‘The mainstream media remains amazed and, oftimes, inappropriately amused, when yet another study demonstrates that, far from being the brain-and-body-wrecking “weed of the devil,” cannabis has wide-ranging health benefits.’
By Mariann Wizard / The Rag Blog / November 24, 2008
Gentle Friends —
News last week of yet more scientific evidence of the potential benefits of compounds in Cannabis sativa, the much-maligned marijuana plant, led me to reflect that I have been reviewing scientific studies of cannabis’ medically-useful effects for 10 years for the American Botanical Council (along with studies of other medicinal herbs and alternative health practices). All of the information I’ve read and reviewed has been publicly available, but the mainstream media remains amazed and, oftimes, inappropriately amused, when yet another study demonstrates that, far from being the brain-and-body-wrecking “weed of the devil”, cannabis has wide-ranging health benefits.
Q: Why does this public stupidity continue, in light not only of the scientific evidence (itself limited by a US government ban on research materials other than its own poor-quality crop) but of a much greater body of so-called “anecdotal” testimony from thousands of cancer, AIDS, multiple sclerosis, intractable nerve pain patients, and others with conditions ranging from arthritis to PMS and palsy that marijuana helps, and that the whole herb helps more than any one chemical component?
A: Eighty years of government and non-hemp industry (pharmaceutical, petrochemical, paper & forestry, cotton and now corn) PROPAGANDA. In support of this, I present for your delectation a little-known set of documents created and distributed in Austin, Texas, and replicated elsewhere, exactly THIRTY YEARS AGO: the Poison Pot Chronicles, when the US government had begun aerially poisoning Mexican marijuana plants with an herbicide, heedless of potential health consequences not only to hippie scum dopers in the US, and Mexican dope “cartel” growers, but to any innocent child, chicken or burro that might accidentally come in contact with sprayed plants. [See link to pdf. below.]
THIS IS HOW MUCH YOUR GOVERNMENT HAS CARED ABOUT YOUR HEALTH, “MY FRIENDS”; YOUR GOVERNMENT THAT IS, EVEN TODAY, “CONCERNED” TO PROTECT YOU FROM THE POTENTIAL CONSEQUENCES OF MAKING YOUR OWN DECISONS, AND TAKING YOUR MENTAL AND PHYSICAL HEALTH INTO YOUR OWN HANDS.
So remember, Kids, no matter how many studies show that cannabinoids can protect against Alzheimer’s disease, until there is a patented pharmaceutical drug you can pay a doctor to prescribe and/or a pharmacist to provide and/or an insurance company to cover, DON’T SMOKE GANJA AT HOME!
For more information, please click here (3.1 mB PDF).
And, go to CannabisResource.
Could one reason for the organized opposition to recognition of the mj’s “pot”ential medical benefits be that it represents little benefit and “pot”ential harm to big pharma?
Anonymous — absolutely!!! Bayer Pharmaceuticals is marketing a whole-cannabis medicine, Sativex, in Great Britain and Canada and will seek an investigational new drug approval for it here. The drug testd in the recent Ohio State Alzheimer’s study is, I believe, a form of synthetic THC. Almost all of the research so far has been on single compounds isolated from cannabis, their synthetic analogs, or combinations of these. You can’t patent a plant. Throw in opposition from other economic groups (who, along with the emerging “little pharma” of the day, were responsible for the ban on cannabis in the first place) and suddenly a lot of things become clear, e.g., why legislators who know personally that marijuana is about less harmful to adults than aspirin still spout anti-drug platitudes.