>From: "Peter McWilliams" >Subject: Another excellent reply to Dr. Roberts >Date: Fri, 7 Jan 2000 09:42:31 -0800 >X-Mozilla-Status: 8001 >X-Mozilla-Status2: 00000000 > > >Re: EVIDENCE NECESSARY BEFORE PRESCRIBING MARIJUANA >Milwaukee Journal Sentinel >Wed, 05 Jan 2000 > >Editors, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: > >It's not surprising that Dr. Roberts doesn't recommend cannabis to >his patients. He's a doctor after all -- president-elect of the >American Academy of Family Physicians no less -- and deeply ensconced >in a medical establishment that stopped caring for patients long ago. >If it can't be patented, packed into pill form, FDA approved at great >cost and then recommended in melodramatic TV commercials then it's >not good for healing. A cannabis plant that you can grow cheaply or >pick for free in the wild is Schedule I and possession of it carries >a jail term; Marinol(tm) at $10 a pill ($20 daily) is Schedule III >and therefore easy to prescribe and yet they contain the same active >ingredient. Those who can't afford it: suffer. That goes double for >the third world thanks to a UN that's been happy to help America >export the Drug War. > >Humans have been cultivating and selectively breeding cannabis for >thousands of years. It has both a male and a female plant -- rare in >horticulture -- so it is easy to select for certain qualities. This >catch-all remedy for many ailments was not found wanting by patients, >or removed from the Pharmacopoeia by doctors; it was labeled with the >Mexican name "Marihuana", called the "nigger weed" and prohibited in >the "reefer madness" craze in the 1930's by politicians and >reactionaries. Since then, study after study have shown cannabis to >be either harmless or medically efficacious, and yet time after time >comes the serious refrain: "there's not enough research". Bad enough >to hear these lies from politicians and their campaign contributors >Pfizer et al, but a tragedy to hear this from the very doctors we >trust with our lives. Surely, the 700 000 Americans who are arrested >each year for possession of cannabis (gardening) would question >whether doctors "do no harm" when they prescribe continued ignorance >as a remedy for the malaise that is modern health care in America, >where the doctor patient relationship is what little gets through a >blockade of government regulators and drug and insurance companies. I >can only hope I can recommend (the radical cold therapy) chicken soup >to my children in a few years time without a permission slip from an >ignorant government functionary. If so, it will be no thanks to the >bulk of today's doctors and their hypocritic oaths. > >How Dr. Roberts can characterize natural remedies like cannabis as >"magic potions" and then turn around and prescribe a pill that was >cooked up in a lab by modern-day wizards high on their own delusions >of grandeur is beyond me. How can he say he practices "traditional >medicine" with "established treatments" when cannabis has been >relieving pain without incident for thousands of years? What >arrogance! If lengthy testing is required to overcome the fact that >"the human body remains in many ways a mystery", then take your >modern medicine to task for being quick to market. Get out your >FDA-approved Fen-Phen and question that! And if you don't want to >violate your oath to "do no harm" then learn some humility and stay >silent when you don't have the answer, instead of recommending that >the rest of us stop asking questions. > >Self-medication is not a crime. > >Simon White > > >================================================================ > >This message is sent to you because you are subscribed to > the mailing list . >To unsubscribe, E-mail to: