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Marijuana Remains Illegal as the Federal Government…

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Approves a terrifying new opiate based medication.

The federal government maintains that there are no known medical benefits to marijuana.  The actual evidence tells a different story as the FDA continues to choose financial bliss for big pharma over the safety of Americans.  While opiates (one of the main components of heroin) are highly addictive, both physically and mentally, they enjoy more legally friendly status when compared to marijuana.  Medications such as Oxycontin and Vicodin are costing America in both lives and tax dollars.  Emergency room visits related to overdoses cost billions per year, a bill that is picked up by working Americans.   The situation has become a known epidemic, with medical leaders calling for action.  Even the White House considers the current situation a pandemic.  This would lead one to believe that the FDA would never approve newer and more dangerous opiate based medications.  That would be false.  The FDA has recently approved Zohydro, a more potent opiate based pain killer.  CNN described this as “frightening” and Dr. Andrew Kolodny, president of the advocacy group Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing said “It’s a whopping dose of hydrocodone packed in an easy-to-crush capsule…It will kill people as soon as it’s released.”  The FDA, of course, responds by saying the medical benefits outweigh the risks.  Of course marijuana’s virtually zero mortality rate could make a better argument for the “benefit outweighing the risk” argument.  Zohydro is said to be fives times more powerful than Vicodin.

Does not approve more funding for marijuana’s potential to treat Alzheimer’s.

Alzheimer’s impacts the lives of approximately 5.1 million Americans.  Since the symptoms can come on gradually, the disease can remain undetected for sometime.  This makes calculating definitive numbers difficult.  This condition cuts the quality of life short for many who physically are fine, but mentally suffer from dementia.  Gary Wenk, a longtime Alzheimer’s researcher has noticed a trend, especially as those who smoked marijuana in the 1960s are now at the vulnerable age.  “We found out that people who smoked dope in the 1960s were not getting Alzheimer’s.”  While his research is promising, it has unfortunately been brought to a halt.  He recently said “I am not funded to do marijuana research…It costed me about $100,000 to do a whole experiment, $10,000 just to buy the molecule and every old rat is $150. You can see how things add up and individuals can’t afford these things.”  It appears that their may be some promise for cananbinoids treating and preventing Alzheimer’s, but no one can be certain since the federal government will not open the door for more testing and research.  Besides the obvious financial benefits to reforming marijuana laws (marijuana.net has spoken about incarcerations, tax revenues, war on drugs, etc.) Mr. Wenk pointed out that money could be saved in medical treatment.  “If we can keep a person out of a nursing home for five years, we’ve saved that family and their insurance companies an awful lot of money… No matter how we spin this, old people are going to win.”

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