Medical marijuana - a terrible defence

[tom p]

Simon Jenkins - the a..eh.le's a..eh.le has come up with another load of terrible arguments, non sequitirs & internal contradictions, this time in favour of medical marijuana.
Apparently loving parents know beter than anyone else about the best medical treatment for their children. Who knew?

I should say, that I'm presently undecided about medical marijuana, especially since it's so obviously a stalking-horse, but this article really changed my mind

I like these new sarcasm tags.

[Martin Y]

We have sarcasm tags now? Oh, joy! This is truly a great day. And please observe I am not being sarcastic; this is f.cking great news.
And I found where to switch the swear filter off too so all in all this is a splendid start. Thank you admins.

[Bird on a Fire]

I think it would be a sensible start to distinguish between medical marijuana and cannabinoid painkillers. Nobody refers to opioids as 'medical opium'

If the evidence is there for cannabinoids they should of course be available. Then again, the evidence has been in favour of decriminalising non-medical marijuana for decades, so don't hold your breath*.

*

[bolo]

Then again, the evidence has been in favour of decriminalising non-medical marijuana for decades, so don't hold your breath*.

Well, it's legal now in Alaska, California, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington, so change does appear to be possible in some places.

[Bird on a Fire]

Yep, it's certainly one area where parts of the states are ahead of Europe.

[cvb]

Yep, it's certainly one area where parts of the states are ahead of Europe.

It's coz there's money in it.

Big farmer are putting the little guys out of business.

[dyqik]

Yep, it's certainly one area where parts of the states are ahead of Europe.

It's coz there's money in it.

Big farmer are putting the little guys out of business.

And there's infinite possibilities for scamming via selling vague medical benefits for CBD oil and edibles.

[Bird on a Fire]

The thing is, the UK is the world's largest exporter of medical marijuana, so there must already be considerable business interests lobbying for it here.

I think there are two competing forces. One is that the 'medical marijuana' issue is confounded with the 'recreational marijuana' issue, with a lot of people tending to be proponents of either both or neither. The other is the distinction between genuine medical benefits and spurious claims attributed to what appears to be the latest alt-med fad - last time I was in the UK there were huge photos of weed leaves in the windows of Holland and Barrett.

Cannabinoids seem to be touted as the cure for absolutely everything at the moment, I suspect largely without much good evidence, but on the other hand I wonder if whatever legitimate use cases exist are being hindered by the plant's association with hippies, rap music and cartels.

[dyqik]

Cannabinoids seem to be touted as the cure for absolutely everything at the moment, I suspect largely without much good evidence, but on the other hand I wonder if whatever legitimate use cases exist are being hindered by the plant's association with hippies, rap music and cartels.

That all said, I can see there be pretty significant general health benefits to just chilling out a bit.

[badger]

There's an interesting lecture from a researcher here: https://youtu.be/9ioJbVyNg08

Warning - contains cancer curing claims (or assumptions) and loads of anecdata, but also makes interesting points about differences in strains and chemical constituents and the need for research to take account of these, so there's an IABMCTT message.

[jdc]

Specifically on cancer, Kat Arney wrote this for CRUK some time ago (it's updated as new info rocks up) - https://scienceblog.cancerresearchuk.or ... ce-so-far/

I imagine doing something similar for all the other health claims would be moderately time-consuming.