Pubdate: Wed, 18 Mar 2015
Source: El Dorado News-Times (AR)
Copyright: 2015, El Dorado News-Times
Contact:  http://www.eldoradonews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2280
Author: Joan Hershberger

NOT JUMPING ON THE BANDWAGON FOR MARIJUANA LEGALIZATION JUST YET

Wait for it ... wait ... wait for the other shoe to drop, because 
inevitably it will. The headlines and Internet chatter all scream for 
the legalization and increased use of marijuana, and I sit here 
waiting for the other shoe to drop. Sure it relieves some physical 
discomforts, but ... no one knows the long term effect because the 
primary usage for decades has been illegal and few would admit using 
marijuana, not even when answering questions for medical research.

The lag between usage and detrimental side effects happens, as they 
did about 20 years ago when Risperadol came on the market providing 
amazing results. It became the medical relief of choice with no known 
side effects (except the exorbitant cost) found in the pre-market 
launch. That premise changed as the use spread across the country 
over the years. It still works well ... with some qualifications.

Anyone over 40 or 50 years of age has seen the great paradigm shift 
in the consumption of cigarettes.

Prior to the beginning of the 1900s, no one considered cigarettes 
liable for anything more than a "smoker's cough." Throughout World 
War II, soldiers' rations typically included a pack of cigarettes. 
For decades bright, colorful ads promised so much for smokers: 
sophistication, a good time, medical approval and a way to calm one's nerves.

Those same companies have greatly modified their sales pitch through the years.

So while the advocates and nay-sayers squabble about the benefits and 
detriments of marijuana, I wait. I look. I listen. I watch with 
skepticism as yet another wave of enthusiasm flows across the nation. 
This time the enthusiasts seek to change the laws to allow legalizing 
marijuana.

"It is safer than tobacco cigarettes," they claim. It eases the side 
effects of chemotherapy. It purportedly has great medicinal uses, but 
the studies have previously been limited because the laws prohibited 
its use even medicinally.

OK. I get it. So some folks find benefits from using marijuana. In 
the 1800s many found benefits for cocaine. A brief search of the 
Internet yields ads from that time which purported the great 
advantages of using cocaine cough drops. Coca Cola's original formula 
included cocaine. It changed that more than a century ago.

In the decades before the Surgeon General declared cigarettes 
detrimental to one's health, national magazines carried attractive 
ads proclaiming the benefits of cigarettes. Before the decades of 
research on the effects of tobacco, smiling actors with cigarettes in 
their mouths assured readers that their cigarette came with no 
unpleasant after-taste and a carton of them made a great gift. Even 
that benevolent old soul, Santa Claus, smoked them  if you believed 
the drawing of him with a cigarette. According to repeated national 
surveys reported in these ads, more doctors smoked Brand X than any 
other. Probably so. My earliest memories of medical visits to a local 
country doctor carry the smell of cigarettes and rubbing alcohol.

Evidently some doctors advised their patients to not smoke. At least 
one company took that advice to not smoke and assured the smokers, 
"Tests showed 3 out of every 4 cases of smoker's cough cleared on 
changing to (our brand)."

Ads claimed tobacco had a soothing factor according, it could 
'literally relieve fatigue and irritability." (I think some use that 
same claim for marijuana. Personally I wonder how much the relief has 
to do with taking deep cleansing breaths and letting the air out slowly.)

One of the oldest ads seen online states, "For your health: 'Asthma 
Cigarettes' for the temporary relief of paroxysms of asthma ... hay 
fever, foul breath, all diseases of the throat, head colds, bronchial 
irritations. Not recommended for children under 6." But hey if you 
are seven go right ahead and light up to cure that cold.

Another from the 1940s purported a cigarette smoking-man declares, 
"As your dentist I would recommend ....."

Today there are laws against even smoking around children in public 
areas; laws written to reduce the effects of second hand smoke. Back 
then even chubby cheeked babies cautioned, "Before you scold me Mom, 
maybe you'd better light up a ... (cigarette).

Try blowing smoke in another person's face today and you will, at the 
least, get the cold shoulder. Not so in a mid-1900's ad depicting a 
sexy couple with the man gently exhaling his smoke into her face, 
"Blow in her face and she'll follow you anywhere." Today she will 
reject you and complain about the lingering smell of cigarettes in 
her clothes and hair.

Yep, things have changed mightily since the good old days of 
cigarette machines found on every corner, and trays of the white 
cylinders offered at parties and in restaurants.

One brand said that a medical specialist made regular monthly exams 
of folks who smoked. After 10 months he reported no adverse affects 
on the nose, throat and sinuses from the group smoking his company's brand.

Today the first thing a responsible expectant mother does is stop 
smoking. But a 1940's book of advice to the pregnant included the 
following: "While most obstetrical authorities disapprove of 
excessive smoking in pregnancy (twenty-five or more cigarettes 
daily), there is no reason for believing that a woman who smokes 
moderately, let us say ten cigarettes or less a day, need change her 
custom at this time. If you have been used to smoking considerably 
more than this for several years, by no means try to give them up in 
pregnancy. There is no surer way of upsetting the nerves at a period 
when you should be calm and happy, or of converting a placid, 
sweet-tempered girl into an intolerable shrew. With negligible 
effort, even the most inveterate smoker can usually be content with a 
package a day or somewhat less, and if you arrange this there is no 
great cause for concern." (babytalkbungalow.com)

How the times have changed! It just took a few hundred years and 
decades of discussion before it happened.

So excuse me if I don't jump on the marijuana health benefits 
bandwagon - at least not just yet.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom