Freedom For All Citizens

Medical Marijuana Studies

A growing amount of information is beginning to be available on the Internet concerning studies done on the medical effects of marijuana. In fact, this is part of a large trend of alternative and homeopathic medicines becoming more well-known due to the instantaneous nature of the Internet and other forms of communication. Gone are the days when you relied completely on a visit to the doctor's office to answer your questions. But what's ironic is that if you talk to your parents or grandparents, many of them will remember that back in their day, even the doctors were one of the first to prescribe natural remedies such as herbal teas and tinctures for all sorts of common ailments. It's clear that in our modern society large pharmaceutical companies have immense influence and control over what is considered "scientific" and "quack" medicine. For example, just observe how recently, in the National Health Service of the UK many doctors, including the affluential director are calling for the government to remove traditional medicines from government funding. Because it has been a long standing tradition in the British Health Service that homeopathic remedies are also paid for by public funding, as up till now, people didn't have a problem admitting that they often work and far better than the chemical concoctions that they try to force feed us these days for every tiny ailment.

That's why, with the Internet, it's very important that we provide access to and talk about information regarding alternative medicine as much as possible. Alternative remedies are under fire. Corporations can't patent herbs yet (though there is a disturbing trend in some places of this actually happening - for instance, Tamiflu's active ingredient is an extract from a plant called star anise, grown mostly in China and India; the Swiss pharma now has full distribution and patent rights and it is increasingly difficult to find this plant for sale at herb shops in Europe; it must be smuggled in from neighboring countries), so they choose the other alternative - destroy the competition. You've heard the stories, now do the research. Herbs can cure cancer, AIDs and other chronic illnesses such as Chron's disease and degenerative colitis. I'm still not sure why we don't hear about this as much as we should, but my guess is that pharmas control the medical educational institutions with their lobbies and funding and because of this the heads (who are often execs in these pharmas as well) of departments use profit as their basic approach. They need to sell their drugs so they are biased towards them and readily jump on the bandwagon of "untested non-scientific medicine", but never stop to think for a second that if they would actually test it, they might really find cures for illnesses that they can market successfully.

Well, though they try, information can't be censored and people will do their studies anyway, with or without the financial backing of institutions. One repository of an amazing amount of scientific studies done on marijuana can be found at Mariujuana Saves Lives. The founders of this website - a husband and wife - went through a lot of pain and suffering to found this site. She had Chron's disease at 23 and for four years could not retain any food, so was slowly wasting away and dying. None of her doctors were able to do anything for her, the highly toxic cocktail of chemicals they were keeping her on were completely worthless. Marijuana milk came as a blessing and salvation into her life and her boyfriend, now husband, stayed with her the whole time doing the research, nursing her, weathering the storm. Now they are 30 and happily married and her disease is gone. Check out their website, educate yourself on the reality of the amazing properties of marijuana and ask your local representatives why the herb isn't fully legalized yet, basing your arguments on the scientific studies and articles you read. With time, nature will win.

These herbs have been with us since the dawn of our intellectual and cognitive capabilities and it's unlikely that a few white and black suits in 2010 are going to make them go away.