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January 20, 2010
Suspicions Confirmed
Today’s NYT carries two stories that, to an uncanny degree, confirm two growing suspicions about our species: the first is that we are more easily misled than we realize; the second is that there are far too many of us for our own good.The first such item concerned Medical Marijuana; in its brief first paragraph, its author added two and two and proudly came up with five: “there is no good scientific evidence that legalizing marijuana’s use provides any benefits over current therapies.” In the course of the article, there's even more; two short paragraphs later he states, “Marijuana is the only major drug for which the federal government controls the only legal research supply and for which the government requires a special scientific review.” (Duh!)
The rest of the article compounds that fuzzy logic by zeroing in on the argument currently favored by marijuana opponents: that because it must be smoked, it simply can’t be "medicine."
Actually, “smoking” is a form of drug delivery that is both very complex and efficient; there's already abundant evidence that smoking herbal cannabis (“marijuana”) over prolonged intervals is safer than previously supposed; perhaps even safer than not smoking at all.
Harris further contradicts himself by describing Marinol a federally sponsored “edible” that results in significantly different effects than either smoking or ingestion of the still-illegal oral preparations sold in "dispensaries."
Finally; with respect to Mr. Harris’s misleading article, the failure of both federal experts and their counterparts in Academia to even notice such obvious discrepancies is powerful evidence that our clever species is so driven by greed and fear that it is easily intimidated by brazen fascists.
That’s my seque into the second Times article, documenting the not-so-surprising victory of a Massachusetts version of Joe the Plumber over the lackluster candidate for what was assumed to be a safe seat. There are so many familiar historical parallels, ranging from Hitler in 1933 to Dubya in 2000, that recounting even the best-known would be boring.
Color me discouraged; more on the key differences between eating and smoking pot as tme permits...
Doctor Tom
Posted by tjeffo at January 20, 2010 07:05 PM