“The amount of money and of legal energy being given to prosecute hundreds of thousands of Americans who are caught with a few ounces of marijuana in their jeans simply makes no sense - the kindest way to put it. A sterner way to put it is that it is an outrage, an imposition on basic civil liberties and on the reasonable expenditure of social energy.”
― William F. Buckley Jr.
"Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas any more."
- Dorothy, "The Wizard of Oz" (1939)
Perhaps you recall how conservative author and commentator William F. Buckley once sailed his yacht outside US territorial waters in order to smoke . . . gasp . . . marijuana. Well, today, several decades after Buckey shocked the nation with his daring escapade, Maureen Dowd tells us in her latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Don’t Harsh Our Mellow, Dude" (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/04/opinion/dowd-dont-harsh-our-mellow-dude.html?ref=opinion&_r=0) how she travelled to the wilds of Colorado to sample . . . gasp . . . edible marijuana. Dowd writes of her experience:
"But then I felt a scary shudder go through my body and brain. I barely made it from the desk to the bed, where I lay curled up in a hallucinatory state for the next eight hours. I was thirsty but couldn’t move to get water. Or even turn off the lights. I was panting and paranoid, sure that when the room-service waiter knocked and I didn’t answer, he’d call the police and have me arrested for being unable to handle my candy.
I strained to remember where I was or even what I was wearing, touching my green corduroy jeans and staring at the exposed-brick wall. As my paranoia deepened, I became convinced that I had died and no one was telling me."
Dowd goes on to describe a report of increasing numbers of adults and children hospitalized in Colorado after gulping down marijuana-laced goodies.
No, I am not about to travel to Colorado anytime soon to partake in the "fun." You see, I am a chocolate purist: I like my chocolate without peanut butter, without rum, and certainly without pot. More to the point, I can't afford eight hours in the Merry Land of Oz.
But once again, I stray from the substance at hand.
A friend suffering from three herniated discs recently visited a world renowned orthopedic surgeon in search of pain relief. My friend had tried epidural spinal injections of steroids, which wore off all too quickly, and he had also taken Lyrica, which had caused him hallucinations. The orthopedic surgeon's recommendation: medical marijuana.
You see, seemingly unbeknownst to Dowd, there are 483 known chemical components of the plant, and THC is just one of them. Various strains of the plant have different levels of THC and other chemicals, e.g. CBD, which has been linked to pain relief.
Fortunately, I do not suffer from pain requiring anything beyond an occasional aspirin or naproxen, but if I were required to make the choice between Lyrica and medical marijuana with higher levels of CBD and diminshed levels of THC, I would opt for the latter.
Perhaps you remember Vioxx, a pain killer manufactured by Merck, which was pulled from the market after it was determined that it posed "substantial heart risk" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/23/business/merck-agrees-to-pay-950-million-in-vioxx-case.html). Yes, faced with a pain treatment dilemma, I would first want to determine if CBD offered relief.
Dowd? We've never met, but I recommend that she remain faithful to her chardonnay east of the Hudson.
As the fairytale storybook characters in Stephen Sondheim's "into the Woods" sing: "Witches can be right/Giants can be good/You decide what's right/You decide what's good.."
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