leprechaun wrote:

Peg - we're closer to agreeing than you might think. I didn't say your terminally ill friend shouldn't have pot. But the law that made it avalailable, at least in my state, was designed to make it available for recreational and commercial purposes, speciously using "compassion" as a selling point.
--on what do you base this? Do you KNOW that the legislators who drafted the bill had this purpose in mind? That this is the result of its being passed may be true but how can you be sure this was its only intention?


I think it was done in bad faith by the people who promoted that law, and I need look no further than clever language of the law itself, which allowed the hordes of healthy people to scam, yes scam themselves a medical marijuana card.
--again, just because the language provides for easy abuse, doesn't mean that was the law's intention.


Are there any other medicines you smoke in a bong?
--one can smoke a great many herbal substances; bong, pipe, it doesn;t much matter. Coltsfoot is good for the lungs when smoked, actually; mullein also. Certain herbs are smoked for promoting vivid dreams.

And if it's such a powerful medicine, why should it be available for recreational purposes?
--as I hoped to have made clear by now, I approve of its use both as a medicinal and as a recreational substance. And I think hemp should be cultivated for its industrial use, too.
There are plenty of medicinal substances that people take for recreational purposes that are FAR more dangerous than marijuana. Codeine in cough syrup, for example. Oxycontin and Oxycodone (most phramacies in the Northeast cannot even stock Oxycontin now because of theft; it's a top-selling street drug now) . Demerol (highly addictive). Other narcotics used for chronic pain, available by prescription. And all abused for non-medical purposes.
Why are these substances legal? They are addictive and dangerous. Their sale and distribution leads to illegal and violent crime. Yet we can get them from doctors' notes.
Is the problem perhaps that the pharmaceutical corporations don't benefit from the development, patenting and sale of plants?