Maybe they are reporting the news that is happening out there. Mary Jane is holistic and can help heal or alleviate pain for many conditions. If newspaper columnists are out in the open about it, how many Americans are using it. Bravo for the times, a use to be
great paper, that still has flashes of the old days.

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it makes people feel good and has relatively few side effects compared to all other drugs. In other words these reporters know a good thing when they see it. They like it, like most sane people who have tried it.

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Just as police departments waste time going after nonviolent drug offenders instead of investigating actual crimes, particularly in California where they go after state-law abiding medicine providers, so to must the L.A. Times use its limited resources revisiting a tired story for popular appeal instead of covering actual news.....

more evidence of how the drug war wastes time, money, and resources....

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Inquiring minds want to know why every story posted on Alternet for the past two years is absolute rubbish? Maybe they should hire a bunch of random journalist who work for the L.A. Times to write for them?

Give it a rest, Sara Libby and everybody at AlterNet. Do the honourable thing and end this website.

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...then all those fundamentalist yahoos could get stoned on a daily basis and chill the hell out with their end times nonsense. In fact, I think we should all be on medical marijuana - it might lead to fewer cases of road rage, domestic abuse, anxiety...of course, millions of people with the munchies might lead to a fatter America, but I say you have to take the good with the bad...party on, Garth!

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Oh, I don't remember all the details... something about a stable family-owned business being targeted by Ahmundson-financed Orange County Freepers, then a sale to a corporate news conglomerate flush with Wall Street-leveraged cash, then an ugly saga of clashes with union reps, slashed newsroom budgets, and threatened bankruptcy filings? Then an actual bankruptcy?

I'd need to get stoned too if I worked for the LA Times' ownership regime.

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... they just like pot!

I've never had the pleasure - and the guts - to try it myself, but from all I hear I think some of the aggressive discussions going on here and elsewhere would be a lot more mellow if we all smoked a little before diving into debate.

Peace!



;-)

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In order to push the agenda they do, they must be REALLY stoned.

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A pamphlet entitled 10 Things Every Parent, Teenager and Teacher Should Know About Marijuana produced by the Family Council on Drug Awareness tells us marijuana is not physically addictive. The 1980 Costa Rican study, the 1975 Jamaican study and the 1972 Nixon Blue Ribbon Report all concluded that marijuana use does not lead to physical dependency. The FBI reports that 65 to 75 percent of criminal violence is alcohol-related. On the other hand, Federal Bureau of Narcotics director Harry Anslinger testified before Congress in 1948 that marijuana leads to nonviolence and pacifism.

In a message to Congress on August 2, 1977, President Jimmy Carter insisted: "Penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself."

Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Law Judge Francis L. Young wrote on September 8, 1988: "Nearly all medicines have toxic, potentially lethal effects. But marijuana is not such a substance. There is no record in the extensive medical literature describing a proven, documented cannabis-induced fatality Marijuana, in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man."

After years of suppression by the government, the truth about medical marijuana is finally coming out. Dr. Tod Mikuriya, former director of marijuana research for the entire federal government, wrote in 1996: "I was hired by the government to provide scientific evidence that marijuana was harmful. As I studied the subject, I began to realize that marijuana was once widely used as a safe and effective medicine. But the government had a different agenda, and I had to resign."

Of all the reasons to legalize marijuana, the most compelling is its medical usage. Marijuana has a wide variety of therapeutic applications, and is frequently helpful in treating the following conditions:

AIDS. Marijuana reduces the nausea, vomiting, and loss of appetite caused by both the ailment itself and as a side effect of treatment with AZT and other medicines.

Asthma. Several studies have shown that THC acts as a bronchodilator and reverses bronchial constriction. Although conventional bronchodilators work faster than marijuana, THC has been shown to last longer and with considerably less risk.

Arthritis and Other Autoimmune Diseases. In addition to its effectiveness in controlling the pain associated with arthritis, new evidence shows that marijuana is an autoimmune modulator.

Cancer. Marijuana stimulates the appetite and alleviates nausea and vomiting, common side effects of chemotherapy treatment. People undergoing chemotherapy find that smoking marijuana is an anti-nauseant often more effective than mainstream medications.

Chronic Pain. Marijuana alleviates the debilitating, chronic pain caused by myriad disorders and injuries.

Epilepsy. Marijuana is used as an adjunctive medicine to prevent epileptic seizures. Some patients find that they can reduce dosage of other seizure-control medications while using cannabis.

Glaucoma. Marijuana can reduce intraocular pressure, alleviating pain and slowing (and sometimes stopping) the progress of the condition.

Multiple Sclerosis. Marijuana limits the muscle pain and spasticity caused by the disease, and relieves tremor and unsteady gait.

Muscle Spasm and Spasticity. Medical marijuana has been clinically shown to be effective in relieving these.

Migraine Headaches. Marijuana not only relieves pain, but also inhibits the release of serotonin during attacks.

Paraplegia and Quadriplegia. Many paraplegics and quadriplegics have discovered that cannabis not only relieves their pain better than opiates, but also suppresses their muscle twitches and tremors.

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The LA Times employs a lot of people, and news people, in particular reporters, are a pretty liberal bunch. And not only that, but they are also aging, intelligent and knowledgeable. And marijuana is widely known to help relieve many problems, especially those involving pain. And many of these people know, from youthful experiences if nothing else, that MJ is NOT the dangerous drug some people want us to believe.

How could it be any surprise that reporters would try medical marijuana? It seems to me to be the most natural thing in the world. I personally think the world would be a much better place if people would only reject alcohol, for the most part, and take up pot instead.

Could THAT idea be at least partly behind the Capitalist's politician's (for we KNOW they don't work for us, even though we pay their salaries) reluctance to legalize this stuff, which should never have been touched by the law in the first place?

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Sorry for my English. I cannot fathom a reason why marijuana is still not legal. Now is the time for legal weed. Nowadays, with the use of a vaporizer, smoking weed is almost perfectly healthy. Vaporizers remove all the damaging effects of marijuana. The best herbal vaporizers are now even cheap to buy and great to use. This presidency claims to want change yet is not doing anything to reap from the tax potential of legal weed. I think legal weed is inevitable and necessary. The government can't continue trying to police something it can't control. Think about how safer our neighborhoods would be near South Texas and California where drug trafficing is common place.

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