What if Marijuana Were Only Available By Prescription?

The proponents of marijuana legalization (to the exclusion of opioid legalization) use the "evil" pharmaceutical opioids and their imaginary "terrible side effects" as a whipping boy in their PR campaign for the relaxation of marijuana laws...

Interestingly, and sadly, Angel Raich (of Raich vs Gonzalas fame) has been writing as of late that her brain tumors have been causing her terrible pain and that marijuana has not been helping.

People who understand the science of pain treatment could explian why this is the case-that is if any marijuana advocate were interested in the answer.

We would explain that opioids are chemically identical to the endorphins in our spinal cords that the body naturally produces to mitigate pain. That's why opioids work for the treatment of pain, and why marijuana, while helpful in many regards for both the sick and well, doesn't work as a serious pain medicine for most types of pain.

It would be nice if the marijuana activists would stop and think for a moment that if marijuana had been taken over by the pharmaceutical and medical industry instead of having been left out of the medical world entirely, these same activists would now think that marijuana was evil too. It is merely an accident of history that opioids have been medicalized. In fact, around the world indigenous peoples use the juice from the opium poppy for pain relief in teas, and as a paste that is smoked-just like marijuana.

And since chronic pain is a progressive neurological disease when left untreated by opioids, it is entirely conceivable that the pain crisis in America results from our cultural adoption of opioids into the medical pharmacopoeia. Because doctors have been controlled by law enforcement for nearly a hundred years, the millions of people with pain who might have been able to stop their progressive disease early on with some opium tea, are instead told by trusted physicians that there is "nothing that can be done."

So much confusion surrounds the treatment of pain with opioids, confusion that is perpetuated by physicians who have been conditioned by the very understandable fear they feel when they consider prescribing pharmaceutical opioids; the fear of getting arrested by all levels of law enforcement. That's the medical profession's excuse.

One wonders what the marijuana activists' excuse will be for continuing to fear monger for the Feds.