Sick of pain meds, will cannabis be legalised this year?

Forums › Health and fitness › Sick of pain meds, will cannabis be legalised this year?

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Hammered
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#2157662 10-Jan-2019 15:57

[joke]It's green and you smoke it. Must be cannabis.[/joke] O_o

The stuff looks more like expensive grass seed (along with it's included-in-the-bag fungicides etc)...

People often mistake me for an adult because of my age.

Keep calm, and carry on posting.

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MikeB4

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#2157664 10-Jan-2019 15:59

Stu:

[joke]It's green and you smoke it. Must be cannabis.[/joke] O_o

The stuff looks more like expensive grass seed (along with it's included-in-the-bag fungicides etc)...

I have never seen it

Here is a crazy notion, lets give peace a chance.

Stu

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#2157667 10-Jan-2019 16:03

I've only seen what's been in the media. Always seems to look like grass seed. Maybe that's what they use in their 'news' reports....

People often mistake me for an adult because of my age.

Keep calm, and carry on posting.

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nathan

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#2157670 10-Jan-2019 16:16

meanwhile on Fox News

doing some Marijuanas, by melting them in a spoon

Rikkitic

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#2157678 10-Jan-2019 16:35

That's pretty much on a par with the accuracy of most of their 'news' reporting.

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Coil

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#2157686 10-Jan-2019 16:57

MikeB4:

Stu:

[joke]It's green and you smoke it. Must be cannabis.[/joke] O_o

The stuff looks more like expensive grass seed (along with it's included-in-the-bag fungicides etc)...

I have never seen it

I got an interesting story about that stuff from my youth if people are interested.. Just don't mix the brands with pot, tobacco and salvia at once.....

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blakamin

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#2157691 10-Jan-2019 17:13

tripper1000:

They are dealing with younger kids that ever before (sub 15 y.o.) getting more wasted than ever before and committing higher level crimes than ever before, such as armed robbery, stabbings/murder, home invasion etc. We're not talking social nuances like burnouts and doughnuts in cars. Apparently the media isn't even reporting the tip of the iceberg.

Yeah, alcohol is usually also a factor but weed isn't as natural as it used to be. Weed & synthetic weed is being laced with extra stuff, which produces more extreme behaviour than the weed of yester-year. As someone alluded to above, having super-weed means better business and this won't diminish under liberalisation - it will probably get worse with increased competition.

Even if any of that spouted BS was even a tiny bit true, you (and your alleged "police" friends) should be totally for full legalisation, because if it was sold legally, nobody could lace anything, as it would be fully regulated...

Way to shoot down your own argument :D

blakamin

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#2157693 10-Jan-2019 17:14

Coil:

I got an interesting story about that stuff from my youth

Are you 50 now? Jeez that happened quick!!

When I refer to my "youth" it was when I was under 35.

Coil

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#2157695 10-Jan-2019 17:20

blakamin:

Coil:

I got an interesting story about that stuff from my youth

Are you 50 now? Jeez that happened quick!!

When I refer to my "youth" it was when I was under 35.

Well I'm 23 now and I sort of call my youth years until 17 when I started working for a corporate which was Vodafone, or when they start writing your police record. At that point you become an "Adult"
I do agree you can still be youthful until 35, heck I got a mate who is 37 that is more of a kid and more active than I am.

badgernz

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#2157784 10-Jan-2019 22:03

In regards to the initial question around the possible availability of CBD products for pain relief in NZ in future, it is already legal and GP's can prescribe the approved products to patients - reality is most have no idea how to...

From memory (looked in to this early last year due to my daughter having refractory epilepsy) the approved product is imported by a ChCh company and it is produced specifically for the NZ market in Canada - it is not funded so the patient will be up for the full costs and I understand it is not cheep and could cost $500+ per month.

If you are looking at accessing CBD for pain I would suggest contacting Dr Gulbransen he seems to be the 'local' expert and advocate in the medical field: - I cannot paste links but look for cannabiscare nz

Also the ministry of health also have a page outlining the facts around CBD access - again I cannot paste links due to been new but if you google prescribe CBD New Zealand it should come up...

Cheers

JimmyH

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#2157803 10-Jan-2019 23:10

surfisup1000:

I had a childhood friend who got into cannabis in his teens, developed schizophrenia, and killed himself before 20.

Which is deeply unfortunate, but to be relevant to the debate you also have to establish that there is good evidence that cannabis use causes schizophrenia. I have seen this alleged or inferred in a number of threads on the issue, but never seen and decent evidence that it's true. Without decent evidence it's about as solid as saying that three people brought and used pop-up toasters and then broke their legs, so we should ban pop up toasters.

And yes, I am aware of statistics that higher proportions of schizophrenic people consume cannabis than in the broader population, but that doesn't prove a causal link. It's at least as likely that schizophrenia, or whatever underling condition might cause it, predisposes people to medicate with cannabis etc as it is to say that any causality runs the other way - noting that schizophrenics also disproportionately consume tobacco and alcohol as well.

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Sidestep

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#2157849 11-Jan-2019 05:29

JimmyH:

..to be relevant to the debate you also have to establish that there is good evidence that cannabis use causes schizophrenia. I have seen this alleged or inferred in a number of threads on the issue, but never seen and decent evidence that it's true.

Read this.
It's one of a series of briefs issued by the Canadian Public Health Association (a NGO focused on Public Health) for the Canadian Minister of Health.
Check out the referenced studies at the end. Find many more by Googling “cannabis and schizophrenia”
An interesting discussion of the genetic and chemical triggers by the National Institute on Drug Abuse here.

It's a serious issue that needs to be included in the Legalisation debate.

A key point is that there's a 40% increase in the risk of psychosis with Cannabis use (for those with a pre-existing vulnerability)
And an interesting takeaway is - though up to 10% of reported schizophrenia cases are associated with Cannabis use - the prevalence of schizophrenia does not materially alter with increased prevalence of Cannabis use..

Health Canada found the correlations strong enough that about a quarter of the mandated warning messages on retailed Cannabis are schizophrenia related.

Often these warnings are nested Russian Doll like inside each other.. especially pre-rolled joints.
You break open the excise-tax sealed container with it's prominent bright yellow warning label, to find a sealed humidity packet (with a bright yellow warning), rip that open and you sometimes find another warning on the individually packaged joints.

jonathan18

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#2157929 11-Jan-2019 09:23

I recall the schizophrenia / cannabis link being discussed in the "Why Am I?" documentary a few years back (this was the three-part series on the findings of the Dunedin longitudinal study).

While it found " elevated risk of developing psychosis in the presence of early cannabis use", the most interesting part was that a certain gene combination present in around a quarter of the population made this far more likely (they report 11x). Plus there's a greater risk if using cannabis before the age of 18.

[Edit - source: https://www.drugfoundation.org.nz/news-media-and-events/research-links-cannabis-use-with-psychosis/]

While I'm certainly in favour of a much more open drug policy, equally I believe any liberalisation needs to be done with care - eg with much more consideration than happened with the dropping of the drinking age!

NZers aren't particularly keen on open and meaningful debate - runs counter to our strong streak of 'just get on with it' plus a decent dose of anti-intellectualism - but this isn't something to rush; by not being the first, we can also hopefully have a better idea as to how to (and not to) reform our laws, based on others' experiences (and, of course, ensure we have the appropriate support available in other areas such as mental health - something that long article on the Portugal reforms I linked to earlier indicated hadn't necessarily been managed well there).

It's also going to be critical as to how the referendum is handled - if it's the woolly wording that's been common to many previous referenda there's the potential for it causing more heat than light. Some argue we need to have a very good idea as to what the end state and legislation required would look like, on which voters can make an informed decision; as a policy wonk, this makes a lot of sense...

Rikkitic

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#2157966 11-Jan-2019 10:03

The preceding is a good post and I do not disagree with the points made. The problem I have is that many people in this debate, especially lawn order types, have had their opinions formed by the years of reefer madness hysteria and have lost their ability to form new ones when presented with other information. I do not believe cannabis is harmless and I do not doubt it affects different people differently. What bothers me is the people who have already made up their minds using this to reinforce their prejudices.

It is a good and necessary idea to include robust health and information policies along with any drug reform, but everything I have read, heard, and experienced up to now convinces me that making cannabis illegal, especially in the way it has been done, has resulted in far more harm to individuals and society than just letting people do whatever they want with it ever could. Pushing vulnerable young people into the hands of gangs, massive injustice through the criminal system, and a complete lack of any health safeguards due to its illegal status, have all done vastly more harm than any amount of smoking the stuff could ever cause. This has been a huge injustice, based entirely on misinformation and ignorance, that has gone on for generations. The real reefer madness has been entirely that of politicians and others who should have known better but allowed this despicable situation to carry on for so long. The sooner this law is changed, the better.

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Hammerer

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#2158005 11-Jan-2019 10:45

Rikkitic:

The preceding is a good post and I do not disagree with the points made. The problem I have is that many people in this debate, especially lawn order types, have had their opinions formed by the years of reefer madness hysteria and have lost their ability to form new ones when presented with other information. I do not believe cannabis is harmless and I do not doubt it affects different people differently. What bothers me is the people who have already made up their minds using this to reinforce their prejudices.

You say "I do not disagree with points made" and then immediately disparage it by implying that this is more reinforcing of existing prejudices.

You also appear to be doing what you are criticising others for: holding opinions that they won't change. There is sufficient evidence to show causality even if you don't think it is "decent evidence that it is true".

Rikkitic:

... but everything I have read, heard, and experienced up to now convinces me that making cannabis illegal, especially in the way it has been done, has resulted in far more harm to individuals and society than just letting people do whatever they want with it ever could.

You are also attempting to deny the relevance of individual experience in this debate. This is a rhetorical device that seeks to privilege your own views by ignoring the importance of individual experience. This same personal experience that you keep vaunting in the face of other evidence. There are many reasons why your stricture should be ignored. Apart from your prejudice against others testifying to their own experience, the most relevant is that many studies begin because of such experience: somebody notices an event and is interested in investigating the apparent causal link.

JimmyH:

surfisup1000:

I had a childhood friend who got into cannabis in his teens, developed schizophrenia, and killed himself before 20.

Which is deeply unfortunate, but to be relevant to the debate you also have to establish that there is good evidence that cannabis use causes schizophrenia. I have seen this alleged or inferred in a number of threads on the issue, but never seen and decent evidence that it's true.

My personal experience is that about half the people who tell me that they are schizophrenic, also tell me that it started after they smoked cannabis in their teens. The one who was most adamant about the connection - he had his first episode that same week - can't testify to that experience because, like many others, he too has killed himself.

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