Too bad it didn't make it. Luckily, southern california has a climate that makes growing some yourself not that difficult. (OK, if you live in the midle of LA or frisco you may also need to find some soil)

Well there is partly a problem with this. Because cali's law is so lax many states are rejecting medical cannabis laws because they are afraid of having a situation like the one in cali develop. This is a real shame for really sick people in states where these laws are failing.

This is why its so important to separate medical cannabis use from recreational cannabis use. The rights of patients who have really serious diseases need to be recognized. The right of individuals to use cannabis for whatever reason need to be recognized from a different angle.

Lumping medical in with recreational is risky. Its not only risky for legal reasons because it creates an obvious loophole but for quality control purposes. Really sick people deserve proper medicine proper medicine needs some kind of quality control of which there is so far none in the medical cannabis world (in the US). They also deserve more clinical work to further legitimize this research.

I am so sick of people making up BS when it comes to medical cannabis which they do all the time. How many dispensary owners will tell patients "oh this strain is good for sleeping" or "oh this strain helps with muscle pain" or "marijuana can heal X condition" when they have absolutely no proof for these claims. They don't prove anything about their strains. They don't know the THC content and when they claim to have it analyzed they have it analyzed by a crappy lab who doesn't really know what they are doing. They have no quality control on the growers who could spray away with pesticides. This is no big deal if you have "head aches" but if you have multiple sclerosis or cancer I don't think its funny and I find it highly medically unethical. Of course having access to some kind of medical cannabis is better then nothing but to really start benefiting people we need more clinical work and we need less "medical gurus" and more doctors.

Which is the reason I get so mad when I hear people saying "oh well we have medical cannabis so who cares". That's really short sited. I'm not saying you are saying that but I am saying thats what I've heard a lot of people say especially people involved in the growing of so called "medical" cannabis. In other words people who like the status quo there because it makes them tons of $$.

Why would a medical dispensary give straight bud anyway when most medicines are given in a pill form containing the necassary compounds? The whole format as well as being sloppy is just crying out to be abused.

Can i conclude from the fact that so many people want cannabis to become legal, that the real thing is still superiour to the JWH's and other replacements?

I also have never heard of medical use of JWH's, so apparently cannabis has advantages over these synthetic's.

There are synthetic canabinoids that are approved medicines. One is called Nabilone its an analogue of THC.

Also rimanobant was approved in the EU for a while for the treatment of obesity until its side effects caused it to be discontinued. It was a CB1 antagonist and apparently made some people suicidal.

Many synthetic cannabinoids are used in pre clinical research. Eventually some may make it to the market.

But yes there are advantages to the plant. The major one beings its cheaper. It also contains other compounds that might be medically active or synergistic. Also smoking or preferably vaporizing is the best way to administered cannabinoids taking them orally causes problems with erratic absorption and first pass metabolism.



There are regulatory frameworks in place for approving a botanical substance as a medicine. But its difficult and requires clinical work which is expensive and if you can't patent the drug most companies won't bother. Its a complicated situation.

how about this angle:

Our health is our inalienable right. cannabis seed and oil (aka hemp oil) contains essential fatty acids in the proper ratios for optimum human health in a vegetarian package. EFA's are necessary for proper brain function, and must be consumed because the body cant make them. all humans can benefit from cannabis seeds/ oil in their diet.
FOOD IS MEDICINE, and we all have the right to grow our own food.

^^There is a difference between eating something thats health and recommending a food thats healthy versus making a direct medical claim. False advertising in medicine kills. Thats all I am saying.

Look I think marijuana should be 100% legal I just don't think people selling it should make medical claims without proof. Its the same with every other substance.

sorry, i just sorta jumped in there.

i'm in agreement with you.

i am just throwing out an idea for a route to legalization.--because prop 19 didn't pass.

Yea all good I am just kinda on a rant about medical ethics trying to bury my bitterness that it didn't pass

Your totally right though cannabis seed is healthy food. Crazy crazy sick inhumane laws

In holland we had medical cannabis for a while, but most people who used it for medical reasons didn't like it and eventualy just went back to the coffeeshops. The stuff was treated in some way, that made it less harsh for the lungs. So while one aspect of the quality was great for a specific group of patients, it was free from insecticides etc, it was free from fungi and other stuff and it was sterilised or something, the content of cannabinoids was much lower than the stuff that's sold for recreational purposes.

I think you can make some claims based on exeperience of many users. Some strains are more sedating than others and others are more psychedelic and experienced as such by many users.
Those aren't hard medical claims, but you can say the same thing of other stuff that's being sold by health-stores, like ginseng, gingko, fish-oil, etc.
When you just use cannabis for relatively mild problems like insomnia or migraine, than i don't see a problem with experimenting a little and see what strains work for you and using other peoples experiences as a guideline.
When you have a real serious medical problem (like livercancer for instance)that can cause you to be realy sensitive for even very tiny amounts of some substances, than it's a different thing.

It would be preferable if you had just the isolated or synthesized compounds then, or plants that are grown and harvested under strictly standardized conditions.

btw, Insecticides shouldn't be in ANY cannabis, whether for medical or recreational purposes, anyway. One reason why i would be wary of very commercial cannabis growers as long as the stuff has an illegal or semi-legal status and isn't tested by FDA-type of organisations.

I would also want to warn people about this, who think that amsterdam is a cannabis paradise and want to visit it for this reason. Cannabis is big busines in amsterdam and i wouldn't be surprised if they'd even impregnated cannabis with JWH's to boost it and make more bucks.

Home-grown stuff is realy the best you can get, most of the times. And you can use all of the plant: the leaves can be used to cook with or for extractions. A handfull of leaves is sufficient for a good cup of cannabis tea.

Lots of good points polytrip.

I agree for mild conditions who really cares patients will figure out what works for themselves. Even sometimes with serious conditions patients have some leeway assuming they have money and time to try different types and see what works. The riskiest situation is those with AIDs as they are very sensitive to infection and contaminated cannabis could seriously harm them. Its unlikely but such a risk is unacceptable I think in a medical setting.

Pesticides are definitely got a good thing especially if the grower is using hardcore ones over spraying and just generally not caring what they put into their material.



One of their varieties has up to 20% THC. Thats about as high as the strongest coffeeshop material. It states so on the website of OMC the stuff is heavily quality controlled. But yes your right most patients tend to go for the coffeeshop stuff regardless. One study was done demonstrating that cannabis in coffeeshops has bacteria and fungi to justify prescription stuff but what average person reads that? But anyway I could go on about the Dutch medical situation but I'll stop.



Nothing like homegrown

I can tell you without reservation that the bulk of what's sold in California medical dispensaries is as high quality a product as likely exists anywhere. This isn't by any means a quality issue (at least in California); it's an issue of personal rights - and the two most vocal anti prop 19 groups throughout this election run up have been dispensary owners and growers - the two cottage industries which stand to lose the most from legalization.

maybe they think so, but do you really think they would lose business?

most people wouldn't grow it even if it was legal. they would prefer to buy it, and seems logical to buy it from a trusted dispensary with known quality. and if it were legal, think how many new customers would come walking thru the door!

if dispensary owners were anti legalization, then patients should boycott those shops. i understand trying to protect your lively hood, but thats %##*@!ing ridiculous.

another time, another place

Of course they would lose business. It's simple economics.

With statewide legalization, there is no really no need for medical dispensaries, except for what Burnt is describing - development and distribution of more precise medicines. Under the new system, everything would be taxed and regulated, and the small community of northern California pot farmers would suddenly face an enormous influx of new government subsidized competition. Prices would be cut down to 5 or 10% of what they are now, and quality control would likely be ramped up to a level previously unseen.

Imagine you're a lazy, shiftless, unemployable weed afficiando. You go through the proper channels (or not, as the case may be...), rent out a store front, hang up a sign and suddenly enjoy a $200K annual income. Which way do you imagine you would then be voting on a bill for legalization? I'm guessing you'd go with whatever it was that ensured the status quo.

well, it seems SWIM knows why we missed this opportunity... (adding in humor, not flaming)
How close we missed it

I read an article (damn, not sure where) which stated that many Prop 19 supporters just weren't motivated to vote

American industries often vote to prevent competition. Hypocrites. Now the weed growers are no different then the oil industry... Joke but you see the point...

10 lessons to learn from Proposition 19: http://www.cannabiscultu...rijuana-Election-Defeats

Aka, why it is a good thing that it failed.

We were pissing too many people off who are in support of cannabis, whom would have been financially crippled by it passing.