Originally posted by morrisey0
I post this on behalf of my fiance. I haven't smoked (except for a couple of late night tokes) in about 9 years. She quotes:
"Ancient herbal remedies applied marijuana for a wide
range of ailments, including constipation, rheumatic
pain, female disorders, earache, jaundice, glaucoma,
asthma, muscular dystrophy, epilepsy, and
excitability. It was used to prolong life, improve
judgement, lower fevers, induce sleep, stimulate
appetite, aid in childbirth, and better the voice.
Queen Victoria is said to have sipped marijuana tea
for menstrual cramps.
In modern medical application, marijuana
effectively treats pain, muscle spasms and tremors,
seizures, nausea, vomiting, appetite stimulation,
insomnia, migraine headaches, depression, and
glaucoma, among other things."
There are numerous examples of patients with chronic pain, nausea, and migraines who have benefitted greatly from the use of marijuana.
Oh well, her $.02
Robb
Since it was brought up, I thought I'd share some info from the 1899 Edition of hte Merck Manual (a quick reference guide used by doctors, if you call 2000 pages quick). Some of the older treatments wer a bit off the wall. To use one of Robb's exapmles: Constipation.
Constipation: yes, MJ was used as a treatment. But so were such nice little things such as Absinth, Arsenic, Belladona, Mercury, Opium, and Turpentine. As you can see, these treatments are not exactly considered useful any more, but at one time they swore by them.
Yes, pot does have valid medical use, and for the patients that NEED it, I fully support it. However, very few people actually need it for these reaons. There are many other medications that would more effectively treat these conditions. 99% of people claiming they "need" it for medical resons are merely using it as an excuse, and a lame excuse at that. There are those that say it should be legalized for medicinal use. It already is. If you have a valid reason, you can get it and use it. The important word is VALID.
Here is just one of HUNDREDS of studies that show the deleterious effects of THC. It also says that there may be medical conditions (mental anormalities) that may benefit from THC reatment:
Nippon Yakurigaku Zasshi 2001 Jan;117(1):35-41 (ISSN: 0015-5691)
Fujiwara M
Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Fukuoka University, 8-19-1 Nanakuma, Jounan-ku, Fukuoka 814-0180, Japan.
mfuji@fukuoka-u.ac.jp.
delta 9-Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), one of the active compounds of marihuana, is known to induce drug dependence and tolerance, and its action is weaker than those of other abused drugs in humans and animals. Acute effects of THC, "high", "irritable" and "cognitive deficits" are more important than the drug dependence and tolerance. For this reason, we examined characteristics of abnormal behavior such as catalepsy-like immobilization, aggressive behavior including irritable aggression and muricide, and spatial cognition impairment induced by acute and chronic treatments of THC in rats. The catalepsy-like immobilization is related to a decrease in catecholaminergic and serotonergic neurons in the nucleus accumbens and amygdaloid nucleus and thus serves as a useful model for amotivational syndrome, one of cannabis psychoses. In aggressive behavior, muricide was determined by the housing condition. Muricide was induced if the rat was placed under an isolated housing condition within the period of the effect of single injection of THC. The behavioral change resembles exacerbation and flashback in humans. Spatial cognition is impaired by the interaction between cannabinoid (CB1) and 5-HT2 receptor in the dorsal raphe-hippocampal serotonergic neurons. Thus the abnormal behavior induced by THC can be a useful model for investigating mental function in humans and new drugs for the treatment of mental disorders.
