Katelyn Baker
Well-Known Member
With all due respect to your local car dealer, the medical marijuana law of 2004 and the industry that developed have helped thousands of Montanans.
Illegal drugs ARE illegal. Methamphetamine, heroin, cocaine are all illegal.
Please do not be sucked in to some idea that people are being harmed in our state. To the contrary: Prescription drug overdose deaths have dropped by 14 percent in the last three years in Montana. One widely reported study found that prescription drug overdose deaths have dropped by at least 25 percent in states after they started medical marijuana programs.
Steve Zabawa (May 18 guest opinion) claims that he has not encountered a medical professional at a hospital who does not want to get marijuana shops out of Montana.
Well, Steve - I am pleased to meet you. I am pleased to give some actual facts. In all of human history, no one has ever died from using medical or recreational marijuana. In my 30-plus years as an emergency physician, I've seen nothing but carnage in our hospitals and emergency rooms from alcohol and hard drugs.
Zabawa's claims about social consequences in Colorado and Washington are false. And he knows it.
One of my preferred definitions of evil is this: Militant ignorance.
There is plenty of evidence showing effectiveness of medical marijuana in multiple sclerosis, Crohn's disease, wasting syndrome, cancer, non-cancer chronic pain, PTSD, epilepsy, peripheral neuropathy, glaucoma and AIDS.
There is no truth to his claim that crime rates, emergency room visits, unemployment, homelessness and marijuana related deaths have risen in the states that have medical marijuana programs.
There is no evidence of any "destruction" of children and families from medical marijuana. To be sure, some children have ingested.
In fact, the opposite is true: Medical marijuana itself is an exit drug, not a gateway drug. If marijuana is a gateway to heroin, then kissing is a gateway to AIDS.
Marijuana is safer than air, and it certainly is monitored - by the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services, law-enforcement, and by the doctors that recommend it.
I am told regularly by my medical marijuana patients about their miracles. I can tell you about Margaret who came down with ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis). She lived three years, happily, powerfully, in spite of her progressive degenerative neurologic illness.
I can tell you about patients who've moved off of 24 different medications down to four.
I can tell you about a patient with 30 years of involuntary motion disorder that disappeared when he began to use cannabis.
And I can tell you of thousands of patients in pain who moved away from opioids and other more toxic meds, using medical marijuana only for their pain, resulting in increasing movement weight-loss, better sleep and well-being.
I have seen over 2,000 patients in the several years I've been recommending marijuana to patients.
Indeed medical marijuana has helped the veterans I've seen with PTSD, pain issues and a myriad of challenges. We should be welcoming our veterans, caring for them, not abandoning them.
Cannabis allows for palliative care of many severe illnesses. It causes no harm, in accordance with my Hippocratic Oath.
What Oath have you signed, Mr. Zabawa?
News Moderator: Katelyn Baker 420 MAGAZINE ®
Full Article: Guest Opinion - Less Risk, Better Medicine With Cannabis
Author: Mark Isben
Contact: Billings Gazette
Photo Credit: Al Bublitz
Website: Billings Gazette
Illegal drugs ARE illegal. Methamphetamine, heroin, cocaine are all illegal.
Please do not be sucked in to some idea that people are being harmed in our state. To the contrary: Prescription drug overdose deaths have dropped by 14 percent in the last three years in Montana. One widely reported study found that prescription drug overdose deaths have dropped by at least 25 percent in states after they started medical marijuana programs.
Steve Zabawa (May 18 guest opinion) claims that he has not encountered a medical professional at a hospital who does not want to get marijuana shops out of Montana.
Well, Steve - I am pleased to meet you. I am pleased to give some actual facts. In all of human history, no one has ever died from using medical or recreational marijuana. In my 30-plus years as an emergency physician, I've seen nothing but carnage in our hospitals and emergency rooms from alcohol and hard drugs.
Zabawa's claims about social consequences in Colorado and Washington are false. And he knows it.
One of my preferred definitions of evil is this: Militant ignorance.
There is plenty of evidence showing effectiveness of medical marijuana in multiple sclerosis, Crohn's disease, wasting syndrome, cancer, non-cancer chronic pain, PTSD, epilepsy, peripheral neuropathy, glaucoma and AIDS.
There is no truth to his claim that crime rates, emergency room visits, unemployment, homelessness and marijuana related deaths have risen in the states that have medical marijuana programs.
There is no evidence of any "destruction" of children and families from medical marijuana. To be sure, some children have ingested.
In fact, the opposite is true: Medical marijuana itself is an exit drug, not a gateway drug. If marijuana is a gateway to heroin, then kissing is a gateway to AIDS.
Marijuana is safer than air, and it certainly is monitored - by the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services, law-enforcement, and by the doctors that recommend it.
I am told regularly by my medical marijuana patients about their miracles. I can tell you about Margaret who came down with ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis). She lived three years, happily, powerfully, in spite of her progressive degenerative neurologic illness.
I can tell you about patients who've moved off of 24 different medications down to four.
I can tell you about a patient with 30 years of involuntary motion disorder that disappeared when he began to use cannabis.
And I can tell you of thousands of patients in pain who moved away from opioids and other more toxic meds, using medical marijuana only for their pain, resulting in increasing movement weight-loss, better sleep and well-being.
I have seen over 2,000 patients in the several years I've been recommending marijuana to patients.
Indeed medical marijuana has helped the veterans I've seen with PTSD, pain issues and a myriad of challenges. We should be welcoming our veterans, caring for them, not abandoning them.
Cannabis allows for palliative care of many severe illnesses. It causes no harm, in accordance with my Hippocratic Oath.
What Oath have you signed, Mr. Zabawa?
News Moderator: Katelyn Baker 420 MAGAZINE ®
Full Article: Guest Opinion - Less Risk, Better Medicine With Cannabis
Author: Mark Isben
Contact: Billings Gazette
Photo Credit: Al Bublitz
Website: Billings Gazette
