Israel may begin distributing medical marijuana though the country’ pharmacies as early as next spring if a recent recommendation by the Israeli Health Ministry Committee is accepted. Last week the Israeli Health Ministry committee on medical marijuana recommended that marijuana should be added to the list of medicinal drugs distributed throughout the countries pharmacies. If the recommendation is accepted by the ministry, medical marijuana could be available in pharmacies in six months

Go here to see the original:
Israel Expands Their Medical Marijuana Program

Today’s dose of reefer madness comes from Chet Phillipe, who has been employed for the past 35 years in the treatment of substance addiction and 12 years of teaching about substance addiction at College of the Sequoias, Porterville College and Merced College. He lives in Visalia, California.

(Visalia Times-Delta) The issue of medical marijuana is a charade. Consider the following:

Its destructive power: Nicotine is the most addictive drug in the world and kills 400,000-plus people annually. Marijuana is addicting and more dangerous than nicotine because of the euphoric feeling. It’s seven to 14 times more powerful today than in the 1960s.

No it’s not.  Marijuana may be twice as potent as it was in the 1960s, if that.  And marijuana kills how many people annually?  Oh, yeah, zero.  For a substance abuse expert, you sure seem ignorant about the nature of addiction.  According to Jack E. Henningfield’s evaluation of addictiveness for the National Institutes on Drug Abuse, here is a comparison on the addictive qualities of nicotine vs. cannabis, and for fun, let’s look at the caffeine we ingest regularly in coffee and sodas:

Marijuana causes cancers throughout the respiratory system: nose, throat, mouth, tongue, lungs, breasts, etc.

No, it doesn’t.  In fact, a government-funded researcher named Dr. Donald Tashkin tried for thirty years to “expose” the association between marijuana smoking and lung cancer.  He instead found “no association and even a suggestion of some protective effect.”  Tashkin continued to say, “Early on, when our research appeared as if there would be a negative impact on lung health, I was opposed to legalization because I thought it would lead to increased use and that would lead to increased health effects.  But at this point, I’d be in favor of legalization.”

It is instrumental in destroying the body in other ways due to its damaging effects to the immune system.

Which is why tens of thousands of doctors have recommended medical marijuana for their HIV/AIDS patients with their severely compromised immune systems

It is physically and psychologically addictive. Addiction requires withdrawal.

Because marijuana is fat-soluble, marijuana leaves the system gradually. It does not “feel” like withdrawal. It feels like the flu.Marijuana withdrawal symptoms (withdrawal of a drug means physical addiction):  Irritability, Anxiety, Physical tension, Heavy perspiration, Confusion, Auditory hallucinations, Depression, Fatigue, Decrease in appetite and mood, Headaches, Double vision, and Apathy.

So marijuana is a terribly physically addictive drug, but when you stop using it, it doesn’t feel like withdrawal.  Not like, say, heroin, where withdrawal feels like you’re going to die, or alcohol, where you very possibly could die from the withdrawal alone.  Plus about half the symptoms Chet lists can’t be found in any serious literature on the matter of marijuana withdrawal and even the ones he’s right on (sleeping problems, sweating, decreased appetite, restlessness, nervousness, and sadness) are only found in less than half of those cannabis users deemed “addicted”.

Issues related to marijuana:  Serious prenatal damage. (Marijuana has caused deformity in different areas of babies.)

Shockingly untrue.  Pre-natal exposure to marijuana does not cause deformities, low birth weight, or cognitive damages.

Impotency after prolonged use.  Inability to perform after prolonged use (marijuana is in the testicles).

Which, of course, explains why the Rastafarians died out and you never see any tie-dye-wearing hippie kids any more.

Short-term memory damage first, then transfers to long-term brain damage.

Complete lie.  During marijuana impairment, there is a problem with short-term memory.  When you’re not high, that problem goes away.  There is no long-term brain damage associated even with chronic daily marijuana smoking.

Ex-WWE Diva & Medical Marijuana patient Shelly Martinez... no droop there!

Drooping breasts for the female (a percentage of females depending upon amount and time of use).

Yes, ladies, if you smoke pot until you are eighty years old, your breasts will droop.  Of course, if you don’t smoke pot, your breasts will still probably droop at age eighty.  This is the first time I’ve ever heard of pot affecting lady boobs, and judging by the many ladies I know who smoke a lot of pot, I will unscientifically declare this to be bullshit (I’d link to a debunking article, but not surprisingly, scientists haven’t done a lot of research into cannabinoid mammary droopage syndrome.  However, if there is to be a study, I hereby volunteer for data collection and analysis.)

Floppy breasts for males (a percentage depending upon amount and time of use).

There we go, my old favorite gynecomastia, or the old man boobs from marijuana lie.  The theory here is that marijuana use lowers testosterone, therefore the estrogen/testosterone balance is tipped toward the female hormone, and thus toward growing man boobs.

The truth, however, is that gynecomastia is very rare and the more likely cause of man boobs among male stoners is eating junk food and not exercising.

Removes pubic hair, male and female.  Removes male chest and facial hair.

Well, that proves it: every porn star and male model is a pothead!  Not only is there no research to confirm this wacky notion, but I’m struggling to understand how these effects even fit in a laundry list of reasons not to use marijuana.

Marijuana may involve your death, but you’ll feel better. Deaths have occurred from driving under the influence, aggressive behavior after prolonged use, walking in front of traffic, home incidents, fires, gas leaks, etc.

Who are these violent stoner arsonists who are walking in front of traffic?  Every time I compose one of these reefer madness articles, I’m more convinced that marijuana is a terrible drug that will freakishly alter the mind… of the people intent on prohibiting it.

OAKLAND, Calif. — Oakland’s City Council last week approved a 1.8% tax on medicinal marijuana sold in the city. If voters pass the proposal in a July election, Oakland would become the nation’s first city to directly tax the drug.

A city tax on medical marijuana could generate at least $400,000 and perhaps more than $1 million annually, said Rebecca Kaplan, the Oakland City Council member who pushed the proposal. The city of 400,000 residents is facing an $83 million shortfall in a $455 million budget.

The owners and managers of Oakland’s four medical-marijuana dispensaries said they approached the city with the idea. “We wanted to further legitimize the medical-marijuana paradigm to show that we are truly willing to assist [Oakland], and to show other cities that there are social benefits to this,” said Keith Stephenson, executive director of Purple Heart Patient Center.

No formal opposition has formed against the proposal, and Ms. Kaplan and medical-marijuana advocates said they are confident voters will approve it.

But Paul Chabot, a Southern California resident who recently founded the Coalition for a Drug Free California, is opposed to the idea because he thinks the “quasi-legalization” of marijuana would add more of the drug into the black market. “It’s a front; it also sends the wrong message to children,” he said. “What are you doing to do next, allow prostitution and tax that? Allow methamphetamine to be sold and tax that?”

Some people just won’t learn. This opposition leader obviously is not aware that if we legitimize a banned substance and turn a black market into a legitimate business, then it’s no longer a black market. Secondly, here is the message that I want to send to my children: Science over Politics.

As I recenly wrote in my article “Grade School Children Caught Selling Marijuana“, this opposition leader could learn that children have virtually unfettered access to any kind of illicit drug “right now”.

In fact, I asked my 15yr old, who is attending high school near our home in a middle class town in Texas, to share a list of items she can obtain within 24 hrs notice at her school (for purchase inside of her school) and here is what she wrote down off the top of her head:

Marijuana (indoor Chronic of any flavor), LSD, Magic Mushrooms, Mescaline, Cocaine (in any form), Meth, Ice, and Heroin (in any form)

What the list doesn’t contain is Cigarettes or Alcohol. When asked about the availability of those, she stated,

“They are harder to get because you have to go to a store, present an I.D., and undergo a certain amount of scrutiny.”

Paul, if you truly want to protect our children from reefer madness, then you need to embrace decriminalization and help us to shape our laws of oppression into laws of protection.

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Olympic great Michael Phelps has acknowledged ”regrettable” behavior and ”bad judgment” after a photo in a British newspaper showed him smoking marijuana.

In a statement released to The Associated Press, the swimmer who won a record eight gold medals at the Beijing Games conceded the authenticity of the exclusive picture published Sunday by the tabloid News of the World.

Phelps said: ”I engaged in behavior which was regrettable and demonstrated bad judgment. I’m 23 years old and despite the successes I’ve had in the pool, I acted in a youthful and inappropriate way, not in a manner people have come to expect from me. For this, I am sorry. I promise my fans and the public it will not happen again.”

via Phelps Apologizes for Marijuana Use – NYTimes.com.

Youthful and inappropriate.  Childish things, as our president might say.  ”It will not happen again.”  Not to get all Clintonian on you, Mike, but does “it” refer to “smoking marijuana” or does “it” refer to “photos surfacing in newspapers showing you smoking marijuana”?

I’ll never understand the mindset that accepts as rational the idea that these world class athletes – Michael Phelps, Ricky Williams, Ross Rebagliati, those Russian sumo, etc. - can dedicate their entire lives to eating right, working out, honing their bodies and minds to the pinnacle of their sport, but should they wish to relax and unwind, they’re forced to ingest a hard liquid drug that has noticably deleterious effects on health and athletic ability (Max McGee notwithstanding) rather than a mild herb that doesn’t seem to  have affected their abilities whatsoever.

Even more perplexing is the notion that, in the name of “sports medicine”, these athletes are accustomed to taking all manner of narcotic pain killers and other pharmaceutical cocktails that aid performance or mitigate injury, but are addicting (Brett Favre, *cough*,) and wreak havoc on the liver and kidneys, yet if we catch them smoking weed we have to mete out severe punishment (Santonio Holmes, notwithstanding).

As I look at the coverage on Huffington Post (admittedly, a liberal website) almost all comments are “it’s well past time to legalize it” and “so what” and “didn’t hurt Phelps’ performance any”.  Oh, an Obama brother pot bust and an eight-time gold medalist bong photo following ten days of growing drumbeat over President Obama’s non-response to the Tahoe Raid… somebody really did get me a swell birthday present!

Will daily pot usage hurt my health? – CNN.com
Will daily pot usage hurt my health?
Asked by Pat, Kansas

I don’t smoke cigarettes or drink alcohol, but I have smoked marijuana daily for the last 25 years. Although I have enjoyed good health all my life, I would like to know what concerns I should have with long-term marijuana usage.

Well, I’d say no alcohol and tobacco already just added years to your life.  You’ve been a toker for 25 years and say you have good health.  (I believe you, because I’ve been toking for nearly twenty years and have fantastic health.)   I’d say your biggest concern, long-term, isn’t health-related, it is avoiding arrest, incarceration, civil asset forfeiture, and losing your job, licenses, home, and children.

But I’m no doctor.  You really need long-term medical advice as (I assume) at least a 43-year-old person looking after your health in your geriatric years.  So, naturally, for the expert answer, CNN turns to a pediatrician from the Children’s Medical Group, Dr. Jennifer Shu:

Expert Answer

Thank you for this important question. Roughly 40 percent of Americans have tried marijuana, and about 10 percent continue to use it on a regular basis, so this issue is probably more common than one might expect.

Good so far.  Our government’s NSDUH survey says 40.6% of Americans 12 and older have tried cannabis, 10.1% use cannabis annually, and 5.8% use cannabis at least once per month.  About 1.3% of Americans 12 and older are daily (>300 days/year) cannabis users.

For comparison’s sake, the number of people who have tried cannabis is about the same as the number of adult females in America; annual users equal about as many non-Cuban/non-Puerto Rican Hispanics in this country; there are about the same number of monthly users as Native Americans, Native Alaskans, and Asians combined; and people like me who use nearly daily outnumber Puerto Ricans.

The active chemical in marijuana, THC, works on receptors in the brain. In the short term, or within hours of smoking the drug, lower doses can cause feelings of relaxation or distort your senses, whereas higher doses may create hallucinations, learning and memory problems and impaired coordination — which is why it’s not a good idea to drive or play sports when under the influence.

This is true and good advice.  I don’t know about the “within hours” part; it’s a couple of hours at best, but “within hours” makes it sound like much more than two.  The feelings of relaxation and sensory distortion take place within seconds.

Over the long term, the tar in marijuana may put a person at risk for lung cancer, much as cigarette smoke does.

Lie.  Dr. Donald Tashkin at the UCLA Medical Center showed that even heavy chronic smoking of cannabis does not lead to increased risk of head, neck, or lung cancers.  And he’s no “pro-pot” doctor; he was trying to prove the cannabis/lung cancer connection to bolster the ONDCP’s anti-pot propaganda when he discovered this!

Smoking marijuana can also cause asthma, bronchitis, sinus infections and a sore throat, especially in heavy users.

Inhaling smoke is never a healthy choice for your lungs, period.  That said, cannabis smoke is far less harmful than tobacco smoke.  According to the National Institutes of Medicine, “Cannabinoids or their analogues may also find a place in the management of resistant glaucoma, of severe intractable asthma…” and as cannabis is a bronchodilator and anti-spasmodic, the thirteen states that recognize medical use of cannabis all allow its use for asthma.

Cannabis smoking can lead to minor repiratory complications, but not to emphysema, as tobacco smoke will.  According to researchers writing in the Archives of Internal Medicine, “long-term marijuana smoking was associated with an increased risk of certain respiratory complications — including cough, bronchitis, phlegm, and wheezing.” 

Of course, the answer to this point is to use a cannabis vaporizer rather than smoking it.  Vaporization heats the bud to the point where THC evaporates, but not hot enough for the plant matter to burn.  Thus you receive all the cannabinoid medicine goodness without all the harms of smoking.

Marijuana may also impair the immune system’s ability to fight off certain infections.

Lie.  Cannabis is recognized as a treatment for people living with HIV/AIDS – why would doctors recommend something that suppresses the immune system to people suffereing from a disease that compromises the immune system?  In fact, “data indicates that cannabis use does not adversely impact CD4 and CD8 T cell counts,[7] and may even improve immune function.[8-9]“

There is also some evidence that marijuana can trigger heart attacks in people who already have or are at risk for coronary heart disease.

She may be referring to this study, which found among cannabis users an increase in a protein that increases the risk of clogged arteries which increases the risk of heart attacks.  Of course, this increased protein was found in subjects who used 11-to-50 joints per day.

The problem with the study, however, is they didn’t find out whether those heavy cannabis smokers actually had more heart attacks.  Other research has shown that frequent cannabis users are as nutritionally healthy as non-smokers and actually have lower BMI (a measure of obesity) rates than non-smokers.  According to Dr. Murray Mittleman, director of cardiovascular epidemiology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, “the risk of heart attack was slightly increased in the first hour after smoking [marijuana], but dissipated shortly after that… the heightened risk from marijuana [was found] to be roughly equivalent to vigorous exercise for someone of average fitness, and far less than that posed by air pollution.”  Mittleman estimates the risk of a heart attack for an otherwise healthy 50-year old man after smoking marijuana is about 10 in one million.

Now, if you’re not otherwise healthy, if you do have heart disease, you probably shouldn’t smoke cannabis.  But that’s not you, Pat from Kansas, you said you were in good health, right?

Because marijuana acts on the brain, chronic use can also make it difficult to concentrate, pay attention and learn. Some studies have shown that regular marijuana smokers may function at a lower intellectual level all the time since the drug can keep affecting the brain for weeks after using.

Not at all possible.  The chemical that “affects the brain” is delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC.  THC is processed and out of your bloodstream within two to five hours.  After that, the only thing “affecting the brain for weeks” are the inert metabolites of THC, known as THC-COOH.  This is the metabolite that is picked up on drug tests for “weeks after using”, and it is absolutely non-psychoactive.  THC-COOH only proves you have used cannabis in the past, it does not indicate present impairment.  This would be kind of like saying alcohol will affect your brain for weeks because we found beer cans in your garbage two weeks after your party.

Researchers writing for the journal of Psychopharmacology found “marijuana smoking has virtually no effect on complex cognitive task performance – including reaction time, memory and mental calculation – in experienced users.”

People who try to stop using marijuana after years of use may have withdrawal symptoms such as anxiety, irritability, drug craving and insomnia, making it hard to quit.

Few things insult me more than anti-cannabis blowhards talking about the withdrawal symptoms from quitting cannabis.  As a twelve-year-old boy, I watched my father spend three weeks locked up in a single wide trailer trying to quit alcohol and amphetimines cold turkey.  (He’d locked himself in there because, as average Americans, we had no health care insurance that would cover inpatient drug rehab, even if there were beds available, which there weren’t.)  When you can show me a pothead writhing in agony, puking on the floor, shivering with cold sweats, picking bugs off his skin, trembling uncontrollably, and cowering in fear of death, then you can talk to me about marijuana’s withdrawal symptoms.

Because of the possible difficulty quitting the drug and the many health concerns associated with long-term smoking, I advise regular users to consult with their doctor or an addiction medicine specialist to help them stop.

Because this pediatrician has no idea what she’s talking about, I advise regular users to invest in a vaporizer.