[Payaso]

For doctors such as Pradeep Chopra, long accustomed to prescribing carefully tested medications by the exact milligram, medical marijuana presents a particular conundrum.

On Tuesday, the D.C. Council gave final approval to a bill establishing a legal medical marijuana program. If Congress signs off, District doctors -- like their counterparts in 14 states, including Rhode Island, where Chopra works -- will be allowed to add pot to the therapies they can recommend to certain patients, who will then eat it, smoke it or vaporize it until they decide they are, well, high enough.

The exact dosage and means of delivery -- as well as the sometimes perplexing process of obtaining a drug that remains illegal under federal law -- will be left largely up to the patient. And that, Chopra said, upends the way doctors are used to dispensing medication, giving the strait-laced medical establishment a whiff of the freewheeling world of weed.

Even in states that allow for marijuana's medical use, doctors cannot write prescriptions for it because of the drug's status as an illegal substance. Physicians can only recommend it. And they have no control over the quality of the drug their patients acquire.

More here.

[ChronJohn]

Last week, when he suggested pot to a patient after narcotics and surgery had failed to ease excruciating head and facial pain, she broke down in tears.

Her teenage son uses marijuana and she wants him to stop, she told him. " 'How am I going to look if I start taking it?' " he recalled her saying.

How bout we stop acting like two year olds and realize that it's going to be just like any other medication: you don't want your teenage son taking your vicodin or percocet any more than you would want him taking your medical marijuana, so tell him that it's your medicine and you don't want him using it without the approval of a doctor. it's that easy.

[nomaad]

I would MUCH rather my teenage son (he'll be a teenager in about 8.5 years) be dipping into my medical marijuana stash than a stash of an opiate. Are you kidding?!

I come from a family of doctors and medical professionals/mainstream healers... I think the beauty of marijuana as a medicine is that its safe for anybody to self-prescribe... this takes power out of the hands of the medical establishment... and establishments don't like to give up their power.

If I were to find out my teenagers were smoking pot, it would be a lot less of a problem for me than if they were drinking alcohol or popping pills.

That's not to say I WANT my kids smoking herb before their time (a time that they will decide, not me) but teenagers DO experiment with altered perception. I recall my junior year kegger... all the nerds and "good" kids were right there alongside the burnouts puking in the bushes after 3 beer funnels right alongside the burnouts and degenerates... THAT image causes me some apprehension for the future. I'm not so worried about them smoking some pot.

I also don't think that your opinion that MJ will eventually be treated by the law like other medicines. I think a beer/wine paradigm is way more likely.

[ChronJohn]

Oh by all means, I was smoking in elementary school; I am no hypocrite, I know that cannabis is faaaar safer than pretty much anything else we could put in our bodies. I'm just saying, for this straight-laced reefer madness-minded lady, the least she could do is think of it as a medicine and not an illegal drug and say "this is my medicine and I have a condition which it helps treat" not this "How am I going to look if I start taking it?" that's like a parent who's prescribed Vicodin after a surgery saying "no I won't take it I don't want to give my kid an excuse to start shooting up heroin" it's just ludicrous.

And I'm not saying that ultimately it will be treated like medicine as opposed to alcohol, I am saying that that is the current situation in D.C. so can we at least talk about it like it's a medicine now and not an illegal drug. you know what I'm sayin?

[xfargox]

I can't smoke weed anymore because of job drug testing so right now I'm on 10mg of oxycodone (legal, no worries fellas). I mean the high is really nice right now, but I'd much rather be taking a safer treatment for my headaches/allergies than this.

I just wonder how quickly weed would be legalized if everyone watched The Union or something.

[nomaad]

Chron: I am pickin up what you are layin down. I misunderstood your original post.

fargo: Seems like oxy would be overkill for your symptoms (if herb were allowed for you, i'd consider tylenol overkill. ) but I make no judgments if it provides you relief. But the fact that you have to use a drug with a potential hardcore addiction and guarantied softcore addiction is just wrong.

I gotta say.. with all the talk focusing on 'legalization' in these parts, I have not considered the potential ramifications of Cali legalizing recreational use on the fight for medical rights outside of the current med states. I wonder if this is just fodder for the anti-medical movement which keeps saying that allowing medical is just defacto legalization snuck in by the hippies and jazz musicians. Something to think about, thanks.