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May 17, 2010
Medical Marijuana; arriving at a clinical definition.
As California’s contentious initiative nears its fourteenth birthday, the original concept has succeeded to the point where another such initiative, one legalizing possession and use by adults for any purpose, is on the November ballot. Once upon a time, such a development might have been considered “progress;” however in today’s bizarre world, similar divisive arguments are rarely settled for long, thus new points of contention have already been created. However, lack of agreement doesn’t mean the unique opportunity for clinical research provided by 215 was wasted. Although disputed and stymied to the extent possible by courts, police agencies, and other other non-clinical entities, it has been possible to gather and preserve previously unavailable and uniquely valuable patient data.As one who has been accumulating such data for over eight years, I’ve always believed I had a duty to share it to the extent possible. Fortunately, near the beginning of my patient (“applicant”) experience, I realized they were a source of unique information and focused on discovering what they had to teach me. After coming to some tentative conclusions I attempted to share with presumed Reform colleagues, I was surprised at the degree to which patient evidence was discounted; either because of observer bias by non-clinicians or by clinicians with a limited view of the opportunity presented in California. By then, both my own data and its internal consistency were such that I realized the importance of preserving and sharing them, so I began this blog in the Summer of 2005.
Over the past year or so, I’ve started deliberately sharing what I’ve learned with both new patients and “renewals,” some being seen for the fifth time, thus expanding all patient encounters into opportunities to both educate them and to test the validity of certain concepts by seeking their disagreement and whatever exceptions to my general impressions their own experience might provide. It's important to interject at this point that clinicians should never think they know everything a patient has to teach them.
I now believe I’m ready to pull together a medically coherent and historically accurate clinical overview of "Medical Marijuana," the bitterly disputed legal entity created when California voters surprised the world by approving Proposition 215 in 1996.
Doctor Tom
Posted by tjeffo at May 17, 2010 05:35 PM