WOOT! Medical pot for veterans :3

[YuukiSkywolf]

I know that this was like 9 days ago, but still pretty fuckin awesome if I say so myself. 

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/11/10/senate-oks-medical-pot-for-veterans

 

 

 

[Zeke]

It'll help with PTSD, but there should be further psych help in order to help them with the condition.

[Derin Darkpaw]

I have very mixed feelings when things like this happen.  On the one hand it helps to make marijuana use a more culturally accepted thing which hopefully lead to the legalization of pot as a recreational drug.  On the other hand it perpetuates the myth of there being appreciable medicinal effects to smoking marijuana.

[Mikazuki Marazhu]

I still think weed is bad even with PTSD

[grassfed]

I have very mixed feelings when things like this happen.  On the one hand it helps to make marijuana use a more culturally accepted thing which hopefully lead to the legalization of pot as a recreational drug.  On the other hand it perpetuates the myth of there being appreciable medicinal effects to smoking marijuana.

you sir, need to learn a bit more about this. Yes, smoking may not be the best method of ingestion but it offers immediate relief and is very easy to control your dosage since it doesn't take long to hit. While eating it can take up to three hours for some,  smoking/vaporizing allows self titration. 

More serious illnesses like cancer require oral or rectal ingestion to be truly effective. If you've ever heard someone say cannabis cures cancer, it's true, but not from smoking it. I've treated cancerous tumors in rats and rabbits, and we're currently try treating my friends aunt.

I'm really tired of seeing people treat this medicine like a joke, grow up and learn to think for yourself. Do some honest research. 

And stop calling it pot lol

[Vaer]

you sir, need to learn a bit more about this. Yes, smoking may not be the best method of ingestion but it offers immediate relief and is very easy to control your dosage since it doesn't take long to hit. While eating it can take up to three hours for some,  smoking/vaporizing allows self titration. 

More serious illnesses like cancer require oral or rectal ingestion to be truly effective. If you've ever heard someone say cannabis cures cancer, it's true, but not from smoking it. I've treated cancerous tumors in rats and rabbits, and we're currently try treating my friends aunt.

I'm really tired of seeing people treat this medicine like a joke, grow up and learn to think for yourself. Do some honest research. 

And stop calling it pot lol

[Ratmomma]

you sir, need to learn a bit more about this. Yes, smoking may not be the best method of ingestion but it offers immediate relief and is very easy to control your dosage since it doesn't take long to hit. While eating it can take up to three hours for some,  smoking/vaporizing allows self titration. 

More serious illnesses like cancer require oral or rectal ingestion to be truly effective. If you've ever heard someone say cannabis cures cancer, it's true, but not from smoking it. I've treated cancerous tumors in rats and rabbits, and we're currently try treating my friends aunt.

I'm really tired of seeing people treat this medicine like a joke, grow up and learn to think for yourself. Do some honest research. 

And stop calling it pot lol

8( Come to my home and cure my oldest rattie of her mammary tumors

[grassfed]

8( Come to my home and cure my oldest rattie of her mammary tumors

where do you live? I could possibly help you out, feel free to PM me <3

[Derin Darkpaw]

you sir, need to learn a bit more about this. Yes, smoking may not be the best method of ingestion but it offers immediate relief and is very easy to control your dosage since it doesn't take long to hit. While eating it can take up to three hours for some,  smoking/vaporizing allows self titration. 

More serious illnesses like cancer require oral or rectal ingestion to be truly effective. If you've ever heard someone say cannabis cures cancer, it's true, but not from smoking it. I've treated cancerous tumors in rats and rabbits, and we're currently try treating my friends aunt.

I'm really tired of seeing people treat this medicine like a joke, grow up and learn to think for yourself. Do some honest research. 

And stop calling it pot lol

Ohhhh noooo you didn't son.  Gauntlet is thrown down.  You want research son I will give you some motherfucking research. 

Here is a Cochrane review that examines the safety and efficacy of cannabis and cannabinoids when used to stimulate appetite in patients with HIV/AIDS and it finds no good evidence of any long term effect.

http://www.cochrane.org/CD005175/HIV_medical-use-of-cannabis-in-patients-with-hivaids.

Here is yet another Cochrane review looking at cannabis treating schizophrenia and it finds no evidence of either improvement or deterioration.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD004837.pub2/abstract

One area that shows slight promise is the using cannabis and cannabinoids is for treatment of nausea and/or as an antiemetic.  This review notes a stronger effect in those patients using cannabinoids, but it also notes much more severe and frequent side effects in those same patients.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18625004

Now lets move onto the subject of marijuana treating cancer.  here is what the American Cancer Society has to say on the subject

"More recently, scientists reported that THC and other cannabinoids such as CBD (cannabidiol) slow growth and/or cause death in certain types of cancer cells growing in laboratory dishes. Some animal studies also suggest certain cannabinoids may slow growth and reduce spread of some forms of cancer. However, these substances have not been tested in humans to find out if they can lower cancer risk. There is no available scientific evidence from controlled studies in humans that cannabinoids can cure or treat cancer. "

I could go on like this citing various sources and demonstrating the flaws in various papers that claim to show some effect, but I think I will stop here for now.  Look I never said that cannabis and/or cannabinoids don't have potentially useful medical applications.  I only said that you won't get any of those benefits from smoking it.  Same goes for just cooking the plant and eating it.  If we are going to get any thing good from this its going to be by identifying, isolating, purifying and/or modifying compounds that are contained within marijuana.  Then once we have done that we will have to put those compounds through rigorous  clinical trials to determine what if any effect they truly have.

[grassfed]

Great, more government funded studies using synthetic and isolated cannabinoids, show me independent studies using natural medicine. Since when are government entities looking out for our best interest?

Isolating specific cannabinoids is NOT the answer. You need whole plant medicine with a wide spectrum of cannabinoids, terpenes, Flavinoids etc. In the form of Full Extract Cannabis Oil, not some isolated bullshit like marinol and sativex. 

I don't waste my time arguing with people like you because I've seen what this medicine is capable of right in front of my eyes.

Good day, sir.

[Derin Darkpaw]

Great, more government funded studies using synthetic and isolated cannabinoids, show me independent studies using natural medicine. Since when are government entities looking out for our best interest?

Isolating specific cannabinoids is NOT the answer. You need whole plant medicine with a wide spectrum of cannabinoids, terpenes, Flavinoids etc. In the form of Full Extract Cannabis Oil, not some isolated bullshit like marinol and sativex. 

I don't waste my time arguing with people like you because I've seen what this medicine is capable of right in front of my eyes.

Good day, sir.

Lets see the government had my best interest in mind when it started iodizing salt thus drastically reducing the incidence of goiters.  It also had my best interest in mind when it started fortifying various foods with niacin which stopped the outbreak of pellagra thus saving thousands of lives.  Then it had my best interest in mind when it worked to help vaccinate people against any number of communicable disease with obvious positive results that I shouldn't need to explain.  Finally it had my best interest in mind when it started water fluoridation programs thus reducing cavities and again saving lives.

Seems like a pretty good track record of medical interventions to me, but all of that ignores the elephant in the room.  The Cochrane organization that did all those reviews I mentioned is non governmental.  They don't even have anything to do with any government.  The Cochrane organization is an independent, non-profit, non-governmental organization consisting of a group of more than 37,000 volunteers in more than 130 countries.  Here is their website maybe you can, as you so eloquently told me earlier, "grow up and learn to think for yourself. Do some honest research."

http://www.cochrane.org/about-us

Second off no we don't need the whole plant, we have never needed the whole plant, and the chance of any medical intervention requiring the whole of any plant is astronomically small.  We don't chew on willow bark to get the pain relief any more because aspirin is so much more effective.

Also the fact that you have seen this medicine work first hand is nothing more then anecdotal evidence.  There are any number of confounding factors that can occur when treating a complicated disease such as cancer which is why clinical research is of the utmost importance when it comes to figuring out what is actually saving lives so that we can replicate that in the future.

[grassfed]

You're a good little sheep aren't you.

[Derin Darkpaw]

You're a good little sheep aren't you.

Ad hominen attack without addressing any of the points I raised.  I feel like there is an interesting intellectual debate we could have on this subject, but whether you want to handle this issue like an adult and actually discuss the topic at hand or act like a child and resort to name calling is up to you.

[Onnes]

Cochrane reviews ...

Did you read the Cochrane reviews you linked? Their primary conclusion was insufficient statistics, i.e., the the trial quality and patient number weren't high enough. The schizophrenia review included just a single trial, which is unsurprising as I've rarely heard anything about cannabinoids being suggested as a schizophrenia treatment. Given your choice of low statistics studies, I'd hazard a guess that you're cherry picking here.

For a recent, meta-meta analysis see this JAMA article. Note that the legal status of cannabinoids in the USA and many other countries precludes most medical trials, making data collection difficult if not impossible.

[Phausk]

Isolating specific cannabinoids is NOT the answer. You need whole plant medicine with a wide spectrum of cannabinoids, terpenes, Flavinoids etc. In the form of Full Extract Cannabis Oil, not some isolated bullshit like marinol and sativex.

Yeah the synthetic cannabis is garbage. My mother thought it was the same thing as weed but it didn't do shit for me in regards to anxiety. I have yet to try the real deal though.

[Onnes]

Yea, Cochrane.org? The same one that has been questioned multiple times about bullshit studies regarding vaccines, and medicine in general?

http://www.jpands.org/vol11no4/millerc.pdf

No, you give me a real fucking source, please.

Did you just link an anti-vax editorial from the "Association of American Physicians and Surgeons"? I guess it's less crazy than their AIDS denialism.

[Eggdodger]

My father was a veteran, and fought mesothelioma a good number of years. He talked about how he would have liked having medicinal marijuana. He was in a lot of pain. He actually voted on a state level to legalize it in the 2014 midterms. It didn't pass in our state.

I'm glad other veterans will have access to it, though, if that's what they want.

[Luka]

I'd never smoke that thing, but uh, good for them, I guess. 

[Spot]

>complains about how bad weed is

>has never tried it in his/her life

/thread

[Derin Darkpaw]

Did you read the Cochrane reviews you linked? Their primary conclusion was insufficient statistics, i.e., the the trial quality and patient number weren't high enough. The schizophrenia review included just a single trial, which is unsurprising as I've rarely heard anything about cannabinoids being suggested as a schizophrenia treatment. Given your choice of low statistics studies, I'd hazard a guess that you're cherry picking here.

For a recent, meta-meta analysis see this JAMA article. Note that the legal status of cannabinoids in the USA and many other countries precludes most medical trials, making data collection difficult if not impossible.

Yes I did read the reviews and the small number of studies just goes to show that there is currently not enough evidence to make conclusions about what cannabinoids are capable of treating.  I never said that they shouldn't be studied just that it is way too early to make claims like they can treat cancer or PTSD.

As for the article you posted its important to understand that is only comparing the effect to placebo and it only shows a statistical difference of 6% in regards to treating chronic pain.  That isn't a huge difference compared to what can be achieved with already available medicine.  With regards to use of cannabinoids as anti-emetics it shows similar findings to the studies I previously mentioned which I pointed out is a promising avenue of research for the use of cannabinoids.  Also of important note is the section in regards to side effects where it states "There was an increased risk of short-term AEs with cannabinoids, including serious AEs. Common AEs included dizziness, dry mouth, nausea, fatigue, somnolence, euphoria, vomiting, disorientation, drowsiness, confusion, loss of balance, and hallucination."  That is a pretty hefty list of potential side effects for something that is supposedly going to be used to treat chronic pain and ironically enough nausea and vomiting.

I am fully aware of the legal status of cannabinoids and that is something I seriously want to change.  Marijuana should be just as legal and regulated as other substances like alcohol and tobacco.  Marijuana as a legal substance has my full support what I will not support however is this misguided viewpoint some people have that marijuana is some sort of wonder plant that is capable of curing the most serious illnesses just by smoking it.

[Guest]

Bombs away! Bring the popcorn

Oh shit there we go again with the weed talk...

[Spot]

Has anyone here actually been stoned? I mean really shitfaced stoned? Loss of awareness, time, shit like that. Fuck last time I hit the weed I had already finished off half a bottle of wine, then had two spots. I don't smoke very often so it hit me like a ton of bricks! I wouldn't recommend it! Especially wine beforehand.

 

Edited November 20, 2015 by Mr. Fox

[Spot]

Go eat a proper space brownie and get back to me on what it means to be really stoned.

I got so fucking high from one 15 years ago that edibles simply don't work on me any longer.

I had potcake once. My brother freaked out so much he was gonna ring the doc. He said I was sitting in one place for hours on end, like a statue. Eating felt so weird that night.

[Vaer]

Has anyone here actually been stoned? I mean really shitfaced stoned? Loss of awareness, time, shit like that. Fuck last time I hit the weed I had already finished off half a bottle of wine, then had two spots. I don't smoke very often so it hit me like a ton of bricks! I wouldn't recommend it! Especially wine beforehand.

 

I had one of these bad boys once.

1000mg 20 dose Stroop Waffle.

There went almost two days of my life.

[Spot]

I am so fucking glad I am not high right now.

[Vaer]

I am so fucking glad I am not high right now.

Yeah...me...too....

Edited November 20, 2015 by Vaer

[Derin Darkpaw]

Compared with the known side effect of synthetic cannabinoids of DEATH (4 and counting for Marinol) I'll stick with cannabis in natural form. Also, the AE list of cannabinoids is TAME in comparison to any typically-used opiate painkiller.

Its important to understand that every drug that has an effect will have side effects.  Same is true for in reverse.  If you have a drug that has little to no side effects then likely it will have little to no actual effect.

Also if you are so gung ho about cannabis in its natural form curing these conditions then test it.  Present strong clinical evidence demonstrating that marijuana is more effective then placebo.  Its as simple as that.  If there is a well conducted properly controlled study demonstrating this effect then I will accept it.  That is literally all it would take for me to accept being wrong.

[Derin Darkpaw]

I don't think of it as a cure, rather more a treatment. For starters, I've been crushed by a truck. I have implants. I also have BPPV (benign paroxysmal positional vertigo.) Cannabis aleviates the symptoms of my pain and BPPV greatly, and I use it because I can't take opiates or cocaine-based painkillers, and NSAIDs are entirely ineffective.

Bear in mind, this is all done on the advice of medical doctors.

If you want clinical evidence, are you going to as accept the clinical evidence from companies that manufactured and tested extracts (like Sativex, by GW Pharmaceuticals) and whom also paid/funded the research and studies if they give proper disclosure of such fact?

If so, then: http://docweed.info/medical/medical.htm

Plenty for you to start reading. I happen to perform research and know how to look for red flags, I can say that every one of these links (excluding the web links at the bottom) I have sampled at random have been fairly thorough and disclose competing interests when I'm expecting to see them.

Let me first state I am sorry that you are in so much pain and I am glad that you have something that you personally find relief through.  Something to be aware of is that everyone is their own worst judge when it comes to their own health.  Especially in regards to subjective outcomes like pain.  The sheer number of biases and cognitive tricks one's mind plays on itself are impressive.  There are many people who find relief from subjective symptoms in a large number of alternative treatment, but just because some people swear by acupuncture for their back pain that isn't effective evidence that acupuncture relieves pain.

Ok now lets go onto some of the research in that link you posted.  I am only going to be focusing on the section regarding pain because right now that seems the one most relevant to our current discussion.  These two links here and here are particularly terrible in regards to research or evidence.  They are both just surveys and collections of anecdotes no actual clinical research done at all.  As I mentioned earlier you can't just ask people about what they think treats their pain because it is highly subjective and thus vulnerable to various biases.  This study here has no control group, no placebo, and there is no blinding of either the patients or experimenters mentioned.  Every patient is given the same drug just at different doses.  That is a horrendous design for a study involving a subjective outcome such as pain.  Then the final article here doesn't even include any research.  It is literally just an article saying that some researcher says that he thinks marijuana is effective in treating chronic pain.

The research in every single article on their section for pain was either bad or non-existent.

[Sarcastic Coffeecup]

ITT drug users justify their habit/addiction

[Vaer]

"Well, look at the drugs we use. Except for pharmaceutical poison, there are essentially only two drugs that Western civilization tolerates: Caffeine from Monday to Friday to energize you enough to make you a productive member of society, and alcohol from Friday to Monday to keep you too stupid to figure out the prison that you are living in.” 
― Bill Hicks

Edited November 21, 2015 by Vaer

[Derin Darkpaw]

You didn't follow up with the additional links provided in those studies or surveys. So, going through those articles and the other sources cited within them:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3080871/?tool=pubmed

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22730275

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20007734

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17974490

 

 

Alright lets start breaking these down 1 by 1.  I will henceforth be referring to them as Study 1, Study 2, Study 3, and Study 4 respectively in the order you posted them.

Study 1 states right of the bat that its method was a questionnaire which is no different then what I pointed out early.  This is just a glorified survey.  Also the sample size is incredibly small it only had 28 patients in each group.  Even within that small group the method of administration of the drug and the amount used varied from subject to subject.  Also it only measured cannabis use to no cannabis use without even considering a placebo group.

Study 2 does not even look at the effect caused by cannabis use it is simply documenting the self reported prevalence of cannabis use in people who have fibromyalgia.  Even then in their conclusion they explicitly state that the use of herbal cannabis is related with negative psychosocial parameters and then they further go on to caution against recommending the use of cannabinoids in treating these conditions.  So even if we were accepting this study as valid then it would go against the very argument you are trying to present.

Study 3 seems to be getting somewhere at first, but there are some serious problems that I will get to.  First lets go with what it got right.  It is looking at a specific compound, in this case nabilone, and comparing it directly to another drug amitriptyline.  Also its randomized and double blinded.  That is a great start, but it so quickly falls apart after that.  One it has an incredibly small group of only 29 patients.  Secondly it says that it was only beneficial in regards to restfulness, but that there was no effect in regards to pain, mood, or quality of life.  Seeing as pain is what you are specifically suggesting it be used for I don't know why you posted this one either.  It also goes on to mention that the AEs were more frequent with nabilone. 

This also ignores the big thing here and that is that amitriptyline, the drug nabilone is being compared to, is not even recommended for treating insomnia.  So they are taking a new drug and measuring it up to an old drug in an arena that the amitriptyline is known to be bad at.  One of the reasons amitriptyline isn't used to treat insomnia is because of its AEs and nabilone is stated within this study to have worse AEs then amitriptyline.

Study 4 again is studying nablinone, but this time it is comparing it to a placebo and it is directly observing for improvement in pain management and quality of life in patients with fibromyalgia.  Again it is double blinded and placebo controlled which is awesome, but again it suffers from a very small sample size of only 40 patients.  It seems to find a decrease in pain among those that are being given the drug nabilone, but wait didn't another study you posted at the same time come to the opposite conclusion.  Oh yeah I seem to recall that Study 3 found there was no effect in regards to pain when they gave their patients nabilone. 

So the only two studies you present with any promise seem to come to contradictory conclusions to each other.  Also of note neither Study 3 or Study 4 where measuring the effect of smoking or eating marijuana.  They were both studies of a specific drug that isn't even derived from marijuana or a plant.  Nabilone is a synthetic compound that only mimics the effects of THC.  That only proves my original point in that if we are going to discover anything of medicinal value from marijuana its not going to be through smoking or consuming the whole plant, but instead by synthesizing, isolating, and/or purifying the compounds and molecules it contains.

[Clove Darkwave]

ITT drug users justify their habit/addiction

I wish Pot Culture would stop being a thing.

 

That being said, great for the vets that need it. I still don't want it around me and despise the company of habitually stoned people as much as habitually drunk people.

Edited November 21, 2015 by Clove Darkwave

[MuttButt]

ITT drug users justify their habit/addiction

Damn druggies, always having a good time and shit. Somebody oughtta put a stop to that if I do say so myself!  

[grassfed]

 

 

Edited November 21, 2015 by grassfed

[grassfed]

 

[Derin Darkpaw]

I think there's a couple of things affecting your judgment, here.

First, After effects. After effects are not guaranteed, yet your words imply that you're thinking they're guaranteed..

Second, study sample size. Good luck finding enough fibromyalgia patients to make the study very statistically useful, because very few exist in areas where medical cannabis can even be tested with these people.

Third: Many surveys have to be taken to bolster statistical data from other studies. Just because they are questionnaires does not rule out statistical value or relevance. In fact, since doctors can't determine directly whether or not a patient has noticably reduced pain levels without asking them (this isn't exactly something where you can just take regular x-rays, CTs, blood tests and urine tests, and notice a difference over time,) questionnaires are just a great of a tool as other study methods, when applied to the proper scenario, as these were.

These studies didn't fall apart as you say. They did just fine with their extremely limited potential groups. You look at the studies and have absolutely failed to consider dozens, if not hundreds, of factors that influence how, what, why, etc. You also forget the Federal government has up until recently had serious issues with allowing any research on cannabis-based medicine (excepting in Mississippi, where there is a dedicated medical testing production field in Oxford.)

You also said you focused on pain. You focused on the category of pain mentioned on the site. More than 2/3 of the articles from that primary source site I linked involve pain from multiple issues, all with plenty of studies done, and you should've been reading all of them instead of the narrow group you selected from. As an example:

http://docweed.info/medical/multiple-4.pdf

First off I in no way implied that the AEs are guaranteed.  They are something that needs to be considered when it comes to any medication however.  A new medicine may prove to be effective at treating a symptom, but if the AEs are significantly worse then medicine may not be worth taking.

Second as for sample size within 2 minutes of looking through Pubmed I found a study specifically about Fibromyalgia and pain management that managed to get a sample size of 96,175 patients so it seems like its far from impossible to get a larger sample size for this subject.

And no questionnaires are not great tools for study.  They are bad tools that you tolerate the use of if you have absolutely no better way to gather the data and as pointed out in some of the very studies you provided their are other ways to evaluate pain.

One of the studies you posted measured different amounts of drugs and different methods of introduction for those drugs with no consistency in a very small sample size.  Another study that you posted outright concluded that we should not recommend marijuana for the treatment of chronic pain.  Finally two of the studies you provided that used the exact same compound came to opposite conclusions from each other.  If the very studies that you choose to present contradict each other or come to conclusions that do not support your premise what do you think that says about your argument?

As for you Grassfed congratulations you managed to find two completely anecdotal appeals to emotion and one appeal to authority.  Unless you can back up your points with evidence and avoid resorting to basic logical fallacies you're statements are vacuous at best.

[Derin Darkpaw]

No there are more and less effective ways to evaluate pain.  For example rather then simply asking people how much pain they are in you can present them with VAS, or visual analogue scale, as was explicitly mentioned as being done in two of the studies you presented.  Also its has nothing to do with under or over reporting pain, but depending on how a question like that is structured it can influence people to answer one way or another.  That is part of the magic of surveys by simply changing the wording of a question the same person may answer the exact same question different ways.  When a more standardized method that has been shown to have less bias, such as VAS, is used that is going to grant a study a good deal more credibility.

All you are doing is just making excuses for any failings the studies have.  Its either the company did something wrong, the government won't let these studies happen, the drug must have been something different, or there is more research I just need to find it myself.  No matter what flaws I find its always just going to be waved off by you for any reason you can think of.  You need to step back from the ideology you are trying to push here and seriously ask yourself what it would take to prove you wrong because I know exactly what would prove me wrong and have stated as such.  Falsifiability is a very important thing when it comes to scientific discourse because if something isn't falsifiable then it necessarily can not be proven true.

[Derin Darkpaw]

I do apologize I was not citing that study as anything other then a demonstration of how larger numbers for this condition are not impossible to find.  It was in no way a demonstration of anything else except that it is possible to get a good deal more then 50 patients for a study of this nature or something similar.  You are attacking a straw man here.

I presented several reviews and you just hand wave away them because you claim they are from a dubious organization without taking even one look at anything they contain.  You presented a site that had links to articles about surveys and opinions and when I pointed that out you claimed I needed to see the real research.  You then presented several research papers and when I point out the flaws in them you claim I need to see more research or that those flaws don't exist or are not flaws.  It is never going to end with you.  There will always be one more study I need to disprove or one more fact I need to look up.  It is like playing the worlds worst game of whack-a-mole.

Also FYI the amount of research you have done is entirely irrelevant.  You could be the world leading expert on all research in regards to horticulture, but bringing that up in a discussion is nothing more than an appeal to authority.  If you were so concerned with demonstrating the logical flaws in my arguments I feel like you would avoid making such a basic mistake as that.

[Derin Darkpaw]

No the subject I meant to imply was for fibromyalgia and pain management.  I am sorry if I didn't make it clear that I never intended to imply marijuana specifically.  That was a failing on my part. 

As regard to the legal status I have stated over and over again that I feel marijuana should be legal.  I want marijuana to be completely decriminalized.  Then studies with larger sample sizes would be more reasonable to conduct in regards to marijuana and synthetic cannabinoid compounds, but at the moment the small sample sizes cause the current studies performed to be of reduced usefulness.

The primary arguments I have been making here is that the current evidence is too small and preliminary to conclude that synthetic cannabinoids or compounds derived from marijuana are an effective means of treatment and that the plausibility of the marijuana plant being smoked or ingested as the "whole plant" to achieve therapeutic effects is minimal at best.

What I am arguing for is not the abandonment of the studies into such compounds derived from cannabis or cannabinoids, but that we should not make statements such as "Marijuana cures x" when the evidence is very far from clear at this stage.

So let me ask this question that you never really answered.  Where is your evidence that smoking marijuana is an effective means of treating pain?  Because out of two of the studies you gave in regards to the use of marijuana the plant and not a compound the first one wasn't blinded or placebo controlled and the second only recorded whether people were or were not using herbal cannabis products without collecting any data in regards to pain.

Also another question you aren't answering.  What would it take for you to be proven wrong?