At our dispensary MM also is offered if the following conditions apply, if the patient is resistant to, or intolerant of, conventional therapy:
• Seizure disorder, including epilepsy
• Intractable skeletal muscular spasticity
• Glaucoma
The following conditions apply, if severe or chronic pain, severe nausea or vomiting, cachexia or wasting syndrome results from the condition or treatment thereof:
• Positive status for human immunodeficiency virus
• Acquired immune deficiency syndrome
• Cancer
The diseases that are most often approved for MM have associative pain for the patent in some way or another. Pain alone is not one of the New Jersey’s approved diseases. The patients that have a MMPNJ ID card are required to fill out a MMPNJ approved pain scale every 90 days. Our dispensary requires a 60 day review. If a Patient refuses to do so, the NJ ATCs should not sell products to the patient. Our patients tell us their quality of life is improved by the use of MM in their treatments.
CON:
Medical marijuana is a subterfuge. Components of marijuana do have genuine medical uses, but only 5 percent of medical marijuana patients have cancer, AIDS, glaucoma, ALS, Alzheimer’s or Hepatitis C—the main conditions it’s supposedly used for. Meanwhile, 90 percent of “medical” patients get their pot for pain, and there’s evidence that most of these pain patients are illegitimate: Two dozen studies show that pain patients are mostly female. On the other hand, adults with diagnosable marijuana abuse are 70 percent male. I asked every state marijuana program what percent of their pain patients were male, and the answers hovered right around 70 percent.
Another study, published in the Journal of Harm Reduction, looked at 4000 medical marijuana patients and found similar results. The average age was 32, three-fourths were male, and 90 percent had started smoking pot as teenagers. In other words, “medical” marijuana patients match the picture of drug abusers, not medical users. “Medical” marijuana is barely medical at all.
PRO:
Teenagers have used marijuana in America for a long time. The rate of usage has waxed and waned through the centuries. A motivating factor has been its availability and legal restraints. The current rise in usage has been fueled in this century by organized crime cartels which have created an atmosphere of acceptance and then dependencies which has fed a massive drug usage epidemic. Another factor was the Vietnam War, where a whole generation of Americans learned to use and enjoy “pot” as part of their reaction to horrors they experienced.
Growth & Funding Strategist