<p>My thoughts on medical pot are that if it has true medical benefit (and it may well do so), then it should be controlled like any other pharmaceutical. It should have the active ingredients researched, purified, tested in clinical trials, and delivered in a safe form - pills or something. Breathing smoke into your lungs just can’t be good for you in the long run.</p>
<p>Once it has been proven safe and effective and is approved by the FDA, then it should be sold by prescription through legitimate, licensed pharmacies and taxed like any other drug.</p>
<p>I’m all for the medical use of pot, but only in a safe and controlled way. Why should pot get a free pass from all the regulations that control other medically important drugs?</p>
<p>I’m not a pot user, and I’m not impressed. Medical marijuana stores are licensed in my state, and the federal approach is just plain stupid from every perspective I can imagine. </p>
<p>They’ve already leaned on every bank in the state to close all the accounts for marijuana dispensaries, leaving most of them to switch to a strictly cash-based business. Now they’re insisting that the cost of goods sold can’t be incorporated into the tax returns. Absolutely brilliant way to push this into organized crime and money laundering, imo. And an absolutely stupid way of losing what should have been a very good source of data on the financials of medical marijuana that they’ve never before had. I just don’t get it. Just shooting themselves in the foot. </p>
<p>I’m also surprised that it is the Obama administration that is doing this, particularly since the Bush administration’s position was that while it wasn’t legal under federal law, as long as growers and dispensaries were operating in compliance with state law that they wouldn’t take action.</p>
<p>coureur-the pills that have been developed have proven to be wither ineffective or with too many side0-effects thus far, and smoking is not the only way to effectively ingest the marijuana.
That said, I find the entire marijuana ban ridiculous. I agree that it should be available, taxed and regulated.</p>
<p>I use a vaporizer- no smoke. I tried using tinctures but it is hard to gauge how much is needed since to go through the digestive system takes longer.
I would love to see more research on isolating the active ingredients to make it more useful for me.
I am curious if the pharmaceutical companies are interested or if they prefer to push their current products.</p>
<p>Show me somewhere in the U.S. Constitution where it says that the federal government has the right to tell anyone what to smoke.</p>
<p>That’s right, it doesn’t.</p>
<p>But it DOES say explicitly (the 10th Amendment) that if the Constitution doesn’t specifically authorize the federal government to do something, then that right is retained by the states or the people. Yes, the Founding Fathers thought this was so important that they made it part of the Bill of Rights.</p>
<p>In other words, the Constitution says that states can make their own marijuana laws expressly because it doesn’t say that they can’t. But of course we have allowed the federal government to trample the Constitution for many decades. Why stop now?</p>
<p>In the world of pharmaceuticals, when state and federal law conflict, the stricter law prevails. That is why a state cannot make a federal C-1 drug legal. </p>
<p>There are two legal THC derivatives: Marinol (C-III) and Nabilone (C-II). Both of them are not popular. There are a number of derivatives in development.</p>
<p>The federal gov’t and the states need to reach an agreement in regard to medical marijuana and until they do there are obvoiusly going to be problems. Sometimes I think that maybe those in power are immune to cancer or other diseases which benefit from the use of marijuana. I just can’t stand all of these high and mighty (no pun intended) people who grew up in the 70’s who probably smoked it for non beneficial purposes not taking a stand to allow those who need it to use it. Those of us who have had cancer, and chose to use it so that eating was possible, and nausea was reduced find it difficult to understand why some type of federal law has not been instituted regarding this substance.
In regard to taxes…all business’ should be taxed and they should all have the benefit of tax right-offs. Obviously if marijuana is not legal on the federal level there will be illegal activity in a state legal business. The whole thing is just ridiculous…either make it legal or make it illegal. Those who want it will get it anyway.</p>