The American people are on to this bullshit

[RainDog]

So, I was just scrolling thru digg, something I do occasionally, and saw a top news thread from live science titled "Marijuana Mouth Spray: Will Cancer Pain Reliever Be Abused?" and read it, then saw it was from another source, a sister site, MyHealthDailyNews - the sort of infotainment Yahoo and other provider sorts of sites pick up and yes, der google showed that this same link had been picked up by Scientific American - an outfit with a stellar reputation. The originating site for the article is tech media network - a "new media" journalism group that creates feeds for various sites.

all fwiw.

The article is about Sativex, the whole-plant cannabis product that will be introduced to the American market, projections from this article state, in 2014. Here's the subtitle for the article:

It takes longer for people to get high from this oral form of marijuana, so there is little potential for abuse

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=marijuana-mouth-spray

Scientific American? really? You're really publishing this? Because sativex is ingested, like cannabis edibles, you're buying into the propaganda that this makes Sativex different than cannabis?

Really?

A poison expert states there is no doubt Sativex will be abused. What, exactly, constitutes abuse? Using cannabis in the form of Sativex to get high? So, is taking a drink the same as alcohol abuse too? I'm so confused. Maybe I'm supposed to be.

...because the drug is delivered through ingestion, rather than smoking, it would take much longer to have an effect — at least an hour, compared with the minutes it takes to get high after smoking marijuana, said Margaret Haney, a professor of clinical neurobiology at Columbia University. This means drug users seeking a high would be less likely to abuse it. "Smoking is a really effective way to get a chemical into the brain," Haney said. The mouth spray "is a far safer administration,"she said.

And Marinol and Cesamet, which are also administered orally, have a low rate of abuse. "We don’t see a lot of problems from [those]," Bernstein said.

(that's Dr. Jeffrey Bernstein, director of the Florida Poison Information Center at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.)

okay. so, we don't see a lot of problems with synthetic THC, except 4 deaths have been attributed to Marinol (I don't know the circumstances of those, I'm just taking the information provided on overall cannabinoid stats from the govt.) and NO deaths have EVER been attributed to whole-plant cannabis, even when smoked - but the problem is... abuse, as in, using cannabis to get high, or more to the point, using cannabis recreationally, like someone might choose to have a glass of wine in the evening.

Surely Haney, who has excellent credentials, is aware of many people who choose to ingest rather than smoke cannabis...to get high, not for medical purposes. But Sativex is better because it's less effective, slower acting? And, therefore...magically not the same as edible cannabis? But the same is true for cannabis that is eaten rather than smoked.

But then there's some truth - couched in a little fear.

"Marijuana, in the scheme of things, is a relativity safe drug," Bernstein said. "Even as a smokeable drug of abuse, it's relatively safe…compared to cocaine or heroin."

Not only compared to cocaine and heroin! Also compared to COFFEE, ALCOHOL and CIGARETTES. all legal and unregulated by the Controlled Substances Act, btw. oh yeah, and aspirin, as the DEA itself noted.

We can even compare legal and illegal substances and find that... why, legal substances are more harmful than quite a few illegal ones.



Or, we can see that cannabis compares to coffee more than any other common or illegal substance and, therefore, such a comparison would have been a more honest evaluation of its safety - I guess "smokeable" is the issue? I don't know anyone who bothers to smoke coffee beans, tho I suppose it could be done.



Isn't it interesting how it is possible to frame an issue by, first, ignoring the dependency/harm of a legal substance compared to an illegal one (both smokeable) or to other legal substances that demonstrate greater harm - and yet... are legal. Coffee doesn't have quite the "shark week" frisson of heroin or cocaine when discussing something that's illegal, even if it's the most comparable substance in terms of danger, addiction potential, withdrawal... and I also have to wonder if anyone has ever entered a substance abuse program for coffee dependency. I don't know - I kind of doubt insurance would pay for such a thing.

Here's the "tagline" for this infotainment content provider for their various articles that are picked up by various websites:

Pass it on: Because it takes longer for people to get high from an oral form of marijuana, there is little potential for abuse of a marijuana-based mouth spray.

Here's my version:

Pass it on: Because Sativex and cannabis are virtually the same, there is little potential for abuse for either and neither should be illegal.

But, you know what's great about this article that is appearing on various websites? The comments from readers. People are LAUGHING at this attempt to pretend Sativex is not simply cannabis that has been packaged and intends to be sold by a pharma and people KNOW that cannabis prohibition is bullshit.

I think that the internet is going to kill prohibition. I hope it's soon.

[RainDog]

1. from comments at live science

How can u even call yourselves a science website at this point? You can not get addicted to cannabis, you can not abuse cannabis becouse it has no physically attainable overdose amount, an article was released today by cannabisscience with photographic evidence of cannabinoids killing previoulsly untreatable cancer cells! There are highschool kids that could tell people this! outrageous!

that comment is followed by links and links... I'll have to go check them out.

[Ohio Joe]

2. K&R - nt

[Odin2005]

3. My Ritalin (methylphenidate) is more dangerous than pot? HOLEE CHRIST!!!

I've taken Ritalin since I was 6, so pot can't be that harmful!

[hobbit709]

5. And Ritalin is basically a form of speed.

[RainDog]

6. Not to mention barbiturates

Cannabis has helped some people to reduce their use of barbiturates - these are highly addictive substances that are useful for certain types of pain.

One of the medical uses for cannabis that is not disputed is pain relief from neuropathies.

[hobbit709]

4. I can feel the effects in 20-30 minutes after eating some.

what's this hour crap?

[RainDog]

7. maybe it depends upon the potency?

Sativex has much higher levels of CBD than most commercially-available cannabis at this time.

Interestingly, when I read about growers and care providers who talk about cannabis - a lot of them are talking about strains with higher levels of CBD because of the medicinal qualities of this cannabinoid. I would imagine that Sativex is having an impact on how growers perceive their product, too.

Cannabis that's purely for the recreational market would tend to favor THC - but THC on its own, without mitigating cannabinoids, etc. is what seems to make people anxious or uncomfortable sometimes - some people have a negative reaction to pure THC - and it seems studies prove out that there's a point at which too much THC, at the expense of other cannabinoids, isn't a pleasant experience for many people.

That's where the issue of concern about negative mental health effects comes from - and CBD is the "anti-THC" that works to provide a more pleasant experience.

From what I've read, cannabis ssp sativa contains higher levels of THC while ssp indica contains more CBD - but that's really a generalization since hybrids have created so many diff. varieties.

[RainDog]

9. this video segment shows one person's experience

this woman is sort of goofy - but she does try to indicate some of the issues related to this idea of THC vs whole-plant cannabis.

[RainDog]

8. oh, what's interesting about this, too

is that early on I read that Sativex takes effect fairly quickly because it's sublingual - i.e. sprayed under the tongue to get into the bloodstream faster.

I take liquid vit. b complex and it's also placed under the tongue to enter the bloodstream asap and not have to pass through the digestive system - this also supposedly utilizes more of the vits. more efficiently.

So, this article makes a contrary claim to that made earlier about Sativex - i.e. that it was better b/c it did not have to go through the digestive tract - it seems that ingesting cannabis on a full stomach may mean it takes longer to take effect.