Let’s talk about marijuana.
Specifically, let’s talk about how and why I came to be one of the countless parents across America (and around the world) who have let their chronically ill children try it.
A groundbreaking new study published last week in the New England Journal of Medicine reported on the health benefits of cannabidiol for children with epilepsy. The randomized, double-blind, controlled study found that among children with Dravet syndrome taking cannabidiol, the decrease in the frequency of convulsive seizures was 23 percentage points greater than the decrease in seizures among children taking a placebo.
Cannabidiol is one of hundreds of chemical components found in cannabis plants. Unlike THC, the most famous of marijuana’s compounds, CBD is nonhallucinogenic and nonaddictive. It doesn’t make you high. CBD can be extracted from hemp and sold as an oil. That’s what the pioneering Stanley Brothers of Boulder, Colorado, did several years ago when they conceived and manufactured “Charlotte’s Web” — named after Charlotte Figi, a Colorado Springs girl with Dravet syndrome whose seizures dramatically decreased after using CBD.
Until now, evidence of marijuana’s benefits for pediatric epilepsy patients has been largely anecdotal. The new CBD study, led by researchers at the NYU Langone’s Comprehensive Epilepsy Center, is a hugely significant development because it uses the scientific gold standard of a randomized controlled trial. Other limited clinical trials involving CBD have explored the drug’s therapeutic benefits for pediatric patients with conditions ranging from anxiety to movement disorders to inflammatory diseases, multiple sclerosis and cancer.
My own interest in pediatric use of medicinal marijuana is more than academic.
ht/ c. steven tucker
Glad to hear it, Ms. Malkin.
Very sorry to hear about your daughter Veronica’s illness.
May she get the help she needs.
I totally get that she is trying everything to make her children the best they can be. It is perfectly Godly and natural. Isn’t that what we do as parents?
Well and specific to those that abuse it, I’ll take a Pot Head over a drunk any day.
There are two completely different agendas:
1 – People who can benefit medically should have access. Duh! I’d never question a good parent’s decision on this matter.
2 – People who want to get stoned legally, and have easy access to weed. Different subject altogether.
1 is a no brained, yes. 2 is worthy of debate, but I lean against it. Easier access to weed just makes it mainstream, and normalizes drug culture. While I don’t see marijuana as a serious drug, it does open the door, and makes people really f*(kin lazy. Not exactly helping MAGA. Just my opinion.
It helps with PTSD…
Marijuana was not a Bad word until the late 1800s, when the same guy who was partly responsible for Pohibition (Harry ?) didn’t like it !
This is when it was named Marijuana, he wanted to equate it with Mexican Laborers who had Culturaly used it for Centuries. All cultures that had it used it Medicaly and Socially throughout history.
It’s a scheem like Global Warming & look how long it lasted .
If you are an adult and you want to party hardy on the prairie smoking dope, I promise to leave you the hell alone.
Government should have little say as to what an adult can consume.
What’s worse, whacky Tobacky or alcholol. Alchohol every time. Don’t get the wrong idea. I’ve.never smoked dope, but I’ve been around a lot of drunks and a few stoners.
Legalizing only makes people think it’s safe. When our son discovered the “joys” of weed he sank fast and hard. Intervention saved his life.
Have a good friend who is retired Arapaho County Colorado deputy. Said the first thing that happened when legalized was the gangs skyrocketed because the demand for hard drugs increased.
I have been to a lot of AA and AlAnon meetings in my day and have never met an addict in recovery who thought legalizing was a good idea.
Should it be used as medicine. Yes. Qualified with good controls on whom writes the script.
I think she’s hot.
Too bad you can’t come up with a competency exam for both pot and alcohol. Pot causes some people to be absolutely useless, others seem barely affected as far as getting done what needs to be done. Alcohol, we’ve all seen how some people can’t handle it, while others don’t seem to have a problem. My biggest problem is the State working hard to tax and raise revenue on the activity. Here in Washington it’s legal and I guarantee the state is getting addicted to the tax revenue coming in. One more thing that drives me nuts, the term “recreational marijuana”. Have you ever heard the term “recreation beer” or “recreational whiskey”?
What part of the Constitution gives the government the right to tell people what they may or may not smoke, drink, eat, wear, etc.???
This IS the nanny state in spades. You’re either for individual responsibility, or you’re not.
Was stunned when most conservative doc ran out of ideas, suggested medical marijuana for pain management. Pills becoming extremely difficult to obtain, even under dire situations. I can see how options are becoming accepted.
Frank,
Your describing an addictive chemically dependent personality. Fought that battle myself with a family member. They would have died if it was alcohol. They don’t care what the drug is. Just sayen
But then again, Pot is no longer your Grandmothers pot. THC levels are off the charts. Comparable to LSD. Roll it back to 1986 and we’ll talk.
If pot helps with PTSD, by all means go for it.
Bad Brad: I’m with you, except the part were Mary Jane became as Dark and powerful as LSD. It’s not in the same Hemisphere as LSD.
I got real interested when the article mentioned it helps with inflamation. If it really does, can you imagine how against pot the drug companies would be considering how many people have arthritis among other inflamatory ailments.
Plain Jane.
Just started this and I’m getting great results. Apple Cider Vinegar. The wifey, not so much. Just saying might be worth a shot.
Bad_Brad you nailed it.
The M.J. argument in the, “to date,” term is B.S.
Every argument for ‘smoking’ it can be discounted by a pharmaceutically manufactured THC, in a controlled environment, and with controlled levels of THC.
With the genetically modified weed over the past several years, this isn’t the THC levels of the 60’s and 70’s DUDE!
BigGun,
Yea I read a report from a Sac Narco cop here a while back and he compared genetically engineered MJ to the same effect on sensory receptors as LSD.
Big gun: Not sure if I”M Dude now ? THC is something geneticist can put in, or take out at will already. I don’t think Patients need the Government any more involved than it already is !
Plantsman,
Unless they’re driving,.
In the organic form due to genetic modification, it’s the THC levels that are the effective part of the equation. The THC levels are off of the charts compared to 20-30+ years ago. Unlike a beer that is 3.5 to 5% alcohol content consistently.
Search: Cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome, an emerging issue.
@Plantsman, you are incorrect. It’s not a matter of putting in or taking out. It’s a matter of the hybrids that are being produced without monitoring for the levels and only to the end result of potency. You’re argument holds absolutely no validity.
Agreed people should never drive Intoxicated !
I’m definitely no stoner, I simply have a deep knowledge of plants of all sorts. Cannabis has Loads of different Cannabinoids, these are completely seperate components. THC can be ALTERED for MEDICAL use into a THC level of .5 thru 25 . Beer can’t do that ( I luv beer) If they made Budwieser .5% or 1% Nobody would want it … They want the High…I’m still waiting for Medicinal Beer.
Anyone remember why the Pure Food and Drug acts were passed over 100 years ago? Anyone? Bueller?
Big Gun :Of coarse People will always try to grow it stronger, like anything else in life ! I’m saying you can Devolve the plant very easily,by down breeding and they ARE.
I’ve never used Mary Jane.
What does it do?
The people I know who use it seem to have zero ambition.
Sitting on the couch or laying on the couch seem to be about all the do.
I don’t drink either I have tried vodka and OJ at get togethers where they insist you have a drink.
No thanks.
For every child like hers, there are 1,000,000 stoners waiting out there for a legal “out,” like Boehnerdict said. Pick which civilization you want.
Lazlo has smoked pot since high school.
I have been an on and off user since.
Pot should remain a controlled substance. Legalization for recreational use should wait until a reliable field test can be produced to determine impairment for operating a vehicle.
It should carry the same restrictions on use as alcohol.
I don’t drink and drive, nor do I smoke and drive, nor do I drive after taking one of my prescriptions for back pain. That is called being responsible.
While no one should be fooled that it is not a dangerous substance, it is not on the same par as other addictive drugs like heroin or cocaine.
I also take two whiskeys a night for medicinal purposes.
The addictive personality will abuse any conscious altering substance, be it pot or alcohol or Dunder.
If the fools of a society cannot be self-controlled, the rest of us have no choice but to control them or live at their mercy. No thank you.
The alcohol =/= pot argument above is weak if not false. In real life terms, we all know that both often end up used as intoxicants by fools who end up violating the rights of others. Why? Because they are intoxicated.
Make a controlled form of marijuana where only the medicinal components can be used. Then I will gladly support it. Otherwise, everywhere turns into Colorado.
This has to be scaring Big Pharma, unless they can get their greedy hands around the biggest threat ever to their cash cow, pain killer drugs. The research looks promising. This could be the key to ending the opioid epidemic. It needs a major public education campaign, though. I still talk with people who cannot grasp the idea of a controlled, prescription-based THC, and they confuse this with recreational marijuana. Living with chronic pain, groggied out on addictive pain-killers is not really living. This could be a life-changing break-through for many people.
Need to add a correction- I meant CBD, not THC. The non-addictive CBD is key to Malkin’s argument.
Fur, this site has been taken over by the druggies. If MJ is harmless and the Mexicans used it for centuries, then why isn’t Mexico a first world country? Folks your neighborhoods will be overrun by dopers looking to steal anything to sell for their high and or toking up on your lawn. Just look at the inner cities, that is what legalization will do to us!
Misguided_Bad_Brad,
pot is a hallucinogen and a stoner will kill you and your family with a two-ton vehicle just as easily as a drunk would.
Perhaps even more.
Don’t get me started on women who text and drive.
Actually, all women do…
Should only be legal and giving out just before an election, hopefully they won’t make it to the polls.
The medical stuff seems legit to me though.
I think the marijuana plant should be just as legal the tomato plant. No regulating. No taxing. You should be able to go down to the local lawn and garden center in the spring and buy just as many plants as you like. It’s stupid to spend law enforcement money trying to police it and it’s stupid spending state and federal funds to put people through the legal systems and incarcerate them for any crime related to the possession or sale of marijuana. All this money would be much better spent on pursuing those who are involved in the trafficking and sales of real narcotics such as opium, heroin and crystal meth.
“medical?”
Hey, doc, can I get a pre-scription?
Sure thing bud. What’s your problem?
Um, chronic pain?
Sounds good to me! Here ya go.
LBS, This woman does not text and drive, and I still pull over if I have to make a call, except one time when I made an exit blunder on either 70 or 270 around St. Louis. I was afraid I was going to end up like Sparky in Vacation – in East St. Louis.
Bad Brad, thanks, I have to go back to taking the apple cider vinegar. Slipped off the routine about five years ago.
If pot isn’t addictive, then I can condemn any recreational pot user as a lazy, good-for-nothing stoner who should get off his fat ass and start pulling his weight. Anybody who uses pot on the job gets fired. You want welfare handouts, then you have to give us HAIR SAMPLES to prove you’re not using pot. It’s not addictive, so it’s a choice, and every bad thing the Prohibitionists said about drunkards (which doesn’t apply to alcoholics) DOES apply to potheads.
How popular would the idea of medical marijuana be if scientists found a way to isolate the medicinally valuable components and completely divorcing it from its ability to make you high?
Grool: That was done years and years ago, and people can’t get enough of it.
That’s Because it’s good for you- like Flax seed oil , or any other Healthy Plant/ Herb. You will still feel Good ( if that’s ok) because your body is Healing !