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Cannabis Is Good For You

escargot

Disciple of Marduk
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Aug 24, 2001
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When I worked with MS sufferers I was often asked to provide them with cannabis which they believed would alleviate their symptoms. I refused solely because I'd have been in the most appalling trouble if I'd been caught. Furtive questioning around the rest of the team established that it was only I who was asked this: apparently I was seen as some kind of hippy who naturally scored dope daily. May I add that I don't even smoke!
Some MS patients did have access to cannabis and they were happy people.
 
Cheer up escargot! :D

It isn't you.

It sounds like that typical nursing scenario: "Problems? What problems? We don't have any problems, let alone that problem. It must be you".
 
Haha, ta David!
I was very sorry not to be able to help those poor folks, I do believe cannabis was good for'em as those who did use it seemed to suffer less.
 
In the area that I work in, the local teenagers are absolutely convinced that smoking cannabis "clears your chest"
This belief that it is actually healthy, is vague, but firmly held. What I mean is, they cannot explain how or why it clears the chest, but they are totally convinced that it does.
I don't think it qualifies as an actual urban legend but it has come from somewhere and I wonder if anyone knows where it came from and how widespread it is.
 
Well I've heard many a tobacco-smoker claim that colds and flu were
kept at bay by the tar! :rolleyes:
 
i sopose it does clear the chest in that it make u cough... a farmer friend swears by Colts foot rolled up and smoked as a certin cure for Ashma etc.
 
An ex-boss of mine swears that when he was 16 his doctor recommended taking up smoking to help with his asthma.
 
I know cigarettes have a sedative effect: they don't clear up your throat/lungs/chest, they just make it so that you can't feel the congestion/constriction etc.

Marijuana does not have this effect (hence, marijuana makes you cough, and if you take a drag of a cigarette after you inhale it makes the coughing die down, or mix in tobacco), but the effect could be similar in that it messes around with your perception or what have you to cause a similar effect.

Smoking marijuana is pretty bad for you, almost as bad as ciggies.

Now, marijuana tea/brownies... Well, in a way, it would be good for you due to the above mentioned effects.
 
I am quite clear in separating the ingestion/inhalation routes of chemicals into the body, the ingestion being the slower (and hence less popular) route and the inhalation being faster but more hazardous. One point that the teens I work with have trouble handling is that of a therapeutic extract of cannabis being clinically developed for use with pain relief/MS etc which does not have a "trip" connected with it.
 
drjbrennan said:
In the area that I work in, the local teenagers are absolutely convinced that smoking cannabis "clears your chest"

That was a common belief when I was in high school in the US midwest in the late 70s. Smoking good quality pot (as opposed to nasty green homegrown) or hash was supposed to clear chest congestion caused by (among other things) cigarette smoking.
 
drjbrennan said:
In the area that I work in, the local teenagers are absolutely convinced that smoking cannabis "clears your chest"

According to Peter Tosh's 'Legalize It', it's good for flu, asthma, tuberculosis, and umara composis.

If anyone has the faintest idea what 'umara composis' is, I'd love to know.
 
Re: Re: Cannabis is good for you.

Beany said:
If anyone has the faintest idea what 'umara composis' is, I'd love to know.

from the latin Umara (to speek) and Composis (to be 30 seconds behind everyone else)
 
I don't know, when I smoke good quality pot I'm about an eternity behind/away/up/a step to the left of everything else.
 
It's not good for you.
I love it and used to defend its harmless qualities at every opportunity but have changed my mind.
I recently lost a very dear relative to a heart attack, The cause is believed to be cardiac arrythmia aggravated by his constant dope smoking. His brother had an incident of arrythmia and was warned off dope by his doctor.
Enjoy but be careful!
 
If you buy dope

you are helping the "evil doer's"!! drink beer instead!! and listen to country music!!
 
I've mentioned this before but here goes again-

When I had a home-visiting job I was often asked by MS patients to score cannabis for them. (Dunno why, as I don't do drugs or even smoke. They seemed to think I was some sort of hippy.) They hoped to bake it in cakes.

Dope is supposed to be good for MS patients as it counters the side-effects of their medication.

I didn't get it for anyone- I'd get a criminal record & it wasn't worth it! Many had kids of their own who were old enough to score it for them and were probably using it anyway.

Plenty of people believe it's good for them in that way and I have heard of people who grow it as medicine for relations being given conditional discharges by the courts.

If I had MS I'd give it a go, but I wouldn't smoke it.
 
I've got a skanky chest at the moment, and I find that having a fag does help clear it. Not too many mind, as this makes it worse, but morning, noon and night, and it doesn't half shift that green mucus.

I discovered this a couple of years back, as I used to stop smoking completely when I got a bad chest, but discovered it only made it worse because of the nicotine withdrawal cough.

A fag a day helps you work rest and play! :p
 
Re: If you buy dope

ruffready said:
you are helping the "evil doer's"!! drink beer instead!! and listen to country music!!
Erm, in what way are they "evil doers"? Would you count anyone who grows it as evil?

How would a patriot such as yourself rate George Washington and Thomas Jefferson?
United States Presidents George Washington and Thomas Jefferson grew hemp, used products made from hemp, and praised the hemp plant in some of their writings. Under the laws written by today's politicians, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson would be considered a threat to society--they would be arrested and thrown in prison for the felony crime of growing plants.

And, from here, further presidents who enjoyed a toke..:
Did the Founding Fathers of the United States of America smoke cannabis? Some researchers think so. Dr. Burke, president of the American Historical Reference Society and a consultant for the Smithsonian Institute, counted seven early presidents as cannabis smokers: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, Andrew Jackson, Zachary Taylor and Franklin Pierce. 41 "Early letters from our founding fathers refer to the pleasures of hemp smoking," said Burke. Pierce, Taylor and Jackson, all military men, smoked it with their troops. Cannabis was twice as popular among American soldiers in the Mexican War as in Vietnam: Pierce wrote to his family that it was "about the only good thing" about that war.
 
Methinks it's just barely possible ruff was being slightly tongue-in-cheek.

Though FYI, in the last year+ a lot of the public service announcements put out out by the geniuses from The War On Drugs/Partnership for a Drug Free America have been trying to convince that buying a $25 bag of reefer is really helping to fund the Terrorist Threat. The reasoning is so tortured I can't begin to reconstruct it. -lopaka, the teetotaller. :)
 
I have several friends who are either quadreplegic or paraplegic, all of whom smoke pot as it helps to stop muscle spasms. Many have told me that smoking pot is the best drug they have found to deal with these spasms, and has less side affects than other drugs prescribed to them to deal with this problem.

Unlike the MS patients mentioned earlier, the guys I know generally try to sell it to you rather than get you to buy it for them.

As for clearing the chest, I'll let you know after I hack up this flem.
 
Once again, cigarettes (or pot) do not clear the air ways.

Rather, either a chemical in the tobacco or a common additive (forget which), works as an anaesthetic.

You won't feel congestion, your chest won't feel tight, but it will be just as tight/more so.

Ever wonder why when you wake up, your throat/chest feel especially congested, yet when you have a ciggie or two it begins to feel better? The phenomenon is based on the fact that while asleep the anaesthetic property disappeared (no cigarettes), and smoking a butt reinstates this affect.

Using smoke to cure a congested chest is foolish. It's like bashing your head with a hammer to cure a head ache.

Sure you'll lose consciousness and not be bothered by the pain for a while. But afterwords, it'll be there worse then before. So you bash yourself again, and again, you feel no pain (nor anything else), but if you stop the course of hammer head bashing, your head ache will be far worse then before.

I'm not against smoking (of anything, it's a personal choice), but your subjective experience that it helps with chest congestion does not match with the objective reality that it was just the anaesthetic properties of a chemical altering your perception of it, rather then an actual quantitative change in your airways (except for the worse).

It's just like smoking pot doesn't make bad art better. Rather, your perception of the art is altered. The art itself is still the same as before.
 
Hear hear, Ath.

The same effect was seen in the 19thC with opium. Opiates suppress coughing and so seemed to help in TB cases although of course only antibiotics can cure TB.

So TB patients would feel better and might even be up to some socialising- a VERY good way of spreading the disease further. :rolleyes:

Smoking in any form is bad for health.
And yup, that's easy for me to say as a non-smoker, but then I do have to nurse patients with the most pitiful health problems- heart attacks, strokes, cancer, lung complaints- all caused or excacerbated by smoking.

Last year I was looking after a lovely man, a sporty, young-looking 60 year-old, who all the staff knew - but not he- that he was about to have both his feet amputated as a result of a combination of smoking and diabetes. That came close to shaking my professional detachment. :(
 
Without trying to get too morbid, it's all a bit of a moot point ultimately, isn't it? As Bill Hicks pointed out "Sorry... non-smokers die every day".
Indeed, at the age of 33, having quit smoking and drinking, Hicks himself dropped dead of a non lifestyle-related cancer.

So, I think my point might be - Smoking (or chosing not to smoke) anything will not ultimately affect your chances of dying one iota. However, many people I have known have found some form of relaxation, comfort or happiness in smoking cannabis, and I myself find at least some distraction in smoking cigarettes. Therefore, if something makes you feel better in the short term and doesn't actually increase your chances of dying in the long term, surely we can call it 'good for you'.

That isn't to say that I don't worry about the effects of my smoking on the health of others...

http://www.forteantimes.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=10248
 
Therefore, if something makes you feel better in the short term and doesn't actually increase your chances of dying in the long term, surely we can call it 'good for you'.
I agree, but smoking DOES increase your chances of dying sooner rather than later, and of a nasty lingering illness too.
 
Doesn't smoking cannabis in hte herb form rather than resin make a difference to the chemicals inhaled?
 
escargot said:
I agree, but smoking DOES increase your chances of dying sooner rather than later, and of a nasty lingering illness too.
And as an expert witness, Escargot could fill you in in the side effects, and symptoms, that can really put a crimp in your quality of life.
 
Andro, do I detect a note of irony?

I couldn't give a stuff if peeps want to smoke themselves to death- they know the risks.
I have nursed stroke patients who are so addicted that, even lying half-paralysed on a hospital trolley after a brain scan to determine the extent of their brain damage, they still plead to be taken out for a fag.

Two of my four children smoke and it grieves me but it's their decision. Presumably it's more important to look cool in front of their deadbeat mates than to take care of their own health. :rolleyes:

Cannabis may be good for people and I've met plenty who believe it is, but smoking isn't the only way to use it. You can make tea with it and bake it in cakes for example. I was asked many times by MS sufferers to score it for them but refused because it was illegal and I wasn't prepared to risk a criminal record.


Anyone who REALLY wants to 'put a crimp' in their quality of life should get down to the tobacconists' now. The crimp might take a while but it'll come.;)

edit- And yup, pancreatic cancer, which killed Bill Hicks, is indeed lifestyle-related, if the lifestyle includes smoking.


Pancreatic Cancer: Causes and Risk Factors
 
101 said:
Without trying to get too morbid, it's all a bit of a moot point ultimately, isn't it? As Bill Hicks pointed out "Sorry... non-smokers die every day".
Indeed, at the age of 33, having quit smoking and drinking, Hicks himself dropped dead of a non lifestyle-related cancer.
Not quite true. Pancreatic cancer can crop up in people who have led blameless lives, but it more usually develops in people who have a history of heavy-duty substance abuse; and Hicks was drinking, smoking and doing drugs like a maniac for a long period during the 80s. When he cleaned up, it was already too late.
 
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