conference. He is the author of a paperback book titled Marijuana which - according to the cover - "tells it like it is." (He is also the inventor of the roach/cockroach theory...)

According to the book jacket, he is an "Associate Clinical Professor of Surgery (Anesthesiology) at the University of Southern California School of Medicine"...and also "a well known authority on the abuse of dangerous drugs." Dr. Bloomquist "has appeared on national network television panels has served as a consultant for government agencies, was a member of the Committee on Narcotics Addiction and Alcoholism of the Council on Mental Health of the American Medical Association." His wisdom is massively reprinted and distributed, says the publisher. He is clearly one of the heavies on that circuit of second-rate academic hustlers who get paid anywhere from $500 to $1,000 a hit for lecturing to cop-crowds.

Dr. Bloomquist's book is a compendium of stale bullshit. On page 49 he explains the "four states of being" in the cannabis society: "Cool, Groovy, Hip & Square" - in that descending order. "The square is seldom if ever cool," says Bloomquist. "He is 'not with it,' that is, he doesn't know 'what's happening.' But if he manages to figure it out, he moves up a notch to 'hip.' And if he can bring himself to approve of what's happening, he becomes 'groovy.' And after that, with much luck and perseverance, he can rise to the rank of 'cool.'"'

- Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream, Part II...by Raoul Duke, November 25, 1971, Fear and Loathing at the Rolling Stone, The Essential Writing of Hunter S. Thompson

There is “no statistically significant increase” in psychosis-related diagnoses in states that have legalized marijuana compared to those that continue to criminalize cannabis, a new study published by the American Medical Association concluded.

Researchers at Stanford University, the University of Pennsylvania and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) carried out an analysis of more than 63 million health insurance beneficiaries from 2003-2017 to address the idea that cannabis reform could be linked to higher rates of psychosis, which certain prohibitionists have cited to argue against legalization.

The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Psychiatry, determined that, “compared with no legalization policy, states with legalization policies experienced no statistically significant increase in rates of psychosis-related diagnoses.”

https://www.marijuanamoment.net/marijuana-legalization-not-associated-with-increased-rates-of-psychosis-american-medical-association-study-of-63-million-people-finds/
 

Over 90 percent of respondents said that cannabis use reduced their average pain by at least half. Eighty percent of respondents reported using fewer opioids following the initiation of cannabis therapy. Sixty-nine percent of study participants reported reducing their use of sleep aids, and 50 percent reported using fewer anxiety/anti-depressants.

“The findings from this survey indicate that patients with CMT report substantial relief of pain symptoms from the use of cannabis,” the authors concluded. “These data support the need for prospective, randomized, controlled trials using standardized dosing protocols to further delineate and optimize the potential use of cannabis to treat pain related to CMT.”

https://norml.org/news/2023/02/23/survey-cannabis-provides-relief-less-need-for-prescription-medications-in-nerve-pain-patients/

'“The absolute reduction in arrests among states with policy reform could have important implications for social equity. As noted, many argue that the severe consequences of possession convictions are more harmful than the health effects of cannabis use. Policy reform would not only reduce or eliminate monetary fines, but reduce court appearances, jail time, and probation, as well as the associated stigma. Further, with policy reform, steps could and should be taken to remedy cases in which individuals are currently serving time in jails or prisons because of possession arrests… Therefore, the short-term and long-term social equity effects of cannabis policy reform are widespread and multiplicative. Importantly, results suggest that these benefits will not be seen among states that do not implement any policy reform, as disparities in these states continue to increase.”'

https://www.marijuanamoment.net/legalizing-marijuana-reduces-race-based-arrests-american-medical-association-study-finds/

 

'Results: Twenty-one articles were included from five different countries in which the medical cannabis laws varied. The studied physicians experienced frequent inquiries about medical cannabis from their patients (49–95%), and between 10 and 95% of the physicians were willing to prescribe and/or provide it to the patients, depending on setting, specialty and experience among the physicians. This review found that physicians experienced in prescribing medical cannabis were more convinced of its benefits and less worried about adverse effects than non-experienced physicians. However, physicians specialized in addiction treatment and certain relevant indication areas seemed more sceptical compared to physicians in general. Nevertheless, physicians generally experienced a lack of knowledge of clinical effects including both beneficial and adverse effects.

Conclusion: This review indicates that GPs and hospital physicians from various specialties frequently experience patient demands for medical cannabis and to some degree show openness to using it, although there was a wide gap between studies in terms of willingness to provide. Hospital physicians and GPs’ experienced in prescribing are more convinced of effects and less worried of adverse effects. However, most physicians experience a lack of knowledge of beneficial effects, adverse effects and of how to advise patients, which may comprise barriers towards prescribing. More research, including larger studies with cohort designs and qualitative studies, is needed to further examine facilitators and barriers to physicians’ prescribing practices.'

https://bmcfampract.biomedcentral.com/track/pdf/10.1186/s12875-021-01559-w.pdf


'Results
In total, 122/259 (47.1%) physicians completed the survey. Although 62.2% of the physicians completed some form of training about medical cannabis, nearly all (95.8%) desired to know more about the dosing, side effects, and safety of cannabis. Physicians identified a potential role of cannabis in the management of nausea and vomiting (85.7%), chronic pain (72.3%), cachexia/poor appetite (67.2%), and anxiety or depression (42.9%). Only four (0.3%) physicians recognized cannabis to be potentially useful as an anticancer agent. Nearly all physicians reported that cannabis-related research for symptom relief is essential (91.5%) in pediatric oncology, whereas 51.7% expressed that future studies are necessary to determine the anticancer effects of cannabis.

Conclusions
Our findings indicate that most pediatric oncologists and palliative care physicians recognize a potential role for cannabis in symptom control in children with cancer. Well-conducted studies are required to create evidence for cannabis use and promote shared decision making with pediatric oncology patients and their caregivers'

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/cnr2.1551

'But to find the science that ultimately convinced him of the therapeutic potential of cannabis, he had to look internationally, because there seemed to be a “very biased set of data” in the U.S. that focused almost exclusively on the potential harms rather than benefits.

“If you’re just looking at papers—well, this one [says there’s] potential long harm, this one possible addiction, this one gateway—you know, you’re seeing all those individual studies, but at a broader level, one step upstream, you realize that most of the studies that are getting funded are designed to look for harm,” Gupta said.

“When I saw that, that was the first time I thought, ‘well, why are the studies that are getting out there, why are they all designed to look for harm?” he said. “Then I started looking at other countries, and some really good research out of places like Israel in particular.”'

https://www.marijuanamoment.net/sanjay-gupta-explains-his-marijuana-reversal-and-discusses-very-biased-u-s-research-with-joe-rogan/

'But recent studies paint a grim picture of the impact of the extended school closures. Students from rural areas, where a majority of the country’s population resides, and those from marginalized communities, faced multiple barriers to continuing their education even before the pandemic.

A survey in August spanning 15 states found that 37 percent of children in grades one through eight in rural areas were not studying at all, and nearly 50 percent could not read more than a few words. Results in urban areas were only marginally better. The survey of nearly 1,400 children focused on students from underprivileged backgrounds who studied in public schools.'

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/10/02/coronavirus-india-school-closures/

'Question Is the legalization of recreational cannabis in the US associated with changes in cannabis use outcomes and cannabis use disorder across racial and ethnic groups?

Findings In this cross-sectional study analyzing repeated yearly surveys of US adults conducted from 2008 to 2017, living in a state after enactment of recreational cannabis laws was associated with increases in the odds of cannabis use within the past year and past month among Hispanic and non-Hispanic White individuals (as well as individuals identifying as Native American, Pacific Islander, Asian, or more than 1 race) compared with the period before the passage of recreational use laws; there were no increases among non-Hispanic Black individuals.

Meaning Cannabis legalization is generally associated with increased use of cannabis and not associated with frequent use or use disorder among cannabis users, including among members of demographic subgroups most affected by criminalization.'

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2784528

'“The United States is facing an unprecedented crisis of overdose deaths fueled by illegally manufactured fentanyl and methamphetamine,” said Anne Milgram, Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration. “Counterfeit pills that contain these dangerous and extremely addictive drugs are more lethal and more accessible than ever before. In fact, DEA lab analyses reveal that two out of every five fake pills with fentanyl contain a potentially lethal dose. DEA is focusing resources on taking down the violent drug traffickers causing the greatest harm and posing the greatest threat to the safety and health of Americans. Today, we are alerting the public to this danger so that people have the information they need to protect themselves and their children.”

These counterfeit pills have been seized by DEA in every U.S. state in unprecedented quantities. More than 9.5 million counterfeit pills were seized so far this year, which is more than the last two years combined. DEA laboratory testing reveals a dramatic rise in the number of counterfeit pills containing at least two milligrams of fentanyl, which is considered a lethal dose. A deadly dose of fentanyl is small enough to fit on the tip of a pencil.

Counterfeit pills are illegally manufactured by criminal drug networks and are made to look like real prescription opioid medications such as oxycodone (Oxycontin®, Percocet®), hydrocodone (Vicodin®), and alprazolam (Xanax®); or stimulants like amphetamines (Adderall®). Fake prescription pills are widely accessible and often sold on social media and e-commerce platforms – making them available to anyone with a smartphone, including minors.'

https://www.dea.gov/press-releases/2021/09/27/dea-issues-public-safety-alert-sharp-increase-fake-prescription-pills

'For the researchers doing the actual work of figuring out what can help in the fight against Covid-19, ivermectin fandom has become a hindrance. “From a physician’s perspective, you’re not a fan of a drug,” David Boulware, a practicing physician and infectious disease researcher who has studied ivermectin and is currently running a randomized clinical trial to test its benefits, told me. “We’re actually trying to investigate it because we want an answer.”

Figuring out which drugs work against Covid-19 is one of the most critical problems facing humanity. And it makes sense for people to be confused and frustrated by messaging from public health officials, which often hasn’t been very good, or to take it upon themselves to do their own research when the medical establishment has made its own missteps.

But the evidence-free state of public ivermectin advocacy isn’t just hurting people, it’s also derailing the larger goal of ending this pandemic. There are drugs we can be pretty confident work better than ivermectin, and scared, sick people ought to be able to learn about those instead of being deluged with “miracle drug” claims. And researchers need to be able to conduct studies without hearing that the case for ivermectin is so obvious that no further research is needed.'

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22663127/ivermectin-covid-treatments-vaccines-evidence

'A small but growing number of states now permit eligible patients to be reimbursed for their medical cannabis-related costs through their workers’ compensation insurance (WCI) plans, according to an analysis of state policies conducted by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.

Researchers affiliated with the federal agency assessed rules and regulations in 36 states permitting medical cannabis access. They identified six states – Connecticut, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, and New York – that explicitly allow for employees to have their medical cannabis expenses reimbursed. In three of those states – New Hampshire, New Jersey, and New York – reimbursements were ordered by the courts earlier this year.

By contrast, authors identified six states where workers’ compensation insurance is expressly prohibited from reimbursing medical marijuana-related costs: Maine, Massachusetts, Florida, North Dakota, Ohio, and Washington. '

https://norml.org/news/2021/09/23/analysis-growing-number-of-states-allow-medical-cannabis-costs-to-be-reimbursed-by-workers-compensation-insurance

'Authors concluded: “We show that physicians from a university-affiliated health system in a state with legal recreational and medical cannabis have generally low levels of factual knowledge about medical cannabis. … Our results highlight the mismatch between physician knowledge and medical cannabis policy. Despite numerous long-standing medical cannabis laws (11 years in the state of the current study), physician training and education has insufficiently prepared physicians on cannabis-related knowledge. This is especially true for dosing, as most respondents were unsure about effective doses (in mg) of THC or CBD. … This lack of knowledge has contributed to general discomfort with integrating cannabis into medical practice. This discomfort likely pushes patients to turn to other sources to obtain cannabis-related knowledge, including the popular press, personal research, or from dispensary staff who receive little or no medical training. As such, more comprehensive training is necessary for physicians to bridge the gap between cannabis policy and clinical care.”'

https://norml.org/news/2021/09/09/survey-most-physicians-insufficiently-prepared-to-discuss-cannabis-related-health-issues

'The study, which received partial funding through a federal National Institutes of Health grant, also found that youth cannabis consumption decreased in states where recreational legalization had been in place for two years or more.

“Consistent with estimates from prior studies, there was little evidence that RMLs or MMLs encourage youth marijuana use,” the researchers said. “As more post-legalization data become available, researchers will be able to draw firmer conclusions about the relationship between RMLs and adolescent marijuana use.”

The study authors didn’t attempt to explain why youth might not be using marijuana more frequently in states that have legalized, but it’s a trend that doesn’t surprise advocates who have long reasoned that permitting sales in a regulated environment would detract from the illicit market and minimize youth access.'

https://www.marijuanamoment.net/marijuana-legalization-doesnt-lead-to-increased-youth-use-american-medical-association-study-finds/

'When it comes to the war on drugs, there’s no need for further research to prove that such criminalization has disproportionately impacted communities of color, a top federal drug official said in a new interview.

National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) Director Nora Volkow has on several recent occasions discussed the harms of the drug war and the need to take an alternative approach, in part by decriminalizing substance misuse and promoting treatment through a public health-focused model.'

https://www.marijuanamoment.net/top-federal-drug-official-says-we-dont-need-more-research-to-show-criminalizations-racist-impact/

'Hospitals that receive [Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)] accreditation are generally expected to comply with local, state and federal laws in order to qualify for certain reimbursements. And so because marijuana remains federally illegal, “many healthcare facilities have adopted policies prohibiting cannabis on their grounds out of a perceived risk of losing federal funding if they were to allow it.”'

https://www.marijuanamoment.net/feds-and-california-governor-exploring-rules-for-medical-marijuana-use-in-hospitals/

'They conclude: “In the lead up to legalization, professional associations … suggested that legalization posed a threat to public health, advocated for the legal age for cannabis use to be set at a minimum age of 21 or 25, or that Canada should not legalize at all because it would place youth at greater risk of harm. With such categorical fears now shown to be largely unfounded, this should provide the basis to move forward on more nuanced grounds. … [O]n the balance, cannabis legalization – especially when considering the severe adverse social impacts of criminalization, and especially for youth – continues to offer the potential to better protect and achieve consequential net benefits to public health and welfare of cannabis users and society at large.”'

https://norml.org/blog/2021/08/17/analysis-marijuana-legalization-opponents-fears-have-not-come-to-fruition-in-canada/

'The overwhelming majority of pain patients provided medical cannabis treatment report either reducing or ceasing their use of opioid medications, according to data published in the Journal of Addictive Diseases.

A team of Israeli investigators affiliated with Tel Aviv University assessed the relationship between cannabis and opioids in a cohort of patients with non-cancer specific chronic pain. All of the patients enrolled in the study were prescribed medical cannabis therapy in accordance with Israel’s medical cannabis access laws.

Among those patients who reported using opioids at baseline, 93 percent either “decreased or stopped [using] opioids following cannabis initiation” – a finding that is consistent with dozens of other studies.'

https://norml.org/news/2021/08/05/survey-over-90-percent-of-chronic-pain-patients-report-mitigating-their-use-of-opioids

 

'But the best technicians available to the National DAs convention in Vegas apparently couldn't handle it. Their sound system looked like something Ulysses S Grant might have rigged up to address his troops during the siege of Vicksburg. The voices from up front crackled with a fuzzy, high-pitched urgency, and the delay was just enough to keep the words disconcertingly out of phase with the speaker's gestures.

"We must come to terms with the Drug Culture in this country...country...country!..." These echoes drifted back to the rear in confused waves. "The reefer butt is called a 'roach' because it resembles a cockroach...cockroach...cockroach..."

"What the fuck are these people talking about?" my attorney whispered. "You'd have to be crazy on acid to think a joint looked like a goddamn cockroach!"

I shrugged. It was clear that we'd stumbled into a prehistoric gathering. The voice of a "drug expert" named Bloomquist crackled out of the nearby speakers"...about these flashbacks, the patient never knows, he thinks it's all over and he gets himself straightened out for six months...and then, darn it, the whole trip comes back to him."'

- Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream, Part II...by Raoul Duke, November 25, 1971, Fear and Loathing at the Rolling Stone, The Essential Writing of Hunter S. Thompson

'Authors reported: “Forty-three percent of the patients who had been using analgesic medications prior to MC [medical cannabis] treatment initiation were no longer using them. This was true for all classes of analgesic drugs including over the counter analgesics, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, anticonvulsants and antidepressants. As for opioid use, 24 percent and 20 percent of the participants who had been using weak or strong opioids, respectively, at baseline stopped using them by the time they reached the 12-month follow-up.”

They concluded, “This prospective study provides further evidence for the effects of medical cannabis on chronic pain and related symptoms, demonstrating an overall mild-to-modest long-term improvement of the tested measures and identifying possible predictors for treatment success.”'

https://norml.org/news/2021/08/05/study-medical-cannabis-treatment-associated-with-sustained-relief-decreased-use-of-analgesics-in-chronic-pain-patients

'On the retail side, only one other company has received as many permits as Holistic did under the state program that its consultant Gupta once oversaw.

It’s unclear at this point what role, if any, Gupta played in helping Holistic to secure those approvals. According to the disclosure documents, he earned $10,000 for his services to the company.

“Dr. Gupta’s work for Holistic Industries involved consulting on regulatory compliance matters for prescribing medicinal cannabis in West Virginia where medical cannabis had already been legalized,” a White House spokesperson told CNN. “He had overseen the development of such a program in the state as required by state law.”'

https://www.marijuanamoment.net/bidens-white-house-drug-czar-nominee-worked-for-a-marijuana-business-records-show/


'Last week, we got some terrible news: In 2020, the number of drug overdose deaths in the US reached their highest point ever recorded — more than 93,000, according to preliminary federal data.

And then this week, we got some more terrible news: Life expectancy in the US fell by 1.5 years — the worst decline since World War II. Most of that was due to Covid-19. But some of it was driven by the increase in overdoses.'

https://www.vox.com/22589160/opioid-epidemic-drug-overdose-deaths-2020-life-expectancy

'The nation’s top doctor said on Sunday that it’s time to stop incarcerating people for marijuana use.

“When it comes to decriminalization, I don’t think that there is value to individuals or to society to lock people up for marijuana use,” Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said in a CNN appearance. “I don’t think that serves anybody well.”'

https://www.marijuanamoment.net/surgeon-general-says-stop-locking-people-up-for-marijuana/

'Emerging plant-based vaccine technology will not only help the world respond to the current and future pandemics but also offers an opportunity to expand vaccine production to developing countries, according to Hefferon. Vaccines remain a cornerstone of public health, preventing some 4 to 5 million deaths each year. And yet many places around the world lack access to vaccines for measles, meningitis, and whooping cough. That means that some 1.5 million people a year still die from preventable infectious diseases.

“There is an overwhelming vaccine inequality between the rich and the poor countries, and maybe if you can increase the amount of different manufacturing platforms, then you can make more vaccines more quickly for more people,” says Tregoning'

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/your-next-vaccine-could-be-grown-in-a-tobacco-plant

'The rapid spread of COVID-19 underscores the need for new treatments. Here we report that cannabidiol (CBD), a compound produced by the cannabis plant, inhibits SARS-CoV-2 infection. CBD and its metabolite, 7-OH-CBD, but not congeneric cannabinoids, potently block SARS-CoV-2 replication in lung epithelial cells. CBD acts after cellular infection, inhibiting viral gene expression and reversing many effects of SARS-CoV-2 on host gene transcription. CBD induces interferon expression and up-regulates its antiviral signaling pathway. A cohort of human patients previously taking CBD had significantly lower SARS-CoV-2 infection incidence of up to an order of magnitude relative to matched pairs or the general population. This study highlights CBD, and its active metabolite, 7-OH-CBD, as potential preventative agents and therapeutic treatments for SARS-CoV-2 at early stages of infection. '

https://pesquisa.bvsalud.org/global-literature-on-novel-coronavirus-2019-ncov/resource/pt/ppbiorxiv-432967

'The objective of this report is to provide medical professionals and policymakers with an up-to-date, science-based perspective on the medicine of cannabis in the United States. It includes input from medical doctors, researchers, veterinarians, and policy experts, all committed to the development of a cannabis industry founded on scientific research, patient safety, and equitable access to safe products and clinical oversight. It includes a history of medical cannabis, an overview of the endocannabinoid system and the complex nature of the cannabis plant, and explores clinical uses as well as safety considerations. The paper also highlights the obstacles that currently hinder research, and includes policy recommendations to remove those barriers and promote evidenced-based therapeutic cannabis access and use.'

https://thecannabisindustry.org/press-releases/ncia-releases-overview-of-cannabis-medical-knowledge/

'A group of medical experts have submitted a report to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, warning that mass, incomplete, and indiscriminate vaccination can stimulate the emergence of mutant viral strains of COVID-19.

The public health specialists belonging to Indian Public Health Association (IPHA), Indian Association of Preventive and Social Medicine, and Indian Association of Epidemiologists have also suggested that there is no requirement of vaccinating individuals who have previously recovered from COVID-19, as per a PTI report.'

https://in.yahoo.com/news/unplanned-vaccination-foster-mutant-strains-034534842.html

'An event to honor Lester Grinspoon (June 24, 1928 - June 25, 2020)

This online conversation will focus on the life, activism, and work of Dr. Lester Grinspoon, particularly on his groundbreaking research on cannabis use, psychedelics, and other drugs, in the 50th-anniversary year of his book Marihuana Reconsidered. This virtual event, on what would have been Dr. Grinspoon’s 93rd birthday, will formally kick off a campaign to raise funds to process and digitize his papers, one of the major collections related to drug policy and social change held in Special Collections and University Archives, UMass Amherst Libraries, and is a prelude to a larger event scheduled for June 24, 2022. '

https://umass-amherst.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Lozo2XFlS5qGnLSG21KkXw

'In an email blasted out last week to city doctors and public health officials, DOH chief medical officer Dr. Michelle Morse described a troubling uptick in kids puffing on pot, e-cigarettes and hookah.

Though just 3.3 percent of city public high school kids smoke cigarettes, 17.7 percent reach for reefer, Morse wrote in the email, a copy of which was obtained by The Post.

An “alarming” 15.2 percent use e-cigarettes, 6.3 percent puff on cigars or cigarillos and 5.6 percent fire up the hookah, Morse added, citing unpublished data from a 2018 youth tobacco survey.'

https://nypost.com/2021/05/31/heath-chief-warns-of-kid-pot-dangers-as-ny-readies-for-legal-weed/


'Authors concluded: “This is among the first studies to assess clinician beliefs and practices related to medical cannabis in a U.S. multi-state sample. … Over two-thirds (68.9 percent) of clinicians surveyed believe that cannabis has medicinal uses and just over a quarter (26.6 percent) had ever recommended cannabis to a patient. … Results from this study suggest that the highest prevalence conditions where clinicians indicated they believed cannabis could be medically used were scientifically based – pain, nausea, appetite activation, anti-seizure, and spasticity. '

https://norml.org/news/2021/05/27/survey-over-two-thirds-of-health-clinicians-acknowledge-that-cannabis-can-be-used-medically

'Some Key Report Findings:

- Growth of Medical Cannabis: The medical cannabis market is projected to almost double to over $16 billion by 2025.
- Medical Market Intelligence: Nearly half of medical consumers (45%) identify smokable cannabis as their preferred product form while 24% prefer edibles and beverages, key insight for retailers and operators.
- Cannabis as an Alternative for Prescription Drugs: Leading prescription types replaced by medical cannabis include anticonvulsants (72%), glaucoma medication (71%), anti-migraine medication (65%), nausea suppressants (65%), and ADD/ADHD (62%).'

https://info.newfrontierdata.com/medical-cannabis-pharmaceuticals

'While India has supported waiving the patents on foreign-made vaccines, it has made no move to suspend it for Covaxin.

Contrary to its international position, it has opposed suggestions from opposition leaders to invoke compulsory licensing and allow other pharma companies to manufacture the approved vaccines, saying these measures would prove "counterproductive".'

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-57007004

'Ranked by the change in newly recorded infections in the past month over the previous month, Laos came first with a 22,000% increase, followed by Nepal and Thailand, both of which saw fresh caseload skyrocketing more than 1,000% on a month-over-month basis.

Also on top of the list are Bhutan, Trinidad and Tobago, Suriname, Cambodia and Fiji, as they witnessed the epidemic erupt at a high triple-digit pace.'

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-05-03/it-s-not-just-india-new-virus-waves-deluge-developing-countries

'As the major nonpsychotropic constituent of Cannabis sativa, cannabidiol (CBD) is regarded as one of the most promising therapeutic agents due to its proven effectiveness in clinical trials for many human diseases. Due to the urgent need for more efficient pharmacological treatments for several chronic diseases, in this review, we discuss the potential beneficial effects of CBD for Alzheimer’s disease, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, and neurological cancers. Due to its wide range of pharmacological activities (e.g., antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and neuroprotective properties), CBD is considered a multimodal drug for the treatment of a range of neurodegenerative disorders, and various cancer types, including neoplasms of the neural system. The different mechanisms of action of CBD are here disclosed, together with recent progress in the use of this cannabis-derived constituent as a new therapeutic approach.'

https://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/22/9/4294

'Up to date, a total of 450 of physicians of diverse medical specialties took part in the study. Preliminary results demonstrate strong support among Alabama physicians for medical cannabis legalization. As shown in Figure 1, almost 70% agreed with the statement about legalization of medical cannabis use per recommendation of a medical provider. Conversely, about 26% disagreed with the statement.

As expected, the level of support for recreational cannabis legislation among Alabama physicians is markedly lower than for medical cannabis legislation. Still, as shown in Figure 2, about 43% of the survey respondents agreed with the statement regarding legalization of recreational cannabis for adult use.'

https://www.uab.edu/listerhillcenter/publications/briefs-reports/158-medical-cannabis-al-physician-support

'The National Commissioner of Police and the Icelandic Medical Association oppose a bill by the Minister of Health on the decriminalization of drug consumption, RÚV reports.

According to the bill, which has majority public support, possession of narcotics and drugs in limited quantities will not be punishable.

The National Commissioner of Police says they cannot support the bill in its current form because it offers different interpretations that may make it more difficult for the police to enforce the law.

The Icelandic Medical Association believes that the way proposed in the bill will increase the “drug problems of Icelandic young people from what it is now”.

The Red Cross celebrates the change.'

https://grapevine.is/news/2021/04/30/doctors-and-national-commissioner-of-police-oppose-decriminalisation-of-drug-consumption/

'Doctors believe mucormycosis, which has an overall mortality rate of 50%, may be being triggered by the use of steroids, a life-saving treatment for severe and critically ill Covid-19 patients.

Steroids reduce inflammation in the lungs for Covid-19 and appear to help stop some of the damage that can happen when the body's immune system goes into overdrive to fight off coronavirus. But they also reduce immunity and push up blood sugar levels in both diabetics and non-diabetic Covid-19 patients.

It's thought that this drop in immunity could be triggering these cases of mucormycosis.'

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-57027829

Symptoms of pulmonary (lung) mucormycosis include: Fever, Cough, Chest pain, Shortness of breath

These fungi aren’t harmful to most people. However, for people who have weakened immune systems, breathing in mucormycete spores can cause an infection in the lungs or sinuses which can spread to other parts of the body.

Risk groups for mucormycosis include persons with uncontrolled diabetes; malignancy; hematopoietic stem cell transplant or solid organ transplant; persistent neutropenia; prolonged corticosteroid therapy; skin trauma, burns, or surgical wounds; iron overload; intravenous drug use; malnourishment; and premature infants.

Mucormycosis is frequently a life-threatening infection. A review of published mucormycosis cases found an overall all-cause mortality rate of 54%. The mortality rate varied depending on underlying patient condition, type of fungus, and body site affected (for example, the mortality rate was 46% among people with sinus infections, 76% for pulmonary infections, and 96% for disseminated mucormycosis).

https://www.cdc.gov/fungal/diseases/mucormycosis/statistics.html

'The Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India, K. VijayRaghavan, released a note the next day acknowledging the problems and promising to increase access. “Our broader research community needs to be much more facilitated by our research agencies,” the letter said. But some scientists are skeptical that the situation will improve quickly; the note was low on details and previous requests for data from government agencies have often gone unanswered, they say. Why the Indian government is so reticent to share data is unclear.'

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/05/there-are-so-many-hurdles-indian-scientists-plead-government-unlock-covid-19-data

'They drove 20 minutes to the village of Karandi, slowing to pass caravans of migrant sugarcane cutters in ox carts. They spent more than 1 hour taking blood samples at a cluster of houses shared by three generations of one family. Later, the team would scour the blood for antibodies that indicate past run-ins with COVID-19.

Girish Dayma, who helps oversee this research program run by a satellite of King Edward Memorial (KEM) Hospital in Pune, says the team’s surveys to date show that up to 40% of these villagers have antibodies for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. “When we started this serosurveillance, it was thought that the rural area was not much affected,” Dayma says. “The data are very much important to convince the policymakers that we need interventions in rural areas.”'

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/04/will-india-s-devastating-covid-19-surge-provide-data-clear-its-death-paradox

'Forest loss in the tropics increased 12% in 2020 compared with 2019, The New York Times reports. More than 12 million hectares of primary tropical forests, an area roughly the size of Switzerland, were destroyed in the period, according to a new report from the World Resources Institute and the University of Maryland. Researchers estimate that the global loss, led with a large margin by Brazil, released more than 2.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, the equivalent to the annual emissions of 570 million cars. The accelerated destruction comes despite pandemic-related disruptions to the production of commodities that promote deforestation, like palm oil and cocoa.'

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/03/tropical-forest-destruction-increases-despite-pandemic

'Anyway, what about the vaccines? Surely they’ll save us? Isn’t India a vaccine powerhouse? In fact, the Indian government is entirely dependent on two manufacturers, the Serum Institute of India (SII) and Bharat Biotech. Both are being allowed to roll out two of the most expensive vaccines in the world, to the poorest people in the world. This week they announced that they will sell to private hospitals at a slightly elevated price, and to state governments at a somewhat lower price. Back-of-the-envelope calculations show the vaccine companies are likely to make obscene profits.'

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/apr/28/crime-against-humanity-arundhati-roy-india-covid-catastrophe

 

'Bloomquist writes like somebody who once bearded Tim Leary in a campus cocktail lounge and paid for all the drinks. And it was probably somebody like Leary who told him with a straight face that sunglasses are known in drug culture as "tea shades."

This is the kind of dangerous gibberish that used to be posted, in the form of mimeographed bulletins, in Police Dept. locker rooms.

Indeed:

Know your Dope Fiend. Your Life May Depend On It! You will not be able to see his eyes because of Tea-Shades, but his knuckles will be white from inner tension and his pants will be crusted with semen from continuously jacking off when he can't find a rape victim. He will stagger and babble when questioned. He will not respect your badge. The Dope Fiend fears nothing. He will attack, for no reason, with every weapon at his command - including yours. Beware. Any officer apprehending a suspected marijuana addict should use all necessary force immediately. One stitch in time (on him) will actually save nine on you. Good luck.

"The Chief."

- Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream, Part II...by Raoul Duke, November 25, 1971, Fear and Loathing at the Rolling Stone, The Essential Writing of Hunter S. Thompson

'More than 120 million doses have been administered, mostly of an Indian-produced version of the Oxford–AstraZeneca vaccine called Covishield. But that’s less than 10% of India’s population, so there is still a long way to go. In particular, India needs to ramp up vaccinations in the hardest-hit regions, says Kang.

Some people might have become infected while getting vaccines, says Udwadia, because crowds often share clinic waiting areas with ill people who are waiting to be seen.'

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01059-y

"Two patients from the high-dose group developed dangerous cardiac arrhythmias before death, a known side effect from chloroquine, and warning signs for future heart trouble were more common in the high-dose group.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/06/it-s-nightmare-how-brazilian-scientists-became-ensnared-chloroquine-politics


'The organization's current position will not stop the nation's march toward cannabis legalization. But make no mistake: Its active opposition to legalization prevents cannabis regulation and delays the end of this racially biased policy. The AMA's blindness to its own institutional racism is a moral stain on our profession. And with every passing year -- every day -- a heavy cost is paid in Black lives.

Voters around the nation approved all five cannabis initiatives on the ballot in November -- three for adult use, one for medical use and one for both uses -- so the need to properly regulate this drug has never been greater. If the AMA is serious about righting the wrongs of its past, it must renounce the racist war on drugs and support effective regulation of cannabis as the only logical alternative to the destructive policy of prohibition.

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/04/14/opinions/american-medical-association-racism-war-on-drugs-nathan-clark-elders/index.html

'Yes, of course, reasoned arguments and statistical data have their place in fomenting political change, and we never could have gotten this far in the legalization movement without them. But all the same salient facts existed back in 1971, when a Harvard Medical School professor named Dr. Lester Grinspoon published his seminal book, Marihuana Reconsidered.

Grinspoon originally set out to research the subject in an effort to convince his best friend, famed astronomer Carl Sagan, to stop smoking so much weed. Instead, the good doctor came away convinced that the government’s case against cannabis was based on lies and propaganda. Assuming that an impeccably sourced scholarly work exposing this terrible injustice would lead to rapid societal change, he first gave a private mea culpa to his best bud, then set out to share his findings with the world.'

https://www.leafly.com/news/politics/chronic-chronology-great-moments-in-4-20-history

'Results
One hundred seven radiation oncologists completed the survey. According to the survey, 36% of respondents would recommend therapeutic cannabis to their patients to mitigate treatment toxicity. Physicians practicing in states where medical marijuana is legal were more likely to recommend it compared to physicians working in states that have not legalized medical marijuana (OR = 3.79, 1.19–12.1, p = 0.01). Seventy-one percent of respondents reported therapeutic cannabis as being effective at least some of the time for managing treatment-related toxicities. Fifty-eight percent of physicians reported lacking sufficient knowledge to advise patients regarding therapeutic cannabis, while 86% of respondents were interested in learning more about therapeutic cannabis for cancer patients.

Conclusions
Although a majority of radiation oncologists believe there are benefits to therapeutic cannabis, many are hesitant to recommend for or against its use. Radiation oncologists appear to be interested in learning more about how therapeutic cannabis may play a role in their patients’ care.'

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00520-021-06160-6

'George Otto claims he never would have entered the illegal opioid trade if it weren’t for a pharmacist named Shereen El-Azrak. By March 2015, El-Azrak was spiralling from one crisis to another. She co-owned Weston PharmaChoice on Lawrence Avenue near Jane, and the doctor in the adjoining clinic had recently vacated his office. Like many pharmacists in Ontario, El-Azrak needed a physician nearby to write the prescriptions that would make up the backbone of her business. Otto had visited her pharmacy before, and she wanted to form a partnership. It was a common arrangement between doctors and pharmacists: she’d send him patients, he’d send her scripts.'

https://torontolife.com/city/the-untold-story-of-the-doctor-who-fuelled-a-drug-crisis/

'Consistent with prior research, authors reported, “Only 18 percent of participants rated their PCP’s [primary care prover’s] knowledge about medical cannabis as very good or excellent and only 21 percent were very or completely confident in their PCP’s ability to integrate medical cannabis into their treatment.” As a result, most subjects (86 percent) reported obtaining their medical cannabis recommendation from a doctor specializing in cannabis rather than from their primary care provider.'

https://norml.org/news/2021/02/25/survey-most-patients-lack-confidence-about-their-physicians-understanding-of-cannabis

'Doctor-prescribed cannabis is becoming increasingly common, and at the same time, the line between medical marijuana and CBD is becoming increasingly blurred. Consumers interested in the medical benefits of cannabis without its psychoactive effects have long embraced CBD, but with increased social acceptance of cannabis, consumers are straying ever more into the high-THC realm. Among current cannabis consumers, 25% prefer products with some measure (between 2:1 and 5:1 ratios) more CBD than THC, and a small minority of them (6%) prefer much more (between 10:1 and 40:1 ratios) of CBD than THC.'

https://newfrontierdata.com/cannabis-insights/the-link-between-cbd-and-medical-cannabis/

'Investigators with the University of Victoria in Vancouver assessed prescription drug use patterns over a six-month period in a cohort of 1,145 authorized medical cannabis patients.

Researchers reported that 28 percent of subjects acknowledged using opioid medications at the initiation of the trial. This fell to 11 percent six months later. Participants’ mean opioid dosage fell by 78 percent over the trial period – a finding consistent with prior studies.

Researchers also reported declines in subjects’ use of prescription anti-depressants, benzodiazepines, and anti-seizure medications. Prior studies have similarly reported declines in patients use of benzodiazepines and other prescription medications following the initiation of medical cannabis.'

https://norml.org/news/2021/01/21/study-medical-marijuana-treatment-associated-with-significant-declines-in-the-use-of-opioids-at-six-months

'Two medical associations are throwing their support behind a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the medical marijuana ballot initiative that Mississippi voters overwhelmingly approved in November, arguing that it creates “risks to public health” and places a “burden” on physicians.

The American Medical Association (AMA) and its state affiliate, the Mississippi State Medical Association (MSMA), recently filed an amicus brief backing the legal challenge being considered by the state Supreme Court, which was brought by the city of Madison just days before the election.'

https://www.marijuanamoment.net/american-medical-association-asks-court-to-overturn-medical-marijuana-vote-in-mississippi/

'The New Zealand Medical Association has backtracked on its stance opposing the cannabis referendum, and apologised to doctors who feel they were misrepresented.

It now says it is not taking a position on the referendum.'

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/428201/cannabis-referendum-medical-association-now-neutral

'The increased acceptance of marijuana by patients warrants pharmacists and other healthcare providers to be confident and familiar with its use. Our findings suggest that the majority of pharmacists are not asking about marijuana use/consumption, and this may be a gap in care. Studies support that other healthcare providers also exhibit hesitancy in initiating these conversations. Consumers are using marijuana products now, so increasing marijuana education for all healthcare professionals during both didactic education and continuing education will be key to ensuring patients have access to evidence-based care regarding the use of marijuana, rather than care based on belief, alone'

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2050312120938215

'Acid is a relatively complex drug, in its effects, while mescaline is pretty simple and straightforward - but in a scene like this, the difference was academic. There was simply no call, at this conference, for anything but a massive consumption of Downers: reds, grass, and booze, because the whole program had apparently been set up by people who had been in a Seconal stupor since 1964.

Here were more than a thousand top-level cops telling each other "we must come to terms with the drug culture," but they had no idea where to start. They couldn't even find the goddamn thing. There were rumours in the hallways that maybe the Mafia was behind it. Or perhaps the Beatles. At one point somebody in the audience asked Bloomquist if he thought Margaret Mead's "strange behavior," of late, might possibly be explained by a private marijuana addiction.

"I really don't know," Bloomquist replied. "But at her age, if she did smoke grass, she'd have one hell of a trip."

The audience roared with laughter at this remark.'

- Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream, Part II...by Raoul Duke, November 25, 1971, Fear and Loathing at the Rolling Stone, The Essential Writing of Hunter S. Thompson

 

'The major features of cellular organization, including, for instance, mitosis, must be much older than 500 million years old - more nearly 1000 million,' wrote Geroge Gaylord Simpson and his colleagues Pittendrigh and Tiffany in their broadly encompassing book entitled Life. 'In this sense the world of life, which is surely fragile and complex, is incredibly durable through time - more durable than mountains. This durability is wholly dependent on the almost incredible accuracy with which the inherited information is copied from generation to generation.'

But in all the thousand million years envisioned by these authors no threat has struck so directly and so forcefully at that 'incredible accuracy' as the mid-20th century threat of man-made radiation and man-made and man-disseminated chemicals. Sir Macfarlane Burnet, a distinguished Australian physician and a Nobel Prize winner, considers it 'one of the most significant medical features' of our time that, 'as a by-product of more and more powerful therapeutic procedures and the production of chemical substances outside of biological experiences, the normal protective barriers that kept mutagenic agents from the internal organs have been more and more frequently penetrated.' - Silent Spring, Rachel Carson, 1962

 

'By whatever names we dignify ourselves, in whatever apparel we attire ourselves, by whatever and before whatever priest we may be smeared with oil, however many millions we possess, however many special guards are stationed along our route, however many policemen guard our wealth, however many so-called miscreant-revolutionaries and anarchists we may execute, whatever exploits we may ourselves perform, whatever States we may found, whatever fortresses and towers we may erect - from the Tower of Babel to that of Eiffel - we are always all of us confronted by two inevitable conditions of life which destroy its whole meaning. There is first of all death, which may at any moment overtake any of us, and there is the transitoriness of all that we do and that is so quickly destroyed leaving no trace. Whatever we may do - found kingdoms, build palaces and monuments, compose poems and romances - everything is transitory, and soon passes leaving no trace. And therefore, however we may conceal it from ourselves, we cannot help seeing that the meaning of our life can be neither in our personal physical existence, subject to unavoidable sufferings and inevitable death, nor in any worldly institution or organization.

Whoever you may be who read these lines, consider your position and your duties - not the position of landowner, merchant, judge, emperor, president, minister, priest, or soldiers, temporarily attributed to you by men, nor those imaginary duties imposed on you by that position - but your real position in eternity as a creature who by Someone's will has been called out of unconsciousness after an eternity of nonexistence, to which by the same will you may at any moment be recalled. Think of your duties - not your imaginary duties as a landowner to your estate, as a merchant to your capital, as an emperor, minister, official to the State - but those real duties which follow from your real position as a being called to life and endowed with reason and love.'
 - Leo Tolstoy - The Kingdom of God and Peace Essays


'No feats of heroism are needed to bring about the greatest and most important changes in the life of humanity; neither the arming of millions of men, nor the construction of new railways and machines, nor the organization of exhibitions or trade unions, nor revolutions, nor barricades, nor dynamite outrages, nor the perfection of aerial navigation, and so forth. All that is necessary is a change of public opinion.

And for that change no effort of thought is demanded, no refutation of any existing thing, and no planning of anything new and extraordinary. All that is necessary is to cease acquiescing in the public opinion of the past, now false and already defunct and only artificially induced by governments. It is only necessary for each individual to say what he really thinks and feels or at least refrain from saying what he does not think.

If only men - even a few - would do that, the out-worn public opinion would at once and of itself fall away and a new, real, and vital opinion would manifest itself. And with this change of public opinion all that inner fabric of men's lives which oppresses and torments them would change of its own accord. One is ashamed to say how little is needed to deliver all men from the calamities which now oppress them. It is only necessary to give up lying! Only let men reject the lie which is imposed upon them; only let them stop saying what they neither think nor feel, and at once such a change of the whole structure of our life will be accomplished as the revolutionaries would not achieve in centuries even if all the power were in their hands.'
 - Leo Tolstoy - The Kingdom of God and Peace Essays

'If only free men would not rely on what has no power and is never free, that is, external force, but would trust in what is always powerful and free, that is, the truth and its expression!

 If only men would boldly and clearly express the truth already manifest to them (of the brotherhood of all nations and the crime of exclusive devotion to one's own) that defunct, false, public opinion on which rests the power of governments and all the evil they produce, would slough off by itself like a dead skin and reveal that new, living, public opinion which now only awaits the shedding of the old husk that has confined it, in order to announce its demands clearly and powerfully and establish new forms of existence in conformity with the conscience of mankind.'
 - Leo Tolstoy - The Kingdom of God and Peace Essays
 

'Nearly three in four licensed health care professionals in Washington state endorse the use of medical cannabis as a substitute for opioids in patients with chronic pain, according to survey data published in the journal Cannabis and Cannabinoid Research.'

'Researchers with the University of Washington School of Nursing surveyed a random sampling of actively licensed health care professionals legally permitted to provide medical cannabis authorizations in the state of Washington.

Of eligible respondents, 72 percent agreed with the statement, “Medical marijuana should be used to reduce the use of opioids for non-cancer pain.” Several studies [links] report that pain patients enrolled in state-sponsored cannabis access programs reduce or eliminate their use of opioid pain relievers over time.'
https://norml.org/blog/2020/07/15/survey-majority-of-health-care-professionals-endorse-cannabis-use-instead-of-opioids-in-chronic-pain-patients/


'Even as Bruce was being buried in Seattle, more headlines about him were appearing in the Hong Kong press. First lab tests from the autopsy, not done until thirty-six hours after death, were just coming in, and the big sensation was again "cannabis." Eventually the fact that there were traces of cannabis, or marijuana in Lee's stomach was completely discredited as a reason for his death. A doctor later said that it had as much meaning as telling him Lee had drunk a cup of tea the day he died.' - The Legend of Bruce Lee by Alex Ben Block, 1974


In no category did less than a majority of medical professionals support legalizing recreational or medical marijuana.'
https://www.marijuanamoment.net/most-doctors-nurses-and-pharmacists-support-legalizing-marijuana-poll-finds/


'Greater than 70% of physicians who took this survey believed that MMJ [medical marijuana] should be an option available to patients. Many have patients who inquired about or already used cannabis for symptom control; however, the respondents' familiarity with the NY program and the eCB system was modest.'
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5899285/

'A physician who once served at the U.S.’s top medical official is speaking out for the legalization of marijuana, saying that mere decriminalization is not good enough.

“The war on marijuana exacerbates poverty, which is strongly correlated with— among other problems—reduced access to health care. The unjust prohibition of marijuana has done more damage to public health than has marijuana itself,” Dr. Joycelyn Elders, who served as U.S. surgeon general during the Clinton administration, wrote in a new article in the November issue of the American Journal of Public Health.'
https://www.marijuanamoment.net/former-surgeon-general-legalize-marijuana-decrim-not-good-enough/


'Forty nine percent (68/140) of schools and colleges completed the survey and 62% (44/68) include medical marijuana content in their curriculum. Of the schools and colleges that do not include it, 23% (6/26) plan to incorporate medical marijuana topics within the next 12 months. In regards to perceived importance of specific topics related to medical marijuana, all topics received a median score of three on a scale of one to five, with one being of high importance.'
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877129718301266

 

'The top expert brought in on the case was Professor R D Teare, the professor of forensic medicine at the University of London. He ridiculed the theory that cannabis contributed to the collapse the actor suffered on May 10 or to his death on July 20. He said cannabis had been taken in various forms for centuries, and deemed it pure coincidence that shortly before the onset of Lee's collapse in May and his death he had taken cannabis. "It would be irresponsible and irrational to ascribe the causes of death to cannabis sensitivity, if over the years there had been no previous record of such a happening," the professor stated. Professor Teare said that his opinion was that the cause of death was acute cerebral edema (brain swelling) due to hypersensitvity to either meprobamate or aspirin, or possibly the combination of the two, contained in the drug Equagesic.' - The Legend of Bruce Lee by Alex Ben Block, 1974


'Clinical pathologist Dr. R R Lycette of Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Hong Kong testified Lee's death could not have been caused by cannabis poisoning, but was more likely due to hypersensitivity to one of the elements of Equagesic. Dr. Lycette, who performed the autopsy on Lee, explained hypersensitivity is an adverse reaction of a body to a foreign substance. "The substance which Lee could have been hypersensitive to might have been contained in Equagesic - a tablet he took - but I can't definitely say which compound in the tablet Lee was hypersensitive to," said the doctor.' - The Legend of Bruce Lee by Alex Ben Block, 1974


'The full scope of the dangerous interaction of chemicals is as yet little known, but disturbing findings now come regularly from scientific laboratories. Among this is the discovery that that the toxicity of an organic phosphate can be increased by a second agent that is not necessarily an insecticide. For example, one of the plasticizing agents may act even more dangerously than another insecticide to make malathion more dangerous. Again, this is because it inhibits the liver enzyme that would normally 'draw the teeth' of the poisonous insecticide.

What of other chemicals in the normal human environment? What, in particular, of drugs? A bare beginning has been made on this subject, but already it is known that some organic phosphates (parathion and malathion) increase the toxicity of some drugs used as muscle relaxants, and that several others (again including malathion) markedly increase the sleeping time of barbiturates.'
 - Silent Spring, Rachel Carson, 1962
-

 'Unfortunately for all of us, opportunities for this sort of thing to happen are legion. A few years ago a team of Food and Drug Administration scientists discovered that when malathion and certain other organic phosphates are administered simultaneously a massive poisoning results - up to 50 times as severe as would be predicted on the basis of adding the toxicities of the two. In other words, 1/100 of the lethal dose of each compound may be fatal when the two are combined.

The discovery led to the testing of other combinations. It is now known that many pairs of organic phosphate insecticides are highly dangerous, the toxicity being stepped up or 'potentiated' through the combined action. Potentiation seems to take place when one compound destroys the liver enzyme responsible for detoxifying the other. The two need not be given simultaneously. The hazard exists not only for the man who must spray this week with one insecticide and the next week with another; it exists also for the consumer of sprayed products. The common salad bowl may easily present a combination of organic phosphate insecticides. Residues well within the legally permissible limits may interact.'
 - Silent Spring, Rachel Carson, 1962

 

'Thus, through the circumstances of their lives, and the nature of our own wants, all these have been our allies in keeping the balance of nature tilted in our favor. Yet we have turned our artillery against our friends. The terrible danger is that we have grossly underestimated their value in keeping at bay a dark tide of enemies that, without their help, can overrun us.

The prospect of a general and permanent lowering of environmental resistance becomes grimly and increasingly real with each passing year as the number, variety, and destructiveness of insecticides grows. With the passing of time we may expect progressively more serious outbreaks of insects, both disease-carrying and crop-destroying species, in excess of anything we have ever known.' - Silent Spring, Rachel Carson, 1962



'The current vogue for poisons has failed utterly to take into account these most fundamental considerations. As crude a weapon as the cave man's club, the chemical barrage has been hurled against the fabric of life - a fabric on the one hand delicate and destructible, on the other miraculously tough and resilient, and capable of striking back in unexpected ways. These extraordinary capacities have been ignored by the practitioners of chemical control who have brought to their task no 'high-minded orientation', no humility before the vast forces with which they tamper.' - Silent Spring, Rachel C-arson, 1962 

'The 'control of nature' is a phrase conceived in arrogance, born of the Neanderthal age of biology and philosophy, when it was supposed that nature exists for the convenience of man. The concepts and practices of applied entomology for the most part date from that Stone Age of science. It is our alarming misfortune that so primitive a science has armed itself with the most modern and terrible weapons, and that in turning them against the insects it has also turned them against the earth.' - Silent Spring, Rachel Carson, 1962


'Where pesticides are involved, the chemicals that figure most prominently in the case histories are DDT, lindane, benzene hexachloride, the nitrophenols, the common moth crystal paradichlorobenzene, chlordane, and, of course, the solvents in which they are carried. As this physician emphasizes, pure exposure to a single chemical is the exception, rather than the rule. The commercial product usually contains combinations of several chemicals, suspended in a petroleum distillate plus some dispersing agent. The aromatic cyclic and unsaturated hydrocarbons of the vehicle may themselves be a factor in the damage done [to] the blood-forming organs. From the practical rather than the medical standpoint this distinction is of little importance, however, because these petroleum solvents are an inseparable part of most common spraying practices.' - Silent Spring, Rachel Carson, 1962



'Measured by the standards established by Warburg, most pesticides meet the criterion of the perfect carcinogen too well for comfort. As we have seen in the preceding chapter, many of the chlorinated hydrocarbons, the phenols, and some herbicides interfere with oxidation and energy production within the cell. By this means they may be creating sleeping cancer cells, in which an irreversible malignancy will slumber undetected until finally - its cause long forgotten and even unsuspected - it flares into the open as recognizable cancer.' - Silent Spring, Rachel Carson, 1962


'Today we find our world filled with cancer-producing agents. An attack on cancer that is concentrated wholly or even largely on therapeutic measures (even assuming a 'cure' could be found) in Dr. Heuper's opinion will fail because it leaves untouched the great reservoirs of carcinogenic agents which would continue to claim new victims faster than the as yet 'elusive' cure could allay the disease.

Why have we been so slow to adopt this common-sense approach to the cancer problem? Probably 'the goal of curing victims of cancer is more exciting, more tangible, more glamourous and rewarding than prevention,' says Dr. Heuper. Yet to prevent cancer from ever being formed is 'definitely more humane' and can be 'much more effective than cancer cures'. Dr. Heuper has little patience with the wishful thinking that promises 'a magic pill that we shall take every morning before breakfast' as protection against cancer. Part of the public trust in such an eventual outcome results from the misconception that cancer is a single, though mysterious disease, with a single cause and, hopefully, a single cure. This of course is far from the known truth. Just as environmental cancers are induced by a wide variety of chemical and physical agents, so the malignant condition itself is manifested in many different and biologically distinct ways.' - Silent Spring, Rachel Carson, 1962


'Over the past decade these problems have cast long shadows, but we have been slow to recognize them. Most of those best fitted to develop natural controls and assist in putting them into effect have been too busy laboring in the exciting vineyards of chemical control. It was reported in 1950 that only 2 per cent of all the economic entomologists in the country were then working in the field of biological controls. A substantial number of the remaining 98 per cent were engaged in research on chemical insecticides.

Why should this be? The major chemical companies are pouring money into the universities to support research on insecticides. This creates attractive fellowships for graduate students and attractive staff positions. Biological control studies, on the other hand, are never so endowed - for the simple reason that they do not promise anyone the fortunes that are to be made in the chemical industry. These are left to state and federal agencies, where the salaries paid are far less.' - Silent Spring, Rachel Carson, 1962

'Wealthier families and those who can successfully raise funds pay about £2,000 a month to access full-leaf cannabis medicines via private prescription for children with rare forms of treatment-resistant epilepsy, while poorer parents are unable to afford the prescriptions.

 Experts say that, despite the drug’s legality, rigid prescribing guidelines for doctors set by the British Paediatric Neurological Association – which cite a lack of clinical research and reference disputed theories about the mental health effects of cannabis – make getting hold of the medicine on the NHS difficult in practice.'
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/jul/01/anger-at-nhs-failure-to-prescribe-cannabis-oil-medicines

'Agencies concerned with vector-borne disease are at present coping with their problems by switching from one insecticide to another as resistance develops. But this cannot go on indefinitely, despite the ingenuity of the chemists in supplying new materials. Dr. Brown has pointed out that we are traveling 'a one-way street. No one knows how long the street is. If the dead end is reached before control of disease-carrying insects is achieved, our situation will indeed be critical.

With insects that infest crops the story is the same.' - Silent Spring, Rachel Carson, 1962



'Dr. Briejer says:
It is more than clear that we are traveling a dangerous road....We are going to have to do some very energetic research on other control measures, measures that will have to be biological, not chemical. Our aim should be to guide natural processes as cautiously as possible in the desired direction rather than to use brute force...

We need a more high-minded orientation and a deeper insight, which I miss in many researchers. Life is a miracle beyond our comprehension, and we should reverence it even where we have to struggle against it...The resort to weapons such as insecticides to control it is a proof of insufficient knowledge and of an incapacity so to guide the processes of nature that brute force becomes unnecessary.  Humbleness is in order; there is no excuse for scientific conceit here.'- Silent Spring, Rachel Carson, 1962

'Results With this systematic review, we can conclude that its therapeutic application in areas such as epilepsy, multiple sclerosis and in the relief of some cancer patient’s symptoms is promising. Its apparent anti-tumour activity in various types of cancer is of increasing scientific interest as current treatments in these situations are scarce.

Conclusion The future of cannabis therapy is getting closer. It is therefore necessary to study and develop new synthetic analogues of THC, with better separation between therapeutic and side effects. Scientific advances show that Cannabis sativa is a treatment option for many conditions. With this systematic review we can conclude that its therapeutic application in areas such as epilepsy, multiple sclerosis and in the relief of some symptoms in cancer patients is promising. Its apparent anti-tumour activity in various types of cancer is also of increasing scientific interest.'
https://academic.oup.com/eurpub/article-abstract/30/Supplement_2/ckaa040.015/5862080

'The study of herbal medicine spans the knowledge of biology, history, source, physical and chemical nature, and mechanism of action, traditional, medicinal and therapeutic use of drug. This article also provide knowledge about macroscopically and microscopically characters of Cannabis sativa with geographical sources. The well known cannabinoids are Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), Cannabidiol (CBD) and Cannabichromene (CBC) and their pharmacological properties and importance have been extensively studied. Hence, efforts are required to establish and validate evidence regarding safety and practices of Ayurveda medicines.

 Conclusion: These studies will help in expanding the current therapeutic potential of C. sativa and it also provide a strong support to its future clinical use as herbal medicines having safe in use with no side effects'
https://www.eurekaselect.com/183226/article


'Results and conclusion: Through a detailed analysis of the available resources about the origins of C. sativa we found that its use by ancient civilizations as a source of food and textile fibers dates back over 10,000 years, while its therapeutic applications have been improved over the centuries, from the ancient East medicine of the 2nd and 1st millennium B.C. to the more recent introduction in the Western world after the 1st century A.D. In the 20th and 21th centuries, Cannabis and its derivatives have been considered as a menace and banned throughout the world, but nowadays they are still the most widely consumed illicit drugs all over the world. Its legalization in some jurisdictions has been accompanied by new lines of research to investigate its possible applications for medical and therapeutic purposes.'
https://www.eurekaselect.com/182145/article

'There is still very limited awareness of the nature of the threat. This is an era of specialists, each of whom sees his own problem and is unaware or intolerant of the larger frame into which it fits. It is also an era dominated by industry, in which the right to make a dollar at whatever cost is seldom challenged. When the public protests, confronted with some obvious evidence of damaging results of pesticide applications, it is fed little tranquilizing pills of half truth. We urgently need an end to these false assurances, to the sugar coating of unpalatable facts. It is the public that is being asked to assume the risks that the insect controllers calculate. The public must decide whether it wishes to continue on the present road, and it can only do so when it is in full possesion of the facts. In the words of Jean Rostand, 'The obligation to endure gives us the right to know.' - Silent Spring, Rachel Carson, 1962


'As ground and surface waters are contaminated with pesticides and other chemicals, there is danger that not only poisonous but also cancer-producing substances are being introduced into public water supplies. Dr. W. C. Hueper of the National Cancer Institute has warned that 'the danger of cancer hazards from the consumption of contaminated drinking water will grow considerably within the foreseeable future.' And indeed a study made in Holland in the early 1950s provides support for the view that polluted waterways may carry a cancer hazard. Cities recieving their drinking water from rivers had a higher death rate from cancer than did those whose water came from sources presumably less susceptible to pollution such as wells.' - Silent Spring, Rachel Carson, 1962


'In each of these situations one turns away to ponder the question: Who has made the decision that sets in motion these chains of poisonings, this ever-widening wave of death that spreads out, like ripples when a pebble is dropped into a still pond? Who has placed in one pan of the scales the leaves that might have been eaten by the beetles and in the other the pitiful heaps of many-hued feathers, the lifeless remains of the birds that fell before the unselective bludgeon of insecticidal poisons? Who has decided - who has the right to decide - for the countless legions of people who were not consulted that the supreme value is a world without insects, even though it be also a sterile world ungraced by the curving wing of a bird in flight? The decision is that of the authoritarian temporarily entrusted with power; he has made it during a period of inattention by millions to whom beauty and the ordered world of nature still have a meaning that is deep and imperative.' - Silent Spring, Rachel Carson, 1962


'The fisheries of fresh and salt water are a resource of great importance, involving the interests and the welfare of a very large number of people. That they are now seriously threatened by the chemicals entering our waters can no longer be doubted. If we could divert to constructive research even a small fraction of the money spent each year on the development of even more toxic sprays, we could find ways to use less dangerous materials and to keep poisons out of our waterways. When will the public become sufficiently aware of the facts to demand such action? - Silent Spring, Rachel Carson, 1962

'Responsible public health officials have pointed out that the biological effects of chemicals are cumulative over long periods of time, and that the hazard to the individual may depend on the sum of the exposures received throughout his lifetime. For these very reasons the danger is easily ignored. It is human nature to shrug off what may seem to us a vague threat of future disaster. 'Men are naturally most impressed by disease which have obvious manifestations.' says a wise physician, Dr. Rene Dubos, 'yet some of their worst enemies creep on them unobtrusively.' - Silent Spring, Rachel Carson, 1962


 'The question is frequently asked: Why does a man become a drug addict?

The answer is that he usually does not intend to become an addict. You don't wake up one morning and decide to become a drug addict. It takes at least three months' shooting twice a day to get any habit at all. And you don't really know wht junk sickness is until you have had several habits. It took me almost six months to get my first habit, and then the withdrawal symptoms were mild. I think it is no exaggeration to say it takes about a year and several hundred injections to make an addict' - Prologue, Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953


'The question, of course, could be asked: Why did you ever try narcotics? Why did you continue using it long enough to become an addict? You become a narcotics addict because you do not have strong motivations in any other direction. Junk wins by default. I tried it as a matter of curiosity. I drifted along taking shots when I could score. I ended up hooked. Most addicts I have talked to report a similar experience. They did not start using drugs for any reason they can remember. They just drifted along until they got hooked. If you have never been addicted, you can have no clear idea what it means to need junk with the addict's special need. You don't decide to be an addict. One morning you wake up sick and you're an addict.' - Prologue, Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953


'Junk is a cellular equation that teaches the user facts of general validity. I have learned a  great deal from using junk: I have seen life measured out in eyedroppers of morphine solution. I experienced the agonizing deprivation of junk sickness, and the pleasure of relief when junk-thirsty cells drank from the needle. Perhaps all pleasure is relief. I have learned the cellular stoicism that junk teaches the user. I have seen a cell full of sick junkies silent and immobile in separate misery. They knew the pointlessness of complaining or moving. They knew that basically no one can help anyone else. There is no key, no secret someone else has that he can give you.' - Prologue, Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953


'He located a doctor in Brooklyn who was a writing fool. That croaker would go three scripts a day for as high as thirty tablets a script. Every now and then he would get dubious on the deal, but the sight of money always straightened him out.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953

Overzealous bureaucrats standing against positive change come what may and insisting on implementing outdated and backward policies which have been rejected by the creators of the policies themselves. Like soldiers who don't want to leave the battlefield even though the war is over and the death count has been devastating on all sides..

'The INCB’s president, Dr. Viroj Sumyai, noted in the foreword to the report that the conventions allow only for the medical and scientific use of cannabis, noting:

“The legalization of the use of cannabis for nonmedical purposes in some countries represents a challenge to the universal implementation of the treaties, a challenge to public health and well-being, particularly among young people, and a challenge to the parties to the treaties.”'
https://mjbizdaily.com/incb-medical-cannabis-violate-treaties/


Targeting marijuana...AIIMS of all the people should know that marijuana especially in traces will not kill...propaganda...

'The blood and urine samples of the first-year medical student who was found in a semi-comatose state at the AIIMS auditorium on September 18 and is battling for life have revealed traces of cannabis, also known as marijuana.'

https://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-newdelhi/marijuana-traces-in-blood-samples-of-aiims-student/article5158406.ece

'There are several varieties of writing croakers. Some will write only if they are convinced you are an addict, others only if they are convinced you are not. Most addicts put down a story worn smooth by years of use. Some claim gallstones or kidney stones. This is the story most generally used, and a croaker will often get up and open the door as soon as you mention gallstones. I got better results with facial neuralgia after I had looked up the symptoms and committed them to memory. Roy had an operation scar on his stomach that he used to suport his gallstone routine.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953


'There was one oldtime doctor who lived in a Victorian brownstone in the West Seventies. WIth him it was simply necessary to present a gentlemanly front. If you could get into his inner office you had it made, but he would write only three prescriptions. Another doctor was always drunk, and it was a matter of catching him at the right time. Often he wrote the prescription wrong and you had to take it back for correction. Then, like as not, he would say the prescription was a forgery and tear it up. Still another doctor was senile, and you had to help him write the script. He would forget what he was doing, put down his pen and go into a long reminiscence about the high class of patients he used to have. Especially, he liked to talk about a man named General Gore who once said to him, "Doctor, I've been to the Mayo Clinic and you know more than the whole clinic put together." There was no stopping him and the exasperated addict was forced to listen patiently. Often the doctor's wife would rush in at the last minute and tear up the prescription, or refuse to verify it when the drugstore called.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953


'Generally speaking, old doctors are more apt to write than the young ones. Refugee doctors were a good field for a while, but the addicts burned them down.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953


'Doctors are so exclusively nurtured on exaggerated ideas of their position that, generally speaking, a factual approach is the worst possible. Even though they do not believe your story, nonetheless they want to hear one. It is like some Oriental face-saving ritual. One man plays the high-minded doctor who wouldn't write an unethical script for a thousand dollars, the other does his best to act like a legitimate patient. If you say, "Look, Doc, I want an M.S. script and am willing to pay double price for it," the croaker blows his top and throws you out of the office. You need a good bedside manner with doctors or you will get nowhere.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953


'As I began using stuff every day, or often several times a day, I stopped drinking and going out at night. When you use junk you don't drink. Seemingly, the body that has a quantity of junk in its cells will not absorb alcohol. The liquor stays in the stomach, slowly building up nausea, discomfort, and dizziness, and there is no kick. Using junk would be a sure cure for alcoholics. I also stopped bathing. When you use junk the feel of water on the skin is unpleasant for some reason, and junkies are reluctant to take a bath.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953


'We were having trouble filling the scripts. Most drugstores will only fill a morphine script once or twice, many not at all. There was one drugstore that would fill all our scripts anytime, and we took them all there..' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953'

 

A lot of nonsense has been written about the changes people undergo as they get a habit. All of a sudden the addict looks in the mirror and does not recognise himself. The actual changes are difficult to specify and they do not show up in the mirror. That is, the addict himself has a special blind spot so far as the progress of the habit is concenrned. He generally does not realize that he is getting a habit at all. He says there is no need to get a habit if you are careful and observe a few rules, like shooting every other day. Actually, he does not observe these rules, but every extra shot is regarded as exceptional. I have talked to many addicts and they all say they were surprised when they discovered they actually had the first habit. Many of them attributed their symptoms to some other cause.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953
 

'As a habit takes hold, other interests lose importance to the user. Life telescopes down to junk, one fix and looking forward to the next, "stashes" and "scripts," "spikes" and "droppers." The addict himself often feels that he is leading a normal life and that junk is incidental. He does not realize that he is just going through the motions in his non-junk activities. It is not until his supply is cut off that he realizes what junk means to him.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953  


'The doctor's office was in junk territory on 102nd, off Broadway. He was a doddering old man and could not resist the junkies who filled his office and were, in fact, his only patients. It seemed to give him a feeling of importance to look out and see an office full of people. I guess he had reached a point where he could change the appearance of things to suit his needs and when he looked out there he saw a distinguished and diversified clientele, probably well dressed in 1910 style, instead of a bunch of ratty-looking junkies come to hit him for a morphine script.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953


'All croakers pack in sooner or later. One day when Roy came for his script, the doctor told him, "This is positively the last, and you guys had better keep out of sight. The inspector was around to see me yesterday. He has all the R-xes I wrote for you guys. He told me I will lose my license if I write any more, so I'm going to date this one back. Tell the druggist you were too sick yesterday to cash it.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953


'Ten minutes later Herman arrived. The brother-in-law was giving him the same treatment when Herman pulled out a silk dress he had under his coat - as I recall somebody unloaded a batch of hot dresses on us for three grains of morphine - and turning to see the doctor's wife who had come downstairs to see what all the commotion was about, he said, "I thought you might like this dress." So he got a chance to talk to the doctor who wrote him one last script. It took him three hours to fill it. Our regular drug store had been warned by the inspector, and they would not fill any more scripts.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953


'Our croaker had packed in. We split up to comb the city. We covered Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens, Jersey City and Newark. We couldn't even score for pantopon. It seemed like the doctors were all expecting us, just waiting for  one of us to walk into the office so they could say, "Absolutely no." It was as though every doctor in Greater New York had suddenly taken a pledge never to write another narcotics script. We were running out of junk.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953


'I got a codeine script from an old doctor by putting down a story about migraine headaches. Codeine is better than nothing and five grains in the skin will keep you from being sick. For some reason, it is dangerous to shoot codeine in the vein.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953


'In 1937, weed was placed under the Harrison Narcotics Act. Narcotics authorities claim it is a habit-forming drug, that its use is injurious to mind and body, and that it causes the people who use it to commit crimes. Here are the facts: Weed is positively not habit forming. You can smoke weed for years and you will experience no discomfort if your supply is cut off. I have seen tea heads in jail and none of them showed withdrawal symptoms. I have smoked weed myself off and on for fifteen years, and never missed it when I ran out. There is less habit to weed than there is to tobacco. Weed does not harm the general health. In fact. most users claim it gives you an appetite and acts as a tonic to the system. I do not know of any other agent that gives as definite a boot to the appetite. I can smoke a stick of tea and enjoy a glass of California sherry and a hash house meal.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953


'I once kicked a junk habit with weed. The second day off junk I sat down and ate a full meal. Ordinarily, I can't eat for eight days after kicking a habit.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953


'There has been a lot said about the aphrodisiac effect of weed. For some reason, scientists dislike to admit that there is such a thing as as aphrodisiac, so most pharmacologists say there is "no evidence to support the popular idea that weed possesses aphrodisiac properties." I can say definitely that weed is an aphrodisiac and that sex is more enjoyable under the influence of weed than without it. Anyone who has used good weed will verify this statement.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953

 

'When you're sick, music is a great help. Once, in Texas, I kicked a habit on weed, a pint of paregoric and a few Louis Armstrong records.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953 

'About fifteen minutes later the attendant called, "Shot line!" Everyone in the ward lined up. As our names were called, we put an arm through a window in the door of the ward dispensary, and the attendant gave the shots. Sick as I was, the shot fixed me. Right away, I began to get hungry.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953


'There were three shots a day. One at seven a.m., when we got up, one at one p.m., and one at nine p.m. Two old acquaintances had come in during the afternoon, Matty and Louis. I ran into Louis as we were lining up for the evening shot.
"Did they get you?" he asked me.
"No. Just here for the cure. How about you?"
"Same with me," he answered.
With the evening shot, they gave me some chloral hydrate in a glass. Five new arrivals were brought to the ward during the night. The ward attendant threw up his hands. "I don't know where I'm going to put them. I've got thirty-one dope fiends in here now." - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953


'According to the Blue Grass Law of Kentucky, any "known user of narcotic drugs can be sentenced to the county jail for one year, with the alternative of taking the cure in Lexington."' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953


'The cure at Lexington is not designed to keep the addicts comfortable. It starts at one-quarter of a grain of M[orphine] three times a day and lasts eight days-the preparation now used is a synthetic morphine called dolophine. After eight days, you get a send-off shot and go over in "population." There you recieve barbiturates for three nights and that is the end of medication.
For a man with a heavy habit, this is a very rough schedule. I was lucky, in that I came in sick, so the amount given in the cure was sufficient to fix me. The sicker you are and the longer you have been without junk, the smaller the amount necessary to fix you.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953


'The dolophine suspends the sickness, but when the medication stops the sickness returns. "YOu don't kick yout habit in the shooting gallery," an inmate told me. "You kick it over here in population." - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953


'A junkie runs on junk time. When his junk is cut off, the clock runs down and stops. All he can do is hang on and wait for non-junk time to start. A sick junkie has no escape from external time, no place to go. He can only wait.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953


'There was a raw ache in my lungs. People vary in the way junk sickness affects them. Some suffer mostly from vomitting and diarrhea. The asthmatic type, with narrow and deep chest, is liable to violent fits of sneezing, watering at eyes and nose, in some cases spasms of the bronchial tubes that shut off the breathing. In my case, the worst thing is lowering of blood pressure with consequent loss of body fluid, and extreme weakness, as in shock. It is a feeling as if the life energy has been shut off so that all the cells in the body are suffocating. As I lay there on the bench, I felt like as if I was subsiding into a pile of bones.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953


'The doctor asked a few questions and looked at my arms. Another doctor with a long nose and hairy arms walked up to put in his two cents.
"After all, doctor," he said to his colleague, "there is the moral question. This man should have thought of all this before he started using narcotics."
"Yes, there is the moral question, but there is also a physical question. This man is sick." He turned to a nurse and ordered half a grain of morphine.
As the wagon jolted along on the way back to the precinct, I felt the morphine spread through all my c-ells. My stomach moved and rumbled. A shot when you are very sick always starts the stomach moving. Normal strength came back to all my muscles. I was hungry and sleepy.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953-

'A few minutes later a nurse came in with a hypo. It was demerol. Demerol helps some, but it is not nearly as effective as codeine in relieving junk sickness.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953


'It is possible to detach yourself from most pain - injury to teeth, eyes, and genitals present special difficulties - so that the pain is experienced as neutral excitation. From junk sickness there seems to be no escape. Junk sickness is the reverse side of junk kick. The kick of junk is that you have to have it. Junkies run on junk time and junk metabolism. They are subject to junk climate. They are warmed and chilled by junk. the kick of junk is living under junk conditions. You cannot escape from junk sickness any more than you can escape from junk kick after a shot.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953

'May was the top month for medical coverage for cannabis since the current regulatory framework was implemented in early 2017.

During that month, statutory health insurers covered 10.6 million euros of medical cannabis, surpassing the 10 million euro mark for the first time. The number fell to 9.5 million euros in June.'
https://mjbizdaily.com/analysis-german-sales-of-insured-medical-cannabis-soar-in-second-quarter/


'Cannabis use is increasing among those ages 65 and older, according to data published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine.

Researchers affiliated with the New York School of Medicine assessed trends in self-reported cannabis use among seniors. They reported that 4.2 percent of seniors acknowledged engaging in past-year cannabis consumption in 2018, up from 2.4 percent in 2015 and 0.4 percent in 2006.

The study's findings are consistent with those of prior papers similarly reporting an uptick in marijuana use among older Americans. According to a 2019 study published in the journal Gerontology & Geriatric Medicine, marijuana use among seniors is associated with self-reported improvements in pain management, day-to-day functioning, and in their overall health and quality of life'
https://norml.org/news/2020/02/27/seniors-more-frequently-turning-to-cannabis

'When my wife came to see me later in the day, she told me they were using a new treatment in my case. The treatment had started with my morning shot.
"I noticed a difference. I thought the morning shot was M[orphine]."
"I talked with Dr. Moore on the phone. He told me that this is the wonder drug they have been looking for to treat drug addiction. It relieves withdrawal symptoms without forming a new habit. It isn't a narcotic at all. It is one of the antihistamines. Thephorin, I believe he said."
"Then it would seem withdrawal symptoms are an allergic reaction."
"That's what Dr. Moore says."
- Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953

'I was too weak to get out of bed. I could not lie still. In junk sickness, any conceivable line of action or inaction seems intolerable. A man might simply die because he could not stand to stay in his body.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953


'He asked the question they all ask. "Why do you feel that you need narcotics, Mr Lee?"
When you hear this question you can be sure that the man who asks it knows nothing about junk.
"I need it to get out of bed in the morning, to shave and eat breakfast."
"I mean physically."
I shrugged. Might as well give him his diagnosis so he will go. "It's a good kick."
Junk is not a "good kick." The point of junk to a user is that it forms a habit. No one knows what junk is until he is junk sick.
The doctor nodded. Psychopathic personality.'
- Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953


'When a junkie off junk gets drunk to a certain point, his thoughts turn to junk.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953


'An addict may be ten years off the junk, but he can get a new habit in less than a week; whereas someone who has never been addicted would have to take two shots per day for two months to get any habit at all. I took a shot daily for four months before I could notice withdrawal symptoms. You can list the symptoms of junk sickness, but the feel of it is like no other feeling and you can not put it into words. I did not experience this junk sick feeling until my second habit.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953

Get rich...at warp speed...warped indeed...

 'When the news broke yesterday that Operation Warp Speed had selected five experimental COVID-19 vaccines to fast-track through testing and, potentially, mass-scale production, it was news even to some top scientists involved with the White House–led program. “It’s been so chaotic, and it’s not even transparent to those of us who are trying to help out,” says a source linked to Warp Speed who asked not to be named.

 The New York Times reported that according to “senior officials,” the Trump administration program had chosen vaccines from Moderna, the University of Oxford/AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, and Merck for the crash development program, which aims to have enough safe and proven product to vaccinate 300 million Americans by January 2021. The government’s Biomedical Advanced Research Development Authority (BARDA) had already singled out all four for what could amount to more than $2 billion in funding if they hit milestones. The fifth vaccine flagged by The New York Times is made by Pfizer, whose CEO, Albert Bourla, said on 28 May at a media briefing that the company doesn’t want funding from any government because “We believe we can move faster if we don’t have to involve a third party.”'
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/06/top-us-scientists-left-out-white-house-selection-covid-19-vaccine-shortlist

'At first we filled the scripts without too much trouble. But after a few weeks the scripts had piled up in the drugstores that would fill M[orphine] scripts and they began packing in. It looked like we would be back with Lupita. Once or twice we got short and had to score with Lupita. Using that good drugstore M had run up our habits, and so it took two of Lupita's fifteen-peso papers to fix us. Now, thirty pesos in one shot was a lot more than I could afford to pay. I had to quit, cut down to where I could make it on two of Lupita's papers per day, or find another source of supply.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953


'One of the script-writing doctors suggested to Ike that he apply for a government permit. Ike explained to me that the Mexican government issued permits to hips allowing them a definite quantity of morphine per month at wholesale prices. The doctor would put in an application for Ike for one hundred pesos. I said, "Go ahead and apply." and gave him the money. I did not expect the deal to go through, but it did. Ten days later, he had a government permit to buy fifteen grams of morphine every month. The permits had to be signed by his doctor and the head doctor at the Board of Health. Then he could take it to a drugstore and have it filled.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953


'Federal and state narcotic authorities put every obstacle in the way of addicts who want a cure. No reduction cures are given in city or state institutions. Two hundred dollars is minimum for a ten-day cure in a private sanatorium. Hospitals are forbidden by law to give addicts any junk. I knew an addict who needed an operation for stomach cancer. The hospital could not give him any junk. Sudden withdrawal of junk plus the operation would likely have killed him so he decided to skip the operation.'
- Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953


Officially sponsored myth 1 -'"All drugs are more or less similar and all are habit forming." This myth lumps cocaine, marijuana and junk together. Marijuana is not at all habit forming and its action is almost the direct opposite from junk action. There is no habit to cocaine. You can develop a tremendous craving for cocaine, but you won't be sick if you can't get it. When you have a junk habit, on the other hand, you live in a state of chronic poisoning for which junk itself is the specific antidote. If you don't get the antidote at eight-hour intervals, and enough of it, you develop symptoms of allergic poisoning: yawning, sneezing, watering of the eyes and nose, cramps, vomiting and diarrhea, hot and cold flushes, loss of appetite, insomnia, restlessness and weakness, in some cases circulatory collapse and death from allergic shock....When I say "habit-forming drug" I mean a drug that alters the endocrinal balance of the body in such a way that the body requires that drug in order to function. So far as I know, junk is the only habit forming drug according to this definition.'
- Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953

 

'When we reviewed its medical uses in 1993 after examining many patients and case histories, we were able to list the following: nausea and vomiting in cancer chemotherapy, the weight loss syndrome of AIDS, glaucoma, epilepsy, muscle spasms and chronic pain in multiple sclerosis, quadriplegia and other spastic disorders, migraine, severe pruritus, depression, and other mood disorders. Since then we have identified more than a dozen others, including asthma, insomnia, dystonia, scleroderma, Crohn’s disease, diabetic gastroparesis, and terminal illness. The list is not exhaustive.'
http://rxmarijuana.com/old_medicine.htm


'Even with the changing viewpoint on marijuana legalization, there are some rather large opponents actively lobbying to keep marijuana out of reach. You may not be surprised by some of them, like the alcohol/beer lobby or big PhRMA (flashback 1990’s pharmaceutical companies reassured the medical industry that patients would not become addicted to opioid pain relievers), but private prison corporations are in the mix as well, providing a significant amount of campaign dollars to lawmakers.'
https://newfrontierdata.com/marijuana-insights/the-fight-for-weed/


And while Hearst had paper in mind, plastic manufacturing companies joined the “Let’s get hemp banned” party to ensure that their petrochemical-based plastics had a leg up over bio-degradable hemp-made plastics. The alcohol and tobacco industries also contribute astronomical sums to fund the “Weed is a dangerous narcotic drug” canard with absolutely zero sense of irony and the pharma industry would prefer that you buy expensive pain killer drugs instead of chewing on some bhang .'
https://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-sundaymagazine/rite-of-passage/article5643862.ece



'Overall, this study finds that the adoption and diffusion of [Medical Marijuana Laws]MMLs is mainly determined by the opinions of citizens rather than the political ideology of elected officials or the government’s fiscal health conditions.'
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01442872.2019.1656805


'Fifty years ago, cannabis was known as the drug most emblematic of counterculture. Today, many people promote it as a fount of treatments for almost any ailment imaginable. This immense about-turn is reflected in changes in legal regimes: medicinal use of cannabis is now permitted in many countries, and some also allow the drug to be used recreationally. The times, they have a-changed.'
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02523-6


'Cannabidiol (CBD) is an illegal drug with no redeeming value. It is also a useful prescription medicine for epilepsy, with considerable potential for treating numerous other conditions. And it is a natural dietary supplement or ‘nutraceutical’ with countless evangelists in the health and wellness community. Although contradictory, all three statements are true from different perspectives, and clinical researchers are frustrated.'
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02524-5


'The technological provenance of cannabinoids might not matter as much to the pharmaceutical sector, where consumers tend to be less averse to genetic engineering. But according to Ethan Russo, director of research and development at the International Cannabis and Cannabinoids Institute in Prague, biochemically derived cannabinoids, even when mixed and matched into therapeutic formulations, will probably never equal the botanical synergy of the hundreds of molecules that are found in cannabis.

The existence of this ‘entourage’ effect is not universally accepted. But to Russo, “The plant is nature’s design for this panoply of chemicals”.'
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02525-4


With 332% growth year-on-year and $52 million in sales, cannabidiol (CBD) has taken the top spot as the best-selling herbal supplement in the natural channel, according to the 2018 HerbalGram Herb Market Report by the American Botanical Council.'
https://www.nutraingredients-usa.com/Article/2019/09/23/CBD-supplement-sales-rocket-to-take-top-spot-in-the-US-natural-channel


'Highlights from laboratory studies and clinical trials.'
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02532-5



'Out of the nearly 9,000 respondents, 5 per cent reported ever using cannabis and had used opioids in the past year, among whom 43 per cent had used opioids daily and 23 per cent had used cannabis in the past 30 days. Although the results are based on a small number of respondents, of the 450 who reported ever using cannabis and past-year opioid use, 41 per cent reported a decrease or cessation of opioid use as a result of cannabis use, 46 per cent reported no change in opioid use and 8 per cent reported an increase in opioid use' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf


'Results
Cannabis use was consistently two to three times higher among those with high anxiety compared to those with some or no anxiety and was higher in states with RML [Recreational Marijuana Legalization] compared to MML [Medical Marijuana Legalization] or no MML/RML. Cannabis use has increased over time among those with and without anxiety overall, in MML states, and in states without MML/RML; with a faster increase in cannabis use among those with high anxiety compared to lower anxiety in states with MML.

Conclusions
Cannabis use is increasing among American adults overall, yet is disproportionately common among Americans with anxiety especially among those residing in states where cannabis has been legalized.'
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0376871620303288



'Authors further reported that cannabis therapy was associated with a reduction in subjects' use of prescription medications – a finding that is consistent with prior studies. Overall, participants discontinued taking a total of 39 prescription medicines during the study period. Patients were most likely to eliminate their use of opioids, anxiolytics, and anti-depressants after initiating cannabis therapy.

They concluded, "We found an overall improvement in the patients, including of their symptoms and medical conditions, cessation or reduction of traditional drug usage, and a general improvement in life quality. ... Overall, 39 dosages of prescription drugs were cancelled for the 19 elderly individuals included in this research, indicating that medical cannabis can be an effective treatment that also reduces environmental drug load."'
https://norml.org/news/2020/06/11/study-medical-cannabis-therapy-reduces-prescription-drug-use-among-nursing-home-patients


'Meiri is best known for his work matching specific components of cannabis to affect different types of cancer. But when the interviewer asked the Israeli researcher which areas of medicine he thought cannabis offered the most promise, the answer was surprising.

 On top of what is already known and treated… pain, sleep, epilepsy, anxiety and these kinds of things, I think that one of the things that is still not being treated with cannabis … and I really, really believe in it, and in my lab I have phenomenal results, is dementia and Alzheimer’s.'
https://www.forbes.com/sites/abbierosner/2020/06/18/notes-from-the-cutting-edge-israeli-researcher-dedi-meiri-on-cannabis-alzheimers-and-dementia/


'The current public discourse around cannabis tends to conflate the non-medical use of cannabis products containing high levels of THC (vapes and concentrates) with medical use of preparation such as dronabinol and nabiximols containing THC and CBD for treating and managing health conditions, including chronic pain, multiple sclerosis and spasticity symptoms, as well as sleep disturbances associated with fibromyalgia and chronic pain. Personal testimonies on the use of cannabis products to self-medicate and alleviate health conditions cannot be heeded in lieu of rigorous clinical trials on the effectiveness of cannabis products in treating certain health conditions. Moreover, CBD, a cannabinoid that is not a psychoactive agent and is often promoted as a health and wellness product, should not be confused with THC, a very different and psychoactive cannabinoid, or with cannabis per se, which contains many different compounds. Policy, legislation and public debate would do well to address these very different issues with greater clarity.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_1.pdf


'Parents sought medical cannabis as a treatment because of a perceived unmet need stemming from the failure of antiepileptic drugs to control their children's seizures. Medical cannabis was viewed as an acceptable treatment, especially compared with adding additional antiepileptic drugs. After learning about medical cannabis from the media, friends and family, or other parents, participants sought authorization for medical use. However, most encountered resistance from their child's neurologist to discuss and/or authorize medical cannabis, and many parents experienced difficulty in obtaining authorization from a member of the child's existing care team, leading them to seek authorization from a cannabis clinic. Participants described spending up to $2000 per month on medical cannabis, and most were frustrated that it was not eligible for reimbursement through public or private insurance programs.'
https://www.epilepsybehavior.com/article/S1525-5050(20)30299-7/pdf

'I will miss Tim Leary - not for his wisdom or his beauty or his warped lust for combat or because of his wealth or his power or his drugs, but mainly because I won't hear his laughing voice on my midnight telephone anymore. Tim usually called around 2. It was his habit - one of many that we shared, and he knew that I would be awake.

Tim and I kept the same hours. He believed, as I do, that "after midnight, all things are possible."

Just last week he called me on the phone at two-thirty in the morning and said he was moving to a ranch in Nicaragua in a few days and would fax me the telephone number. Which he did. And I think he also faxed it to Dr. Kasey.

Indeed. There are many rooms in the mansion. And Tim was familiar with most of them. We will never know the range of his fiendish vision, or the many lives he was sucked into by his savage and unnatural passions.

We sometimes disagreed, but in the end we made our peace. Tim was a Chieftain. He Stomped on the Terra, and he left his elegant hoof prints on all our lives.

He is forgotten now but not gone. We will see him soon enough. Our tribe is now smaller by one. Our circle is one link shorter. And there is one more name in the honor list of pure warriors who saw the great light and leapt for it.'

- Memo from the National Affairs Desk. To: Jann S. Wenner, August 8, 1996, Fear and Loathing at the Rolling Stone, The Essential Writing of Hunter S. Thompson



'Volkow said on Drug Policy Alliance founder Ethan Nadelmann’s show that she was “expecting the use of marijuana among adolescents would go up” when states moved to legalize cannabis, but admitted that “overall, it hasn’t.” It was reform advocates like Nadelmann who were “right” about the impact of the policy change on youth, she said.

She also acknowledged that changes to cannabis laws are having a broader range of diverse impacts, saying that some “states that have legalized actually have better outcomes” while “the adverse effects of marijuana use are much worse in some states.”'

https://www.marijuanamoment.net/top-federal-drug-official-admits-legalizers-were-right-about-teen-marijuana-use-and-touts-psychedelics-therapeutic-potential/



'A new analysis of cannabis research funding in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom has found that $1.56 billion was directed to the topic between 2000 and 2018—with about half of the money spent on understanding the potential harms of the recreational drug. Just over $1 billion came from the biggest funder, the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), which doled out far more money to research cannabis misuse and its negative effects than on using cannabis and cannabis-derived chemicals as a therapeutic drug'

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/08/cannabis-research-database-shows-how-us-funding-focuses-harms-drug


“I think it’s 100 percent necessary that we actually have an understanding of the consequences of legalizing marijuana are going to have into the children and adolescent brain and what are the consequences,” Volkow replied. “We owe it to the public to actually provide that information.”'

https://www.marijuanamoment.net/senators-and-federal-officials-discuss-marijuana-legalization-and-drug-harm-reduction-at-overdose-hearing/