Washington State Medical
Association Betrays Its Patients And Shows Its Collective Incompetence
(Ed. note: Recently, the German association of
pediatricians issued an apology and statement of regret for their failure to stand up for
the rights of their members – mostly Jews and political dissidents -- who were killed
by the Nazis over half a century ago. I wonder how long it will take for the AMA and
various state medical associations in DEAland to get around to apologizing for abandoning
to the narcs their sick, dying and disabled patients who found that only marijuana helped
relieve their suffering.
In Nazi Germany it would have taken real courage to defy Hitler, but in DEAland the
delegates at the Washington State Medical Association are victims not of their cowardice
but of their arrogance, ignorance and incompetence. More and more individual doctors and
state medical associations are now standing up against the persecution of the sick and
dying.
See
CMA Joins
Many Others Backing Removal Of Marijuana From Schedule I Prohibitive Status
It is certainly late in the game for the converts, but it makes the Washington State
Medical Association look even worse. The people have already written off the opinions of
organized medicine, while the doctors complain that people take vitamins and herbs without
consulting them. With this kind of behavior they should look in the mirror and take a
Prozac.)
From the Seattle Times
See
Seattle Times
Carries Scathing Attack On Hypocrisy Of Opponents Of Medical Marijuana
opinion@seatimes.com
http://www.seattletimes.com/
October 4, 1998
By Carol M. Ostrom, Seattle Times staff reporter
DOCTORS WON’T BACK MARIJUANA AS MEDICINE
Despite an impassioned plea by a former president of the
organization, the Washington State Medical Association voted yesterday not to endorse a
ballot initiative that would legalize marijuana use by terminally ill and chronically
debilitated patients.
The association, which represents 8,000 physicians around the state, did go on record
to urge completion of studies of marijuana’s effectiveness as a medicine.
The association’s annual meeting, which began Thursday in Bellevue, adjourned
yesterday.
The resolution supporting the initiative was sponsored by Dr. William Robertson, who
said this year’s Initiative 692 is "far more limited" than last year’s
initiative, which the association voted not to support.
The initiative has "stringent requirements" that would limit its use to a
small number of terminally ill and debilitated patients. Some patients believe it helps
them, said Robertson, a medical director of the Washington Poison Center.
Some cancer and AIDS patients say smoking marijuana is the
only thing that helps quell their nausea, vomiting or lack of appetite. Although the
active ingredient in marijuana is available in pill form, some patients say they vomit up
the pill, that it takes too long to work or makes them high for too long, or that the dose
is not easily regulated.
Dr. Sandra Counts, who specializes in addictions and in chronic pain, urged the group
to send a message to Congress "to not treat a drug as a moral thing."
"I don’t see any difference, personally, between
marijuana, Valium or Percocet," she said. Plenty of patients abuse the last two, she
said, and yet those drugs are not made unavailable to everyone.
Dr. Peter Marsh, the organization’s outgoing president, argued that no scientific
data shows marijuana is an effective treatment.
(Ed. note: In fairness to the doctor that does not appear to be what
he said.)
"We have no problem with saying we’re in favor of any
drug that shows pharmacologic effectiveness," he told the group’s study
committee Friday. "If there is good data and good evidence to support that smoked
marijuana does something that’s not available with any other medication, we’d
have no problem endorsing this at all."
See
Perhaps The
Single Most Damning Article On Medical Marijuana Fiasco I Have Ever Read – Without
Intending To Be
(Ed. note: The standards for FDA approval have nothing to do with
whether there are benefits that are not "available with any other medication."
All that is necessary is that a medicine be relatively – not absolutely -- safe and
effective for some – but not all -- patients. As the doctors should know –
surely know – not everyone responds in the same way to various medications.
Consequently, it is common to have a number of different medications available to treat
patients who may not respond to the "drug of choice" – meaning the most
commonly prescribed.)
But, he added, "in actual fact, there is no data, to our knowledge at least, that
supports that - that there is an effective use of smoked marijuana that cannot be achieved
any other way."
(Ed. note: Three points. First, if that is the case, then why do
seriously ill people – and their doctors – want to use it? Second, does he think
that everyone can afford the expensive pharmaceuticals that he thinks work for everyone
– even though their manufacturers make no such claim? At which medical school did
they teach him that people who are vomiting can swallow pills and keep them down long
enough for them to be effective?)
See
Why would anyone want to
smoke a medicine? Isn't smoking per se bad for you?
and
Costs keeping 'rescue' drugs
from patients
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Supported