Will MJ be reclassified

[Robby]

The DEA is set to make a decision this spring on reclassifying MJ to make it more readily available to researchers, to promote studies, and ease the burden of people using it.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/04/06/the-dea-will-decide-whether-to-change-course-on-marijuana-by-july/

[denny]

They need to let up on opioids now.
Good news(?)
Thanks

[foxgrove]

  Good to hear it's coming... when?? well, that's another question.  I totally agree with you denny.  There needs to be some middle ground that doesn't include sacrificing chronic patients to their fears.

[foxgrove]

I did a little more digging through the links found in that article and came up with some blood chilling quotes:

"Dating back to 1999, the Department of Health and Human Services has indicated it does not see much potential for developing marijuana in smoked form into an approved prescription drug. In guidelines issued that year for research on medical marijuana, the agency quoted from an accompanying report that stated, "If there is any future for marijuana as a medicine, it lies in its isolated components, the cannabinoids and their synthetic derivatives."

Scientists say this position has had a chilling effect on marijuana research."

...Most of the studies focus on the potential therapeutic uses of individual cannabinoid chemicals from marijuana or synthetic versions and not the plant itself.

Note that while they may be changing restrictions, the administration seems hell bent on the same thing that my doctor is so hell bent on... according to their policy and continued doling out of projects, there is no medicinal use for smoking/ingesting marijuana in it's plant form.  That strikes me as total lunacy... why don't they figure out what it's effects are... not what they fear they might be, before bringing the hammer down on this.  

Now, stop me if you think this idea is lunacy but, something in me is starting to scream really loud that this is all a huge toilet bowl where pharmaceutical companies are going to make billions giving us something that's a whole lot less effictive for a whole lot more.  I can see why my doc believes what she does... she was indoctrinated into western medicine that says that if something isn't analyzed and all the mechanisms "understood fully", it has no use in medicine.  

Personally, I'm starting to question that wisdom in a big way.  I mean, it's not that anecdotal evidence is perfect or really trustworthy but come on... millions of people all having the exact same story about their reaction to ingesting marijuana.  Understood that some, I think the numbers are heavily biased but I digress, some people do some pretty spectacularly stupid things while under the influence of mj but dumb people do dumb things, sober or not.

I don't think it's a conspiracy.  I don't think "the man" is spinning this to hurt people.  I really think it's basically a really human mess brought on by people in power making poor and selfish choices based on information largely influenced by just plain bad information provided by dumb and panicky people in influential positions.  It's a combination of millions and millions of bad decisions all piled in one big ass pile... thrown unceremoniously on top of anyone who attempt to change the decisions.  We're on a very large "ship pile" and it doesn't turn easily at all.

[Lonesome George]

An individual can't grow a Marinol pill like they can pot.  That's the whole ball of wax.

[Robby]

...Now, stop me if you think this idea is lunacy but, ....

I don't think it's a conspiracy.  I don't think "the man" is spinning this to hurt people.  I really think it's basically a really human mess brought on by people in power making poor and selfish choices based on information largely influenced by just plain bad information provided by dumb and panicky people in influential positions.  It's a combination of millions and millions of bad decisions all piled in one big ass pile... thrown unceremoniously on top of anyone who attempt to change the decisions.  We're on a very large "ship pile" and it doesn't turn easily at all.

No lunacy, at least not on this  I do agree that it's just a bunch of bad decisions based on the personal feelings of a few people many years ago. People in charge years ago decided that mj was bad, about the same time they decided everything that didn't fit into their list of "What the good kids do" was bad. No need for a "What bad kids do", it would have weighed 100 pounds, and been 3 ft thick, and still not covered everything, so if it wasn't in the good book it was bad.

Now, mj is one of the things that is still on the bad list, it doesn't matter what "most" people think if your not trained medically and taught that it's bad, then your opinion doesn't count. How can it count if you don't have medical training? Practical real world training doesn't count it wasn't in a sterile test tube. Guess what the real world isn't sterile, what happens in  a test tube isn't real.

People are going to have to start banding together and raising hell, just like the civil rights protest of the 60's, and the gay rights protest of recent years. Forcing those "in the know" to test and do real world studies, proving or disproving claims of weeds medicinal properties. It's going to have to happen. Otherwise they are going to sit on their high horse and look down their nose at people that feel it has a place in the medicine cabinet.

I've been trying to talk to Dawn about it, I've been trying to get her on my side so if it's ever available I will be able to try it. But it's an uphill battle because she has worked with chemical dependent people for over 15 years, and of course mj is always on the list of abused drugs. She can't separate in her mind illegal use and medicinal use. Too her it's all the same. No matter how many studies I show her, no matter how many articles I give her, she refuses to think differently. Although she has started reading the stuff I give her, she still refuses to think differently. A lot of that is the "pot heads" that abuse it, giving it a bad name.