american pot laws

Another bizarre turn for patients requiring medical marijuana in the United States.

The White House had stepped in to successfully appeal a 2003 California Supreme Court finding which stated that federal laws prohibiting marijuana use for disease, chronic pain, or eating disorders to be unconstitutional. Judge John Paul Stevens wrote the majority opinion, and in a logical paradox declared that the real harm in doctor-prescribed pot is over-prescription of the drug: "Our cases have taught us that there are some unscrupulous physicians who over-prescribe when it is sufficiently profitable to do so".

Wait a minute here. Aren't we hearing a number of reports (check out warnings from Britain and Canada) indicating that doctors are routinely over-prescribing drugs of all sorts?? This is especially true for newer pharmaceuticals which have high profit margins attached to their distribution and use. Are we to seriously believe that doctors aren't benefiting from kickbacks and incentive plans from pharmaceutical sales reps for these drugs? Furthermore, by what leap of logic does this judge deem profit to be a factor in marijuana prescription? I mean, marijuana is after all a plant that can be freely grown by anyone with adequate sunlight and a couple of seeds.

Maybe that's the key to this dilemma. If we are to believe scientific reports as to the medically beneficial nature of marijuana, and more to the point that such benefits from THC have yet to be replicated in a pharmaceutical setting, it seems likely that once again the american judicial system is capitulating to the drug company lobby groups.

As Monsanto learned a while ago, there's no money to be made from plants which reproduce themselves ad nauseam, hence their quest to terminate the procreative process in their plants.

Money, it seems, is currently the prima objectum of the health system in those wacky states. In fact, the routine overcharging of prescription drugs has caused many Americans to travel or purchase their meds online from Canada in order to get around the draconian system in place in their country. Perhaps their health system as a whole will be outsourced to Canada. Apparently, some drugs cost 4-5 times as much down there as they do here.

Holy fuck what a nightmare for the majority of the American population who cannot afford good heath care, which has turned into a luxury item in that country.

House of Lords Report on Cannabis for Medical Purposes

CBC discussion archive

Peer Reviewed Results of New York State-sponsored Cancer/Marijuana Studies