KSLATZ: In the spirit of it being April 20th (420) - I enjoyed reading this article on slate.com. I believe marijuana will eventually be legalized throughout this country and it should be taxed appropriately. We can then legitimately test it to see how it can medically help people for various medical conditions like this young boy's autism. What do you think?
I give my autistic son pot
By Marie Myung-Ok Lee
Slate Magazine
http://www.slate.com/
Last summer, we reached the six-month mark in our cannabis experiment. We'd been using medical marijuana to help quell our autistic son's gut pain and anxiety, and we were seeing some huge changes in his behavior and, presumably, his happiness. http://www.slate.com/id/2251174/
Michael M.: Interesting article
Katy E.: my son is autistic and there is no way i would try this there is other ways to get them to do those things i have done just fine without pot
Steve H.: Good read. I hope your vision happens soon (my brother suffers from limited access for his MS). however, I suspect the country isn't there yet. We'll likely make a few steps forward at the state level, but the political pendulum will swing back before any national legislation happens. And regardless of state law, the feds have insisted on their right to prosecute anyone anywhere.
KSLATZ: Katy, if your doctor told you there was a new medicine that could help with your son's pain and anxiety, wouldn't you try it? there's a negative stigma associated with marijuana (due to politics) and I believe this article gives an interesting perspective on the positive benefits it can have used as a medicine for more than cancer, AIDS, MS, etc. ...
If it becomes legal in our country we can test to see how it can be medically useful for a number of diseases. Steve, I'm a glass is half full kind of guy, it will happen soon, just a matter of how soon ;) and we will all one day look back and wonder why so many had such disdain for something that's medically helpful to people :)
Steve H.: I'm hopeful too, Kevin, but then there's guys like VA gov Bob McDonnell, who somehow turns the clock back on moderate, populist policies to pre-civil rights era - and he's in the minority party! It forces me to accept that advancing issues like this will always be a hard slog. The best we can do is be noisy activists and support our progressive organizations with our hearts and our wallets.
Katy E.: I do think though i don't agree w using it on autism i do think it would b beneficial to other health issues...i was just saying i don't agree w using it on autistic kids because there are already things out there that work for them....however other issues such as cancer, MS, AIDS etc. i think it could help.
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A negative stigma surrounds marijuana in this country due to political agendas and decades of faulty reasoning. As stated above by Steve, this is an issue that will be decided state by state and will eventually - in who knows how many years - will become legal for the country and taxed appropriately.
The main argument for legalizing marijuana is to gain proper medical testing to see what ailments it can resolve. The woman in this story used different strands of marijuana to help her son's autism. Certain strands worked and others didn't. With proper testing and regulation we can define how this plant can help treat and/or solve several different ailments people are suffering from.
If our political leaders would loosen up a little and work for the people instead of big business - like tobacco companies - maybe we could gain some headway on this issue and use this notoriously "bad" drug for some good!
