Debate About Medical Marijuana
Among Oregon Doctors
Tells Us More About Doctors Than About Marijuana.
(Ed. note: Prohibitionists argue that whether
marijuana can be used medically should not be determined by popular vote, but rather by
"science." Never mind the fact that the government has blocked research.
Let’s look at the opinion of the "experts." Recently, the Oregon Medical
Association could not decide – on the basis of a vote – whether or not to
support or oppose the state medical marijuana initiative.
This year the FDA has withdrawn several drugs which it had previously approved when it
turned out that they have fatal side-effects, which marijuana is well-known not to have.
The doctors vote against deciding and the FDA repeatedly changes its mind about other
things -- after people die. On the basis of this we are supposed to defer to them the
decision on whether or not to arrest sick people for using a plant?
You may not learn anything new about marijuana below, but you may learn more about the
practice of medicine than you want to know.)
See
Oregon Medical
Association Declines to Oppose Medical Marijuana; Believe It or Not, This Is A Victory
October 15, 1998
From The Oregonian
letters@news.oregonian.com
http://www.oregonlive.com/
By Patrick O’Neill
MEASURE 67: MEDICAL MARIJUANA SPLINTERS DOCTORS
Some Oregon Physicians Support Measure 67, Which Would Legalize The Drug For A Variety
Of Ailments, But Others Are Concerned About Its Effects
The question of whether to legalize marijuana for medical purposes has divided
Oregon’s doctors.
Some laud marijuana as a cheap, effective way to reduce the nausea and pain of serious
illness. Others warn that it’s untested, unnecessary and open to abuse.
See
Costs keeping 'rescue' drugs
from patients
The disagreement is so deep and widespread that the Oregon
Medical Association’s governing body voted in April to remain neutral on the
issue—neither supporting nor opposing Measure 67, which would make smoked marijuana
legal for a variety of medical purposes.
Doctors are drawn by sympathy for patients and the desire for their methods to be
scientifically valid, said Dr. Charles Hofmann, president of the OMA, which represents
5,800 of the state’s 8,300 physicians.
During its April meeting, Hofmann proposed adoption of the American Medical
Association’s view on medical marijuana—in essence, that more research is needed
before doctors give patients the drug.
The outcome of the debate was a replay of one in 1994, when the OMA decided to take no
position on physician-assisted suicide, another contentious medical issue that went before
Oregon voters. In both instances, the state organization was at odds with the national
association, which strongly opposes assisted suicide and medical marijuana.
See
CMA Joins Many
Others Backing Removal Of Marijuana From Schedule I Prohibitive Status
"Those two issues are so similar," Hofmann said.
"The overwhelming arguments in both are compassion and respect for individual
rights."
See
Marijuana Can’t Kill, So
Reno Okays Assisted Suicide Law; Overrules DEA, Which Claims Exclusive Right To Kill Us
He characterized the attitudes of Oregon doctors as a reflection of
people in general. A recent poll indicated that almost 60 percent of Oregon voters would
cast ballots in favor of Measure 67. The measure, on the Nov. 3 ballot, would
legalize marijuana for patients with cancer, glaucoma, HIV/AIDS, seizures and muscle
spasms, pain, nausea and wasting.
Hofmann, a Baker City internist, opposes legalization. "I am
concerned that the amount of controlled scientific evidence that says smoked marijuana is
better for these specific conditions is lacking," he said.
See
Why would
anyone want to smoke a medicine? Isn't smoking per se bad for you?
"I fully believe that it is a step down the road to the legalization of other
drugs."
(Ed. note: Of course, this is not a scientific or medical argument but a political
belief. Thanks, Doc.)
See
Is medical marijuana
just the opening wedge to legalize marijuana generally?
and
Isn't legalizing marijuana just the opening
wedge to legalizing all drugs?
Dr. Richard Bayer disagrees. Bayer, a Portland internist and a chief petitioner for the
medical marijuana initiative, said he has seen numerous patients who have benefited from
smoking marijuana.
One of his patients, he said, had lost both legs to a land mine in Vietnam and suffered
the phantom pains that plague many amputees. "He had morphine, but he said he liked
marijuana better because it didn’t give him the hallucinations and constipation of
morphine," Bayer said.
Bayer said he considered suggesting other patients try marijuana,
"but I never engaged in that discussion because I was too frightened that I might
lose my medical license."
When California voters approved legalization of medical marijuana in 1996, Bayer became
involved in trying to make the drug available to Oregonians.
However, few doctors have publicly aligned themselves with him,
despite the OMA’s lack of opposition. "Most are afraid to come out of the
closet because of fears about the DEA," Bayer said of the Drug Enforcement
Administration. Physicians who recommend marijuana fear the DEA will revoke their
permits to prescribe drugs.
See
A Letter From
Oregon Shows What the Medical Marijuana Movement Is Really All About
and
Elderly Oregon
Medical Marijuana User More Severely Punished Than Child Molester
and
Oregon Initiative
A Reaction To Draconian Laws -- Doctors Should Be Able To Prescribe Marijuana, Says the
Doctor
Harbinger or harmless?
Some doctors say the medical arsenal has enough drugs against pain and nausea without
including marijuana.|
See
Study Faults Pain
Treatment In Cancer Patients; "Most doctors are not well trained to manage
pain." Just Our Lives
Dr. Marshall D. Bedder, a pain management specialist with Advanced Pain Management
Group, a Portland physicians’ group, said modern drugs eliminate the need for smoked
marijuana.
(Ed. note: If this is true, why is it necessary to have a specialty
in pain management? Can everyone afford to see such a specialist? What about the uses of
marijuana other than pain management? If he doesn’t know that marijuana doesn’t
have to be smoked, should we take his opinion seriously? Does he think that swallowing a
pill is a satisfactory substitute for smoking when a person is vomiting and not in a
clinical setting where an IV could be administered?)
See
World
Famous Harvard Scientist Stephen Jay Gould Testifies For Medical Marijuana
Bedder, whose practice includes treating drug addicts, sees medical marijuana as
another slip down the slope of drug abuse.
"Addicts uniformly tell us that marijuana was a gateway
drug,"
he said.
See
Cannabis Use, A
Stepping Stone to Other Drugs? The Case of Amsterdam. by Peter Cohen and Arjan Sas.
and
Boston Addiction
Researcher Argues "Keep Marijuana Illegal – For Teens"
(Ed. note: Notice that when a patient says that he gets symptomatic
relief, which describes an immediate event, this is just "anecdotal evidence,"
but when an addict says that marijuana is a "gateway drug," which is an
interpretation of a sequence of events over time, this is sufficient basis for arresting
the patient who gets symptomatic relief and doesn’t become an addict.)
"We have such a problem with substance abuse that to legalize yet another
substance is the absolute wrong direction to go. Physicians now have
the availability of the active ingredient in marijuana—THC—that we prescribe
every day."
See
Perhaps The
Single Most Damning Article On Medical Marijuana Fiasco I Have Ever Read – Without
Intending To Be
and
NORML Responds to
Nevada Doctor Who Said "Let them eat Marinol"
Other doctors see marijuana as a relatively harmless substance. Dr. Charles M.
Grossman, a Portland internist since 1950, said that, on balance, the medical marijuana
measure "is something that is worth passing."
In 1972, Grossman was chairman of a City Club of Portland committee that considered the issue of decriminalizing possession of small amounts of
marijuana. Grossman said he searched medical literature for evidence of marijuana’s
ill effects. "All the scientific literature I read indicated that the effects of
marijuana on people—even young people who smoked a number of joints a day—was
far less harmful than alcohol and tobacco," he said.
Compassion for patients outweighs concerns about the possible side effects of medical
marijuana, Grossman said.
He acknowledged that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration hasn’t confirmed the
safety and effectiveness of smoked marijuana. But FDA approval is a secondary matter, he
said. "You can’t argue with patients who say they get
relief from their pain or nausea."
Concerns about lack of control
Dr. Susan McCall, vice president of the Oregon Society of
Addiction Medicine,
a doctors’ group, said the society opposes the measure,
and she sees many hidden pitfalls. "The initiative circumvents the normal
drug-approval process," she said.
See
The Party Line On
Medical Marijuana In Oregon From A Sheriff And An "Addiction Specialist"
Unlike other drugs, she said, marijuana’s safety and effectiveness would be
enshrined in law. If science later found that marijuana was
harmful for some patients, there would be no way, short of legislative action, to
force its withdrawal from use, she said.
(Ed. note: Almost all medicines are "harmful for some patients." Marijuana is
not a new drug and its risks are well-known, and well-known to be much less than those of
many widely prescribed drugs.)
SeeMcCall also said the measure would prohibit the Oregon Board of Medical Examiners, the
licensing board for physicians, or anyone else from overseeing a physician’s
recommendations for marijuana use.
"The recommending physician would be the only one eligible to review it," she
said. "There’s no requirement for that physician to be skilled in the treatment
of the condition for which it’s recommended. You may have it recommended for
treatment of (multiple sclerosis, for example), but the physician could be a
psychiatrist."
(Ed. note: We have just seen an "addiction specialist"
quoted as recommending the arrest of patients that she has never seen, for using a drug
about whose medical properties she knows little, on the basis of the comments of addicts,
who have interpreted their problems on the basis of the theories of the "addiction
specialists" in order to get treatment for a disorder aggravated by the policies
supported by the doctor. Now we are told that a psychiatrist cannot prescribe an
anti-spasmodic that can be visibly demonstrated to work – or not work – for the
patient. This is an expert opinion on which we should base public policy. Yeah, and
marijuana makes you think funny?)
Before using a drug that might have undesirable side effects, she said, doctors should
ask whether all traditional medications have been tried.
(Ed. note: Okay. And if they have been tried and found ineffective,
then what? That is precisely the problem that the initiative is trying to address. And if
a legal medicine works, why would a seriously ill person want to use an illegal substance
that does not work as well and is not covered by insurance?)
"We do encourage the study of the potential impact of making cannabis available
for medical use," she said. "We support the legitimate use of
delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol." That substance, a derivative of marijuana, is used in
Marinol, a prescription drug used for nausea.
(Ed. note: And what kind of research does he support on the ability
of someone who is vomiting to swallow a pill?)
Dr. Grant Higginson, Oregon health officer and deputy administrator of the state Health
Division, prepared a fiscal impact statement estimating that about 500 Oregonians would
use marijuana annually if the measure passes. He estimated it would cost $140,000 to
$295,000 annually to fulfill the agency’s responsibilities under the law.
(Ed. note: And how much would it cost to arrest these people? How
much will it cost to give them pharmaceuticals that don't work. This is what is know as
"static analysis," the failure to consider the other consequences of an action.)
Supported