Medical Marijuana in British Columbia
Medical marijuana has been legal in B.C. for the past while. Which is a bit confusing, because it always was legal. Now it is just legal in a slightly different way.
The only things that have really changed are the rules about marketing and growing it, which might not make a huge difference from a doctors point of view. But there are some of the highlights.
1) You need a medical reason - there will be a list below. Glaucoma and stress don't quite cut it for me.
2) You need to get the permission to get it from a doctor or nurse practitioner ( the IPAD interviews from naturopaths are not strictly legal )
3 ) You should get it from a legal dispensary. There are over a hundred dispensaries in the lower mainland, but only a few that are completely legal that I deal with. ( There are couple of other ones that I don't deal with, mainly just due to convenience issues )
One is in Nanaimo ( Tilray.ca ) and the other one is in Whistler ( Whistler Hemp Company ) . Both of these are completely official, meaning that they have business licences and are income tax deductions, and real world addresses that are likey to remain stable.
Advantages to legal medical marijuana
1) It is legal - You get a wallet card allowing you to have a certain amount in your possession. You could take one of those cards to a police convention and smoke dope in front of the cops.
2) You can order it online with your credit card
3) It gets couriered to your door the next day by Fed Ex
4) You get receipts that you can claim on your income tax as medical expenses
5) It is often covered by veteran's benefits etc.
6) You can participate in ongoing studies with UBC etc on the medical effects of marijuana, and thereby increase the state of scientific knowledge on the subject
Disadvantages to Medical Marijuana
1) They don't have much in the way of edibles.
I hate encouraging people to smoke anything. And marijuana may be even worse for your lungs than cigarettes. There is a theory that MJ combines the worst toxic effects of both alcohol and smoking ( i.e lung disease and being weird in the head ) . There is much to be said for that point of view.
Vaping is better, but also requires you to buy a vaporizer and sometimes special oils etc that go in it.
Edibles are my favorite, but currently seem to be an under-developed resource.
2) It tends to be expensive.
he official dispensaries all have quality control, business licences, and an address that is likely to be there next week. But they are towards the pricey end of the specturm ( according to my dope smoking patient afficionados )
3) The names are stupid.
Imagine you are an 80 year old man with cancer of the pancreas and I send you to one of the above web sites to get some mj to stimulate your appetite. You go to the web site, and can't figure out indica from sativa, tetrahydrocannabinol ( THC ) from CBD ( cannibadiol ), and the names on the web sites are stupid stoner names like "Energy skunk" and "God's Green Crack" and "lemon sour diesel" which is not even marijuana - it is a strain of LSD that "they think" comes from Holland, and that seems to be all they know about it. Which does not inspire much confidence !
Above is an example of the info provided for lemon sour diesel. I have an honors degree in Biochemistry ( for real - Deans List, UBC, 1979) and even I don't have a clue what they hell they are talking about. Which makes this info pretty useless for the common consumer.
The various names are descriptive, and even occasionally poetic, but the names are not designed to be useful to anyone who has an actual medical need. Which is kind of the whole point, so the names are pretty stupid, and the web sites not much better.
2) You can order it online with your credit card
3) It gets couriered to your door the next day by Fed Ex
4) You get receipts that you can claim on your income tax as medical expenses
5) It is often covered by veteran's benefits etc.
6) You can participate in ongoing studies with UBC etc on the medical effects of marijuana, and thereby increase the state of scientific knowledge on the subject
Disadvantages to Medical Marijuana
1) They don't have much in the way of edibles.
I hate encouraging people to smoke anything. And marijuana may be even worse for your lungs than cigarettes. There is a theory that MJ combines the worst toxic effects of both alcohol and smoking ( i.e lung disease and being weird in the head ) . There is much to be said for that point of view.
Vaping is better, but also requires you to buy a vaporizer and sometimes special oils etc that go in it.
Edibles are my favorite, but currently seem to be an under-developed resource.
2) It tends to be expensive.
he official dispensaries all have quality control, business licences, and an address that is likely to be there next week. But they are towards the pricey end of the specturm ( according to my dope smoking patient afficionados )
3) The names are stupid.
Imagine you are an 80 year old man with cancer of the pancreas and I send you to one of the above web sites to get some mj to stimulate your appetite. You go to the web site, and can't figure out indica from sativa, tetrahydrocannabinol ( THC ) from CBD ( cannibadiol ), and the names on the web sites are stupid stoner names like "Energy skunk" and "God's Green Crack" and "lemon sour diesel" which is not even marijuana - it is a strain of LSD that "they think" comes from Holland, and that seems to be all they know about it. Which does not inspire much confidence !
Above is an example of the info provided for lemon sour diesel. I have an honors degree in Biochemistry ( for real - Deans List, UBC, 1979) and even I don't have a clue what they hell they are talking about. Which makes this info pretty useless for the common consumer.
The various names are descriptive, and even occasionally poetic, but the names are not designed to be useful to anyone who has an actual medical need. Which is kind of the whole point, so the names are pretty stupid, and the web sites not much better.
Medical benefits of Marijuana
Medical journal review article on medical benefits
www.medscape.com/viewarticle/839155 US article summarizing the "state of the art" on medical marijuana
www.medscape.com/viewarticle/839155 US article summarizing the "state of the art" on medical marijuana
Genetically engineered medical marijuana
Genetically modified food may be politically incorrect, but genetically modified marijuana seems to have everyones approval
Over the past few decades US growers have been manipulating their strains to increase the THC content.
This has resulted in an increase in THC from 2% up to current values around 10 %.
Curiously, this effect fades out along the Mexican border in the US, where the "wild" marijuana plantations are still low in THC
Marijuana from legal dispensaries can have THC conentrations about 30%. Which is either a good thing or a bad thing, depending on what you want to use the marijuana for !
Over the past few decades US growers have been manipulating their strains to increase the THC content.
This has resulted in an increase in THC from 2% up to current values around 10 %.
Curiously, this effect fades out along the Mexican border in the US, where the "wild" marijuana plantations are still low in THC
Marijuana from legal dispensaries can have THC conentrations about 30%. Which is either a good thing or a bad thing, depending on what you want to use the marijuana for !
Marijuana doesn't increase creative thought - creative people are just more likely to smoke dope !
One of my favorite scientists, a cosmologist named Carl Sagan, was a big proponent of marijuana making people think in more creative ways. I have heard anecdotal reports from lots of patients who felt the same way.
But who is going to believe a bunch of stoners ?
So a new study on the effects of smoking marijuana and its relation to creativity has some interesting results.
Emily LaFrance, the co-author of the study and graduate student at Washington State University, says she first became interested in the topic when she noticed that a lot of her favorite artists admit they smoke marijuana. “This cannabis use was commonly thought to have been a cause of the creative success of many artists,” she explains. “I began to wonder about this commonly held idea – are cannabis users really more creative than non-users?”
The study is called “Inspired by Mary Jane? Mechanisms underlying enhanced creativity in cannabis users” and was published in Consciousness and Cognition. It examined the participants over a variety of areas including psychological tests, and measuring creative works and achievements.
Some major points from the study include:
When the scientists included the personality traits into the data, they realized that these traits on their own could determine whether a person is more open to using marijuana, as well as drive a tendency to be more creative.
“Cannabis users may be more creative than non-users,” LaFrance says, “but this is not because using cannabis has increased their creativity.” She goes on to explain that it’s the fact that marijuana users “are more open to experience than non-users, and this openness to experience is associated with both cannabis use, and heightened creativity.”
So there you have it: if you smoke pot you’re probably more creative than people who don’t… but it’s not necessarily the weed that’s got your creativity going. It was you all along!
Note: This study was conducted with all subjects being sober, meaning none of them were under the influence of marijuana during the test.
But who is going to believe a bunch of stoners ?
So a new study on the effects of smoking marijuana and its relation to creativity has some interesting results.
Emily LaFrance, the co-author of the study and graduate student at Washington State University, says she first became interested in the topic when she noticed that a lot of her favorite artists admit they smoke marijuana. “This cannabis use was commonly thought to have been a cause of the creative success of many artists,” she explains. “I began to wonder about this commonly held idea – are cannabis users really more creative than non-users?”
The study is called “Inspired by Mary Jane? Mechanisms underlying enhanced creativity in cannabis users” and was published in Consciousness and Cognition. It examined the participants over a variety of areas including psychological tests, and measuring creative works and achievements.
Some major points from the study include:
- Cannabis users were more likely to be extroverted and open to new experiences.
- Cannabis users reported higher levels of artistic creativity, but not a higher amount of creative achievements or completed works.
- Cannabis users performed better on a convergent thinking test (which tests creative problem solving).
When the scientists included the personality traits into the data, they realized that these traits on their own could determine whether a person is more open to using marijuana, as well as drive a tendency to be more creative.
“Cannabis users may be more creative than non-users,” LaFrance says, “but this is not because using cannabis has increased their creativity.” She goes on to explain that it’s the fact that marijuana users “are more open to experience than non-users, and this openness to experience is associated with both cannabis use, and heightened creativity.”
So there you have it: if you smoke pot you’re probably more creative than people who don’t… but it’s not necessarily the weed that’s got your creativity going. It was you all along!
Note: This study was conducted with all subjects being sober, meaning none of them were under the influence of marijuana during the test.