Robert Celt
New Member
I appreciate Dr. John Massey bringing awareness to the American opiate overdose epidemic (Midlands Voices, March 29). Tens of thousands of Americans die of overdoses each year.
We should consider cannabis a drug with medical efficacy that no individual has ever experienced an overdose death from.
In 2014, Johns Hopkins University completed a study showing that prescription drug overdose deaths decreased by 24.9 percent in states with medical cannabis programs. Another study completed at the University of Pennsylvania showed that states with medical cannabis programs for at least five years have experienced a 33.7 percent decrease in prescription overdose deaths.
Dr. Massey is mistaken on medical cannabis, and I recommend that he look further into cannabis as a method of treatment. He does not have to recommend medical cannabis to his patients. However, other doctors want that ability. Massey's claim that there is no evidence to substantiate the health claims of medical cannabis proponents is incorrect.
I have met with individuals who told me their oncologists at MD Anderson in Houston, or at Duke University, recommend cannabis to them to help in their cancer treatment.
It helps these individuals just like it helped my father-in-law, who used cannabis at his doctor's advice to treat his pancreatic cancer. Studies at St. George's University in London have shown cannabis' efficacy in treating cancer and that cannabis can shrink tumors.
Consider Hudson McCarty. Hudson is a 4-year-old from La Vista who suffers from Sturge Weber and experiences 200 to 300 seizures a day. Yes, you read that right: 200 to 300.
Hudson tried every pharmaceutical drug he could. As a side effect of these drugs he lost his peripheral vision and developed glaucoma (a disease medical cannabis is known to cure). Hudson's parents, at the advice of doctors, elected to have Hudson undergo brain surgery in the forms of a left front lobectomy and corpus callosotomy. The surgeries were unsuccessful, and Hudson continues to have hundreds of seizures daily and still suffers from glaucoma.
Studies completed by neurologists and pathologists at the University of Colorado School of Medicine had children with treatment-resistant epilepsy try cannabis oil. The results: Every child experienced a reduction in seizures, 82 percent saw their seizures reduced by over half and 45 percent now enjoy complete seizure freedom.
This is not surprising. From 1810 to 1937, cannabis extractums were commonly used to treat epilepsy, glaucoma, nausea, tumors, infection, anorexia, rheumatism, menstrual cramps and migraines. In fact cannabis extractums were the second and third most-used medicines during the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. The ancient Egyptians and Greeks used cannabis to treat Crohn's disease. It comes as no surprise that studies completed by gastroenterologists at Tel Aviv University show that 45 percent of Crohn's patients who used cannabis experienced their Crohn's going into remission, while 90 percent experienced significant relief from symptoms.
Even though cannabis has shown these kinds of results in treating various ailments, there are many who continue to harp on the fact that cannabis is a Schedule 1 drug that has not been FDA approved.
Many of the Nebraskans seeking safe access to medical cannabis oil are already being prescribed non-FDA-approved medications. Hudson McCarty's doctors currently prescribe him phenobarbital, which has never been FDA approved. Another drug Hudson takes, Vimpat, has never been tested on humans under the age of 17.
Hudson also takes Onfi and Valproic Acid; both are FDA-approved medications but neither has been approved or tested to treat Sturge-Weber or glaucoma.
Cannabis' scheduling has nothing to do with its medical value. Cannabis was originally made a Schedule 1 drug at the United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs in 1961. The U.N. is not a medical organization, and our then-U.N. ambassador, Adlai Stevenson, negotiated horribly. Cannabis' scheduling under this U.N. convention was later codified by President Richard Nixon in the Controlled Substance Act.
Should that be enough to criminalize Hudson's parents if they wanted to try cannabis oil when everything else has failed?
Thomas Jefferson once said, "If people let the government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as the souls who live under tyranny."
I intend to end the tyranny over Hudson McCarty and pass Legislative Bill 643. Once it has passed, some doctors will recommend cannabis to their patients; others won't, but it will be the doctor's decision.
News Moderator: Robert Celt 420 MAGAZINE ®
Full Article: NE: Medical Cannabis Bill Would Ease Suffering
Author: Tommy Garrett
Photo Credit: None found
Website: Omaha.com
We should consider cannabis a drug with medical efficacy that no individual has ever experienced an overdose death from.
In 2014, Johns Hopkins University completed a study showing that prescription drug overdose deaths decreased by 24.9 percent in states with medical cannabis programs. Another study completed at the University of Pennsylvania showed that states with medical cannabis programs for at least five years have experienced a 33.7 percent decrease in prescription overdose deaths.
Dr. Massey is mistaken on medical cannabis, and I recommend that he look further into cannabis as a method of treatment. He does not have to recommend medical cannabis to his patients. However, other doctors want that ability. Massey's claim that there is no evidence to substantiate the health claims of medical cannabis proponents is incorrect.
I have met with individuals who told me their oncologists at MD Anderson in Houston, or at Duke University, recommend cannabis to them to help in their cancer treatment.
It helps these individuals just like it helped my father-in-law, who used cannabis at his doctor's advice to treat his pancreatic cancer. Studies at St. George's University in London have shown cannabis' efficacy in treating cancer and that cannabis can shrink tumors.
Consider Hudson McCarty. Hudson is a 4-year-old from La Vista who suffers from Sturge Weber and experiences 200 to 300 seizures a day. Yes, you read that right: 200 to 300.
Hudson tried every pharmaceutical drug he could. As a side effect of these drugs he lost his peripheral vision and developed glaucoma (a disease medical cannabis is known to cure). Hudson's parents, at the advice of doctors, elected to have Hudson undergo brain surgery in the forms of a left front lobectomy and corpus callosotomy. The surgeries were unsuccessful, and Hudson continues to have hundreds of seizures daily and still suffers from glaucoma.
Studies completed by neurologists and pathologists at the University of Colorado School of Medicine had children with treatment-resistant epilepsy try cannabis oil. The results: Every child experienced a reduction in seizures, 82 percent saw their seizures reduced by over half and 45 percent now enjoy complete seizure freedom.
This is not surprising. From 1810 to 1937, cannabis extractums were commonly used to treat epilepsy, glaucoma, nausea, tumors, infection, anorexia, rheumatism, menstrual cramps and migraines. In fact cannabis extractums were the second and third most-used medicines during the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. The ancient Egyptians and Greeks used cannabis to treat Crohn's disease. It comes as no surprise that studies completed by gastroenterologists at Tel Aviv University show that 45 percent of Crohn's patients who used cannabis experienced their Crohn's going into remission, while 90 percent experienced significant relief from symptoms.
Even though cannabis has shown these kinds of results in treating various ailments, there are many who continue to harp on the fact that cannabis is a Schedule 1 drug that has not been FDA approved.
Many of the Nebraskans seeking safe access to medical cannabis oil are already being prescribed non-FDA-approved medications. Hudson McCarty's doctors currently prescribe him phenobarbital, which has never been FDA approved. Another drug Hudson takes, Vimpat, has never been tested on humans under the age of 17.
Hudson also takes Onfi and Valproic Acid; both are FDA-approved medications but neither has been approved or tested to treat Sturge-Weber or glaucoma.
Cannabis' scheduling has nothing to do with its medical value. Cannabis was originally made a Schedule 1 drug at the United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs in 1961. The U.N. is not a medical organization, and our then-U.N. ambassador, Adlai Stevenson, negotiated horribly. Cannabis' scheduling under this U.N. convention was later codified by President Richard Nixon in the Controlled Substance Act.
Should that be enough to criminalize Hudson's parents if they wanted to try cannabis oil when everything else has failed?
Thomas Jefferson once said, "If people let the government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as the souls who live under tyranny."
I intend to end the tyranny over Hudson McCarty and pass Legislative Bill 643. Once it has passed, some doctors will recommend cannabis to their patients; others won't, but it will be the doctor's decision.
News Moderator: Robert Celt 420 MAGAZINE ®
Full Article: NE: Medical Cannabis Bill Would Ease Suffering
Author: Tommy Garrett
Photo Credit: None found
Website: Omaha.com