All Cannabis Use is Medicinal

[JiggyJack]

This is what I have been thinking for a while. He just says it better:

All Cannabis Use is Medicinal.
Even if the user misidentified it as ‘recreational.’
The medical cannabis movement is sweeping through the nation with such momentum that even conservative legislators are evolving to see the benefits. All cannabis use appears imminent west of Colorado and north of Virginia while medical cannabis is plowing through the South. This is exciting news, but we must remain diligent and see this to the end. There is one phrase that is slowing cannabis law reform; “Recreational Cannabis.”

“Recreational cannabis use” is the most detrimental phrase our industry faces today.
Over half the U.S. population supports “recreational use” of cannabis. Unfortunately, those whose don’t support recreational use, oppose it vitriolically. “Recreational cannabis” is exactly what the opposition is fighting to prevent.

The flip side to this is that over 80% of Americans support medical cannabis use and over 85% support freedom in healthcare decisions. All of these statistics are trending upwards.

In the South, “recreational cannabis use” is a non-starter and a debate that cannot be empirically won. On the other hand, “medical cannabis use” is a debate we win. And we don’t need to manipulate our messaging to change the debate, we need only to correctly identify ‘medicinal use.’

Cannabis and The Human Body
Cannabis is imperative to maintaining a healthy body. Cannabinoid ligands fuel and balance the human endocannabinoid system, a system that regulates the immune system, mood, sleep patterns, appetite, and pain sensation. Just like vitamins, the human body needs cannabinoids to function properly. Due to cannabis prohibition, most Americans suffer from endocannabinoid deficiency syndrome. Endocannabinoid deficiencies manifest themselves in the form of autoimmune diseases, depression, bipolar disorders, neurodegenerative conditions, inexplicable pain, and sleep disorders.

The American Medical Association(AMA) and US Food and Drug Administration(FDA) considers all of these as legitimate medical conditions. They approve and sell thousands of different drugs developed to treat all of them.

Now, let’s delve into the mind of a ‘recreational’ cannabis user.

Recently, I’ve been interrogating self-proclaimed ‘recreational’ cannabis users to find out what’s so fun about smoking weed. Their initial answer is always the same; “I don’t know, I just like it.” But after digging with some questions, it always turns out the same.

Recreational cannabis users are using cannabis for medical purposes, they just don’t realize it.

Here are the post prodding answers and the medical condition that the ‘recreational user’ is treating using cannabis. I’ve also added common drugs and medications that are the AMA and FDA’s more popular treatments.

“It makes me relax.” – Anxiety. Xanax, Klonopin, Valium, Prozac, Cymbalta, Wellbutrin, and the generics.

“It helps me sleep.” – Sleep disorder/Anxiety. Ambien, Lunesta, Unisom, Nyquil

“It calms me down.” – ADHD/Anxiety – Ritalin, Adderall, Vyvanse

“It helps me think.” ADHD – see above

“It helps my stomach calm down.” GI, IBS, IBD. Pepto, Pepcid, Prilosec, I don’t know the RX drugs for this.

“It helps me talk to people.” Social anxiety – Alcohol

“It makes spending time with my spouse more fun.” – Sexual dysfunction/Anxiety. Viagra, Cialis, that new female viagra.

These are all medicinal applications.

I encourage all “recreational” cannabis users to reevaluate their use. If there is a prescription or over-the-counter drug designed to treat something that cannabis helps you with, that’s medical use. If they sell something at GNC or Vitamin World that cannabis helps you with, that’s medical use. You may not use these other medications because you already know that cannabis is a superior treatment, you just didn’t realize it.

Our society defines recreationally using a drug or medicine as “abuse.” Exclaiming that you use any drug recreationally is the first step into a 12 step. If you still don’t think that your cannabis use is medicinal, please call it ‘therapeutic’ so that you don’t look like an addict and hinder the entire movement. When we have medical, I promise that you’ll be able to find a doctor that will write you a recommendation.

By Daniel Macris, founder and ceo of Halcyon Organics.

© 2016 Halcyon Organics

 

[Kingsnake235]

good read; thanks.

more or less correct.

 

[TheFertilizer]

Promethazine and Zofran are the most common nausea drugs I've received. They don't do much except prevent you from my vomiting and promethazine made me dizzy. Cannabis stops me from vomiting AND sooths the discomfort. That's why I always tell my doctors there isn't another nausea medication that offers me as much relief.

I like this article a lot though and it's something I also concluded myself before too, but I am not sure I can see most people in agreement.

Say a person uses it because they have cancer. Well are they using it for the nausea and wasting? Because that's more like a side effect of chemotherapy. You can't really say they're treating an endocannabinoid deficency if you know their symptoms are caused by something else, and one would need a way to demonstrate that the deficency is the cause.

Take depression for example. Most agree it's a chemical imbalance, but it can also manifest itself temporarily for a number of different reasons. Just because cannabis helps to relieve the symptoms of depression doesn't mean it's treating the underlying cause. However, most anti-depressants work the same way, playing with the balances of various neurotransmitters to see what works. We don't actually know the mechanism, so cannabis should be seen as just as acceptable--if not less risky--to use than MAOIs or SSRIs. They get the same result, anti-depressant, but which has more side effects, which has been used longer. I think we here know the answer, but unfortunately most of the medical community still refer to outdated classifications of cannabis as a depressant, or read about all the schizophrenia propaganda put out in the UK. So in fact if you tell most medical professionals you use cannabis for depression, many of them will try to convince you that it's exacerbating it or the actual cause, and the more conservative will tell you it's making you crazy. As much as I know better, it's hard to fight the established facts, and a slow process for professionals to accept new ones.

I think we should be cautious with this line of thinking and honestly believe most would view it as disingenuous to suggest we label all use as medicinal. For one thing, not everyone is opposed to recreational use, but more importantly those who are opposed to it are going to see this as the cannabis community trying to misrepresent what is and isn't a legitimate medical use. That could easily have more detrimental effects to medical use than positive.

Probably the hardest to hear... People self-medicate with lots of substances. The idea that the symptoms they are treating being traced back to an endocannabinoid deficency is not something many will agree with, and if they don't then will they see a person self-medicating with cannabis as any different than someone doing the same with alcohol? It actually helps fan the flames of "substance abuse" claims because what actually happens is...

-You say you "need" it for depression
-The doctor hasn't cracked open a book since he was a med student and Nixon was in office
-You say you feel worse when you stop
-Doctor interperets thar as withdrawal and classifies you as addicted

So yeah while I think it's an awesome notion, and as with all things cannabis related needs further research, I think it might be a bad idea to spearhead this as the way to gain approval for medicinal use. People are already skeptical of chronic pain sufferers using it, generalizing all use of it as some kind of therapeutic activity is going to appear dubious at best and disingenuous at worst. In other words, they're going to think we're all just a bunch of pot heads making stuff up as an excuse to smoke, and worse that we actually believe it and/or are just uninformed. That's what many of them think now, unsubstantiated and lofty theories probably won't help. The ONLY reason there has been any acceptance of the medical use is because of decades of scientific research, bonafied proof, and 100% verifiable scientific study. Even that took decades for the "establishment" to accept and like I said many still don't.