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In the case of pain treatment, it seems likely that the psychoactive affects of THC may be a large contributor to its effectiveness. In that it distracts you f

In the case of pain treatment, it seems likely that the psychoactive affects of THC may be a large contributor to its effectiveness. In that it distracts you from the pain. And there are a lot of people who are going to be more comfortable taking a plant in its natural state, than using an isolated compound that's been through a processing plant they have no control over, and which depends on a regulatory structure they have no faith in to tell them its safe (and what they are expecting). Basically, there are a lot of people very skeptical of the corporate drug system (for good reasons, frankly), and the availability of natural herbal medicines does (for the most part [aside 1.]) no harm to them, and actually can do quite a bit of good. If they don't trust aspirin, then let them use willow bark. 1. Obviously there are exceptions to this. There are some herbs that are considerably more dangerous and harmful than the useful compounds isolated from them. But there are also many herbs that are perfectly safe to use, and still effective to one degree or another. In some cases, they are every bit as effective, and even safer, than the isolated, concentrated alternatives (see St John's Wort).

derefr 7y ago
I would argue that if they don't trust aspirin, they should buy a kit that lets them make aspirin (or salicin, rather) at home from willow bark. Still safer than consuming arbitrary unknown amounts of salicin, together with whatever else is in the bark besides salicin. Let me put it this way: the big-pharma drug manufacturing (and more generally, medical-equipment manufacturing) pipeline is set up such that the only thing about a drug that should be able to kill someone, is if the drug's active ingredient itself has a bad interaction with their body. Something like medical marijuana, meanwhile, can kill you by heavy-metal soil toxicity; by pesticides; by coincidental allergens in non-active-ingredient plant matter; etc. None of these things will be checked for when you get a dose of medical marijuana. An analogy: would you trust IV saline solution that's just salt that someone poured into "carefully collected rainwater" and then put into a bag? Even for an immunocompromised patient (i.e. exactly the kind who consumes medical marijuana for e.g. supportive cancer treatment)? No; you'd distill the water, wash and recrystallize the salt, and basically do everything else you can to ensure that "salt and water" is all that's in the "bag of salt and water" you're putting into the patient's bloodstream. Because that's how you ensure that some random variable doesn't creep in and mysteriously make them sick in a way that's impossible to diagnose.
- monkmartinez 7y ago
  >Let me put it this way: the big-pharma drug manufacturing (and more generally, medical-equipment manufacturing) pipeline is set up such that the only thing about a drug that should be able to kill someone, is if the drug's active ingredient itself has a bad interaction with their body. "Should be" is a giant risk factor... "Don't worry Mrs. Jones, this drug shouldn't be able to kill you unless you have a terrible allergic reaction!" Big-pharma has shown, repeatedly, that their sole motivation is not altruistic treatments of human aliments... it is that of any other corporate entity. Profit. I don't think that is inherently evil either. Medical cannabis could kill you... you are right, but I would argue that you are much more likely to be killed from alcohol or tobacco related events. For just one data point: I've worked in EMS for 14 years and I have never seen a cause of death that was directly the result of using cannabis. Unfortunately, I have lost track of how many people I have seen die that were the direct result of alcohol ingestion. Same for Oxycotin and other opioid based "medicine" prior to everyone and their brothers walking around with narcan.
  - derefr 7y ago
    Certainly, the creation of novel molecular compounds is risky, and you can only mitigate the risks you know about. But that's not the comparison we're talking about here. We're not talking about smoking marijuana plant-matter vs. taking new GSK LessCancerPainIum™️. We're talking about smoking marijuana plant-matter vs. taking a pill that was created by processing grown marijuana plant-matter, or with an active ingredient synthesized to be identical to the ingredient-under-test of marijuana plant-matter. Personally, I've never heard of a case where Big Pharma has ever created a delivery vehicle for a well-known, Generally-Recognized-As-Safe active ingredient (like e.g. aspirin) that then kills, or even harms, people. Like, the Tylenol murders? Those were big news. It'd be even bigger news if the manufacturer themselves were responsible instead of some random MITM. But there has never been that kind of big news. They don't screw up when making pills. Pills are pills. Novel active ingredients can kill you. But—presuming the active ingredient is safe—the pills themselves killing you? When has that ever happened? > Unfortunately, I have lost track of how many people I have seen die that were the direct result of alcohol ingestion. Well, yeah; people are consuming arbitrary amounts of alcohol. That's what's bad about recreational alcohol use. Same goes for opioids, in a different sense; addiction drives you to consume arbitrary amounts of opioids. That's what's bad about drugs of abuse. And yet, as an EMT, you still stick car-crash victims with fentanyl, no? Even though it's an opioid, and potentially a vector for chemical dependence. But you're not likely to kill them with it. Why? Because it's a measured dose. ---- Note that I'm not arguing that the active ingredients in medical cannabis could kill anyone. It's been pretty well shown that they don't really have an LD50. It's not the active ingredients I'm worried about. It's the rest. It's the reason that hospitals don't get food for patients catered from arbitrary restaurants. You want to control all the variables you can. A CBD+THC tincture is going to have strictly fewer non-controlled variables than smoking the raw plant. A crystallized distillate suspended in a PEG gel pill is going to have fewer non-controlled variables still. It's not about not-killing people. It's about treating people, successfully, with the highest ROI per treatment-hour possible and the least time spent flailing around trying to diagnose unknown brokenness while the patient continues to suffer.

derefr 7y ago

I would argue that if they don't trust aspirin, they should buy a kit that lets them make aspirin (or salicin, rather) at home from willow bark. Still safer than consuming arbitrary unknown amounts of salicin, together with whatever else is in the bark besides salicin. Let me put it this way: the big-pharma drug manufacturing (and more generally, medical-equipment manufacturing) pipeline is set up such that the only thing about a drug that should be able to kill someone, is if the drug's active ingredient itself has a bad interaction with their body. Something like medical marijuana, meanwhile, can kill you by heavy-metal soil toxicity; by pesticides; by coincidental allergens in non-active-ingredient plant matter; etc. None of these things will be checked for when you get a dose of medical marijuana. An analogy: would you trust IV saline solution that's just salt that someone poured into "carefully collected rainwater" and then put into a bag? Even for an immunocompromised patient (i.e. exactly the kind who consumes medical marijuana for e.g. supportive cancer treatment)? No; you'd distill the water, wash and recrystallize the salt, and basically do everything else you can to ensure that "salt and water" is all that's in the "bag of salt and water" you're putting into the patient's bloodstream. Because that's how you ensure that some random variable doesn't creep in and mysteriously make them sick in a way that's impossible to diagnose.

monkmartinez 7y ago
>Let me put it this way: the big-pharma drug manufacturing (and more generally, medical-equipment manufacturing) pipeline is set up such that the only thing about a drug that should be able to kill someone, is if the drug's active ingredient itself has a bad interaction with their body. "Should be" is a giant risk factor... "Don't worry Mrs. Jones, this drug shouldn't be able to kill you unless you have a terrible allergic reaction!" Big-pharma has shown, repeatedly, that their sole motivation is not altruistic treatments of human aliments... it is that of any other corporate entity. Profit. I don't think that is inherently evil either. Medical cannabis could kill you... you are right, but I would argue that you are much more likely to be killed from alcohol or tobacco related events. For just one data point: I've worked in EMS for 14 years and I have never seen a cause of death that was directly the result of using cannabis. Unfortunately, I have lost track of how many people I have seen die that were the direct result of alcohol ingestion. Same for Oxycotin and other opioid based "medicine" prior to everyone and their brothers walking around with narcan.
- derefr 7y ago
  Certainly, the creation of novel molecular compounds is risky, and you can only mitigate the risks you know about. But that's not the comparison we're talking about here. We're not talking about smoking marijuana plant-matter vs. taking new GSK LessCancerPainIum™️. We're talking about smoking marijuana plant-matter vs. taking a pill that was created by processing grown marijuana plant-matter, or with an active ingredient synthesized to be identical to the ingredient-under-test of marijuana plant-matter. Personally, I've never heard of a case where Big Pharma has ever created a delivery vehicle for a well-known, Generally-Recognized-As-Safe active ingredient (like e.g. aspirin) that then kills, or even harms, people. Like, the Tylenol murders? Those were big news. It'd be even bigger news if the manufacturer themselves were responsible instead of some random MITM. But there has never been that kind of big news. They don't screw up when making pills. Pills are pills. Novel active ingredients can kill you. But—presuming the active ingredient is safe—the pills themselves killing you? When has that ever happened? > Unfortunately, I have lost track of how many people I have seen die that were the direct result of alcohol ingestion. Well, yeah; people are consuming arbitrary amounts of alcohol. That's what's bad about recreational alcohol use. Same goes for opioids, in a different sense; addiction drives you to consume arbitrary amounts of opioids. That's what's bad about drugs of abuse. And yet, as an EMT, you still stick car-crash victims with fentanyl, no? Even though it's an opioid, and potentially a vector for chemical dependence. But you're not likely to kill them with it. Why? Because it's a measured dose. ---- Note that I'm not arguing that the active ingredients in medical cannabis could kill anyone. It's been pretty well shown that they don't really have an LD50. It's not the active ingredients I'm worried about. It's the rest. It's the reason that hospitals don't get food for patients catered from arbitrary restaurants. You want to control all the variables you can. A CBD+THC tincture is going to have strictly fewer non-controlled variables than smoking the raw plant. A crystallized distillate suspended in a PEG gel pill is going to have fewer non-controlled variables still. It's not about not-killing people. It's about treating people, successfully, with the highest ROI per treatment-hour possible and the least time spent flailing around trying to diagnose unknown brokenness while the patient continues to suffer.