US - Seniors May Hold Trump Card for Supreme Court Decision

[Pinch]

US - United States' Seniors appear as a vital trump in the debate over the medical virtues of marijuana.

With the US Supreme Court poised to soon rule on whether medical marijuana laws in California and nine other states are subject to federal prohibitions, elderly patients are emerging as a potentially powerful force in the roiling debate over health, personal choice and states' rights.

No one knows exactly how many elderly use cannabis to address their ills, but activists and physicians say they probably number in the thousands. And unlike medical marijuana's younger and more militant true believers, the elderly are difficult for doubters to castigate as stoners.

Their pains are unassailable. Their needs for relief are real. Most never touched pot before. As parents in the counterculture'60s, many waged a generation-gap war with children getting high on the stuff. Now some of those same parents consider the long-demonized herb a blessing.

The Boston Globe (Elderly patients throw new wrinkle in marijuana ; 08/05/2005) writes that patients contend cannabis helps ease the effects of multiple sclerosis, glaucoma, and rheumatoid arthritis. It can calm nausea during chemotherapy. Research has found that cannabinoids, marijuana's active components, show promise for treating symptoms of Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's, perhaps even as anticancer agents.

The Drug Policy Alliance advocates treating cannabis like alcohol : regulated, taxed, and off-limits to teens.

According to the director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, people who abuse illegal drugs such as crack ******* feel a similar burst of euphoria but that does not make crack medicine.

Congress and federal drug regulators have repeatedly rebuffed pleas to legalize use of cannabis, which is classified as a dangerous drug along with ****** and ***. They say there is not a whiff of clinical proof qualifying smoked pot as medicine.

Any beneficial compounds that do exist in the leafy plant should be synthesized, sent through the rigors of the regulatory process and packaged as a pharmaceutical, not smoked like black-market weed.




Source: www.boston.com
Copyright: © Bayard 2005
Contact: webmaster@seniorscopie.com
Website: http://www.seniorscopie.com/actu/art...221636&rub=swi

[Thepurplem0nkey]

Some of you have read about my grandfathers use of medical marijuana. He is back at home now, and uses his tincture every day now. My mother has informed me that when he takes his Alzheimers medication, it makes him very cranky and moody...yet when he uses his tincture he is humerous and good spirited. Of course, the med pot os continuning to help him gain weight also.
-PM

[SmokeyMacPot]

good to hear your gramps is doing better. marijuana is a great plant.