The Case Against Medical Marijuana

Smoking anything is bad for you. A lot of the marijuana advocates seem to promote the notion that only tobacco smoking is bad for you, but smoking marijuana has no negative effect on one's health.

Actually, because the marijuana smoked is much more resinous, it probably is even worse than smoking tobacco in the same amounts. This bad effect is notable as the thickening of the mucus in the lungs that smokers of anything develop as the lungs basic reaction to this irritant, which manifests itself as the smoker's cough or hack, or chronic bronchitis, which they then self-medicate with cough medicines (guaifenesin).

I attended a seminar several years ago at which a Dr. St. Amand, claimed that guaifenesin cured fibromyalgia, which is a currently popular syndrome of many common deteriorative conditions which includes chronic bronchitis and body pains. I was particularly interested because I had bouts of frequent bronchitis and back pain throughout my life and at the time, had a episode of back pain that led me to believe that I would be crippled for the rest of my life -- and so I was a particularly attentive listener because I was familiar with guaifenesin as a remedy for the bronchitis brought about through smoking, since I had been a smoker myself, and recognized that enabled me to do so.

Although the doctor had his exotic explanation for why guaifenesin cured fibromyalgia, a simpler explanation seemed to make more sense to me -- and that was that anything that thickened the mucus made one diseased, while things that liquefied the mucus, made one well -- because obviously, the mucus in the body will tend to be impacted in the same way throughout the body -- and not just in the lungs. That's why when people get a cold, flu, or bronchitis, they frequently also experience other body pains -- similar to arthritis pains, because mucus lubricates all the movement in the body, and particularly the interfaces of the respiratory and digestive systems, which seems to be the most sensitive and vulnerable parts that even the hardiest of people note increasing difficulty as they go through life.

In fact, the most notable indicator of aging and deterioration of the body, is the thickening of the two body fluids of the blood and the mucus -- of which the former is usually treated but the latter ignored. But the hugely negative impact of smoking, is that it has a deleterious effect of thickening both body fluids, and the primary effect of medications, is to thin the blood and mucus.

Without this realization, people who think they are treated themselves medically by smoking tobacco, marijuana, ice, or any other substance, are negatively impacting their health in doing so -- so that the underlying condition for which they are treating themselves by smoking marijuana, becomes worse. So, if nothing else, a better method of administration, would be to take it as a tea, or a topical.

However, the greater medical benefit for their painful condition, would be to thin the mucus which lubricates the movements of the cells, tissues and organs -- and there are herbs that specifically provide that effect -- such as guaifenesin, that also treat the common respiratory and gastrointestinal problems people often have -- in great part of medications and self-prescribed nutritional supplements.

The best known cure-alls of this sort, is anise(seed) and fennel -- as herbs that might actually cure most of their symptoms, instead of just allowing them to tolerate the pain enjoyably, as they get worse.