Marijuana Blog

A new study out of the University of California, San Diego shows what several other studies have shown, and that is marijuana’s beneficial effect on the symptoms of Multiple Sclerosis.

The study was published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal and consisted of 30 MS patients – 63% of them women. Some patients were given cannabis while some received placebos.

Those who smoked cannabis scored lower on the spasticity scale and reported a 50% decrease on the pain scale. But researchers also found some short-term cognitive impairment – the “high” of medical grade marijuana in other words, something that can be remedied with low THC, high CBD strains and concentrates.

"Smoked cannabis was superior to placebo in symptom and pain reduction in participants with treatment-resistant spasticity," researchers said. "Future studies should examine whether different doses can result in similar beneficial effects with less cognitive impact."

Most regular medical marijuana users already know that amazing advances have been made in cannabis breeding and have produced potent medicines that lack much of the psychoactive effect of THC. But I guess there’s not a study on that yet, so we have to wait for it to be “official.”

Beyond that, this is yet another study that shows marijuana’s ability to combat pain. And it does so without the side effects and addictiveness of prescription pills. Medical marijuana opponents act as if pain is some sort of cop out, or like patients are faking it to get legal weed.

While I’m sure some do fake it, there are a lot of people who endure physical and mental anguish every day and they shouldn’t be looked down on or treated like criminals just because they prefer an herbal remedy to their symptoms.

Keep doing your cannabis studies; it’s all good news for patients.

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com

Sadly it looks like the 2012 U.S. Presidential election is going to be between President Obama and Mitt Romney. If you are a medical marijuana patient you probably see this as a depressing outcome, and you’re right.

We already know President Obama’s feelings on the matter. He used to be in favor of not using federal resources to override state law, but he has since altered his feelings on the issue. Mitt Romney is a Republican who has said in the past he opposes medical marijuana and even gets snippy when someone brings it up in his presence (http://www.thcfinder.com/marijuana-blog/politics/2012/05/medical-marijuana-is-an-important-issue-mitt-romney).

While pre-President Obama seemed to have a common sense grasp on the issue, Romney clearly has given it no thought whatsoever and simply parrots what conservatives have told him to say. The odds of a President Romney doing something positive about medical marijuana (especially in a first term when his base will have him by the nugs, so to speak) couldn’t be any worse. You’re more likely to buy a winning Powerball ticket while being struck by lightning than to see President Romney lift a finger for medical cannabis patients.

So this leaves us with President Obama – unless Gary Johnson makes a miracle run to the White House. Things in the first term have been bad, there’s no doubt about that. But some seem to believe that Obama’s second term will bring about the change we keep hearing about on medical marijuana. While there is some precedent for Presidents being bolder in their second terms, there is also precedent for 2^nd terms to be incredible crash and burn events (see George W. Bush, Richard Nixon, Harry Truman and Abraham Lincoln – he won the war but got shot in the head and killed). Will he even have time to consider the matter in between bouts of golf and picking NCAA Tournament brackets?

Is there still hope with Obama? Unlikely, but since we can’t trust his word on the matter, it could really go either way. I guess that’s where the “Hope” comes in.

Source: http://www.opposingviews.com