Medical Marijuana vs. Marinol

> Marinol, the synthetic THC pill made by Unimed Pharmaceuticals & distributed by Roxanne Laboratories to stop severe, persistent nausea and vomiting - is suppose to be Marijuama in a pill form. If that were only true, the Good Doctor would be Very Impressed! But such a thing doesn't exist.

> Marijuana can dramatically reduce severe nausea and loss of appetite suffered by cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. Such a medicine is essential to keep a patient in therapy to save their life. Chemotherapy is not only painful and debilitating, it makes people vomit until they are exhusted from dry heaves. Nothing stays down. Some people would literally prefer to die than endure treatment. Patients who need every bit of strength they can get to fight for their lives really appreciate a Joint!
Marijuana releases them from the Hell of persistent nausea and pain and lets them eat. With Grass they can keep weight on or even gain some while cancer and chemotherapy wage a literal life and death war within the person's body!

> But even in States where Medical Marijuana is voted into legality like California, the Federal Government works 24/7 to shut down the "skunk" stores. No-one is to be allowed to have the Herb, and the Narks have shown they are willing to enforce these laws, even against half-dead people in wheelchairs.

> A few people fought court battles to win government permission to smoke government-grown weed in government-rolled joints. For awhile it looked like the $2 a joint government pot would become part of the pharmacopia.
In 1992 the DEA ( NOT elected officials ) declared all marijuana use illegal, even medical use. Besides, they say, there's a pill.
Marinol, the trade name for Dronabinol, which, chemically looks exactly like one form of THC that is found in marijuana.

> Marijuana contains at least 11 different THC molecules and dozens of "cannaboids", but dronabinol is the "active ingredient" says the government!
If that were true, taking Marinol would feel like smoking marijuana... and it doesn't. It's also interesting that the original contender for the title of "marijuana pill" mimicked a different marijuana molecule altogether.
They said that was "the active ingredient". Then some test-dogs started to become very ill and the pill had to be sh!t-canned!

> Aside from the dubious idea of giving an anti-emeric pill to people who throw-up everything they swallow, Marinol doesn't cut the pill mustard in other ways. It's effects take hours to kick-in, and sometimes don't kick-in at all. When Marinol does hit, however it frequently knocks the patient into an unpleasant stupor, causes hallucinations, paranoid reactions and depression.

> Patient after half-dead patient prefers smoking grass!!!
Marinol is expensive too. Treatment with it costs from 180 - 300 a month.
Marinol is hard to make. Terpene Olivitol has to be shipped from Germany to California, where it is tediously seperated by silica gel column chromography and a tiny amount of the "pure" ( 99% ) product is retrieved.
Then another lab takes the stuff and makes into pills ( gel caps, really ), which it ships off to Ohio for redistribution. All along the way the pills are as closely guarded as plutonium ( closer, a lot of plutonium has gone missing ). Government guards who keep track of each shipment, generate a lot of paperwork wasting who knows how much money and human effort.

> Many modern scientists are gung-ho about "synthetic" preparations, not only because of the money to be made from the patent rights but because they believe that they will be able to meet one of the basic requirements of Drug re-search & medical use - Consistency of the dosage administered.

> the Truth, as ever, is not so simple. It may begin with an understanding of the nature of drugs, an understanding embracing both Pharmacology ( the "scientific" approach ) & some Drug science as yet un-named, a science which is concerned with the Whole Relationship!

> For a brief clue to the nature of this science, consider the Herb Doctor ( or Shaman ) of primitive cultures. To arrive at an expected result ( the desired effect ) he or she may mix together many different items...some organic, some inert which may employ parts of many plants, parts of animals, insects, a variety of earth, stones, metals, salts, acids, & a generous dose of faith inspiring ritual.

> What He or She does NOT do is build an apparatus to isolate the one substance which will produce the one effect he or she wants. Without going overboard in ascribing motivation to our "witch-doctor", let's adopt an inferential position to try to understand the basis of their actions.

> the Shaman knows as does modern science, that when a human organism ingests what can be broadly designated a natural drug, that the organism has set in motion a chain of internal physiological & psychological events that will terminate in one or more hopefully predictable results. The results are, however, a product of a sum of the total interactions. Each of the multiple molecular compounds in the organic compounds will react with each-other, within the complexities of the organic system of the human and with the psychological entities dependent upon that system, and all of the modified external conditions such as setting, by preconditions such as suspectability, and by internal conditions such as anticipation.

> No one would argue that each of these interactions is equally relevant to the process; there are key interactions and by defination key interactants, in any complex series of events.

> The absurdity of the approach which attempts to isolate the active principal in Marijuana lies not so much in attributing a major role to one or more identifiable molecular entities, which is very likely true althou no such case has adequately been made. It lies in believing or pretending that once you have isolated such substances you can then produce experimental or medical results with them that will provide generalizations of the effects of the intricate, complex whole plant & the state in which it is normally used.

> A further step toward absurdity is, of course, that a Synthetic Approximation of the major constituent, which doesn't even possess the saving grace of perhaps having minute amounts of the lesser natural product clinging to it's molecular walls, can be use to produce results which
are equal to the Natural Cannabis plant.

> At this point, If your in need of Marijuana for Medical reasons, your best bet is to just get the natural plant material and smoke it or consume however you want!
eace:
PEACE!


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