ADDICTION OR SELF MEDICATION?

"Unless we put medical freedom into the Constitution, the time will come
when medicine will organize an undercover dictatorship. To restrict the art
of healing to one class of men, and deny equal privilege to others, will be
to constitute the Bastille of medical science. All such laws are un-American
and despotic, and have no place in a Republic. The Constitution of this
Republic should make special privilege for medical freedom as well as
religious freedom." abridged quote --Benjamin Rush, M.D., a signer of the
Declaration of Independence

Let me start this little essay on the uses of marijuana with an idea. A very
simple idea. An idea that strikes at the very heart of the drug war and it's
moralistic foundation. The very idea that those who use unapproved drugs are
the lawful subjects of religiously motivated government persecution.

What we call addiction is in fact self treatment of undiagnosed pain.

This is a truly revolutionary idea. If it is in fact true then the whole
notion of a drug war to save the children is a lie from beginning to end.
Those of you who have read my article on heroin have a window into this new
idea. What I tried to show in that article was that medical research shows
that victims of sexual abuse and severe physical abuse (PTSD) are many times
more likely to get addicted to heroin than the general public.

Let us next look at the case for marijuana.

Natural molecules similar to an active ingredient in marijuana play a part
in helping the brain clear fearful memories and keep them from being
permanently debilitating. The British journal Nature has reported this
discovery by scientists at the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Munich,
Germany. The scientists of the Institute say that this has implications for
the treatment of post traumatic stress disorder and other fear based
conditions.

It turns out that anxiety disorders are the most common mental health
problem in the United States. They are worth $46 billion a year to the
pharmaceutical industry. You don't suppose this fact has any thing to do
with the pharmaceutical industries being in the forefront of the Drug Free
America campaign do you? Of course not. They are just trying to keep you
from being addicted to natural products at the cost of 1/10th of a cent per
dose when they are more than willing to sell you an FDA and doctor approved,
pharmacy sold product that will do the job for a dollar a dose. They have
only your best interests at heart. Just ask their accountants.

All humans show fear reactions to dangerous situations. However, in the case
of one out of ten people (surprisingly the same percentage of people who are
susceptible to substance addiction) the fear does not die down in the
absence of the dangerous situation. The fear stays at debilitating levels
even in the absence of danger. These people have a definite if ordinarily
invisible problem. You cannot find this problem with x-rays. It is possible
that this problem could be found with a many thousand dollar PET scan. Or
you could take a few puffs of a joint and see if that helps. If the joint
was legal. Which it is not.

Pankaj Sah of Australian National University believes that chronic marijuana
users are self medicating for anxiety problems. He goes on further to say
that we self medicate for head aches with aspirin and this causes no social
problems. He speculates that people experiencing emotional problems are
taking cannabis for relief. Of course since this medicine is not doctor
approved it is against the law. Especially it is against Federal Law as a
number of states have made medical use of marijuana legal. The Feds in
California know how to stop this though. They put the sick, the dying and
the pain wracked in jail to show their compassion. You don't suppose it has
anything to do with maintaining at all costs the State and Federal $50
billion dollar drug war do you? Not a chance. They are the government and
they have only your best interests at heart. Trust them.

You can read a good review of the report here:

http://216.167.102.130/UPI7-31-02.htm .

Let me leave you with a final quote from a Supreme Court Judge:

"Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when
the government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally
alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest
dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal,
well-meaning but without understanding." Justice Brandeis

That quote and an impassioned speech for the right of self medication can be
found here:

http://gos.sbc.edu/l/lord.html .

(c) M. Simon - All rights reserved.

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