cannabisnews.com: Morgan Says Marijuana is Safer function share_this(num) { tit=encodeURIComponent('Morgan Says Marijuana is Safer'); url=encodeURIComponent('http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/27/thread27653.shtml'); site = new Array(5); site[0]='http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u='+url+'&title='+tit; site[1]='http://www.stumbleupon.com/submit.php?url='+url+'&title='+tit; site[2]='http://digg.com/submit?topic=political_opinion&media=video&url='+url+'&title='+tit; site[3]='http://reddit.com/submit?url='+url+'&title='+tit; site[4]='http://del.icio.us/post?v=4&noui&jump=close&url='+url+'&title='+tit; window.open(site[num],'sharer','toolbar=0,status=0,width=620,height=500'); return false; } Morgan Says Marijuana is Safer Posted by CN Staff on September 27, 2013 at 17:51:18 PT By Scott Powers, Staff Writer Source: Orlando Sentinel Florida -- Claiming that medical marijuana would be a safer, non-addictive and more-effective alternative to OxyContin, Orlando attorney John Morgan condemned the prescription pain killer in a speech Friday to argue that many of its users would be far better off smoking pot.Speaking to the Tiger Bay Club of Central Florida, Morgan said that OxyContin, a commonly prescribed – and abused – pain medication, kills 16,000 people a year and addicts many more. He claimed marijuana – which is illegal in Florida and most states – is comparatively harmless and more effective. "It is truly a disgrace what goes on," said Morgan, best known for his Morgan & Morgan personal injury law firm, who chairs a statewide campaign to get a constitutional amendment legalizing medical marijuana on the 2014 Florida ballot. "OxyContin is a poison that is put into our system by pharmaceutical companies that make billions and billions of dollars."OxyContin is a brand-name drug whose active ingredient is oxycodone, an opioid analgesic. The Centers for Disease Control reported in February that there were 16,651 opioid analgesics overdose deaths nationally in 2010.However, a statewide law-enforcement crackdown on illegal sales and use has cut the number of oxycodone-related Florida deaths by 41 percent, to 735 in 2012, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Still, oxycodone remains the leading cause of overdose deaths in the state.Purdue Pharma, which manufactures OxyContin, did not immediately respond Friday to Morgan's speech.Morgan's point was to make marijuana look good by comparison."One thing I think most of us accept as truth is medical marijuana works, and it works for a broad variety of illnesses and ailments," Morgan said. "It's helpful with ALS, cancer, multiple sclerosis, glaucoma, epilepsy, all sorts of chronic pain."Morgan chairs People United for Medical Marijuana, which is running a petition drive to get legalization on the November 2014 ballot. The group surpassed 100,000 signatures last month and has sent the proposed amendment language to Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi. It will then be reviewed by the state Supreme Court for ballot validation. People United would then have to gather at least 683,159 voter signatures.Morgan has contributed $150,000 of the $248,000 that the campaign raised in the first six months of this year.After his 35-minute speech, at least four Tiger Bay members approached Morgan privately to say that they or someone they know has cancer or some other ailment and were interested in his message. Morgan said his father, Ramon, used it while he was dying from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and esophageal cancer 20 years ago.Source: Orlando Sentinel (FL)Author: Scott Powers, Staff WriterPublished: September 27, 2013Copyright: 2013 Orlando SentinelContact: insight orlandosentinel.comWebsite: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/URL: http://drugsense.org/url/DIn4AYWVCannabisNews Medical Marijuana Archiveshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/list/medical.shtml Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help Comment #6 posted by FoM on September 29, 2013 at 05:18:59 PT mexweed No one really is interested in what you are saying since CNews is basically to comment on articles not try to teach us how to do things. I really don't need this now. Thank you for understanding. [ Post Comment ] Comment #5 posted by mexweed on September 28, 2013 at 10:45:13 PT: Pain meds and slavery 16,651 opioid analgesics deaths a year-- how many of those were co-caused by H-ot B-urning O-verdose M-onoxide $igarette-related diseases which made sufferers crave pain medication? Let's say 3000-- can we add those to the US 435,000-per-year figure?Good that museman mentions slavery, the most famous song about slavery says, "Body all achin' and racked with pain"--slavery makes the victims ignore their physical condition and safety till they are hurtin', out of fear of PUNISHMENT.Slavery persisted in USA till the high tech mid-1800's when there were new ideas emerging how to mechanize human labor for $$ efficiency-- including a modern false-Law system based on PUNISHMENT: they punish you if you don't work hard enough, they punish worse if you try to run away, anyone who helps a slave escape can be lynched, "well you know, that's someone's Property."Today is a high school grad working a $20,000-a-year job and paying $3000 for a "pack-a-day" $igarette habit a 15% slave? Does the extra money need make him 15% more obedient?I disagree with "One cannot serve those tenets (power, wealth, greed, corruption) and be a good person"-- rather I go with "Forgive---> Convert---> Redeploy." Under "traditional" capitalism it is possible for good folks to do bad stuff, for example let's recognize the talent in present-day tobacco farmers and retrain them to do reforestation, turning North Carolina into 95% 100-foot hardwood forest by 2099. We could pass a Nicocare law providing Government Help to retrain and reemploy $igarette industry workers.Convert the over a billion $igarette addicts worldwide from the 700-mg format to 25-mg single tokes, you will save them a ton of slave money even if they stay hooked on nicotine, and it will eliminate a drastic percentage of overdose-related "smoking" illnesses now supporting Oxycontin, Lipitor and other product sales.An industry based on the long-stemmed one-hit "Choomette" format is handworkerly on a neighborhood and family basis compared to centralized machine-rolled $igarette corporations. Please sign in at wikiHow-com, review, revise, edit, improve the top two sections (socket wrench one-hitter, barbed hose nipple one-hitter) in the soon-to-be-renamed article, "12 Ways to Make Smoke Pipes from Everyday Objects", adding pictures on how to make and how to use "accessible-to-the-poor-and-underemployed" utensils which may not be quite as good as a $50 e-cig but can cheaply protect against overdose deaths worldwide. Lonely persons will read the article, learn how to develop a workshop making one-hitters together, sell or donate to both cannabis and tobacco user populations, destination Occupation Independence. [ Post Comment ] Comment #4 posted by museman on September 28, 2013 at 09:24:15 PT in anticipation of status quo arguments: Somebody recently stated to me when I told them that the real currency available to us is based in Love, Trust, Faith and Belief, saying that "I cannot live on love."While it is true that love did not buy your house, your car, your TV, your Ipod, etc., it is also true that your money don't get you love.You may continue to convince yourself on a daily basis that serving the beast of mammon is a good thing, and feel quite superior in your house on the hill, your well stocked refrigerator, and all of your 'accessories', but for every ounce of comfort you accept in denial of the suffering of those who do not have that house on the hill or have that full larder, you negate your own options in Eternity. (Again - if you don't believe in that you are easily manipulated).You may have purchased your temporal reality and feel temporarily comfortable in the lie, but I can guarantee you will meet the necessary justice and the truth, if only on your death bed.I for one am quite satisfied to have purchased my eternity with Love, Trust, Faith, and Belief, and would never trade that for a fistful of clay -which is the real substance of the materiality so many have been programmed to believe in.No amount of posturing, denial or quotation of social 'mores' will change the truth.And here we are finally, in the time that these things finally come to light. It would behoove the real seekers and upholders of Truth to stop supporting the lies and grow some fortitude. [ Post Comment ] Comment #3 posted by museman on September 28, 2013 at 08:54:56 PT drugs Drugs (not herbs) are used by Dr.s and their pharma buddies, as it is written to "...make billions and billions of dollars." And to poison the people so that by the time they reach retirement age, they just die soon after so there is no need for the government to pay for their upkeep.People take drugs to escape their fracked up reality forced down their throats by the society of masters and slaves. Not everyone is a willing slave, many try to forget the fact every night with beer and other alcoholic brain killers, but some go for the total effect like the warm-fuzzy numb-out one can get from opiates and their derivatives.The problem here has always been the messed up values of this society, that dictates a "one size fits all" BS 'solution' to everything, called "Law."Law serves the wealthy, not the general slave population, and the false moralities of the society, like the so-called "work ethic" are programmed deeply into the people in the schools, churches, media, and every other institution that uses money on any level. That money belongs to mammon, not you, not me. If one thinks that their reality is dependent upon the machinations, manipulations, values, stipulations, conditions, and requirement of money and other material 'assets' then they will at some point in their lives need that escape, because unless you are wealthy enough to pay the slaves to do your labors for you, you will be worn down eventually and be looking for that escape, even if it is just the morphine they give you as you lay dying.The government gives us platitudes, pat phrases, cute twists of words, claims after claim -with no substantial evidence- of 'serving' the people, when nothing could be further from the truth.The stations, positions, and offices of the Status Quo -"Professionals" "Experts" and other elite 'masteries' that involve the enslavement of those who aren't in those clubs are all corrupt. The nature of those positions, stations ,and offices is power, greed, selfishness, and corruption. One cannot serve those tenets and be a good person, that is an impossibility. Yet people continue to support them as if they were actually worthy of it. One cannot enter into the political arena without compromising their soul. But of course if one denies the existence of such a thing, it is much easier to get compliance.The problem is deeply rooted in our collective psyche, and no amount of 'legislation' is going to change that, especially when all of the 'legislators' have a vested interest in maintaining the "Status Quo.""You say you'll change the constitutionWell, you knowWe all want to change your headYou tell me it's the institutionWell, you knowYou better free you mind instead"LEGALIZE FREEDOM [ Post Comment ] Comment #2 posted by canis420 on September 28, 2013 at 06:21:41 PT: ooops dying? [ Post Comment ] Comment #1 posted by Canis420 on September 28, 2013 at 06:20:34 PT: "However a statewide law-enforcement crackdown on illegal sales and use has cut the number of oxycodone-related Florida deaths by 41 percent, to 735 in 2012, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement."This may be true but do you think all those oxy users just quit using? No they did not...they moved on to the much cheaper and readily available heroin which they are now dying of instead. The war on drugs is a farce and I am tired of my tax dollars financing it! [ Post Comment ] Post Comment