I don't much like marijuana. Never done it. The smell of it makes me sick. And it doesn't much fit in with the way that I lead my life. That's not a judgment. I have plenty of other vices that I won't list here.
But it may just be that, as a study by a sub-division of the National Academy of Science in 1999, and several other studies, the authors of which have had trouble getting published, have shown, smoked marijuana is pretty good at alleviating some of the side-effects of chemotherapy, AIDS medications and other harsh drug therapies, as well as various other causes of nausea, loss of appetite, etc. Of course, the FDA today decided that there are no such studies--even the federal and state-funded studies. This isn't too surprising, since "fact" and "truth" obviously mean something different politically than they do in normal parlance.
But, really, what is the great danger in letting people suffering smoke some weed? I mean we allow cold medicines to be sold over the counter even though the ingredients in them can be used to manufacture meth. Oh, that's right, there's a business interest involved there.
But it may just be that, as a study by a sub-division of the National Academy of Science in 1999, and several other studies, the authors of which have had trouble getting published, have shown, smoked marijuana is pretty good at alleviating some of the side-effects of chemotherapy, AIDS medications and other harsh drug therapies, as well as various other causes of nausea, loss of appetite, etc. Of course, the FDA today decided that there are no such studies--even the federal and state-funded studies. This isn't too surprising, since "fact" and "truth" obviously mean something different politically than they do in normal parlance.
But, really, what is the great danger in letting people suffering smoke some weed? I mean we allow cold medicines to be sold over the counter even though the ingredients in them can be used to manufacture meth. Oh, that's right, there's a business interest involved there.
2 comments:
I'm not sure that we can know where the supply and demand curve would end up settling were to legalize marijuana or any other drug--nor can we know what other effects it might have, recalling that prohibition helped to coalesce organized crime in this country and organized crime has also coalesced around the illicit drug trade--but what really has me incensed about this particular case is the arrogant quality of the lie that the government is involved in. They might argue that marijuana has been shown to have medical benefits but the dangers outweigh the benefits. But they don't make that argument; they just lie and say that there is no evidence of any medical benefit. And that's just not true.
As for the occasional light-up, the smell of the stuff really does make me retch, so none for me. But that's merely a gustatory judgment. There are too many windows in my house for me to start lobbing any pebbles.
And, I'm not a libertarian per se, more of an anarcho-syndicalist or a communitarian.
Well, I don't live in Hillcrest anymore. And one wouldn't want to confuse the mafia with organized crime. There are lots of different sorts of organized crime; the mafia was and is one of them, but hardly the only.
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