cannabisnews.com: Marijuana Too Risky for Pediatric Care










  Marijuana Too Risky for Pediatric Care

Posted by CN Staff on April 21, 2004 at 11:04:31 PT
Editorial 
Source: Collegiate Times  

A University of Southern California medical professor and mother of two has suggested that standard treatments for Attention Deficit Disorder should include the prescription of marijuana. Dr. Claudia Jensen suggests treatments using cannabis would be preferable to some drugs already federally approved and administered by practitioners nationwide.Medical use of marijuana warrants controlled scientific studies conducted by appropriate research facilities, but at this point the drug remains illegal and its benefits are purely speculative. Consequently, doctors should not freely suggest its use, especially in respect to children with irregular behavioral patterns.
Furthermore, without conclusive results from thorough research, there is no reasonable motivation to fully legalize and standardize its use. If it is to be legalized at all, the illicit weed must undergo the same rigorous testing as any other market place drug before it is legally authorized as a prescription medicine. Moreover, the federal government must demand the demonstration of significant advantages in marijuana treatments before granting approval.Should federal authorities begin to contemplate the merits of medical marijuana, its status in respect to children should be considered with particular caution. In a time in which ADD diagnoses have appeared in frighteningly large proportions, presenting yet another drug for liberal provision of chemical treatments may promote further exclusion of alternative methods. The concept of deliberately doping children demonstrating undesirable behavioral patterns is at best disconcerting and only appealing in the most genuine circumstances of medical duress. If legalized, marijuana’s administration must be tightly controlled, lest the nation acquire a population of youths mercilessly subdued by the application of cannabis prescriptions.The concept of legally harvesting backyard varieties of the plant for home medicine, as suggested by Jensen, risks exactly that. Presently, without medical evidence to suggest the treatment’s legitimacy, the concept is nothing short of repugnant.Moreover, the opportunity for deliberate manipulation of children to gain illegal access to the drug by cannabis abusers is a horrifying moral hazard whose weight must be considered during the process of the medical marijuana debate.Prescription drug use is an increasingly concerning trend within the United States. Americans seem to be chained to the schedule of their various treatments like never before. Society must consider how much more it is willing to rely on access to drugs to solve the diverse collection of afflictions suffered within the country, especially when the drug in issue is a potentially destructive substance subject to popular misuse or abuse. Source: Collegiate Times (VA Edu)Published: April 21, 2004Copyright: 2004 Collegiate TimesContact: opinions collegiatetimes.comWebsite: http://www.collegiatetimes.com/Related Article & Web Site:Transcript: Hearing on Marijuanahttp://freedomtoexhale.com/hearing.htmCannabis 'Scrips To Calm Kids?http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread18676.shtmlCannabisNews Medical Marijuana Archiveshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/list/medical.shtml 

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Comment #11 posted by The GCW on April 26, 2004 at 20:14:23 PT
This LTE is missing reality.
US VA: Edu: LTE: Marijuana is Not an Option for Treating ADDhttp://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v04/n631/a11.html?397This letter to the editor is about this news item.
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Comment #10 posted by kaptinemo on April 22, 2004 at 15:18:21 PT:
Remember Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World"?
And it's daily application of 'soma' to keep the masses quiet? Well, if some kid appears 'hyperactive' (how many sugary, caffeinated drinks have they had today on top of their equally sucrose-suffused breakfast cereals?) the school officials recommend doping the kid with Ritalin. I've seen close up what it does: the tremulous , slow speech; the dull eyes; the lethargy. No different than shooting some poor mental case full of Thorazine and watch them shuffling dispiritedly around in circles in the nuthouse.Need I say more? Huxley may have been more of a visionary than anyone knew...
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Comment #9 posted by FoM on April 21, 2004 at 18:29:43 PT
Heads Up: Countdown with Keith Olbermann
I just saw a short commercial on MSNBC and they will talk on the show tomorrow night about Cannabis use and children. I might not have it exactly right but here's a link and maybe check MSNBC tomorrow to see if it will be on like they just said.Countdown with Keith OlbermannWeeknights, 8 p.m. ET Repeats at midnight EThttp://msnbc.msn.com/id/3294493/
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Comment #8 posted by Petard on April 21, 2004 at 17:21:07 PT
Too Risky? Yeah, anal prison rape is safer
ADD and ADHD kids "Never" end up in any kind of legal trouble now do they? Naw, their problems never result in behavioral symptoms. So, let's continue to send these kids to prison to be raped anally by their peers instead of giving them some needed relief of their medical conditions with some unproven, naturally occurring, plant that never killed anyone. Hey, here's an idea. Let's even send these kids to prison for some good old fashioned homosexual anal rape by their peers if they even attempt to treat their medical problems with an unproven, natural, plant that the "best" of scientists say "may" and/or "might" have some minor negative aspects unlike those highly addictive life threatening side effects of synthetic chemicals that cost 10 times the expense to manufacture.Yeah, let's do it for the children! And hey, while we're at it let's throw another treasury on the debt pile for the kids to dig out from under too. Oh, and let's not forget to reinstate the military draft for those few that do escape these other sanctions, we can get them killed off in some land so that none escape the reach of government in the future.
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Comment #7 posted by mamawillie on April 21, 2004 at 14:02:18 PT
Ya know....
Sheep. This person is a sheep. Nuff said about that...I was watching the Daily Show (I think a rerun) and Melissa Ethridge was on. Jon Stewart asked her about gay marriages and she said she truly believes in the next (can't remember the exact year number) 5 years gay marriage WILL be legal, and that she reminds herself that it is going to get worse before it gets better. She and Jon talked about how things always get horrifyingly bad before change happens.I'd like to think that is where we are now with cannabis legalization. Although I do not believe it will ever be outright legalized, I do believe within the next 10 years it will be legal for medicinal use and decriminalized for both possession and private cultivation of like under 3 plants.So let us allow these SHEEP to speak their lies and "chicken little" rhetoric because we have the truth on our side and the truth will always prevail.Marie Curie said, "Change is neither swift nor easy." The marijuana movement has done more in the last 3 years that it had is decades before that. The ball is rolling down the hill and no one will be able to stop it.Testify, people! Don't let SHEEP like this get us down. The truth shall set us free!Happy 4/21Mama
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Comment #6 posted by Sam Adams on April 21, 2004 at 13:32:48 PT
Save them!
mercilessly subdued by Pepsi & Chips Ahoy is more accurate.How many kids have gotten childhood diabetes from cannabis use?
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Comment #5 posted by MikeEEEEE on April 21, 2004 at 13:05:39 PT
The madness continues
mercilessly subduedha ha ha ha, they're too much.
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Comment #4 posted by Virgil on April 21, 2004 at 12:05:18 PT
Extremely extreme in spewing vile
This preaching of prohibitionist mythology will not work and is counterproductive to the Nazi agenda. Eighty percent have already overcome the lies of taxpayer-paid propaganda and the silencing of the truth by the controlled media to see the truth. More science is coming everyday and the truth pollenates people's minds everyday to grow more truth. The viciousness of this article does not serve the Nazi or prohibitionist agenda. The lies are to blatant and the hate to overwhelming for its points to be considered much less accepted.There is a famous optical illusion of what first appears as a drawing of a beautiful woman. When a person knows that there is a witch to be seen in the drawing with continued eying, the witch will soon appear. The lies are just to open in the propaganda of drug policy to even see anything of beauty. The thing for the Nazis that think that 8% of revenue from America's corporations is too much is that with any scrutiny at all, a witch appears in all policy. The environment is being raped and the treasury pillaged. The illusion of America's goodness for the world is coming home to roost as isolation is imposed on America with boycotted goods and a "We do not want to hear it" from around the world.The idea of freedom in America as a lie is the ultimate discovery. Of course everyone here sees it clearly as you cannot even smoke a joint in peace, much less with freedom. 
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Comment #3 posted by Dankhank on April 21, 2004 at 11:32:59 PT

Beat up by BB code
Hope I'll get better trying again ...:.............Presently, without medical evidence to suggest the treatment’s legitimacy, the concept is nothing short of repugnant.  This statement is an outright LIE.............The concept of deliberately doping children demonstrating undesirable behavioral patterns is at best disconcerting and only appealing in the most genuine circumstances of medical duress. How about when nothing else works?..................lest the nation acquire a population of youths mercilessly subdued by the application of cannabis prescriptions. mercilessly subdued? Are they not now mercilessly subdued? Cannabis could free them....................Moreover, the opportunity for deliberate manipulation of children to gain illegal access to the drug by cannabis abusers is a "horrifying moral hazard" whose weight must be considered during the process of the medical marijuana debate.As is now, children have no problem getting Cannabis..................Society must consider how much more it is willing to rely on access to drugs to solve the diverse collection of afflictions suffered within the country, especially when the drug in issue is a potentially destructive substance subject to popular misuse or abuse.Good point, but let's apply that to ALL meds given to children in the interest of fairness.To read this malevolent, vapid, venal collection of vile, vituperative invective is to see first-hand the moral failing of the whoremedia with it's naked, flashing, grinning, slobbering hate. I am appalled that an institution of higher learning would try to ......? I'm not sure ... exactly WHAT did the Collegian think would be accomplished by this?
-)
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Comment #1 posted by BigDawg on April 21, 2004 at 11:14:37 PT

What would make ya think that?
"If legalized, marijuana’s administration must be tightly controlled, lest the nation acquire a population of youths mercilessly subdued by the application of cannabis prescriptions."Now what would make a person think youths would be mercilessly subdued by prescriptions?Maybe the fact that they ALREADY are being mercilessly subdued.
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