Elephant-Donkey

Ariyel won the Face Off.

yngster vs Ariyel

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Losses: 16
Ties: 1
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Face Offs: 7
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Bellevue, NE
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Other States should follow California's example and legalize medical marijuana.

yngster said 03/27, 12:01 PM
Marijauna has many medical uses. It can be used to treat nausea, glaucoma, multiple scerosis and exrtream pain. There are several hundred thousand medical marijuana users acorss the country. Most of them obtain marijuana through unsafe channels. We need to provide those individuals, who benefit from its medicinal value, with safe access.

Ariyel said 03/27, 03:35 PM
Marijuana is an illegal drug, not approved by the FDA. Many of its supposed medical uses have not been proven and those that are offer legal alternatives; there is no reason to fight for medical use of an illegal drug when there are plenty of legal medications available to treat the same symptoms. The argument that we need to provide it to ensure "safe access" is invalid. If we follow that logic, we can now authorize the creation of government drug dealers. Drop down to your local pharmacy and get a prescription for heroine and a clean needle - after all, it is better that they get it safely.

yngster said 03/27, 06:18 PM
Ariyel, since you have equated marijuana with heroin that proves that you know nothing about the subject in debate. Heroin has no medicinal value.
Marijuana has been proven. In fact, marijuana has been proven to treat glaucoma beter than beta-blockers. Beta Blockers are a legal alternative to marijuana. Marijuana can be used to treat the nausea associated with chemotherapy. There is no superior alternative to treat nausea than marijuana. Marijuana can also be used to treat the nausea associated with the flu. At the college I attend it is common to use marijuana as a hang-over remedy. The fact is that marijuana does have significant medicinal value and a medical marijuana proposition should be on the ballot in every state.

"The evidence is overwhelming that marijuana can relieve certain types of pain, nausea, vomiting and other symptoms caused by such illnesses as multiple sclerosis, cancer and AIDS -- or by the harsh drugs sometimes used to treat them. And it can do so with remarkable safety. Indeed, marijuana is less toxic than many of the drugs that physicians prescribe every day."
-joycelyn elders, M.D. (Former Surgeon General)

Ariyel said 03/27, 06:45 PM
If marijuana has been proven to treat any disease, somebody might want to tell the FDA who stated "marijuana has a high potential for abuse, has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States, and has a lack of accepted safety for use under medical supervision" and the Institute of Medicine which stated that marijuana is not recommended for the treatment of any disease condition. There are several treatments for nausea; where is your support that there is "no superior alternative"; a rather bold statement unless you are a doctor. The American Academy of Opthamology stated, "no scientific evidence has been found that demonstrates increased benefits and/or diminished risks of marijuana use to treat glaucoma compared with the wide variety of pharmaceutical agents now available."

Yes, it can relieve symptoms. It's a psychotropic drug; I'm sure it can make you feel pretty good, but that hardly makes it medicinal. It is a carcinogen that has negative effects on the brain, heart and lungs among others.

My comparison of marijuana to heroin was not intended to state they are the same; it was intended to show the fallacy of the "safe access" argument.

yngster said 03/27, 07:40 PM
Ariyel,first of all, The Federal governemnt does not run local hopsitals. My mother is a registered nurse. Her first job as an RN was in the cancer ward of a hospital in Southern Michigan during the mid to late 1980's. She often watched as cancer patients would walk into the bathroom to use marijuana in order to allievate their nausea. This is evidence of how marijuana has been used medicinally for decades. Maybe somebody should tell the Federal Government that marijuana is actually used as a medicine throughout the country without its permission.

Second of all, you didn't use the whole quote. You only used the part that supported you position. The FDA's assertion began by acknowledging the claim that smoked marijuana is beneficial for some conditions.

Third, obviously marijuana doesn't treat cancer. However, it does treat nausea, which results from chemotherapy. That is what the FDA meant. The FDA meant that is doesn't actually treat cancer but that it is benificial to cancer patients because it treats nausea.

Lastly, you stated that smoking marijuana is bad for the body. There are other alternatives to smoking it. It can be consumed in tea or in baked goods.

Ariyel said 03/27, 11:58 PM
You are correct, the Federal government does not run hospitals, but it does regulate testing and approval of medicine. The fact that your mother witnessed marijuana use in the hospital hardly qualifies as evidence of historical medicinal use. As I said before, there are legal alternatives to alleviate nausea and you have not demonstrated "there is no superior alternative" to marijuana for its control.

I don't know what you read from the FDA quote; I did not misquote it or pull it out of context. See my comments below for a link to the full advisory.

While the majority smoke it, the means by which it is delivered is irrelevent. According to the Narcotic Education Foundation: THC, the psychoactive chemical in marijuana, restricts blood flow to the brain and damages the hippocampus impairing memory and learning. THC also damages nerve and lung cells by damaging cell membranes and suppresses immune response. Hardly useful for medicinal purposes.

The market is full of legal medications designed to relieve symptoms and cure diseases of all types. There is nothing that marijuana adds to the table except and a severe case of the munchies - which can be cured with a box of cookies.

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You're still going to need a prescription,Yngster. Do you know a Dr. who will slip you one? We could lobby for total legalization but then the markets would flood and the price would drop to 10 cents a pound. That would be bad for business but good for the tax revenue. Good luck with this debate.

Ron | 03/27/08

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Ron, there is a company call Medicann Inc. that writes medical marijuana percriptions. Medicann has offices in several western states. California, Oregon and possibly a few in Nevada I think.

yngster | 03/27/08

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Ariyel, you didn't quote the FDA directly; you put that quote into your own words.

yngster | 03/27/08

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Marijuana is like abortion, obviously not literally or by what it does but rather the justification of it's use and it's actual use are drastically different. abortion for victims of **** and incest, ok, understandable, yet the overwhelming majority of abortions are because the girl just doesn't want the baby. you tell me it's a super-medicine, and yet the vast majority of it's use is fall from medicinal. sorry, no dice.

MorgMcA | 03/27/08

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My quote was directly from the FDA. Full paragraph and hyperlink below: "Marijuana is listed in schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), the most restrictive schedule. The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), which administers the CSA, continues to support that placement and FDA concurred because marijuana met the three criteria for placement in Schedule I under 21 U.S.C. 812(b)(1) (e.g., marijuana has a high potential for abuse, has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States, and has a lack of accepted safety for use under medical supervision). Furthermore, there is currently sound evidence that smoked marijuana is harmful. A past evaluation by several Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and National Institute for Drug Abuse (NIDA), concluded that no sound scientific studies supported medical use of marijuana for treatment in the United States, and no animal or human data supported the safety or efficacy of marijuana for general medical use. There are alternative FDA-approved medications in existence for treatment of many of the proposed uses of smoked marijuana." http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/NEWS/2006/NEW01362.html

Ariyel | 03/28/08

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Ugh, I hate the medicinal argument. I'm totally for *decriminalizing* non-violent crimes, specifically drug related. Look, you can trust someone to own a gun, you allow them to drink alcohol, they're allowed to participate in voting -- who is the government to tell individual citizens that they are not allowed to smoke pot? That's where the pot argument begins and ends with me. You're concerned about drugs ruining peoples lives? Support a health care system that treats drug addiction for what it is -- a medical issue. But to argue that pot should be legal because it's got "medicinal value"? Who cares? People self-medicate for lots of reasons. Though I'm going to cast my lot in with Ariyel just out of principle. I can't support a bad argument.

Open Up | 03/28/08

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Open Up, I assume by "decriminalizing*, you mean no prison sentence; am I correct? I agree that sending someone to jail for smoking pot is a bit extreme with prison overcrowding, incarceration expenses, etc. I do support incarceration for drug dealers. To use "medicinal value" as an excuse to legalize marijuana, especially as it is currently defined, is a stretch. I have heard of cops who put full magazines into a perp high on PCP before he dropped; sounds like a pain reliever to me. Does that make it medicinal? Older medicine used to include getting the "patient" completely drunk before removing a bullet. Some are reporting that alcohol actually cleanses the circulatory system as well. Does that make Vodka a valid medicine for heart disease?

Ariyel | 03/28/08

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