cannabisnews.com: Opinion: Medical Marijuana Benefits Opinion: Medical Marijuana Benefits Posted by CN Staff on March 05, 2009 at 13:39:43 PT Mitch Earleywine Argues For The Use Of Marijuana Source: CBS News (CBS) -- Therapeutic use of marijuana has a history spanning over 4,500 years.The most humane and just approach to helping the sick requires that we continue the availability of medical marijuana. Evidence supporting medical marijuana for appetite loss, glaucoma, nausea, vomiting, spasticity, pain, and weight loss is quite impressive. Evidence for its use for arthritis, dystonia, insomnia, seizures, and Tourette’s syndrome is also very promising. Opponents of medical marijuana mention that other drugs are available for each of these disorders. Nevertheless, people differ. We have multiple treatments for almost every human problem. Some patients do not respond well to other medications and need medical marijuana to alleviate their symptoms. Many pharmaceutical drugs create aversive side effects that these patients cannot endure. In addition, medical marijuana is often markedly cheaper than these other medications.Opponents of medical marijuana often point to dronabinol, the synthetic version of one of marijuana’s active ingredients that is available in pill form. The use of only one active ingredient makes dronabinol less effective than medical marijuana. Many ailments respond better to a combination of marijuana’s active ingredients rather than just one. In addition, because dronabinol is a pill, it is difficult for people with nausea and vomiting to swallow. Finally, like any medication that’s swallowed, dronabinol takes a long time to digest and have its effects. Inhaled marijuana vapors can work markedly faster.Concern over marijuana’s impact on respiratory health is easily remedied. There are no links between marijuana use and lung cancer or emphysema. The associations between smoked marijuana and symptoms like coughing and wheezing can be remedied with the vaporizer. The vaporizer heats the plant so that active ingredients boil off into a fine mist but the plant itself never ignites. The mist contains no tars or noxious gases, making respiratory complications a thing of the past.Mitch Earleywine, Ph.D. is an associate professor of psychology at SUNY Albany who believes marijuana should be legalized for medical purposes.To read Dr. Kleber's opinion piece on medical marijuana click here. -- http://drugsense.org/url/iTbQc1YYSource: CBS News (US Web)Author: Mitch Earleywine, Ph.D.Published: March 5, 2009Copyright: 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc.Website: http://www.cbsnews.com/URL: http://drugsense.org/url/2wQuDeMqCannabisNews Medical Marijuana Archiveshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/list/medical.shtml Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help Comment #3 posted by Hope on March 06, 2009 at 09:04:44 PT Dr. Russo I miss him posting here, his caring, his total lack of arrogance, and his huge store of knowledge. He definitely helped make C-News the go to place for knowing what's going on.While I miss him and his knowledgeable comments, I know he's working hard and doing great things for all of us... for mankind. [ Post Comment ] Comment #2 posted by knightsmanx on March 06, 2009 at 00:29:23 PT: something i just came across from a while back It's an old article from 2003 that a lot of you have probably already seen that I thought needed to be brought back up. "The Guzman study is very important according to Dr. Ethan Russo , a neurologist and world authority on medical cannabis: "Cancer occurs because cells become immortalized; they fail to heed normal signals to turn off growth. A normal function of remodelling in the body requires that cells die on cue. This is called apoptosis, or programmed cell death. That process fails to work in tumors. THC promotes its reappearance so that gliomas, leukemias, melanomas and other cell types will in fact heed the signals, stop dividing, and die." "http://drugpolicycentral.com/bot/pg/cancer/THC_cancer_nov_2003.htm [ Post Comment ] Comment #1 posted by FoM on March 05, 2009 at 14:55:54 PT Video: CBS Doc Dot Com: Marijuana Rx Using marijuana for medical purposes is allowed in thirteen states but against federal law. However, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder recently signaled that the Obama administration will let states enforce their own laws about marijuana. I wanted to learn more about the subject and thought our audience would too. So I was happy when two experts in the field, Herb Kleber, M.D. and Mitch Earleywine, Ph.D. agreed to join me for a discussion of the pro's and con's. They totally disagreed on fundamental issues, yet they treated each other with respect and carried on a civil and informative discussion. When the cameras stopped rolling, they continued their animated conversation. I loved seeing that. And I hope you'll enjoy their debate. And as always, send us your questions and comments to doc cbs.com URL: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/02/10/health/cbsdoc/main4790227.shtml [ Post Comment ] Post Comment