Talk:Medical marijuana
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I just wanted to let everyone know the guidelines I used in writing this and why, after having finished, I'm not sure they're good. I only included links to scholarly reports or detailed summaries of scholarly reports (with citations). After investigating the first 100 links off google, and searching in vain specifically for it, I was unable to find anything that met the criteria arguing against it. There were quotes that purported to claim all sorts of things from various people, but the closest I could come were the various reports suggesting that marijuana may have medical value, but that the evidence is not conclusive enough to decide for certain. I didn't include links to advocacy groups on either side, except in that most of the scholarly reports were only available on these sites, in which case I linked directly to the scholarly report (unless it was a PFD, cuz I didn't know if that was legal/polite/possible to do so). The article reads extremely POV now, so I will be considering changing the criteria and would appreciate input from others. I really don't want to link to advocacy groups because there are much too many of them. Maybe if we only select an equal number of pro and con major sites, and clearly mark them as politics and advocacy, and not science.Tokerboy
- The layout stinks too. I was expecting to find different information, so my plan didn't work out as well as I had hoped. I'll go tinker. Tokerboy
Very good work, Tokerboy! My name is Skywolf, aka Neal Smith. I'm with Indiana NORML and a long time Cannabis/Hemp researcher.
Someone in this forum said something about the U.S. gov't position. I think you should eschew them until they learn to speak the truth.
I just discovered Wikipedia a couple of weeks ago. I'm very impressed with the whole scheme. I tend to trust places that have good information on Cannabis.
Skywolf.
The UK is undertaking trials for medical marijuana. UK courts have already set a sort of precedent whereby people using, possessing or growing the stuff for medical purpose are not charged. try the Disability Now website for info, they may have archives of old issues -- Tarquin 23:04 Jan 27, 2003 (UTC)
Hi Tokerboy, thanks for your work! You're right, it reads a bit one-sided (the US federal gov't position is missing, for one thing [1]), but it's a great start. As for which organizations and groups to cite, I'd say we should set a threshold at membership numbers or financial backing. Where this data is not available, we ignore the gruop. The historical background which is also mentioned in some of the studies should be directly referenced within the article, but needs to be double-checked first. One problem:
- "In addition, Marinol was far more effective, costing upwards of several thousand dollars a year for the same effect as smoking a weed easily grown throughout most of the world. Many users felt Marinol was less effective,"
I presume you mean "expensive" in the first sentence. --Eloquence 23:22 Jan 27, 2003 (UTC)
- Oops -- I'll go fix.
[1] I do not mean to imply that other governments' positions should be ignored, in fact, this article should provide as much international perspective as possible.
The reason I didn't include the US gov's position is that there was no scientific evidence that I could find evidence of to report on. I've gotta go for a little while, but I'm thinking now of a section that would look like:
| Contents |
USA
33 states technically allow medical marijuana, but only 7 enforce it. The federal government claims there is no use and a dozen heavily armed DEA agents recently arrested a crippled grandmother after pointing an AK47 to her head
Canada
Mention that court case there's a link to at the bottom that said a ban on medical pot is unconstitutional.
UK
Medical users are not charged.
And etc as needed (I linked to a report from the Aussies, but I didn't actually read it and I don't know if the government did what the report advised anyway; I think it's legal for medical use in Norway, but I could be wrong.) Tokerboy
I found this site (http://216.239.35.120/translate_c?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://www.cannabislegal.de/international/&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dhttp://www.cannabislegal.de/international/index.htm%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26oe%3DUTF-8%26sa%3DG) which probably has a lot of good info on the status in many countries, but is badly translated from German by Google, so I gave up trying to figure it out (the entry on Greece is hilariously incoherent). Somebody who has even just an inkling of German might be able to parse it, or even read the original, which presumably makes sense. Tuf-Kat
Comment by anonymous user:
Jamaica
When I've been there I was told that is legal to own it under the religious freedom, that means for Rastafari people.
- I presume he means followers of Rastafarianism. -- goatasaur
- Probably, but I'm pretty sure he's wrong. My understanding is that cannabis is illegal in every UN member and this could not be changed without breaking an international treaty. Possibly the law is not enforced ever or under certain circumstances, such as for Rastafarians, people with certain medical problems or within coffee shops in one city, but I don't think any UN member has or could legalize it (without causing an international incident). Tuf-Kat
- I'm pretty sure he's wrong too. Your explanation seems accurate. -- goatasaur
Bias
I think that the "external links" section of this article is biased. While there are links to websites supporting medical marijuana usage, there are no links to websites or articles denouncing medical marijuana usage. --NoPetrol 01:21, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Proposed article split
This article is overweight and needs to be split in 2, otherwise it cannot be freely edited. I propose splitting it into Medical marijuan (history) and medical marijuana (research). I really want to read here what other people want. I propose to split the article next sunday. Squiquifox 19:45, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)
- I would rather split out a section on legal status of medical marijuana with all the by-country info. I think the history and research sections are what the reader is most likely looking for. Trying to keep those two subjects separate would be diffcult; I worry that having a history of medical marijuana article would be seen as bias in favor of MM. Tuf-Kat 22:55, Feb 8, 2005 (UTC)
- I'm confused what you mean by that. Cannabis has been used medicinally for thousands of years, right up until it was prohibited. --Thoric 20:00, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I have brought the issue of whether articles should be split/slimmed or not to Village pump (policy).Squiquifox 02:49, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)
proposed name change
Why medical marijuana? High grade pure quality hashish will clearly have the same effect, so why not call the article medical cannabis. Google gives exactly same number of hits to both, 1,530,000. Medical hash gets 115,000. --SqueakBox 01:18, Feb 28, 2005 (UTC)
- I totally agree "marijuana" is a name fraught with POV connatations. Cannabis is the proper terminaology so it should be used. Dainamo 00:08, 15 May 2005 (UTC)
I second the motion of the name change along with the article split -- do both at the same time. The "Medical marijuana" title makes about as much sense as a term like "medicinal hootch" does for medicinal use of alcohol. We should encourage the proper name of the plant over a slang term. As for the article split, this article contains little more than history, and we really could use an article summarizing all the recent medical discoveries, and how effective is has been treating pain that has not been effectively treated via other means. --Thoric 19:58, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)