Buzzby

Strict Guidelines Needed For Medical Pot
Jim Garvey | Times-Standard | 09/01/2006

When I was a young man growing up in Southern California 50-some odd years ago, smoking marijuana or “Mary Jane” could wind you up in state prison for a term of five years with no questions asked because it was a felony. It was called “dope,” and for good reason: Only dopes smoked it and you got really dopey after smoking it.

Today the approach to marijuana is certainly a lot different from when I was a teenager, and I wonder at the wisdom of such a decision.

Not being of the scientific community, but having spent over 20 years in active service in the law enforcement community, I believe I can speak with a certain amount of expertise. It is my opinion, and that of a lot of my colleagues across this country, that the constant use of marijuana tends to lead an individual towards more deadly and harder drugs. And I would venture to voice the opinion that those who use marijuana on a constant basis probably risk the chance of altering their DNA genes over a given period of time. For like the person who abuses alcohol, they have a greater chance of developing into an alcoholic than those who drink moderately and they also run the risk of altering their DNA genes.

That fact was proven beyond any doubt by a group of scientists in Sweden in the late 1950s, by isolating the gene from alcoholics and applying that study to children born of those alcoholics over a 20-year period. Those children born of alcoholics almost to the person developed a problem with alcohol, as opposed to those children born of parents who only drank on occasion or didn't drink at all. They also went on to say, “that those persons of Nordic ancestry are more likely to develop a problem with alcohol as opposed to those who come out of Central Europe, Middle East or the Far East.”

For those who abuse any substance, the body tends to develop immunity to that substance and a greater amount is needed to achieve that certain plateau of whatever it is. Then that person remains in a constant altered state of mind.

So far, the scientific community has not brought forth any evidence with regards to the benefits of smoking marijuana to ease certain pains within the body. I am somewhat skeptical about that evidence when persons such as Montel Williams (talk show host) have come forward and spoken out about the benefit he has received by smoking marijuana to relieve his pain from Parkinson's disease. This is a person of impeccable character having served as an officer in the United States Navy and having been discharged from active service from an injury he received on duty. I honestly believe that this government should take a serious look into this situation, before passing judgment.

However, I am not in favor of your downtown neighborhood pot shop open to anyone with a bad back problem. Nor am I in favor of having the local doctor dispense this cannabis to anyone and everyone who comes into his or her practice. There must be a strict control over this entire operation and it must be under government control and not left up to the states. For if you are an individual who has a great deal of pain and needs to have a certain number of marijuana cigarettes and you live in Hayfork, just like you would need a doctor's prescription for an illness, you need to go to your local pharmacy to get your prescription or marijuana medication and you would probably have to travel to Fortuna or Eureka to a regular pharmacy that has met government standards for dispensing this medication. Also, you in person with your government I.D. must be the only person to receive this medication. Jane Doe or John Doe can't run into the pharmacy and pick up your private stash of marijuana.

There must be strict guidelines governing this operation from top to bottom, and severe penalties for those who break these rules and regulations, and that includes those in the medical profession.
--
Jim Garvey, a former member of the grand jury, lives in Rio Dell.

troublemaker_42

LOL....yeah, this guy sounds incredibly credible. if its true for alcohol it HAS to be true for cannabis! Expertise? i don't think so. More like biased views from a very biased source, who lacks any scientific data to further his cause. Instead, he quotes a study on alcoholism and says it must be true of cannabis users as well. Nevermind the two things are as different as apples and giraffes! Add in the fact he wants MORE government oversight into our lives, and you wind up with someone I couldn't trust as far as I could throw them!

Buzzby

"Dopes" like:

• Arnold Schwarzenegger (Governor of California)
• Aaron Sorkin (Writer, producer, director "West Wing")
• Bob Dylan (Poet)
• Carl Sagan (Astronomer)
• Charles Beaudelaire (Novelist)
• Count Basie (Pianist, band leader)
• Dame Margot Fonteyn (Prima ballerina)
• Queen Victoria (Ruler of the British Empire)
• Dr. Francis Crick (Nobel laureate for discovering DNA)
• Francis Ford Coppella (Producer, director)
• Friedrich Nietzsche (Philosopher)
• Jack Kerouac (Novelist)
• Jack Nicholson (Actor)
• Jesus Christ (Son of God)
• Johnny Cash (Singer, songwriter)
• Ken Kesey (Novelist)
• Louis Armstrong (Musician)
• Newt Gingrich (Politician)
• Norman Mailer (Novelist)
• Oliver Stone (Writer, producer, director)
• Oscar Wilde (Writer, raconteur)
• Pablo Picasso (Artist)
• Richard Feynman (Nobel laureate physicist)
• Samuel Beckett (Writer, playwright)
• Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Poet, writer)
• John Lennon (Saint)
• Stephen King (World's best selling novelist)
• Stephen Sondheim (Composer, lyricist)
• Victor Hugo (Novelist)
• William Butler Yeats (Poet)

Click here for a more comprehensive list...

Scientific studies have proved otherwise.

This "opinion", based on nothing but idle speculation, has no support from any scientific study.

Not that this has anything to do with marijuana, but this study doesn't indicate that alcohol alters genes, only that there is a genetic predisposition to alcoholism. Mutations are random, not specific. Garvey's claims are akin to Lysenkoism, a discredited Soviet theory that changing the body changes the genes to make those traits inheritable.

Unless you count the many studies which do, including the Institute of Medicine report sponsored by the US Government.

Dammit Jim! Montel has Multiple Sclerosis, not Parkinson's! A little more research might be in order before you shoot off your mouth.

The government has sponsored studies, including the IOM report and the Schafer commission report ordered by Richard Nixon. When the results didn't agree with the government's prejudices, the results were dismissed and the studies were ignored.

__________________

Hansje

This guy's supposed to have a lifetime of law enforcement experience? Why doesn't he just say joint, instead of marijuana cigarette? Everyone in the States knows that marijuana smokers in the U.S. do not mix their weed with tobacco. In Europe, they mix their weed or hashish with tobacco, and their joints are cone-shaped, even referred to as cones by some.

He mentions the opinion he shares with the readers is shared by a lot of his colleagues in this country, so I'm glad to hear that this guy thinks that the feds should finally change the law to allow some sort of federal oversight in the regulation process. He seems to be hinting that the states that want to legalise and regulate marijuana should do it uniformly, following federal policy guidelines.

However, he's extreme on the NIMBY principle--definitely somebody into the not-in-my-backyard thing. We've been there for at least 3 decades now, and it's got to be somewhere if you want things to change to regulate it. If it's never ever in anybody's backyard, then things are never going to change. Dude, either you want things to keep going on like they have been, or you want the laws changed to allow regulation. Regulation is regulation and not prohibition. It's just a matter of whether you want the states to do it their own way with the federal government keeping out of it or if you want the federal government to regulate it--let's say as part of the ATF or some other agency, and please not the DEA!

Scientific evidence for medical use of cannabis--do a web search! Comparing cannabis to alcohol is comparing apples to oranges. Do some searches, get some books and actually read them and not just the government side! If you believe in the U.S. Constitution, then be true to it and press for change in the government policies based on lies and distorted evidence, everything from cannabis to Iraq. Think free! Live free!

xxdr_zombiexx

I'd say referring to a 'joint' as a "marijuana cigarette' pretty much reiforces the notion he's worked for "law enforcement'. Only narks and other ignorant sorts refer to it as "marijuana cigarettes". I can also make a pretty good guess how he votes.

Check out a quote by disgraced criminal republican 'Duke Cunninham' issuing the standard politican's denial after being busted for accepting millions of dollars in bribes:Who cares what illegal shit he's perpetrated: he's never smoked a "marijuana cigarette". "Save me please!"

Cunningham is a Republican and cannabis prohibition is a central feature of this party's political ideology. He mentioons this as a plea for help from fellow Repubs: Essentially he's saying "I may have been accused of this or accused of that, but at least I have NEVR done anything as bad, as low down and criminal as smoke mary-ju-wanna.

Whenever I see that term "marijuana cigarette, I used to think of this guy:

because the term "marijuana cigarette' is further out of date than bell-bottom jeans and snakeskin boots.

I think of Duke now.

__________________
Torture Good, Healthcare Bad, Marijuana Evil.

There's no money for your issue so long as we're squandering $50 billion a year on the DrugWar. Ben Masel

dedbr

we will have to put up with with medical marijuana. Self appointed experts with their claims of expertise........

Just garbage not worth reading in my opinion........


Some Where In Ded Land...........

__________________
Though my soul may set in darkness,
It will rise in perfect light.
I have loved the stars too fondly,
To be fearful of the night." Sarah Williams

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