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January 07, 2012

Federal Duplicity and Chronic Pain

The last entry pointed out that important differences between the clinical effects of smoked versus orally ingested cannabis have remained unrecognized by both the federal agencies responsible for our policy of imposed ignorance and opponents of that policy. Nor, apparently have the bases for those differences been explained by either academic or pharmaceutical researchers despite the enormous volume of peer-reviewed research that has been published in the two decades since the endocannabinoid system (ECS) was discovered.

To return to the issue of edibles, I was about to explain that they are recognized by many chronic users as far superior to inhaled products for their antinocioceptive (pain releiving) effects, another difference that has apparently escaped notice by the army of cannabis researchers.

As I was preparing to get into the subject of edibles and enhanced relief of chronic pain, I came across a sad item in the news: Siobahn Reynolds, a courageous activist who had long opposed the scandalous federal persecution of pain specialists who disagreed with them died in a plane crash last week. The accompanying news stories also reported details of how Reynolds had been deliberately persecuted by the feds in ways I hadn't previously been aware of.

Less well known than their mindless harassment of pot users, has been the federal penchant for literally destroying pain specialists for the "crime" of prescribing adequate doses of legal opioids for a small, but specific group of patients with chronic pain who apparently require larger than usual doses to function. When carried to extremes, this cruel and inhumane policy has produced two victims, a patient driven to suicide and an physician imprisoned for disagreeing with a federal bureaucracy. Thus are medically untrained prosecutors empowered by our drug war to prosecute both a physician they disagree with and the patient they claim to be to "protecting."

Such enlightened "public health" will undoubtedly be retained as part of "Obamacare." Don't Obama's Republicans critics recognize realize faithfully Richard Nixon's public health concerns are being honored by the federal medical bureaucracy he left behind?

On a more realistic note, I'm forced to ask somewhat rhetorically: just how will long the citizens of nation continue to endorse our cruel and hypocritical drug policy to survive? What ever happened to common sense and normal human decency?

Doctor Tom

Posted by tjeffo at January 7, 2012 05:33 PM

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