Marijuana Medicine?

Yep.

Good medicine too. It seems like there are a lot of canibinoid receptors in the brain. And they do different things. Here is a report:

San Diego -- A decade ago, when Daniele Piomelli went to scientific conferences, he was often the only researcher studying cannabinoids, the class of chemicals that give marijuana users a high.

His work often drew snickers and jokes -- but no more. At the annual Society for Neuroscience conference last week, scientists delivered almost 200 papers on the subject.

Why the attention? Many scientists believe marijuana-like drugs may be able to treat a wide range of diseases, far beyond the nausea and chronic pain typically treated with medical marijuana.

Researchers presented tantalizing evidence that cannabinoid drugs can help treat amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, known as ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease, Parkinson's disease and obesity. Other researchers are studying whether the compounds can help victims of stroke and multiple sclerosis.

Reminds me of what DEA Law Judge said of pot in 1988. "Marijuana, in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man. By any measure of rational analysis marijuana can be safely used within a supervised routine of medical care."Of course it is illegal.

How would the drug companies survive? I wrote something about that a while back. Let me see if I can find it and repost it here.

Key quote from that piece re: the topic at hand:

It turns out that anxiety disorders are the most common mental health problem in the United States. They are worth $46 billion a year to the pharmaceutical industry. You don't suppose this fact has any thing to do with the pharmaceutical industries being in the forefront of the Drug Free America campaign do you? Of course not. They are just trying to keep you from being addicted to natural products at the cost of 1/10th of a cent per dose when they are more than willing to sell you an FDA and doctor approved, pharmacy sold product that will do the job for a dollar a dose. They have only your best interests at heart. Just ask their accountants.