I've seen some cannabis abuse, but nothing which compares to the impact alcohol has had on my life. It's not even close.
Couldn't be because the legal setting makes users a lot more secretive, and careful of the settings they use it in, could it?
They're afraid of losing their business because something they didn't invent and which can be grown in my backyard might just be as effective as what they're offering at an extremely high price. When all else fails make the competition illegal, I suppose.
The drug companies made MJ illegal? Care to venture out to provide a little proof of that? I, for one, would like to see that. Until then, though, it's all your opinion, right?
As for profits from the drug being prescribed for medical uses, who are you kidding? What idiot thinks that people with serious pain issues, or Type II Glaucoma, will be willing, or capable, of growing and processing marijuana? If they are that seriously compromised, they will buy it. The drug companies have the funding to obtain FDA approval, and the tech base to selectively grow marijuana for the strongest medical properties.
Even then, we're talking about specific properties for the ill. The local weed, grown by anyone, will not likely meet that criterion, and may not enable the user to obtain relief. Not only that, but there have been a number of cases where the plants were laced with PCP, Arsenic, and horse tranquilizers. Want to bet that an instance of that wouldn't exactly help the sufferers?
Publius, where in that wandering diatribe did you get the idea that the AMA supported medical Marihuana? This is the quote, from 1937!!
The other piece of medical testimony came from a man named Dr. William C. Woodward. Dr. Woodward was both a lawyer and a doctor and he was Chief Counsel to the American Medical Association. Dr. Woodward came to testify at the behest of the American Medical Association saying, and I quote, "The American Medical Association knows of no evidence that marihuana is a dangerous drug."
That would hardly constitute either support, or political pressure upon the AMA.
Rangefinder, the clinical trials conducted today have, due to the huge impact of lawyers, become quite involved in minutia. In a trial of 5000 people, ANY sympton that cannot be PROVEN to have come from another cause with 100% reliability, is listed as a POSSIBLE side-effect. Some trials are even larger. Some are considerably smaller. That means that many of these side-effects are suspect, they can't be positively ruled-out, so they are included. Many never occur after the trials. The object is to avoid the traps of past medicines, like Thalidomide. Nothing can give you 100% assurance.
Invention45, I mentioned the advantage of Heroin in the case of Terminal patients. While the other analgesics tend to muffle the patient, Heroin allows the person to remain pain-free and lucid. I'm much more in favor of the use of Heroin in Hospice settings than this eerily-fuzzy discussion of Medical MJ.