Medical Cannabis in Texas. - Greg Abbott's Townhall 254

This topic contains 13 replies, has 9 voices, and was last updated by Robert Delrosso 8 years, 11 months ago.

Medical Cannabis in Texas.

Started by Tim Currie

I am epileptic and with the legal use of medical cannabis spreading across the country I know that there is hope for me. I’m sharing my story so that there is even more proof out there of what cannabis can do.

I don’t smoke cannabis right now but when I was smoking it for 5 years I had no seizures at all, but then I stopped smoking. My main reasons for stopping were my fear of arrest, my fear of losing my job because of a failed drug test and also for a woman I was dating that didn’t know how much it had been helping me. I have been on expensive anti-seizure meds since I gave it up and I still have had 3 grand mal seizures and more than 20 partial seizures in the 5 years since I stopped smoking cannabis.
I was in a bad car accident in 1998 at age 22. I had brain trauma and was in the hospital for 6 weeks. The doctors told me that I might start having seizures in the future and at 24 I started having partial seizures. They were minor but they scared me. I have never been closer to suicide than I was during one of these seizures.
In 2003, I moved to San Marcos, TX to go to college at Texas State University and started smoking cannabis with roommates regularly. I usually smoked less than 1-2 small bowls(in a pipe) of the cheap, weak type of cannabis(schwag) per day. I didn’t have any seizures while I was in college at TSU and for several years after graduation in 2006.
In the spring of 2008 I started dating a woman that didn’t want me to use cannabis. I went from smoking that small amount to an even smaller amount of 1 bowl every 2 days or so. I had a grand mal seizure at work. I woke up in the hospital with a black eye from hitting the floor. I went to a neurologist and he sent me to get an MRI on my brain. I had scar tissue in my brain from the car accident that was causing the seizures. I was put on Trileptal, an expensive anti-seizure drug. The side effects of this drug didn’t seem to bother me at first. I knew that cannabis had been helping me but there were too many risks so I didn’t use it very much and would soon quit smoking it all together. I eventually broke up with that girl and in 2009 I met my wife to be. She didn’t like cannabis either and was even more against me smoking it than the other woman was. I loved her so I eventually gave up cannabis before we got married in late 2009.
My dosage of Trileptal has been increased over time. The side effects that didn’t bother me at first now cause problems. I have also been put on another anti-seizure drug, Dilantin. These two medications cost more than $600 per month. I hate life sometimes when the side effects are really harsh. There is a good chance that these dosages will keep being increased over time, meaning this cost will increase. Every time my meds are increased or another one is added more side effects always follow. My wife has changed her views on cannabis and is in favor of me using it but there are laws that make no sense still keeping me from what I need.
Cannabis is a simple plant that is grown out of the earth and with no refining or additions needed it has already proven to help me so much. I can grow it myself and spend a lot less than the $600 per month that the meds cost. Medical grade cannabis is much more potent than the cheap, weak stuff that I used to smoke. Medical cannabis will help me in a better way than what has already worked so well.
In the hard times we are living through doesn’t it make sense to let all Americans choose from the options? I can either continue to destroy my body that has been damaged by years of using these meds with their side effects or I can choose to let nature help me. I can continue to spend $600 per month on these meds or I can spend that money supporting my family and helping the economy grow. This madness has to stop and medical cannabis needs to be allowed to help the people that need it.
TC 9/2013

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Replies

Mike Goldman, 11 years ago

Two states, Washington and Colorado, have recently legalized recreational marijuana; several others have legalized medical marijuana. However, in medical marijuana states, there have been reports of abuse: for example, the Los Angeles Times linked medical marijuana laws to higher overall marijuana usage rates for children aged 12-17. See: http://articles.latimes.com/2011/sep/01/news/la-heb-medical-marijuana-20110901

Do you believe that such abuses affect the advisability of medical marijuana laws?

Even the Obama Administration agrees that marijuana use is harmful and should be discouraged. The White House website notes that:
* Marijuana use is associated with dependence, respiratory and mental illness, poor motor performance, and impaired cognitive and immune system functioning, among other negative effects.
* Marijuana intoxication can cause distorted perceptions, difficulty in thinking and problem solving, and problems with learning and memory.
* Studies have shown an association between chronic marijuana use and increased rates of anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts, and schizophrenia.
* Other research has shown marijuana smoke to contain carcinogens and to be an irritant to the lungs. Marijuana smoke, in fact, contains 50‐70 percent more carcinogenic hydrocarbons than does tobacco smoke.

Should the state taken account of these potential health concerns in addressing marijuana policy?

Mike Goldman
Policy Analyst, Texans for Greg Abbott

Tim Currie, 11 years ago

Obama is just another crooked, lying liberal. During his first campaign he lied, once again, when he told Americans that the federal government would allow states to control the medical cannabis businesses in their respective states. The Obama Administration has come down harder on these medical cannabis businesses than any administration before him. What a piece of sh*t, to stand there and tell fellow Americans one thing and then do the complete opposite once we had gotten their votes.

Some people that post on here really do not know what they’re talking about. Everything that Mr. Golden put on here was copied and pasted from http://www.whitehouse.gov/ondcp/ondcp-fact-sheets/marijuana-legalization It didn’t come from his knowledge and it isn’t anything he has done research on. It is just more lies from the federal government. If people actually researched cannabis and got their information from a source other than the federal government then they might begin to see the truth.

The lies that the federal government tells everybody are the same lies they have been telling people since cannabis was outlawed in 1937. They have lied for over 75 years. People have been told these lies all these years and many of the ignorant ones still seem to believe anything they’re told. The greatest thing that the near future holds is that these people are dying off. They’re becoming extinct as new research is being done all over the world that proves what has been hidden for all these years. The ones dying off are the people that are too lazy to go out and find the truth for themselves. They just sit there behind their TV’s and listen to the same lies over and over again. Their friends and relatives are the same way and they all talk to each other about these lies and the lies become even more like the truth to them all. It won’t be much longer until the truth about cannabis is known by everybody and when it is these people that think they know everything will look really ignorant for being so close-minded.

California has been doing this all wrong and when medical cannabis is controlled by the federal government the way things are done in all states will be the same. This time is coming. If you can’t see it then you’re deaf or blind. Things are changing and there is no way the feds will stay out of this change.

*Cannabis is not addictive and does not create dependency. I used it for five years and had no problem giving it up even though it was preventing my seizures and I knew it.
*There is no solid evidence of it creating respiratory problems. It’s use has been proven to reduce the spread of lung cancer. People that smoke tobacco and smoke cannabis also have a lower chance of getting lung cancer than those that smoke only tobacco. Smoking cannabis is one of the best ways to treat asthma. You smoke a plant and you can breathe better. Sounds like that plant has some special abilities to me. This has been known for many years. http://hardluckasthma.blogspot.com/2012/01/history-of-back-door-bronchodilators.html
*Mental illness? I’ve seen more mentally ill people that are telling lies about cannabis. How about the alcoholics and pill abusers? I’ve seen more mentally ill people that were addicted to alcohol or pills, killing themselves and others on the road with car accidents. I’ve never heard of a marijuana user going to kill his ex-wife or go on a murder spree. It doesn’t happen.
*Poor motor performance? Maybe if the user has consumed way too much and they’re asked to walk a balance beam as something ridiculous like that. There are so many legal substances that a person can be under the influence of that causes seriously poor motor performance. Alcohol and prescription drugs are just two. They kill more people in 30 minutes than cannabis has ever killed in the thousands of years it has been used.

Obama is just another crooked, lying liberal. During his first campaign he lied, once again, when he told Americans that the federal government would allow states to control the medical cannabis businesses in their respective states. The Obama Administration has come down harder on these medical cannabis businesses harder than any administration before him. What a piece of sh*t, to stand there and tell fellow Americans one thing and then do the complete opposite once we had gotten their votes.

I went the college to study manufacturing engineering and even after being subjected to brain damage in a car accident I had enough brain power to finish with a B.S. in manufacturing engineering, an A.S. in Chemistry and an A.A. in English. Cannabis is bad for your brain??

Let’s take a look into the future.
The big drug companies will lose millions when the time comes that a person can grow a plant in his backyard and that plant treats the same medical condition that in the past would cost him more than $600 per month to treat with nasty, body-destroying chemicals in pills that were swallowed. These meds had harsh side effects and they didn’t even work all the time even though they had been taken as directed. They didn’t work nearly as well as the medical cannabis works now. With more and more research being done there are new ways being discovered in which this simple plant can help people. With more cross breeding of the cannabis plant being done there are new strains of cannabis being created that can help people in new ways. They were never even imagined of back when it was illegal and the people of the future won’t be able imagine why a government would ever restrict research on this plant. They won’t be able to imagine why people would be lied to about this plant on such a huge scale. Cannabis prohibition will be long gone and it will be looked at as one of the worst decisions made by a government.

Tim Currie, 11 years ago

At least one English-speaking country is doing the right thing. On November 6th a bill will be introduced in Ireland that will completely legalize cannabis. With 75% of the population in favor of legalization there that leaves little doubt that in a short time from now the people of Ireland will have more freedom than us. What a shame. As Texans, we should be able to do a better job than we’re doing now.

Chris Gillett, 11 years ago

I really don’t fall one way or another legalizing marijuana, but shouldn’t we wait a few years to see how it works out in other states?

Tim Currie, 11 years ago

Chris,

This is about medical marijuana, the reason it’s in the health care section. Medical marijuana has been legal in some states since 1996. That’s 17 years. Many feel it isn’t being done right in some of those states but that is just another reason that more regulation is needed to create a countrywide set of rules and regulations. 17 years is enough time to know whether it is working in those states and more states are legalizing it every year. There aren’t fewer states every year for a reason, it’s working. Texas is just wasting lives, time, money and resources by putting off what will be a worldwide form of medication in no time. The health of its people is getting worse during this needless waiting. My own health was so much better when I used to smoke cannabis 5 years ago compared to how it is now after 5 years of expensive meds with their nasty side effects. I had NO SEIZURES back then and I’ve been through over 20 seizures since I stopped smoking cannabis with their own complications and medication increases, additions afterwards. There were no MRI’s, no EEG’s(3 days in bed), no piles of pills, no doctors visits, no seizures, I was healthier, I had more time, I had more money but most of all, I WAS HAPPIER! I’ve experienced how this stuff works and I know what the people that are against don’t. Cannabis is amazing.

Tim Currie, 10 years ago

Even our nation’s capital is ready to legalize marijuana(cannabis). D.C. is poised for a giant leap toward legalizing small amounts of marijuana, and not just for medical use. Everybody should have legal access to this wondrous gift from god. This plant is amazing and the ways it will help humanity in the future haven’t even been imagined yet.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/dc-poised-for-giant-leap-toward-legalizing-marijuana/2013/10/24/db183fb0-3cbe-11e3-b6a9-da62c264f40e_story.html

How could anyone ever argue against the legality of a plant the grows naturally out of the earth and has so many benefits that will improve the human race?

David Kwong, 10 years ago

Tim,

You just stated that ”Obama is a crooked lying liberal”yet you are trying to use Washington D.C. as a example for legalization?

Tim Currie, 10 years ago

David,

You should learn a little about the government of Washington D.C. It’s not run by Obama or any of the feds that govern the country from there. Congress will be involved in the passing of this proposed law change but Obama has nothing to do with this proposal. He is a lying POS that told voters during his first campaign that he wouldn’t interfere with state legalized medical marijuana dispensaries. He said he had more important things to fight like terrorism and violent crimes and then once he was in office he came down on them harder than any other president before him. Try reading a little. The proposed legalization of marijuana in D.C. has nothing to do with Obama.

Mark Atkins, 10 years ago

For Mike Goldman. With all due respect, as an advisor to the candidate I would think that you would gather your facts a little better to advise Mr. Abbott in these issues. Most of your diatribe in the post above is OBVIOUSLY not from sound scientific studies and merely conjecture from your “circle”, Texas is FAR behind many states on various other issues and I can easily see why!

IMO, “Republicans” and “Democrats” are “birds of (the same) feather” yet the Democrats seem to be able to sort out b.s. from fact MUCH better than “Republicans”. I have NEVER voted for a Democrat but with the Republican offerings of late this is all about to change. What about 40 years of Democrat hegemony in Texas starting this November? Still such a great idea? I am not alone, I don’t think!

Helena Taylor, 10 years ago

Mike Goldman lol.Long term abuse? Mental health issues? Reduced intellect? Really? It’s been proven to help more then it hurts. Research it. http://listverse.com/…/top-10-common-myths-about-cannabis/ http://www.mpp.org/reports/marijuana-myths-vs-reality.html yes, some people do get addicted to marijuana, but only a small percentage. http://www.mpp.org/outreach/top-50-marijuana-users-list.html http://coed.com/…/the-10-most-successful-potheads-on…/ Stop listening to anti marijuana propaganda bullcrap! It does make you ignorant to the facts! Even the Republican/Conservative politicians are even waking up to the facts! Everyone is! That’s why it’s legal in 2 states and in certain countries and medically legal in other states! Just because a “few” reacted badly to marijuana doesn’t mean swat! Everyone reacts differently. Those “few” don’t speak for everyone else! What BS! See people like this is what holds up the studies on marijuana and make it illegal! Marijuana is a plant NOT a drug! It was put here on Earth for a reason! Don’t like marijuana then don’t use it! It’s way better then alcohol, pills, crack, cocaine, cigarettes, etc, etc. How many have those have killed? Hundreds of thousands if not hundreds of millions of people. How many has marijuana killed? 0 I’ve never heard anyone getting killed because of marijuana or over it! In fact, I know a bunch of people who smoke marijuana and they turn out ok. Not to mention if it was legalized all that money could help pay for roads, schools, help us get out of debt, among other things, but no some of you people don’t want that.

And not to mention it helps people with certain health problems like HIV (AIDS), Cancer, seizures, ADD (ADHD), Tourettes syndrome, glaucoma, etc, etc. I’m sure if you knew someone with those illnesses you would want them to use marijuana instead of those pills that pharmaceutical companies seem to push right? Who are you to deny people their medicine? http://www.trueactivist.com/still-believe-nature-got-it…/ http://www.askmen.com/sports/health/20_mens_health.html http://norml.org/marijuana/medical http://www.drugpolicy.org/marijuana/factsmyths/#tobacco http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/20/marijuana-lung-cancer_n_3474960.html http://norml.org/component/zoo/category/cannabis-smoke-and-cancer-assessing-the-risk http://www.webmd.com/lung-cancer/news/20060523/pot-smoking-not-linked-to-lung-cancer http://medicalmarijuana.procon.org/view.answers.php?questionID=000234
Is it true that marijuana makes you lazy and unmotivated?
Not if you are a responsible adult, it doesn’t. Ask the U.S. Army. They did a study and showed no effect. If this were true, why would many Eastern cultures, and Jamaicans, use marijuana to help them work harder? `Amotivational syndrome’ started as a media myth based on the racial stereotype of a lazy Mexican borracho. The prohibitionists claimed that marijuana made people worthless and sluggish. Since then, however, it has been scientifically researched, and a symptom resembling amotivational syndrome has actually been found. However, it only occurs in adolescent teenagers — adults are not affected.
When a person reaches adolescence, their willingness to work usually increases, but this does not happen for teenagers using marijuana regularly — even just on the weekends. The actual studies involved monkeys, not humans, and the results are not verified, but older studies which tried to show `amotivational syndrome’ usually only suceeded when they studied adolescents. Adults are not effected.
The symptoms are not permanent, and motivation returns to normal levels several months after marijuana smoking stops. However, a small number of people may be unusually sensitive to this effect. One of the monkeys in the experiment was severely amotivated and did not recover. Doctors will need to study this more before they know why.
8) Isn’t marijuana a gateway drug?… Doesn’t it lead to use of harder drugs?
This is totally untrue. In fact, researchers are looking into using marijuana to help crack addicts to quit. There are 40 million people in this country (U.S.) who have smoked marijuana for a period of their lives — why aren’t there tens of millions of heroin users, then? In Amsterdam, both marijuana use and heroin use went *down* after marijuana was decriminalized — even though there was a short rise in cannabis use right after decriminalization. Unlike addictive drugs, marijuana causes almost no tolerance. Some people even report a reverse tolerance. That is, the longer they have used the less marijuana they need to get high.' So users of marijuana do not usually get bored andlook for something more powerful’. If anything, marijuana keeps people from doing harder drugs.
The idea that using marijuana will lead you to use heroin or speed is called the gateway theory' or thestepping stone hypothesis.’ It has been a favorite trick of the anti-drug propaganda artists, because it casts marijuana as something insidious with hidden dangers and pitfalls. There have never been any real statistics to back this idea up, but somehow it was the single biggest thing which the newspapers yelled about during Reefer Madness II. (Perhaps this was because the CIA was looking for someone to blame for the increase in heroin use after Viet Nam.)
The gateway theory of drug use is no longer generally accepted by the medical community. Prohibitionists used to point at numbers which showed that a large percentage of the hard drug users started with marijuana.' They had it backwards -- many hard drug users also use marijuana. There are two reasons for this. One is that marijuana can be used totake the edge off’ the effects of some hard drugs. The other is a recently discovered fact of adolescent psychology — there is a personality type which uses drugs, basically because drugs are exciting and dangerous, a thrill.
On sociological grounds, another sort of gateway theory has been argued which claims that marijuana is the source of the drug subculture and leads to other drugs through that culture. By the same token this is untrue — marijuana does not create the drug subculture, the drug subculture uses marijuana. There are many marijuana users who are not a part of the subculture. http://www.auburn.edu/~schmigr/hemp.html http://cannabisdestiny.com/10-myths-about-marijuana-why-theyre-absurd/ http://forum.grasscity.com/tokers-qa/1233157-fact-marijuana-makes-you-lazy-unmotivated-anti-social-stupid.html http://www.perkel.com/politics/issues/pot.htm http://thoughtcatalog.com/charlie-shaw/2014/01/the-8-biggest-misconceptions-about-weed/ More research http://www.collective-evolution.com/2013/08/23/20-medical-studies-that-prove-cannabis-can-cure-cancer/ http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/pdq/cam/cannabis/healthprofessional/page4 http://www.cureyourowncancer.org/how-cannabis-oil-works.html http://scienceblog.cancerresearchuk.org/2012/07/25/cannabis-cannabinoids-and-cancer-the-evidence-so-far/ Even more research. http://healthland.time.com/2010/10/19/is-marijuana-addictive-it-depends-how-you-define-addiction/ http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/2504137/ http://blog.sfgate.com/smellthetruth/2014/02/03/marijuana-addiction-science-lousy-doc-says/ http://www.nhs.uk/news/2014/03March/Pages/No-proof-that-high-dose-cannabis-is-more-addictive.aspx http://norml.org/faq
Oh and by the way, many great and smart people smoked marijuana. http://www.mpp.org/outreach/top-50-marijuana-users-list.html http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/3948855/ http://elitedaily.com/life/motivation/smartest-people-smoke-weed/ http://www.420magazine.com/forums/celebrity-tokers/87813-200-celebrities-famous-people-who-smoke-pot.html http://m.ranker.com/list/13-ways-important-historical-figures-used-marijuana/sarakate http://coed.com/2009/02/06/the-10-most-successful-potheads-on-the-planet-cool-enough-to-admit-it/ http://www.alternet.org/drugs/7-successful-famous-cannabis-smoking-geniuses http://m.laweekly.com/informer/2011/11/16/marijuana-users-really-are-smart-people-according-to-study By the way, if it was so bad then why did Dr. Sanjay Gupta change his mind on marijuana? Hmmm? http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/08/health/gupta-changed-mind-marijuana/ http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/09/health/gupta-weed-reaction/ http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/3725380/ http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/4932277 http://m.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/do_not_open_why_i_changed_my_mind_on_weed_dr_sanjay_gupta_20130808

By the way, did you know that Cannabinoid receptors are in our brain? Cannabinoid receptors are part of the cannabinoid receptor system in the brain and are involved in a variety of physiological processes including appetite, pain-sensation, mood, and memory.

Cannabinoid receptors are of a class of cell membrane receptors under the G protein-coupled receptor superfamily. As is typical of G protein-coupled receptors, the cannabinoid receptors contain seven transmembrane spanning domains. Cannabinoid receptors are activated by three major groups of ligands, endocannabinoids (produced by the mammalian body), plant cannabinoids (such as THC, produced by the cannabis plant) and synthetic cannabinoids (such as HU-210). All of the endocannabinoids and plant cannabinoids are lipophilic, such as fat soluble compounds. There are currently two known subtypes of cannabinoid receptors, termed CB1 and CB2. The CB1 receptor is expressed mainly in the brain (central nervous system or “CNS”), but also in the lungs, liver and kidneys. The CB2 receptor is expressed mainly in the immune system and in hematopoietic cells. Mounting evidence suggests that there are novel cannabinoid receptors that is, non-CB1 and non-CB2, which are expressed in endothelial cells and in the CNS. In 2007, the binding of several cannabinoids to a G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) in the brain was described. So if it was so bad then why do we have cannabinoid receptors in our brain? Think about it.

Chelsea Peery, 9 years ago

I fully support legalization and I will fully support (even volunteer my own time and money) any candidate that pushes to make this happen. Stop being so mindlessly afraid.

Gordon R. Wybo, 9 years ago

As a disabled veteran the VA just dispenses meds and tells us to go ahead and think happy thoughts the bottom line is many of us are in chronic pain and Vicodin is no way to treat it Because they’ve got so many Vets hooked on Vicodin now it’s been made a schedule II drug. They are replacing it with Tylenol 3 or 4 which contains codiene. Codiene is not effective on me nor is morphine so right now I get the slightest relief. But if they were to change the laws I know that medical marijuana would work!

Robert Delrosso, 9 years ago

Abbott is a blind moron to stupid to get the facts I use medical marijuana for my muscular dystrophy its the only thing that works and let’s me function still I can get morphin and vicodin just about anything but its just to hard on my body and mind for someone who is handicapped Abbott’s a traitor to all Texans the people of Texas are in agreement on this to bad the polititions don’t get it they want to keep the prisons full that’s there god shame on them its time for a class action lawsuit here in Texas to get this done any attorneys want to be famous email me at samsig7@ gmail.com let’s sue and end this descrimination against the people