I also think that if Pot was actually the only thing to relieve your medical pains,  it would be OK to use it!  The one problem with this is to many people will declare that they need it to relieve pains that are really non-existant.

I also think that there are probably a lot of other more natural foods and herbs options that are available to those who are in need of medical pain relief that will work just as well and maybe even permantly those in pain.

I for one do not believe in taking any drugs. That is not to say that I have never taken some in cases of injury to my body, but I have never taken them for longer than a day or 2, mostly less than that.

The reason that I say this is that all they really do is mask the real problems and really do not fix the actual problem.  I’m not talking about the common cold, Just look at any label any you will see what I mean, because of all the ramifications of lawsuits, they now put all the side effects that you may possibly receive by using their drugs. Death being one used a lot!

I don’t know if the reason that I feel this way is because  I have tried not to take any drugs for most of my life, including the common asprin and I have not been to a Doctor for anything except an injury for more that 30 years. I’m turning 65 this comig year. The only drug that I have really used is for the common cold/flu and what I have found is that If I take just one dose of Comtrex for those symtoms as soon as I feel anything coming on, It usually only takes just the one dose. If I wait more than an hour or two, I usually have to take more doses. Some things you can’t prevent, like getting it from someone else!

I have found that it is better to take some natural juices and herbs, so that I do not have to go to a Doctor. You know, the old addage “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” esspecially with all the side effects!

Again I do not oppose the use of pot for true medical uses, but I do oppose them for general use.

RBK

In response to #6 Mickey Grace,

All I have to say is Monkey see Monkey Do!  That is what you children will do when they grow up. You know Daddy did it, so it’s good for me too!, or my peers do so why can’t I!

The latter is what happened to my youngest son.
Problem I have with that philosophy is that it leads to other more dangerous drugs, any recovering addict will tell you that. Including my own son.

Thank God that he finally saw the light and now has his life in order. He lost over 8-9 years of his young life to drugs and was not even able to attend his own Mother’s funeral because he was in prison because of them!

 I also had a medical scare while he was in prison as well. I think that this helped him to make up his mind that these drugs lead to distroying one’s life and other’s around him. I know because I spent over 5 years going back and forth to the prison to visit my son on an almost weekly basis trying to counciling him.

RBK

I was in a severe car accident 4 years ago. My car was essentially flipped over ans spun into the air, and at some point, I flew out the driver’s window and landed head first on the asphalt. I have no memory of it, so I’m amazed I’m still alive. The other driver who caused it fled the scene, and left me with a moderate traumatic brain injury and all of the “fun” that goes with it.  The TBI f***ed a lot of things in my brain up. Over the past 4 years I’ve dealt with:
- non-motor seizures (that required me to resign from my teaching job)
-vertigo that almost never totally goes away and occasionally flares up so bad that I walk like I’m drunk
-Headaches so bad that even the sensation of my teeth touching in my mouth is excruciating, and I have to wear sunglasses indoors or out
-impairment of my short term memory, on bad days it’s like having a swiss cheesed-brain- thoughts vanish, conversations end mid sentence, I forget where I am going between point A and point B
-fatigue

What do these all have in common? Smoking pot helps the symptoms! My neurolgist, a man who worked in his field for almost 50 years, told me flat out “Your marijuana usage is probably what is keeping the migraines and vertigo in check. THC is just as powerful an anti-inflammatory as any druge I can give you, but there are none of the bad cognitive side affects.” I smoke a little bit nearly every day, and I have not had a major or serious seizure for almost two years. When I tried Depakote, the standard starter drug for seizures, it screwed up everything in my body between my head and my waist, and I still had the episodes. No appetite, no sex drive. Marijuana does not do this to me, but it  helps to manage my symptoms. Yes, my ST memory might not be helped by pot, but even in weeks-long periods when I have not smoked, it’s still just as bad.

But wait, there’s even more fun! Last spring I got sick with a flu strain/fever that set off a whole new series of symptoms that I did not have before. These might be from Multiple Sclerosis or long-term trauma side affects triggered by the virus. I now add to my daily list of companions:
- shooting, burning, stabbing and wrenching nerve pain in most of my body, especially in my right cheek/jaw when I chew (imagine intense pain every time you try to take a bite)
-Visual disturbances and clouding
-Heat hyper-sensitivity and intolerance that makes me miserable through the summer months, in hot rooms, while exercising, etc. this will cause me to have spastic hyperventillation and tetany if I cannot bring my temp down/escape to cooler temps
-cold sensitivity that causes my nerualgia to flar up when I step outside in winter, or experience a sudden shift from warmer to colder
-exhaustion, exhaustion, exhaustion, almost constantly, all day, most days. My diet is excellent, I exercise hard at least 4 days per week, I get enough sleep- and it does not help.

And guess what: pot helps with these too. The fact is, marijuana/hemp/cannabis enhances my quality of life. Without the distractions of invasive pain, I can be a better husband for my wife, a better employee for my boss, a better teacher for my students and a better friend to my pals if I smoke a little bit per day. I notice a pronounced positive difference when things flare up and I smoke some.  Yes, I am smoking, and this is not good for the lungs. Yes, there are ongoing psychoactive effects even several days after smoking. But to me, this is all perfectly acceptable if I continue to get relief from the pain and disturbances that have haunted my life for four years now. I didn’t choose where my life has gone- but I can damn sure choose how I manage it to make my life as good as it can be from here on.

Judge how you want to, and look at marijuana and medical marijuana users however you want- but do not forget that we are people too, and if marijuana can make a positive difference for those of us with chronic, debilitating conditions, it is our right to choose it- and no one has the right to tell us that it’s wrong and that we can’t. Please put yourself in my shoes, or someone else with chronic problems, before defaulting to the sheep-like position that marijuana is somehow “wrong.”

Still think God is against it?

Genesis 1:11
“And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.”

AS  PERSON WHO HAS BEEN IN TWO BAD ACCIDENTS INCLUDING LOSEING MY RIGHT ARM, IM ON A HIGHLY ADDICTIVE PAIN KILLER THAT DOESN’T ALL WAYS DO ITS JOB. I ALL SO HAVE A LOT OF NERVE DAMAGE FROM 3RD DEGREE BURNS.  I WISH THEY WOULD MAKE MEDICAL USE OK IN ALL 50 STATES’ THERE ARE TIMES THAT A LITTLE SMOKE REALLY HELPS ME OUT & I’M DAM TIRED OF PRECIPTION DRUGS & SLEEP LESS NIGHTS. DOCTORS ARE RUNNING SCARD & DON’T HELP THE PEOPLE THAT REALLY NEED IT, AFTER AWHILE THEY TURN A DEAF EAR & TELL YOU TO USE ASPERIN’ WELL IT HELPS BUT IT ISNT GOOD FOR THE KIDNEYS OR LIVER WHEN YOU HAVE TO TAKE HIGH DOSES. CHANGE THE LAW!
 

I am guessing there are literally scores of thousands of prison inmates whose only crime was possessing a joint or two. Then there are probably another ten thousand who had more than a joint or two but were selling.  

Let them all out now.  Their lives have been negitavely altered by dunb laws long enough.

As a chemist with more education then most MD, I can say that POT does not effect driving skills like alcohol does.

now theirs going to be more car accidents because people cant pay attention from smoking pot

TO JD
Then the blood of those killed by reason of alcohol is OK.

what happened to the idea that we are adults and we shouldn’t have a nanny government telling us how to run our lives as long as we don’t negatively impact others. and if we do we already have numerous laws on the books to deal with that. what we need is enforcement of common sense laws instead of wasting time on frivolous laws. yes, marijuana has it’s good side and it’s bad. but like all things in moderation is not harmful. i’ve smoked it in the past but don’t do so now due to blood pressure problems and uncertainty as to its effect on that. for those who are against pot because of its potential for abuse, your brains must be rotted out from alcohol. i am certainly not against drinking, but is there any drug more abused today than alcohol? or food? look at the obesity problem. abuse is a psychological issue not a substance one. abusers, denied their drug of choice, will end up abusing something else. and to the argument that pot use leads to stronger drug use, it couldn’t have anything to do with the fact that it’s classed along with other drugs so that people who use pot are lumped in with other drug users, could it? i say legalize pot, tax it and use the money to keep it from children. and stop wasting billions on a drug war that has ruined more lives than any drug use ever could.

I find it amazing the people who can not accept the truth about Medicinal Pot, or even casual use. It is obvious that they are only “parroting” the sayings. I am on chemo and use MM for the side effects. I take over 13 different drugs to maintain my life, and I suffer extream side effects from all these drugs. If not for the help MM gives me to deal with the constant/chronic pain I know I would still be addicted to narcotics. This is the only alternative that works.
All you selfritious people, FOOD is a drug, coffee, tobbacco, not to mention all the legal OTC drugs that are more harmful than MM. I would gladly trade places with you and let you deal with this pain.  As it is the Veterans Admiin. has helped me get my will and burial in line as they do not expect that I will be around much longer. A little compassion for those who need to make use of this God givin herb.

Marijuana kills brain cells. I’m shocked how many don’t understand what the legalization of this stuff does to a society. Look at Amersterdam. I personally have, on my husbands’ side a nephew who has ruined by it. It sets an air of acceptability on it.
I’m totally against it. I’ve been sickened by my neighbors’ air in my apartment and had to leave and go on the road for 5 months trying to find another place to live. It ruins lives and it disgusts and sickens those around you who don’t use it. It interferes with the police’s ability to track higher drug usage. I do not want to be on the road at the same time someone who is driving under the influence. It causes paranoia and dumbs down a person and their family stuck with that person around them since research shows it literally kills brain cells. One of my friends was addicted to it as well as alcohol, though I was never around when he did it, I saw how it affected his personality, his family, loss of his house and business. It ruined his life.
It is the sign of a society’s dumbed-down debaucher and a sign the society has gone so far downhill, that judgment no longer prevails. Look at the legalized prostitution mess in Amsterdam and now Juran–the Dutch guy who did away with Natalie Holloway has been accused of selling off young women and bringing them to Amsterdam.
I pray God will come back soon and stop this total depravation of our society. I cry for my children and grandchildren. No wonder our school tests have gone down if all of the parents are using it and affecting the air of their kids and it’s killing their brain cells.
Doesn’t anyone care anymore? God gave us our brains and our bodies. We will be held accountable as to how we use them and we’re sinning against as the Bible says our bodies are “the temple of the Holy Spirit”. That is for so-called Christians who use this horrid, degrading, uncivilized dumb-down drug! They didn’t even need it for medical use as they already have marinol–that’s a crock & a lie! Now in MI they can even smoke it in the doctor’s office. Guess I won’t be going to the doctor any more when I’d be stuck having smell some other addict’s stench at the doctors’ office.

Just a Question….   Please list the states that have legalized medical marijuana ????

As an RN who worked Chemical Dependancy, I can tell you that pot is not the benign substance that some people are stating it is! It most certainly should not be use in place of alcohol! Peple who are addictive will get hooked on pot just as they would on alcohol. There are few cases where pot helps more than an ordinary pain-killer that is physician ordered. It skews your thinking and drains a person of all energy eventually. It is often the cause of automobile accidents because it makes the person driving feel like they are the best driver in the world when in fact they are a menace! A book could be filled with all of the negative results of people who smoke pot! I would rather take care of an alcoholic any day than a pot smoker! There is more chance of the alcoholic recovering than the pot user.

http://audubonmagazine.org/incite/incite9911.html 

a VERY good read.

Our jails are over crowded.  Why let some real criminal out to make room for someone caught with a roach?  This is insane.

Why should people on chemotherapy be denied this wonderful PLANT that can help them through the grueling process their bodies must endure?  Why should a Glaucoma patient be denied the one PLANT that can truly help them?  This is insanity at its highest form.  What other wonderful medicinal properties does marijuana possess that we are passing up because of government control over a HERB??  This is a plant.  Like other plants used for making medicines.  What form of depression could be calmed with this wonderful plant?  Stop the insanity.  Legalize it.

Read the side effects of man made drugs.  Listen to the commercials spew all of the side effects.  Why are these legal?  They’re harmful and often DEADLY.  Use this plant, this wonderful plant that God put on this earth, to help heal. 

Look at alcohol.  Look at the effects of alcohol.  We would have FAR less alcoholics if marijuana was legal.

Marijuana has as stated been a staple for thousands of years.  Actually, during the prohibition of alcohol, the use of marijuana as a mind altering substance grew.  When the prohibition was overturned the Alcohol industry lobbied congress to heavily tax marijuana and over the years it was outlawed based on the idea that it led to more harmful drugs. 
I wonder if “pot” were decrimalized or even legalized what would happen to the populations of the jails/prisons of this nation?  What percentage of those incarcerated are in there for marijuana use?  Would making it legal, slow down the Latin American cartels? 
When study after study after study comes out it is difficult to know what truth, because it seems one cancel the other and we end up back at the beginning knowing less than when we started. 

How many more lives does the government and prohibitionists have to destroy before we accept reality?

Prohibition and regulating morality is a COMPLETE FAILURE.

I so love the “anti-druggers” who want bans on natural substances but are perfectly ok with giving their children, and themselves, legalized, prescribed poison.

Anti-depressants, ADHD and multitudes of other “legal” narcotics are killing us.

But, pot, a plant that has been used by humans for thousands of years, is dangerous?

Drug crimes are committed because there is huge money in supplying these substances.  30 years of draconian measures have not dropped drug use one percentage point, nor saved one person from overdosing.

Ridiculous, Puritan thinking. 

Our government is too large and too powerful, and drug crimes have fed the beast.

TO: Trinty

As a member of the American Chemical Society, I have read many articles Stating that there are Positive Health Effects associated with marijuana. Like any drug that is done to excess, it is bad. Do you like alcohol? A Drug!
Joseph

Risk of more access to mariuana, as farms grow it  instead of food. Increase on taxpayer for healthcosts for rehabilitations. More drugheads on the street and in schools while less protection from those who lose their senses. Where is America’s intelligence today?

I suffer from a disease called RSD it feels like a fire is always burning in my leg.I am on Morphine,Oxycodone and it does not help the pain some times most nights i do not sleep due to the pain but I did try and smoked some weed and my leg was not burning and the nerve damage that i will have for the rest of my life due to a job accident this is the only thing that made my leg stop burnin what i mean is it felt like someone has a toch and they are holding it there 24 hours a day and this disease it can spread through your whole body and i felt normal no pain or even no burning in my leg due to a rooted roof so for the people who think this can not have any medical use let them live with this disease for 1 day and see how they handle it weed helps calm my nerves and i think they should only make it legal for medical use only it also help with eye pressure

A study in the netherlands last yr sowed that pot helps to promote a sort of schizophrenia it splits your mind in two. Plus there are many other substances in it that we don’t even know what effect it has not to mention your lungs whose capacity shrinks with age. But I do agree it should be legal for adults but strongly enforced against minors consumption who need to find reality before they go spinning it around!

  THe reason the government or the drug companies won’t allow pot to be legalizied is:
-  People can grow what they need
-  they can’t tax it if you don’t transport it
- The drug companies have all these dangous drug they have to sell
- People would be in a much relaxed mood.  It makes it hard to trick them. 

excellent article. for health reasons marijuana is known to work wonderfully for many ailments. people should be allowed to decide how to medicate. whether pills or herbs. its a personal decision. i choose not too drink wine. but i do enjoy many different marijuana types. given the financial crisis there might be no choice but taxing cannabis.

I have discussed police power and assault on our person and property. But especially we noted assault upon our psychic that twists our minds and makes us prisoners of conscience.

The system has never been short on hypocrisy. While we are force medicated with fluoride and chlorine in our drinking water along with mass vaccinations and inoculations, the personal use of marijuana is a federal crime with stiff federal penalties. Meanwhile we are sold subsidized tobacco, millions of tons of life-destroying white sugar and oceans of toxic soft drinks.

Fifty years’ abuse of the public mind has succeeded in equating marijuana with heroin. People (including me) think of both as “hard drugs” or “controlled substances.” Both are illegal and both are Schedule I substances under Federal Law.  This is the old trick of lumping one substance with another to get a negative public image. It has worked.

The truth, according to the book entitled The Emperor Wears No Clothes by Jack Herer, is that marijuana or hemp or the cannabis plant is “the world’s premier renewable natural resource… it is the earth’s most important resouce for making rope, paper, fiber, fuel, food and shelter for all the peoples of the world.”

A brief history: Cannabis hemp was legal tender (money) in most of the Americas from 1631 until the early 1800s. This encouraged farmers to grow it. Some farmers were jailed during periods of shortage for NOT growing marijuana.
            Uses of marijuana: Through the 19th century, sailing ships carried 50 to 100 tons of cannabis hemp. Almost everything connected with a ship was crafted from cannabis. Home spun cloth was used to make clothes and the original famous Levi pants were made from hemp as well as superior paper products, rope, twine, cordage, paints and varnishes, lighting oil, biomass energy and medicines.

IMPORTANT:  My comments are for information purposes only and based on the book The Emperor Wears No Clothes.

Neither I nor The Bob Livingston Letter or PersonalLiberty.com advocate the use of any form of marijuana or its related products. None of the above listed parties advocate the breaking of any law or laws of the United States or any other country.  –Bob

Don’t be so sure that there are no consequenses to Pot use. There are mental & medical consequenses. The health problems far outway and tax advantage. Besides what’s next legal cocaine and speed. crazy liberals….

I for one am in favor of making marijuana legel across the country make it legel and tax it  A little mary jane never hurt anyone