i've been attending meetings about medical marijuana in RI and i've come across this opiophobia several times. people bashing opiates like they are some kind of devil. they been brainwashed by all the media against oxycontin.

They think they have to bash opiates for some reason, in order to justify their medical marijuana.

drugs are not inherently bad but usage trends for individuals may be harmful in some cases but people make sweeping statements about the devil being in opium. nonsense......

Opiates are a medical miracle, when you consider how well they work for surgery, post-surgery, and other severe, acute pain.

Most patients prescribed opiates for legitimate medical reasons do not become addicted. However, patients who use opiates for long periods of time do develop tolerance, and they often have to continue to increase dosage in order to get the same relief. And some patients do indeed develop significant dependence to opiates (but most of the abusers of drugs like oxycontin ARE NOT patients, though the addicts make it very difficult for the people with real pain to receive opiates, because of a few sad, dependent apples).

Cannabis can help to reduce the amount of opiates a patients needs, as the two substances act together in an synergistic fashion, allowing smaller doses of opiates to remain effective for longer periods of time. Replacing opiates with cannabis, if possible, makes a lot of sense, as cannabis is significantly less addictive and less toxic than all the drugs in the opiate family.

Given cannabis is significantly less lethal than all opiates, it is unconscionable that Judges like this ignoramus punish people for following their doctors' recommendation and for using a substance, cannabis, that is enormously safer than ALL opiates and MOST other medication.

I wonder if this Judge has ever read ANYTHING about cannabis as medicine. How can she trample state law and the 10th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and get away with this? There's a lot of people out there, like this scary Judge, who know absolutely nothing about medical cannabis, and continue to punish people for following their doctor-recommended cannabis.

Of course this Judge needs to be a doctor, in order to make medical conclusions about what medicines should be recommended by a REAL doctor. Hopefully, this decision can be appealed; and hopefully, this Judge gets in trouble for deliberately undermining her state law and the 10th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Screw opioids! Been there done that. Should of never went off my herb and to the pain clinic. They killed me. I shouldn't even be here today because of those crap drugs that detroy your life. I got another chance by the grace of God. I quit that crap and went back to my herb and my health has improved so much and my pain is more under control then it ever was as a mindless zombie.

While it is absolutely true that not all perscription drugs are negative or can cause a dependency, opiophobia has some ligitimate underpinnings in the fear. While not all OTC or perscription drugs are habit or dependency forming a large percentage of these drugs can have incredible side effects that in some instances can be much worse than whatever the issue it is that the drug is attemtping to cure or allieviate.

Opiophobia is not completely about the potential of becoming addicted. Its also about the detrimental side effects that can come with these drugs....kidney failure, new symptons caused by the drugs, a complete change in function while taking the drugs and so forth. I cant even begin to list all teh side effects that so many drugs, not just opiates, have on the human body.

Now, in this particular case the judge has basically said that you MUST use OTC or perscription drugs before you are allowed to use marijuana for medical needs and prove that conventional drugs are inneffective before moving to Marijuana. In a nut shell taking a patients right to be in controll of thier own health away and putting it squarely in the hands of a JUDICIAL system declaring that a person does not have the right to self determine thier treatment or wiegh thier own risk vs. reward on the treatment that they choose. If an opiate has negative side effects, or side effects that you don't as an individual like or are willing to accept, this court has ruled "too bad, you have to go through all of that and PROVE it doesn't work before we will honor your doctors perscription".

Opiophobia does exist, it is legitimate for a variety of reasons and the court has no right to determine what risks you choose to take or not take from a legal standpoint. Maybe opiates are what this judge believes in, but with no medical knowledge to stand upon, only legal standpoints, the courts have no right to determine that a person should be forced to use something they don't want to before they are allowed to use something that they choose to and works FOR THEM>

Chad

Much saddened by this court case. Here we have all the elements for a "legal justification by medical necessity defense" in a state with medical MJ laws in place. But the judge clearly has her bias and 'bit the bait' which the prosecutor offered as a justification to convict this patient. Clearly prejudicial, reactionary, and illogical.

I am a pain-patient and use both Darvaset ( an opiate ) and medical cannabis, as well as supplementing them both with over-the-counter Advil. All 3 work in conjunction, synergistically, and make life tolerable. Wouldn't know what I'd do without any of the three.

Doctors and researchers are being pressured NOT to advocate lab studies and more research. The government and the present administration are dead-set against it.

I think the above posted paragraph from "Scary Judges" needs re-stating:

"Cannabis can help to reduce the amount of opiates a patients needs, as the two substances act together in an synergistic fashion, allowing smaller doses of opiates to remain effective for longer periods of time. Replacing opiates with cannabis, if possible, makes a lot of sense, as cannabis is significantly less addictive and less toxic than all the drugs in the opiate family."

I have found that MJ helps so much, that you can use less darvaset and advil. No wonder the lobbyists pressure the lawmakers to keep it illegal.....we'd end up buying less medicines!!!

Let's stop convicting patients for using medicine.

The 13th Amendment states NO Titles of NOBILITY shall hold public office!

Most judges are ATTORNEYS, a.k.a. ESQUIRES which are Titles of NOBILITY!

ALL ESQUIRES ARE GUILTY OF TREASON & SEDITION.

The Courts are NOT judicial courts but private for profit corporations
where the ATTORNEYS prey on US ALL.

Don't trust me - look the court(s) up on D & B - see it for yourself!

THEN USE A HEMP ROPE! That is known as "poetic justice"!
END THE PROBLEM. Ironic, huh!

THERE MUST BE AN INJURED PARTY FOR THERE TO BE A CRIME - THE PROCEEDING IS nothing more than a SHAKE DOWN, a SHOW, a SCAM, a SHAM in a "kangaroo Court," a "Star Chamber."

It show will go on as long as you have $$ -
once the $$ are gone - game over!

The Prosecutor, the Defense ATTORNEY & the JUDGE ARE ALL MEMBERS OF THE STATE BAR - & THEY DISREGARD THE LAW. SUNSET THE BAR!

The Courtroom is the battlefield, the law the weapon - it cuts both ways.The Prosecutor & the assumed judge (check the Oath of Office)
are YOUR ENEMY & YOUR ATTORNEY is an ENEMY SPY!

Study the law - beat them at their own game!

Most ATTORNEYS ARE LAZY & SELL OUT THEIR CLIENTS.
THAT'S WHY the DA has a 98% conviction rate!

Challenge jurisdiction - DEMAND a fair, unbiased judge NOT a MEMBER OF THE BAR !

Demand a judicial court - NOT a private corporation court -
as guaranteed by the Constitution(s).

Don't TRUST me - confirm the intel.

I am Katman ARR sui juris.
International Freedom Foundation
Live Free or die tryin to be.
Hang All TRAITORS - END the PROBLEM!
THE CONSTITUIONS ARE THE LAND OF THE LAND!

One of the terrible things about pain clinics -- even here in medical marijuana-legal Colorado -- is the negative stance many pain clinic physicians take toward medical cannabis, despite cannabis being remarkably safer and remarkably less addictive than opiates/opioids.

One well known clinic outside of Boulder actually threatens to ABANDON & PROSECUTE their patients, if patient's urinalysis detects any levels of cannabis, a non-fatal ancient herbal. I cannot wait until they mess with the wrong person and the clinic gets hit with a serious lawsuit, for violation of state and civil rights.

But if you have a legitimate medical condition, this same clinic will prescribe TONS of opioids, which often lead to dependence/addiction. Then, once the patient becomes naturally dependent on the opioids, the staff then begins to treat patient like a criminal (weekly piss tests, drug counseling, demeaning relationships, no more pain meds, damning medical reports, lecturing, etc...)

In Colorado, very few docs are speaking out in favor of medical marijuana -- though many have officially recommended it to their patients -- because they don't want to lose their licenses, as DEA threatens to revoke the licenses of any doc who recommends medical cannabis.

While I do understand these docs are in an awful bind, I firmly believe the Hippocratic Oath demands these docs speak out about the incredibly low toxicity of cannabis and its wide array of medical applications, especially considering FDA-approved medicines kill TENS OF THOUSANDS OF PATIENTS EACH DAY, EVEN WHEN PROPERLY PRESCRIBED AND PROPERLY TAKEN.

According to the following JAMA study, properly prescribed and properly administered medications killed over 100,000 people in 1994, in hospital settings alone:

Conclusion:

“Perhaps, our most surprising result was the large number of fatal ADRs [Adverse Drug Reactions]. We estimated that in 1994 in the United States 106000 (95% CI, 76000-137000) hospital patients died from an ADR. Thus, we deduced that ADRs may rank from the fourth to sixth leading cause of death. Even if the lower confidence limit of 76000 fatalities was used to be conservative, we estimated that ADRs could still constitute the sixth leading cause of death in the United States, after heart disease (743460), cancer (529904), stroke (150108), pulmonary disease (101077), and accidents (90523); this would rank ADRs ahead of pneumonia (75719) and diabetes (53894).18

"Moreover, when we used the mean value of 106000 fatalities, we estimated that ADRs could rank fourth, after heart disease, cancer, and stroke as a leading cause of death.” [END OF QUOTE]

While the number of fatal Adverse Drug Reactions may not be as high as this JAMA study concluded each year, it is clear that FDA-approved medications are in critical condition and need some serious intervention.

The Docs need to stop hiding behind the ACP and/or the AMA, and they need to begin to speak out against a very real War on Medicine and Patients. I'd suggest they start catching up by reading the American College of Physicians Position Paper on Medical Marijuana:

http://www.acponline.org/acp_news/medmarinews.htm

Patients should be allowed to choose medications that cannot kill them from toxicity!

Cowardice has no place in Medicine.

Silence Equals Permission to Cage Sick People.

FDA-approved medications kill tens of thousands of patients EACH YEAR, not each day.

But we're still waiting for the first cannabis-induced death in thousands of years. So maybe some of the doctors dragging behind in the Science Department can explain to me how a virtually non-toxic substance that has never killed in thousands of years is more dangerous than addictive medicines that kill thousands each year...

End the Insanity.

It appears this article and discussion has been blanked out of Google News and most of the regular Google.

When I tried to select this article from the first page of Google News, I got taken to a blank/default page.

Did Drug War Chronicle get pressure to remove this, or is it just a technical glitch?

This type of "judicial treason" from ill-informed and misguided "authorities" needs to be shared with the rest of the world. If Judges are now allowed to decide our medical care, can doctors now officially act as Judges?

Please put the article back up, if you can. tx

The 2nd beast with 2 horns that came out of the sea(first was roman empire) with many tounges (languages) and settled in a unpopulated area that people blindly follow is the US government. I am NO BIBLE banger but the US government is the BEAST people blindly follow. One horn is government other is false religion.

HAVE A NICE DAY