Medical marijuana: narrowing the door on ignorance

When young Johnny came to my office late last year,

crying up his stomach,

it was so difficult to convince him

of

the link

between

his marijuana habits

and

his ailment.

... in the end, I gave up trying.

But he wasn't satisfied with my resignation;

he wanted to talk ( lecture) me

into

sharing his views about the drug.

Johnny's message to the world was simple:

marijuana is not the unmitigated disaster that critics intone,

it is

God's unparralled gift to mankind.

....so good a gift,

he has not only elevated it

to the status of a sacrament,.... a daily communion to be shared with kith and kin,

he has found enough merit,

farming and commercialising it

inspite

of

the illegality of either.

Brian was less partisan !

He is a phenomenally intelligent man

I stumbled into at a park,

one carnival afternoon .

In his thirties,

Brian is arrestingly grounded

as much

in the Liberal arts

as he is

in Comparative theology.

When asked how he came to be so intense,

he attributed it

to the semi formal education

he received in prison,

when

infraction of the law

had landed him in a

US jail

for all of seven years

before he was deported back home.

At age ten,

he had followed his parents to the US,

shown early promise,

only to later fall short,

as he indulged wrong company.

He has developed

what could be considered for his level

balanced views

on the subject of medical marijuana;

but

few more interactions,

I would later discover to my chagrin ,

his impressive rhetorics

did not seem to match

his cheap vulnerability

to the ravages

of the product.

I think it worthwhile sharing the piece below.

....an

Editorial from JAMA ( Journal American Medical association) .

it is a scholarly effort

on the part of the journal

to want to

stimulate serious, not indulgent, conversation

on the subject of

medical marijuana,

giving as much insight as is within their scope ,

into the

complexities of a natural product.

It was not written,

i would think,

for a lay public,

technical in many areas as it evidently seems,

but

there should be enough

'take aways'

even for those without scientific high brows,

to help

narrow down

any ignorance or misplaced partisanships

on the subject .

It is the most comprehensive work yet,

available on the subject

of

medical marijuana.

Happy reading.

http://app.jamanetwork.com/#page=issuesContainer

Basil jide Fadipe. Justin Fadipe Centre. West Indies