Wise words from a practicing psychiatrist – A Doctor's Case For Legal Pot
In most of my substance-abuse patients, I am far more concerned about their consumption of booze than pot. Alcohol frequently induces violent or dangerous behavior and often-irreversible physiological dependence; marijuana does neither. Chronic use of cannabis raises the risk of lung cancer, weight gain, and lingering cognitive changes—but chronic use of alcohol can cause pancreatitis, cirrhosis and permanent dementia. In healthy but reckless teens and young adults, it is frighteningly easy to consume a lethal dose of alcohol, but it is almost impossible to do so with marijuana. Further, compared with cannabis, alcohol can cause severe impairment of judgment, which results in greater concurrent use of hard drugs.
He goes on to argue that legalization would allow for a "sin tax" that would bring millions (or even billions) of dollars of revenue – hopefully for mental health care.
He is spot on. I have argued often that we should legalize and tax marijuana. I would greatly prefer caring for a pot head than an alcoholic. Most honest physicians will agree. Marijuana tends to demotivate – and that is a real problem. Alcohol leads to greater loss of judgment and often results in violence.
The logic for keeping marijuana illegal is absent. Of course, legislators rarely use logic when they pass laws.
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I feel this drug needs to be legalized. Marajuanna can help so many people, along with other pharmacutical tools, to treat the body . . . as a whole. It is a safer treatment for people that self medicate with alcohol. There is a tremendous need for more federal dollars and revenue dollars would be in US pockets instead of "Drug Cartels"!
I practice psychiatry in California, where medical marijuana is legal. Roughly half of my patients use marijuana for such "indications" as anxiety, insomnia, and "stress."
While I don't dispute the (anecdotal) efficacy of cannabis for these purposes, it frustrates me endlessly that the medical MJ providers can simply write a brief note to a patient "advising" them of MJ, and patients can buy as much as they can afford at the local dispensary, not returning to the prescribing doctor for another year.
To me, this is not medicine. Medicine involves careful assessment and diagnosis, prescription of evidence-based treatments (psychoactive compounds and/or therapy) in known quantities, and regular follow-up to determine efficacy, side effects, and compliance, and a discontinuation of treatment when/if appropriate. It also involves coordination of care with other providers; the medical MJ docs never seem to return my calls when I ask them to work with me to manage a patient's panic disorder, PTSD, insomnia, depression, etc.
Medical marijuana, as practiced now, gives a patient free reign to an effective– although potent, abusable (and "marketable")– substance with none of the monitoring that is so essential for the practice of medicine. Hopefully, with greater acceptance of MJ we'll start to put some real controls on it.
This Psychiatrist must not deal with severe marijuana abuse very often in his practice. Marijuana can lead to a chronic schizophrenia-like psychosis, which is less likely to be amenable to antipsychotic treatment, and is extremely debilitating. Among less strong users there is what is being termed "amotivation syndrome," which is basically a stone's throw away from the old catatonia we used to see back in the day. I'm not saying that between booze and weed, one is worse than the other, but rather we shouldn't underestimate the harmful long term effects of either.
I think Marijuana should be legal. I understand after using marijuana for along time you get a brain effect. But marijuana is much safer than alchohol and other drug substances.
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