The Free Thought Project reports via AlterNet
There's one thing that appears to be saving more lives during the opioid epidemic than anything else--medical cannabis. While government touts meaningless attempts at addressing the problem--paying lip service to the people while protecting Big Pharma's profits and filling jails--people are saving themselves by turning to an ancient plant.
Yet another scientific study has confirmed that medical cannabis access reduces harm from opioid abuse among the population. A recent study published in the Drug and Alcohol Dependency journal found that states with legal medical cannabis experience fewer hospitalizations related to opioids.
"Medical marijuana legalization was associated with 23% and 13% reductions in hospitalizations related to opioid dependence or abuse and [opioid pain reliever] OPR overdose, respectively; lagged effects were observed after policy implementation."
Researchers from the University of California analyzed hospital administrative records for the period of 1997 to 2014. The author reported:
"This study demonstrated significant reductions on OPR- (opioid pain reliever) related hospitalizations associated with the implementation of medical marijuana policies. ... We found reductions in OPR-related hospitalizations immediately after the year of policy implementation as well as delayed reductions in the third post-policy year."
The data also show that cannabis-related hospitalizations did not increase after legalization, contrary to what prohibitionists would have you believe.
Related Stories
What's up, Soylenteers? I've got to write another one of these? #420TooMainstream.
Legalization Status
Timeline of cannabis laws in the United States
Timeline of cannabis lawSince this time last year, Ohio, Florida, North Dakota, and Arkansas legalized medical cannabis, Illinois decriminalized it, and California, Nevada, Maine and Massachusetts legalized recreational cannabis. An attempt to legalize recreational cannabis in Arizona narrowly failed.
29 U.S. states and the District of Columbia have legalized cannabis for medical use, although restrictions vary widely from state to state.
Germany's medical cannabis law was approved in January and came into effect in March. Poland has also legalized medical cannabis, and Georgia's Supreme Court has ruled that imprisonment for possession of small amounts of cannabis is unconstitutional.
🍁 Cannada: Not So Fast 🍁
Last week, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau unveiled (archive) legislation (archive) that would make Canada the first major Western country to legalize recreational cannabis (the only country to legalize it to date is Uruguay, although implementation has taken years), dealing a serious blow to the crumbling United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs. However, the Liberal Party of Canada intends to wait more than a year to act on its campaign promise, during which time Canadians can still face prosecution for possession of the drug:
True to form, this government has written down a series of talking points, in this case, trying to make it sound like it's cracking down on pot rather than legalizing it. And Justin Trudeau's ministers are sticking to the messaging from party central like a child reciting Dr. Seuss.
Not once in that As It Happens interview did [Justice Minister Jody] Wilson-Raybould explain why the government intends to keep on criminalizing Canadians so unfairly (see the Liberal party's website statement) for another year. Instead, literally every second time she opened her mouth, she re-spouted the line about "strictly regulating and restricting access." Off asked eight questions. Four times, Wilson-Raybould robotically reverted to the same phrase.
Meanwhile, Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale, a parliamentary lifer who mastered the art of repetitive dronetalk sometime back in the last millennium, was out peddling more or less the same line, but with an added warning: Not only will the government continue to criminalize Canadians for what it considers a trifling offence, enforcement will be vigorous. "Existing laws prohibiting possession and use of cannabis remain in place, and they need to be respected," Goodale declared. "This must be an orderly transition. It is not a free-for-all." Why the government cannot simply decide to invoke prosecutorial and police discretion, and cease enforcing the cannabis laws it considers unjust, was not explained. Why that would necessarily be a "free for all" also went unexplained.
The Liberal Party of Canada has taken pains to remind everyone that the Conservative Party will "do everything they can to stop real change and protect a failed status quo". Unfortunately, they did not get the memo that "marijuana" is a term with racist origins.
Make like a tree and legalize it, Cannadia... Cannibinoidia.
President Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions
Backtrack to April 20th, 2016. Bernie Sanders still seemingly had a shot at becoming the President of the United States. Sanders, as well as Hillary Clinton (though begrudgingly), supported decriminalization of cannabis, medical use, and the continuation of states making decisions about recreational use. The #2 Republican candidate Ted Cruz also had a "let the states sort it out" stance.
One contender stood out, and he went on to become the @POTUS to #MAGA. The widely predicted "third term" was prevented, and that outcome may greatly affect a burgeoning semi-legal cannabis industry. One recent casualty are Amsterdam-style "cannabis clubs" (think: brewpubs). Colorado's legislature has backed off on a bill that would have allowed on-site consumption of cannabis at dispensaries due to the uncertain future of federal enforcement of cannabis prohibition.
Trump's position on cannabis has been ill-defined, although he supports medical use and has indicated that states should handle the issue. But the same can't be said of his Attorney General, former Senator Jeff Sessions. Here are some quotes about the drug from Mr. Sessions:
I thought those guys were OK until I learned they smoked pot. [Source. Context: Sessions later testified that the comment was a joke.]
We need grown-ups in charge in Washington to say marijuana is not the kind of thing that ought to be legalized, it ought not to be minimized, that it's in fact a very real danger.
I think one of [President Obama's] great failures, it's obvious to me, is his lax treatment in comments on marijuana... It reverses 20 years almost of hostility to drugs that began really when Nancy Reagan started 'Just Say No.
You can't have the President of the United States of America talking about marijuana like it is no different than taking a drink... It is different... It is already causing a disturbance in the states that have made it legal.
Good people don't smoke marijuana.
Cannabis advocates are becoming increasingly paranoid about the federal government's stance towards the states (and a certain District) that have legalized cannabis. And this is following an Obama administration that was criticized for conducting raids in states with legalization. It is too early to tell how the Trump administration will choose to deal with cannabis, but there are signs that harsher policies and greater enforcement could be coming:
On Wednesday, [April 5th,] Jeff Sessions directed Justice Department lawyers to evaluate marijuana enforcement policy and send him recommendations. And some state officials are worried. This week the governors of Alaska, Colorado, Oregon and Washington wrote the attorney general. They asked Sessions and the new Treasury secretary to consult with them before making any changes to regulations or enforcement.
At the White House, press secretary Sean Spicer said recently that the president is sympathetic to people who use marijuana for medical reasons. He pointed out that Congress has acted to bar the Justice Department from using federal money to interfere in state medical cannabis programs. But Spicer took a harsh view of recreational marijuana. "When you see something like the opioid addiction crisis blossoming in so many states around this country, the last thing we need to be doing is encouraging people. There is still a federal law we need to abide by," Spicer said.
Really, Spicer? Recreational cannabis use shouldn't be encouraged during an opioid addiction crisis? Read on.
Politics nexus unavailable for comment.
The Opioid Crisis Drags On (it's relevant)
Heroin use has become more dangerous as dealers have increasingly added other substances that massively increase potency without affecting the size of a dose significantly. Carfentanil, which is used as an elephant tranquilizer, has led to hundreds of deaths over very short timespans. It is impossible for the average user to predict the potency and potential danger of street heroin. While there have been international responses to these compounds, new chemical analogues are being created all the time:
Chinese labs producing the synthetic opiates play hide-and-seek with authorities. On their websites, they list fake addresses in derelict shopping centers or shuttered factories, and use third-party sales agents to conduct transactions that are hard to trace. The drugs themselves are easy to find with a Google search and to buy with a few mouse clicks. A recent check found more than a dozen Chinese sites advertising fentanyl, carfentanil, and other derivatives, often labeled as "research chemicals," for sale through direct mail shipments to the United States. On one website, carfentanil goes for $361 for 50 grams: tens of thousands of lethal doses.
The cat-and-mouse game extends to chemistry, as the makers tinker with fentanyl itself. Minor modifications like adding an oxygen atom or shifting a methyl group can be enough to create whole new entities that are no longer on the list of sanctioned compounds. Carfentanil itself was, until recently, unregulated in China.
2016 saw the addition of kratom to Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act in the U.S. Advocates for the tree leaf drug, which was formerly classified as a supplement, believe that its painkiller effects and low risk factors make it a useful replacement for the oft-deadly opioids that millions of Americans are addicted to. Kratom users have treated their pain and opioid withdrawal symptoms using the formerly "legal high". The DEA has refused to acknowledge this application and points out the "skyrocketing" number of calls to the Poison Control Center regarding kratom in recent years. One skeptic of kratom, Dr. Josh Bloom of the American Council on Science and Health, has looked at the same evidence and concluded that the trail of bodies left by substances like fentanyl and the scarce number of deaths (perhaps wrongly) attributed to kratom make it clear that the substance is the better "poison". He also notes that:
The number of calls to poison control centers is not reliable for determining how many poisonings actually occurred. It is a crude approximation at best.
Much like kratom, medical cannabis has been touted as a solution to the opioid crisis. States with legalized medical cannabis have seen a reduction in reported instances of opioid dependence [DOI: 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2017.01.006] [DX] So it is puzzling that White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer would use opioids as a bludgeon against cannabis legalization while AG Sessions expresses astonishment over the suggestion of using cannabis as a "cure" for the opioid crisis.
Bonus: Here's a video (2m14s) of a woman getting administered Narcan/naloxone. Here's an alternate video (2m39s) in which a man who overdosed on heroin is able to sit up in about a minute after being administered naloxone.
⚚ The Slow March for Science ⚕
While the Drug Enforcement Agency has refused to reclassify cannabis from its current Schedule I status, citing the supposedly rigorous conclusions reached by the Food and Drug Administration, it will allow more than one institution to grow cannabis for research purposes, ending the monopoly held by the University of Mississippi. However, the Schedule I status of cannabis remains an impediment to further research:
[...] DEA's decision not to reschedule marijuana presents a Catch-22. By ruling that there is not enough evidence of "currently accepted medical use"—a key distinction between the highly restrictive Schedule I classification and the less restrictive Schedule II—the administration essentially makes it harder to gather such evidence.
"They're setting a standard that can't be met," says David Bradford, a health economist at the University of Georgia, Athens. "That level of proof is never going to be forthcoming in the current environment because it requires doing a really extensive clinical trial series, and given that a pharmaceutical company can't patent whole plant marijuana, it's in no company's interest to do that."
Schedule I status presents obstacles for clinical researchers because of restrictions on how the drugs must be stored and handled, Bradford says. Perhaps more significant, that listing may evoke skittishness at funding agencies and on the institutional review boards that must sign off on research involving human subjects.
Researchers have disparaged the quality and potency as well as the appearance and odor of the University of Mississippi's cannabis products:
"It doesn't resemble cannabis. It doesn't smell like cannabis," Sisley told PBS NewsHour last week.
Jake Browne, a cannabis critic for the Denver Post's Cannabist marijuana news site, agrees. "That is, flat out, not a usable form of cannabis," he said. Browne should know: He's reviewed dozens of strains professionally and is running a sophisticated marijuana growing competition called the Grow-Off.
"In two decades of smoking weed, I've never seen anything that looks like that," Browne said. "People typically smoke the flower of the plant, but here you can clearly see stems and leaves in there as well, parts that should be discarded. Inhaling that would be like eating an apple, including the seeds inside it and the branch it grew on."
Research on cannabinoids and psychedelics is proceeding, slowly. One study published yesterday (74 years after the first LSD trip) came to an astounding conclusion: Psychedelics can induce a "heightened state of consciousness":
Healthy volunteers who received LSD, ketamine or psilocybin, a compound found in magic mushrooms, were found to have more random brain activity than normal while under the influence, according to a study into the effects of the drugs. The shift in brain activity accompanied a host of peculiar sensations that the participants said ranged from floating and finding inner peace, to distortions in time and a conviction that the self was disintegrating.
[...] What we find is that under each of these psychedelic compounds, this specific measure of global conscious level goes up, so it moves in the other direction. The neural activity becomes more unpredictable," said Anil Seth, a professor of neuroscience at the University of Sussex. "Until now, we've only ever seen decreases compared to the baseline of the normal waking state."
Inconceivable!
Increased spontaneous MEG signal diversity for psychoactive doses of ketamine, LSD and psilocybin (open, DOI: 10.1038/srep46421) (DX)
♯ Ending on High Notes ♯
And now to scrape the bottom of the barrel:
- Americans Don't Care If Their Parents Know They Smoke Weed, Survey Says
- California Today: At Newspapers, Covering Pot Like Wine (archive)
- Nation's first public needle vending machine for drug users debuts in Las Vegas
- GRiZ Won the Celebrity Weed Game Without Selling Out
- Secret A.T.F. Account Paid for $21,000 Nascar Suite and Las Vegas Trip (archive)
- Legal Marijuana Ends at Airport Security, Even if It's Rarely Stopped (archive)
- Anti-Heroin Video From a Florida Sheriff Appalls Critics but Impresses Constituents (archive)
Marijuana legalization could help offset opioid epidemic, studies find
Experts have proposed using medical marijuana to help Americans struggling with opioid addiction. Now, two studies suggest that there is merit to that strategy.
The studies, published Monday in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine [open, DOI: 10.1001/jamainternmed.2018.0266] [DX], compared opioid prescription patterns in states that have enacted medical cannabis laws with those that have not. One of the studies looked at opioid prescriptions covered by Medicare Part D between 2010 and 2015, while the other looked at opioid prescriptions covered by Medicaid between 2011 and 2016.
The researchers found that states that allow the use of cannabis for medical purposes had 2.21 million fewer daily doses of opioids prescribed per year under Medicare Part D, compared with those states without medical cannabis laws. Opioid prescriptions under Medicaid also dropped by 5.88% in states with medical cannabis laws compared with states without such laws, according to the studies.
"This study adds one more brick in the wall in the argument that cannabis clearly has medical applications," said David Bradford, professor of public administration and policy at the University of Georgia and a lead author of the Medicare study. "And for pain patients in particular, our work adds to the argument that cannabis can be effective."
Also at the Washington Post.
Association of Medical and Adult-Use Marijuana Laws With Opioid Prescribing for Medicaid Enrollees (open, DOI: 10.1001/jamainternmed.2018.1007) (DX)
Previously:
Study: Legal Weed Far Better Than Drug War at Stopping Opioid Overdose Epidemic
Opioid Commission Drops the Ball, Demonizes Cannabis
FDA approves powerful new opioid in 'terrible' decision
The Food and Drug Administration approved a powerful new opioid Friday, despite strong criticism and accusations that it bypassed its own advisory process to do it.
The new drug, Dsuvia, is a tablet that goes under the tongue. It is designed for use in the battlefield and in other emergency situations to treat intense, acute pain.
Known generically as sufentanil, it's a new formulation of a drug currently given intravenously. Critics say it will be incredibly easy for health workers to pocket and divert the drug to the illicit drug market and because it is so small and concentrated, it will likely kill people who overdose on it.
"This is a dangerous, reckless move," said Dr. Sidney Wolfe senior adviser of Public Citizen's Health Research Group. He questions whether there's need for yet another synthetic opioid when the U.S. is in the throes of an opioid overdose crisis.
Sufentanil is described as 5 to 10 times more potent than fentanyl and 500 times as potent as morphine. Carfentanil is 100 times more potent than fentanyl, but is only approved for the veterinary use of tranquilizing large animals. Sufentanil is the strongest opioid painkiller available for use in humans.
Cannabis and kratom? Exercise caution!
Also at STAT News, NPR, and The Hill.
See also: People on front lines of epidemic fear powerful new drug Dsuvia
Related:
Opioid Addiction is Big Business
Heroin, Fentanyl? Meh: Carfentanil is the Latest Killer Opioid
Study: Legal Weed Far Better Than Drug War at Stopping Opioid Overdose Epidemic
President Trump Declares the Opioid Crisis a National Emergency
Study Finds Stark Increase in Opioid-Related Admissions, Deaths in Nation's ICUs
FDA Blocks More Imports of Kratom, Warns Against Use as a Treatment for Opioid Withdrawal
Opioid Commission Drops the Ball, Demonizes Cannabis
U.S. Life Expectancy Continues to Decline Due to Opioid Crisis
FDA Labels Kratom an Opioid
Two More Studies Link Access to Cannabis to Lower Use of Opioids
"Synthetic Opioids" Now Kill More People than Prescription Opioids in the U.S.
U.S. Opioid Deaths May be Plateauing
Study finds CBD effective in treating heroin addiction
For their study, published Tuesday in the American Journal of Psychiatry, [Yasmin] Hurd and her colleagues looked at 42 adults who had a recent history of heroin use and were not using methadone or buprenorphine.
Recruited from social services groups, halfway houses and treatment centers, the participants had used heroin for an average of 13 years, and most had gone less than a month without using. They had to abstain from any heroin use for the entire trial period.
The participants were divided into three groups: one group given 800 milligrams of CBD, another 400 milligrams of CBD and another a placebo. All the participants were dosed once daily for three consecutive days and followed over the next two weeks.
During those two weeks, over the course of several sessions, the participants were shown images or videos of nature scenes as well as images of drug use and heroin-related paraphernalia, like syringes and packets of powder that resembled heroin. They were then asked to rate their craving for heroin and their levels of anxiety.
A week after the last administration of CBD, those who had been given CBD had a two- to three-fold reduction in cravings relative to the placebo group. Hurd said the difference between the two CBD groups was insignificant. The research team also measured heart rate and cortisol, the "stress hormone," and found that the levels in those who got CBD were significantly lower than those who hadn't received the drug
Cannabidiol for the Reduction of Cue-Induced Craving and Anxiety in Drug-Abstinent Individuals With Heroin Use Disorder: A Double-Blind Randomized Placebo-Controlled Trial (DOI: 10.1176/appi.ajp.2019.18101191) (DX)
Related: Study Finds That Legalized Medical Cannabis Led to a Decline in Medicare Prescriptions
Study: Legal Weed Far Better Than Drug War at Stopping Opioid Overdose Epidemic
Opioid Commission Drops the Ball, Demonizes Cannabis
Two More Studies Link Access to Cannabis to Lower Use of Opioids
(Score: 5, Funny) by AndyTheAbsurd on Friday March 17 2017, @05:19PM (16 children)
Let me be the first in this thread to congratulate Drugs on winning The Drug War.
Please note my username before responding. You may have been trolled.
(Score: 1) by kurenai.tsubasa on Friday March 17 2017, @05:59PM (15 children)
Drugs haven't won yet. People who cannot live without cannabis will need to think about whether they would rather die from big pharma “treatment” or die defending their right to grow plants.
Good guys with guns are the only thing that can keep cannabis legal where it's been legalized, because Republicans with guns will be mobilized soon to commit robbery, assault, kidnapping, and murder against legitimate business owners.
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Friday March 17 2017, @06:09PM (14 children)
I think that sounds crazy, but fine then: Let's also preemptively congratulate the Democrats on winning the War on Guns to defend small business owners. :D
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 2, Insightful) by kurenai.tsubasa on Friday March 17 2017, @06:25PM (12 children)
I hope Democrats may come to understand the error of their ways now that they've allowed an administration into power that is a threat guns may be needed against.
(Score: 2) by Zz9zZ on Friday March 17 2017, @07:17PM (10 children)
Thanks to some of the posters on this site, along with other life experiences, I have switched from "mildly pro gun control" to "anti gun control". Now that conservatives are literally talking about murdering liberals I am tempted to become a gun owner so I can defend myself from the likes of EF. Thankfully reason wins out, people like EF are just venting their emotional problems through the anonymity of the net. I suspect most conservatives would defend their liberal brothers and sisters, and vice versa.
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 1) by kurenai.tsubasa on Friday March 17 2017, @07:36PM (6 children)
I suspect most conservatives would defend their liberal brothers and sisters, and vice versa.
No, they wouldn't. Not the Michigan Militia at least.
(Score: 3, Funny) by dyingtolive on Friday March 17 2017, @07:47PM (4 children)
Dude. It's Michigan. It's like Texas with a higher failure rate. I've literally never heard of anything good happening there outside of, like, one band I can think of off the top of my head.
I get that you hate it. But seriously, you could have walked out of there by now. Get a backpack and a sleeping bag and just start walking in a direction. If you hit water, follow it, sooner or later you're going to be free.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 17 2017, @07:58PM (1 child)
Um, ex-Michigan native here... Michigan's largest contributions are historical. Look up the importance of the St. Lawrence river and shipping some time. Water way from the Atlantic ocean to places like Detroit, Chicago, Duluth, etc. And depending on your interpretation, Ford and GM came from there... and they where.... at least at one time good? What about Motown? Yeah as of late I can admit not a lot that is any good has come from Michigan but we had our glory days once.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Friday March 17 2017, @10:47PM
> Michigan's largest contributions are historical. Look up the importance of the St. Lawrence river and shipping some time.
That seems to still be of some importance:
One of Canada’s most important transportation and trade networks, the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Seaway, is undergoing a transformation that will see more than $7-billion worth of investments by 2018.
[...]
The improvements come as shipping on the seaway has been soaring with cargo volumes hitting 40 million tonnes last year, the highest since the recession.
-- http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/great-lakes-st-lawrence-seaway-to-get-7-billion-facelift/article22437770/ [theglobeandmail.com]
(Score: 1) by kurenai.tsubasa on Friday March 17 2017, @08:35PM
It must be nice not to have any obligations.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 17 2017, @10:00PM
Ok, how long before the magic happens? I've hit water and I must have been, like, 8 times round this pond.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Saturday March 18 2017, @07:03AM
Well, there you go. These people actually want to strip you of your rights.
But, a feminist was rude to you once. You really showed them!
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 18 2017, @01:13AM (1 child)
>Now that conservatives are literally talking about murdering liberals
Fucking retard. We aren't the ones burning down college campuses when the wrong person tries to speak there. We didn't riot when Obama won. You bitter little slugs though, you're the ones we have to watch out for.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Saturday March 18 2017, @07:07AM
Fucking retard. We aren't the ones burning down college campuses when the wrong person tries to speak there.
Funny you should use the word "burning." No burning occurred at Berkeley.
Bit of burning going on here, though. [revelist.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 19 2017, @10:46AM
I have had a lot of people ask me what I think about Gun Control.
I am all for it - providing the words "Gun Control" means you hit what you are shooting at - and you do not hit what you ain't shooting at.
If you aim for one thing, and hit something else, its obvious you ain't controlling your gun and you don't have any business messing with one.
That's all I ask... if you mess around with it, know how to use it.
A flock of people without the means to protect themselves is just about as bad as a flock of sheep with wolves around.
I take about as kindly to removing people's guns as to declawing a cat then making it fend for itself. What's the thing to do? Meow loudly while its being eaten?
I know the "bad guys" are going to have guns. Law or no law.
My concern is that the "good guys" have them too.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 18 2017, @12:10AM
Obligatory [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Friday March 17 2017, @10:22PM
You gotta hand it to the dems, they are the gun industries best marketing agency. All they gotta do is mention "gun control" and boom! Huge surge in gun and ammunition sales.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 17 2017, @05:27PM (13 children)
"Suckit Sessions"
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bob_super on Friday March 17 2017, @06:17PM (5 children)
If you think scientific studies can change these people's minds, or even make them think, you haven't been paying attention.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 17 2017, @08:45PM (4 children)
Precisely. I doubt very much that they don't know these things to be true, they just don't care. It turns out that they like money more than the problems that will come after they've died. And, yes, with global warming, the worst effects won't happen until after these 60 and 70 year olds are dead.
I think it's short-sighted personally as we all depend upon previous generations working to improve the world for our benefit. The fact that the Baby Boomers decided to be such greedy bastards makes it that much harder to convince the Gen Xers and Millenials to plan for whatever future generations.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Friday March 17 2017, @10:03PM (3 children)
Don't forget about compartmentalized thinking. Tell a lie enough times and you believe it.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday March 17 2017, @10:10PM (2 children)
Says who?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 17 2017, @10:48PM
Anyone who is aware of the Dubya/Cheney White House. [google.com]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by GlennC on Saturday March 18 2017, @05:07PM
The "Big Lie Theory" has been around for quite a while.
Here's a link to one of the original references: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_lie [wikipedia.org]
Sorry folks...the world is bigger and more varied than you want it to be. Deal with it.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by ikanreed on Friday March 17 2017, @06:18PM (6 children)
Oh don't worry, evidence contradicting their beliefs will do very little to this administration.
Sessions will be more than happy to reinvigorate the opioid epidemic if it means sticking it to potheads.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by redneckmother on Friday March 17 2017, @07:23PM (5 children)
The opioid epidemic is profitable for some of the corporations that run the US government. Pot is too easy to produce at home for them to decriminalize it.
Does anyone really think the overlords really care about individuals?
Mas cerveza por favor.
(Score: 4, Informative) by ikanreed on Friday March 17 2017, @07:31PM (2 children)
The problem with that logic is that a great many of the people who were addicted to Oxy switched to heroin because it's way cheaper, and, once you have a contact, easier to get.
I don't know if that's an indictment of how expensive the American medical system is, how much the drug war failed to stop opium imports, or both, but it's still true.
(Score: 5, Informative) by edIII on Friday March 17 2017, @07:45PM (1 child)
Indictment of both. Having a relative that was addicted to heroin, I learned first hand that the biggest problem.... was how cheap it was. That truly surprised me. I always thought heroin was one of the more expensive drugs that forced you into petty crimes and shitty lives like crack-whorin' for crack.
Price in Northern California to get high on heroin these days? $5. I'm not kidding. $5. My relative wasn't stealing to get high or committing crimes. Didn't have to. Just a small portion of the daily budget for living.
For LESS than a Starbuck's coffee, for LESS than a fucking cheeseburger at fast food, LESS than food at the grocery store, I can get high on heroin today. Legal options for eliminating pain? $35 per fucking pill. Legal weed? $2,200 per pound at the high end. $9 per pre-rolled joint at the lower end. That's commercial.
Heroin is less costly than almost every other legal or illegal drug out there. So when opiate addicts are switching to weed, that is opiate addicts putting their money where their mouth is in their desire to stop using.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by dry on Sunday March 19 2017, @02:46AM
Actually it is really hard to find heroin, the price crash is due to the other opiates that are sold as heroin. Femoral is the big one, cheap as hell to buy in China and mail to N. America. Cheap to make as well. There's some others around as well w, another one that is used for tranquilizing elephants, synthetic opiates where a grain of salt sized dose will kill you.
It is the free market in action, heroin is not as cheap and is bulky and the market has replaced it with fake heroin, even the dealers often think it is heroin they're selling. Being free market, there is also a minimum of quality control, leading to something like 1500 overdose deaths in the last year here in BC. It's hard to cut something that potent. It's hard to gauge the dose when the potency is unknown.
The solution being talked about more and more here in Canada is the government selling legal heroin (it's happening a bit) as it is cheap and actually heroin is pretty safe, especially compared to many drug store drugs. It's just societies hatred of (some kinds of) addiction that is the big problem.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday March 17 2017, @10:14PM (1 child)
Opium is equally easy to produce, humans used it as pain relief at least 7000 years back [wikipedia.org], while in Neolithic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by dry on Sunday March 19 2017, @03:31AM
The seeds are also commonly available, like most racks of garden seeds include opium poppies. Once you know what they look like, you see them all over the place. They self seed well too.
(Score: 5, Touché) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Friday March 17 2017, @05:50PM (3 children)
You hippies think you're all so clever with your "facts" and "evidence" and "proof". What about COMMON SENSE? Hmm? My ill-informed, hollywood-fed, semi-literate reactionary hindbrain knows more about complex social and medical issues than your "experts" and "doctors" and "people with direct and extensive experience of the problem" all put together. Here's an alternative fact for you: Clearly we're not punishing these so-called people hard enough for not being like me. Lock 'em up, that's what I say. Lock 'em up, or shoot 'em, and steal their stuff.
(Score: 4, Touché) by NewNic on Friday March 17 2017, @06:24PM (2 children)
Your comment is very accurate, except for one thing. I don't believe that these idealogues get their information from Hollywood. Instead, it comes from the mouths of their pastors.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 17 2017, @09:21PM
No. They have think tanks to think up all the stupid shit they say.
Think tanks inventing alternate realities. Aka lies.
Its what keeps captain chaos doing his crazy train.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Friday March 17 2017, @10:37PM
Nah, it comes from their peers.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Friday March 17 2017, @06:23PM (23 children)
This seem like an odd story. They seem to be grabbing things left and right and moshing them together - perhaps it was written while high on weed. Weed isn't an opioid so what they are trying to say that getting stoned on weed is better then getting high of something else? I guess that is it - or that it's really really hard to die of a Weed overdose. A weed-dealers bullet or the crime that follow in the illegal weed market is probably just as deadly as any other illegal drug market. Legalization might solve a few of those issues but as noted neither "Big Pharma" or the various Drug cartels south of the border are to pleased about it.
That said this seems like it has very little to do with the War on Drugs, an effort to stop illegal drugs and the creation of new addicts. As far as I know you can become addicted by using legal weed to. The legality doesn't change the addiction in that regard. That the War on drugs is a giant failure is probably not really the issue here. The War on Drugs seems to have had a few other "bonus effects" such as propping up various little dictators in South America with military hardware and assistance so they wouldn't fall to the evils of communism. That seems to have been just as important as stopping drug trafficking.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 17 2017, @06:32PM
You have the comprehension of somebody who's been drinking too much.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Zz9zZ on Friday March 17 2017, @06:35PM (6 children)
Hehe
it's really really hard to die of a Weed overdose
Basically impossible, I don't think there is one recorded case of death by marijuana.
As far as I know you can become addicted by using legal weed to
Weed is not chemically addictive.
This is the problem, so much misinformation due to the War on Drugs.
As for the style of writing, what are YOU on? Citing multiple studies to make a point is "grabbing things left and right and moshing them together"?
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 4, Touché) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday March 17 2017, @07:10PM (4 children)
> Basically impossible, I don't think there is one recorded case of death by marijuana.
What if a 200-pound bale of the stuff falls on your head? What then, ese?!
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Funny) by Zz9zZ on Friday March 17 2017, @07:20PM
Call OSHA!
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 4, Insightful) by rts008 on Friday March 17 2017, @07:41PM
Call it a gift from 'heaven', and find a truck?
Is this a trick question?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 17 2017, @07:52PM
Then you call Cheech & Chong and get some XXL Zigzags... And some munchies.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Friday March 17 2017, @10:38PM
You call Dominoes. Duh.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday March 19 2017, @12:20AM
As you said "chemically addictive" I must agree, but I have encountered examples of people who where psychologically addicted, so if you can be addicted to video games or iPhones, you can be addicted to marijuana. There are reasonable arguments over whether this is the correct use of the language. I don't tend to think so, but I seem to be in the minority.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Thexalon on Friday March 17 2017, @06:40PM (7 children)
It's so hard that nobody has ever managed to do it in the entire documented history of humanity.
There's no signs that weed has any kind of physically addictive effects. To the degree that it is psychologically addictive, it appears to be no more so than just about any other daily habit, e.g. my near-daily dose of perfectly legal chocolate.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 17 2017, @08:48PM (2 children)
In order to overdose on weed you'd have to either purposefully do it or you'd have to be caught in the middle of a field as it burns. I'm not personally a supporter of legalization without appropriate studies being conducted about the various pros and cons being done, but saying that it's going to cause overdoses or similar is rather ridiculous.
Medical marijuana though, I'm completely for that. I don't think there's a viable argument in favor of keeping that illegal. And even the argument in favor of keeping it illegal for recreational use is getting weaker and weaker as time goes by.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anal Pumpernickel on Saturday March 18 2017, @01:26AM
I'm not personally a supporter of legalization without appropriate studies being conducted about the various pros and cons being done, but saying that it's going to cause overdoses or similar is rather ridiculous.
So you're in favor of preemptively making/keeping things illegal until studies are done that show them to be safe? Because that is the exact opposite of what a free society would do.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday March 19 2017, @12:27AM
There is reasonable evidence that marijuana is damaging to people before their late adolescent neuron pruning is done at around 23. This isn't convincing evidence, as I don't believe the study has ever been replicated. It's also true that the effect detected was not large. And I don't believe this is reasonable ground for legislation, though I do believe that it's reasonable ground for parents to ensure that the effect was tested by somebody else's children.
A thing worthy of note is that many of the experimental tests of hemp extracts for medical potency promote them as not resulting in people getting high. This is a useful characteristic in a medicine, but shouldn't have anything to do with whether or not it was legal.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Post-Nihilist on Friday March 17 2017, @09:23PM
There's no signs that weed has any kind of physically addictive effects
If you try hard enough or use a concentrate like shatter or hash oil, there is some physical addiction to be found. Speaking from experience, extremely heavy prolonged cannabis use withdrawal symptoms are alike to a 3 days long mild cold concomitant to about a week of sleeplessness/bad sleep. Those symptoms feel quite different than the psychological cravings and unlike the cravings those symptoms are not suppressed by a small dose of a benzodiazepine like Rivotril (clonazepam) .
But do not take that as a warning against weed legalization: when you have the need to consume burn in your DNA, you will get addicted to something, anything. Compared to alcoholism, opiate addiction, cocaine addiction, sex addiction and gambling, weed addiction is by far the less damaging option.
If you want some active substances where addiction is physically impossible, magic mushroom (mostly psylocibin) and LSD are better candidate as they have an anti addiction feedback loop builtin: if you take 120ug of lsd on Monday, 250ug on Tuesday will have a potency similar less then 50ug would have had on monday. Wait until Friday and 120ug will give you a decent trip again. With magic mushroom it is the same but the delay is longer. Note that there is cross tolerance between psylocibin and LSD as they are both serotonergic hallucinogens.
Be like us, be different, be a nihilist!!!
(Score: 2) by dry on Sunday March 19 2017, @03:44AM (2 children)
Chocolate is actually physically addicting, its active chemical is similar to caffeine. Chocolate has been bred for weakness ever since the Catholics got control of the chocolate producing regions and what you call chocolate may have very little actual cocoa in it so it is not very addicting but the potential is as bad as coffee as being an addicting gateway drug. (Every drug user I've asked started with coffee or other caffeine containing beverage).
Interestingly, back around the end of the 19th century when prohibition became popular, there was a movement to include chocolate in the list of bad substances that need to be prohibited.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday March 20 2017, @03:02PM (1 child)
Not sure if sarcasm, but I have personally never found caffeine to be addictive at all.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by dry on Tuesday March 21 2017, @03:26AM
Most people do experience mild withdrawal symptoms when used to drinking 2 or more cups a day. http://www.webmd.com/balance/caffeine-myths-and-facts#1-2 [webmd.com]
Not trying to be sarcastic, just showing the stupidity of comparing marijuana, which is considered non-lethal and non-physical addicting to (mildly) addicting, potentially lethal drugs such as coffee and chocolate (btw, chocolate does also contain caffeine as well as theobromine). A tablespoon of pure caffeine can kill and a gram to 1.5 grams a day can have negative affects. Chocolate kills a lot of animals as many such as dog and cats can't metabolize theobromine, even known to kill bears. In its pure form, it is not harmless. Be interesting to get hold of the stuff that the Incas etc used, it sure freaked out the Catholics back in the day.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_effects_of_chocolate [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caffeine#Overdose [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by edIII on Friday March 17 2017, @07:34PM (2 children)
Sorry, but you are perpetuating a myth. Weed is not addictive at all, beyond the possibility of psychological addiction. So if weed addition is an actual thing, so is sex addiction, chocolate addiction, and addiction to soap operas. Dunno about you, but I'm pretty "addicted" to sex and chocolate. Not so much soap operas.
Addiction without any special context means BIOLOGICAL OR CHEMICAL addiction. Weed is simply not chemically addictive like opiates or cigarettes. That's a myth you should stop spreading around.
I smoke a weed a lot, for medical reasons having to do with pain that doesn't respond to opiates. Opiates have a very bad reaction with me anyways. I'm not addicted at all, beyond the psychological addiction of not wanting pain. To put it simply, you're not addicted to something like an addict is addicted to heroin, until you're sucking cock in a bathroom to get it. I've never heard of a pot smoker telling me, "Man, nobody was holding so I had to blow this shady looking dude in an alley to get a joint". I sure as shit don't need weed that badly. I'll take the all the pain first. Plus death. So I sincerely doubt I'm addicted in the classic clinical sense.
The worst that can happen to you is actually getting sick from being too saturated with it. That goes away after stopping for a week or two. Operative word there is stop. There are way too many pot smokers able to stop for extended periods of time, without withdrawal symptoms for weed addiction to be a medically verifiable phenomenon.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 17 2017, @10:20PM
Yep. Here too.
I'm getting on in years and have my own set of medical issues. Heart, arthritis, and have found cannabis a life saver. Alcohol is poison to me and has destroyed most my heart's nerve bundles. Got a pacemaker ICD now.
Cannabis has also been helpful in weight loss and even getting my blood pressure down.
Unfortunate our leaders are ignorant neanderthals making up lies and tall tales to keep something so good and beneficial out of the hands of people that would benefit from it, all for crony capitolism and corruption in the highest levels of our government. Even more unfortunate that glue sniffers like that idiot above citing lies told by the fucking criminals in our government.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 17 2017, @11:18PM
The worst that can happen to you is actually getting sick from being too saturated with [weed]
I really enjoy the story about NYT's ridiculous redhead who went to Colorado, bought a candy bar, ate the whole thing (when the dose was 1 square), and completely freaked out. Maureen Dowd [google.com]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Immerman on Friday March 17 2017, @09:04PM (2 children)
>Weed isn't an opioid so what they are trying to say that getting stoned on weed is better then getting high of something else?
No, they're saying that legal marijuana one of the first truly effective thing we've found to fight the epidemic opioid addiction.
Presumably, because pretty much every addict knows that opioid addiction is really screwing up their life, and that marijuana is much, much safer. I've met a few people that have used marijuana to kick an opioid addiction - marijuana helps with the nausea of withdrawal, stimulates appetite (which can fade under opioid use), and promotes a sense of well-being. Nothing like the intensity of an opioid high, which stimulates the brain's endorphin "pleasure" receptors, but stimulating the brain's canabanoids receptors generally induces a feeling that everything is all right - you may be in constant pain and your life is a mess, but everything is still basically okay.
And marijuana leaves you functional - critical thinking skills usually suffer while you're high, but intuitive reasoning may actually be enhanced, and you're not in some opioid induce quasi-dreamstate, so are quite capable of cleaning the house, cooking dinner, and taking care of all the chores necessary to keeping your life in order. An awful lot of people even go to work high - a good attitude and near-total immunity to boredom and bullshit can actually be a much larger advantage in a whole lot of jobs than the enhanced critical thinking skills you've traded for them. And unlike alcohol, marijuana has negligible effect on reflexes or reckless behavior - in fact there's even some evidence that people tend to become more cautious when high than when sober.
And yeah, you can get addicted to marijuana, in the same way you can get addicted to shopping or chocolate. There's no physical addiction or withdrawal, just an unhealthy psychological obsession. And frankly, replacing an opioid addiction is a marijuana addiction is a *huge* step up. Heck, it'd be a huge step up from an alcohol addiction. We all have our little addictions (Caffeine? Internet?), they're only a problem if they interfere with our ability to function well in society.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 18 2017, @12:39AM (1 child)
Hmmm, getting an idea here. Do you really think that I could use pot to break my internet addiction? As it is, I work from home on the screen and also spend much of my "down time" on the screen reading (and SN commenting). I do get out for bicycle rides when the weather is reasonable (spring & fall). Medical pot has just started being legal here, but I'm guessing that a 'script for it would be hard to get with these symptoms.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 18 2017, @02:44AM
From what I've seen it tends to make everything more interesting, internet included, so probably not...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 18 2017, @09:22AM
So loorg. I'm curious. Genuinely curious.
Now that all these people have responded to your post with factual information to improve your understanding of the topic, do you see things any differently?
Did facts change your mind? Or are you now even more convinced that cannabis is a serious menace?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Lagg on Friday March 17 2017, @08:09PM (11 children)
I'm aware it sounds inherently weird to say "Hey if you take drug X you won't want drug Y". Obviously that's not a fact. But if you want an explanation of what exactly weed does for an addict and how precisely it saves lives. Here's my testimony. [soylentnews.org] Long story short its effects are highly conducive to post-withdrawal (the thing that makes most people start taking pills again) symptoms and in general provide relief that is superior to opioids for an anxious personality (that will be made more so by withdrawal).
It's frustrating that they choose to express this information the way they do. But they're usually doctors that couldn't even begin to understand how addiction works because they've never experienced addiction. So is the general population.
P.S. Forgive the rambling nature of my posts. This is just how it happens when I attempt to explain something.
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 17 2017, @08:32PM (9 children)
As a long term patient on strong prescription painkillers, I'll add this... I started weaning myself off the prescription crap due to near ineffectiveness and switched to weed. It's the best pain relief I've had in 15 years. I have absolutely no withdrawal symptoms with weed, as opposed to the very strong and miserable withdrawals from prescription meds. Yeah, the doctor gave me the lecture about still being a fed offence, but also added some people do get relief using weed where the other meds fail. Sidenote... Our elected officials here in San Diego just passed an ordinance banning weed outlets in all of San Diego county, only within the city limits are you allowed to operate a weed outlet now. I will not be voting for those fucktards next election.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 17 2017, @08:35PM (8 children)
Umm, is this the real EF without the fake troll persona??
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 17 2017, @08:40PM
Nooooo. I live in the good part of San Diego county. And I don't drink alcohol.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday March 17 2017, @09:49PM (6 children)
No, as they pointed out, but I never understood the appeal of painkillers either. I was prescribed Vicodin after hurting my back and although it put me in a different headspace it did nothing for the actual pain, which is the only reason why I took it. Over-the-counter anti-inflammatories and pot were way more effective.
I ended up throwing away over half a bottle of Vicodin.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by LoRdTAW on Friday March 17 2017, @10:49PM (1 child)
Friend of mine did the same thing. They gave him something along the lines of Vicodin or hydrocodone. It made him nauseous and disoriented. Just completely shitty. He switched to smoking weed and took advil. Not only did it numb the pain, but he could also eat. The choice between the overpriced "legal" crap and cheaper weed is a no-brainer.
It's going to be a tough fight to legalize because a LOT of fat cats stand to loose a shit load of money if it's legalized. Drug companies, Alcohol industry, Law Enforcement vendors, Prison companies, and I'm sure a whole lot more. Not to mention we get to deal a huge blow against the drug cartels, who like the bootleggers, will simply go away.
Hell I'm gonna smoke a bowl right now.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 17 2017, @10:56PM
Lets see... $360 for a 30 day supply of fentanyl patches which comes with addiction, side effects, withdrawals, shitty pain relief, and possible death... or $90 for a 60 day supply of weed which almost cuts the pain level to nothing, no withdrawals, and is not addictive. No brainer.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday March 18 2017, @12:36AM (1 child)
Asking this seriously: how does cannabinoid-mediated analgesia work?
I ask this because in studying the effects of acetaminophen (Tylenol/Paracetamol) on myself, I noticed it has an anxiolytic effect, which further research suggests is because it's essentially a weak anandamide reuptake inhibitor. It doesn't seem to inhibit cyclooxygenase the same way aspirin and other NSAIDs do, at least not directly at the site of inflammation and pain. Anandamide is an endocannabinoid. So what's the mechanism of action here? Does it simply make the pain more bearable, or does activation of certain endocannabinoid receptors actually abolish nocoception to some degree?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday March 18 2017, @01:16AM
Fuck if I know, that's way out of my league.
The only thing I can say about all that is that being a drunk, I swear by ibuprofen rather than acetaminophen because ibuprofen is much more friendly on the liver and just works. And if one's stomach can't handle ibuprofen then they shouldn't be drinking either.
With respect to pain, I have a lot more experience with hangovers, so I can make a couple of quite-possibly-bullshit assumptions here based on Wikipedia. The first is that the CB1 receptors within the brain decrease GABA activity, which would alleviate some symptoms of hangovers since part of a hangover is caused by a GABA rebound, in which the brain's compensation for suppressed GABA activity while drunk becomes excessive after the booze wears off, causing excitability (mania, anxiety, or even death by seizure; depending on the extent of the alcohol abuse).
The second possible-bullshit assumption is that, since CB2 cannabinoid receptors are part of the immune system (among other parts of the body), and alcohol is inflammatory, and the immune system is responsible for inflammation; then stimulating that receptor in the immune system (and possibly other parts of the body) could lead to a reduction of inflammation (and thus a reduction of pain).
The Rastafarians say that Jah (God) put Marijuana on the Earth specifically for Man to use. That we have cannabinoid receptors within our bodies is proof of that.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by anubi on Saturday March 18 2017, @08:52AM
I got some Vicodin after some oral surgery.
Like you, ended up taking two or three of 'em before I figured out those were best left in the bottle.
For some reason, these drugs don't seem to do anything for me. Alcohol puts me to sleep. Both pot and tobacco makes it really hard for me to breathe and I cough up a storm. I seem to get some benefit from aspirin. I do enjoy eating pot, though - but smoking it just plugs me up and it takes weeks to clear it out.
I can think of four chemicals that do have an almost immediate effect on me... beer will make me pee, calcium carbonate will quickly neutralize an upset tummy, phenolpthalein will give me the squirts, and potassium bicarbonate will quickly stop leg cramps. I also salt food with potassium bicarbonate, potassium gluconate, or potassium chloride, as when I get too much sodium in me, here come leg cramps. It seems as if I am literally shorting out. To me, the potassium salts taste like sodium chloride, while anything I made with magnesium tasted absolutely terrible.
I am careful about ingesting too much potassium at one time though... I get the idea that one good heavy dose will be my last.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday March 19 2017, @12:47AM
Interesting. They gave me Vicodin after my gall bladder was removed, and I didn't find it very effective. I think I still have about half a bottle, but by now it's way past the expiration date. Now I don't know whether it really wasn't effective or not. It could be that I just had enough pain (for awhile) that following the prescription orders would only dull things down a bit, and that it lasted long enough that there was a lot of overlap between doses. Or it could be because different medications have different effectiveness for different people. E.g., Acetaminophen has so little effect on me that it's worthless, but Asprin is pretty good, and ibuprofen is nearly as good. Unfortunately, side effects...
Asprin leads to a tendency to bleed, which increases the probability of certain kinds of strokes, and since I know that, for me, it leads to nose-bleeds, it's quite likely that that would be a result.
And I'm told that using ibuprofen more than twice a week damages the nerves within the ear. My mother and her father both ended up going deaf, and I've got little desire to go the same way.
So currently for pain I either tough it our or take some booze. Neither is a particularly good result. Neither is getting high. Marijuana *might* work, but I tend to be risk averse, so I'm waiting for it to become legal before I see how well it would work, and whether it would interfere with my life more than the pain. (OTOH, it's also true that the pain I'm talking about is minor compared to, e.g., extensive operations. I'm just dealing with arthritis, the thing that my grandparents thought aspirin was the best thing for.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by theronb on Saturday March 18 2017, @01:34AM
Hi Lagg; I'll second this. There's about 10% of the population that will become addicted/dependent on whatever you've got (I've got that tendency), so it's probably better to have the pot option instead of heroin. Or alcohol, for that matter - fewer violent confrontations.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by requerdanos on Friday March 17 2017, @08:34PM
I would like to see studies done to see which natural but effective substance is more helpful with opiate-family problems, cannabis or mitragyna [wikipedia.org]. I know that cannabis gives me a headache (as of 20-some years ago when I last tried), but mitragyna seems to provide pain relief + slight euphoria (which contributes to the pain relief) that as a chronic pain sufferer I might otherwise look for opiate-family medications to treat.
The (U.S.) federal government has made some noise about adding mitragyna to the list of scheduled controlled substances, but I'd rather see focus on using whatever works to help people who need it.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday March 17 2017, @08:55PM
What should I do differently this time?
4/20: StonerNews is People [soylentnews.org]
4/20: Half-Baked Headline [soylentnews.org]
Looks like "lumping cannabis with opiate drugs" (read: writing about the "heroin epidemic") was time well spent in last year's version.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]