Please learn about butane hash oil: http://shar.es/HU9pY. Some people commenting here don't know what they are talking about. Butane is used as a solvent to extract cannabinoids. Too bad the guy said he was "cooking hash" because there is no cooking involved. It's as complicated as refilling a Zippo lighter. What happens is that heavy butane gas, if not ventilated or collected, pools on the floor until it finds a pilot light or electrical spark (or idiot smoking dropping a smoldering ash) and it explodes. The sad thing is this oil is real medicine and can be made safely - see Colorado's regulations of manufacturing concentrates (they even reclaim the butane to protect the environment), but now people are going to associate "cooking hash" with exploding meth labs.

I question the "65% using medical marijuana for pain" stat. There are 36,380 cards and 32,614 cards for which severe pain is one of the qualifying conditions (and one of those is Anna Song Canzano's card). That's 89.6% of all cardholders using cannabis for pain.

What KATU did was sum all the conditions for which cards are issued, then divided that into the 32,614, to get 64.9%. That's inaccurate, since one card can be issued for multiple conditions (e.g., having cancer can give you pain and nausea as well).

Now opponents would say, "See! 90% of cards are for severe pain!" with the implication that the vast majority must be frauds. What the 90% figure reveals, however, is the tip of the iceberg of under-treated and underreported chronic pain in America.

-- A survey published by the Arthritis Foundation (2000) found that 42% of adults in the United States experience pain daily and 89% monthly. When extrapolated, data from the National Health Interview Survey (Lethbridge-Cejku & Vickerie, 2005) of the U.S. population suggest that in a 3-month period nearly one-third experience some type of pain. -- <a href="http://(http://www.ampainsoc.org/pub/bulletin/win06/pres1.htm)" target="_blank">(http://www.ampainsoc.org/pub/bulletin/win06/pres1.htm)

Meanwhile, we pop NSAIDs like Tylenol and aspirin like candy and the latest trend in drug abuse and addiction are powerful opioids like OxyContin and Vicodin. The FDA warns that we're killing our livers with these drugs. But if you want to try an effective non-toxic herb with 5,000 years of zero overdose deaths to manage your severe pain, you need to collect documentation from your doctor, present it to another doctor, fill out state paperwork, and be out probably $400 throughout the process. Even then, you're not allowed to go out and buy any - you have to grow it yourself or get a friend to grow it.

Because we have to send the right message to the kids - if you want pain relief, you need to see a doctor and buy a marked-up prescription pill, and if you want to have a little social fun, you need to drink alcohol.

Have either of you tried to get a medical marijuana card?

This is not California, where a doctor can recommend for any condition he/she believes marijuana can help.

In Oregon, as in all the other thirteen non-California medical marijuana states, there is a list of qualifying conditions that usually includes:

* cancer
* HIV/AIDS
* glaucoma
* Alzheimer's agitation
* cachexia (wasting syndromes)
* spasticity (like multiple sclerosis)
* seizures (like epilepsy)
* severe nausea
* severe pain

You can't just walk into an Oregon clinic and claim, "Ow, my back hurts, gimme a medical marijuana card." One of those nine conditions must be documented multiple times on official medical records from your primary care physician from within the last three years. Then, those records are usually reviewed by a second doctor (since your doctor might lose his job for recommending an "illegal drug") who verifies the condition in yet another exam before signing off on your state paperwork.

By the way, the American Psychological Association claims that the rate of dependence among those who try marijuana is about 9%, not counting those who use medically. The rate for alcohol is 15% and tobacco is 32%. According to the National Institutes on Drug Abuse, the addictive power of cannabis, as rated on Reinforcement, Withdrawal, Dependence, Tolerance, and Intoxication, is far below alcohol and tobacco and very comparable to caffeine. So unless you're a teetotaling non-smoker who doesn't drink coffee and soda, you'd best not be throwing any stones from your glass tavern.

Incorrect. While cannabis smoke does contain carcinogens (as does all burning vegetable matter), it has not been shown to be carcinogenic. Important distinction.

Dr. Donald Tashkin, pulmonologist at the UCLA Medical School theorized, as do you, that all these carcinogens in cannabis smoke must mean that it is bad for the lungs. Armed with grants from NIDA (our gov't loves to dole out cash to scientists to prove how harmful pot is, but never how helpful it is) Dr. Tashkin embarked on lab research and 30 years worth of retrospective case study analysis.

Guess what he found?

Not only did cannabis smoking, even heavy long-term use, not seem to correlate to cancer, but that cannabis smokers had LESS incidence of head, neck, and lung cancer compared to non-smoking controls, and also no correlation to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and emphysema.

A simpler debunking of the "pot causes cancer" myth is to simply ask, "where are the bodies?" Any one of us reading this can likely point to a friend or family member lost to lung cancer from tobacco smoking. We have pot smokers now from the Beat Generation who've been toking for sixty years and those from the Hippie Generation who've been toking for fifty years. Where are the cancer wards packed with jazz poets and Deadheads?

Russ Belville
NORML Outreach Coordinator

Incorrect. Smoke is not smoke.

Oregon law specifically references "tobacco smoke" in its ban on indoor smoking.

The only ban on cannabis smoking is that it must be done "out of public view".

The reason you cannot light up tobacco at Dotty's is because secondhand tobacco smoke has been shown in controlled studies to cause harm to non-smokers. The same is not true about cannabis.

If so, they'd come away with nothing. No cash or medicine is ever stored on the premises.

Funny how having debilitating pain, nausea, seizures, or spasticity can make it difficult to go to a gym.

Shhh! I am secretly Commentman, the hero whose sole superpower is the ability to post multiple paragraphs in IntenseDebate chat forms.

Don't blow my secret identity as a blogger and talk radio host for NORML!

If anyone would like to hear the thirty extra minutes I dedicated to Anna Song's report on my daily talk radio show, the link is here: http://audio.norml.org/audio_stash/NORML_Daily_Au...

You can catch my show on the internet live at 1pm Pacific athttp://live.norml.org - it's NORML SHOW LIVE, the Voice of the Marijuana Nation, with replays at 3pm, 5pm, 7pm, & 9pm, and downloadable from iTunes as the NORML Daily Audio Stash.

Russ Belville
NORML National Outreach Coordinator

If anyone would like to hear the thirty extra minutes I dedicated to Anna Song's report on my daily talk radio show, the link is here:
http://audio.norml.org/audio_stash/NORML_Daily_Au...

You can catch my show on the internet live at 1pm Pacific athttp://live.norml.org - it's NORML SHOW LIVE, the Voice of the Marijuana Nation, with replays at 3pm, 5pm, 7pm, & 9pm, and downloadable from iTunes as the NORML Daily Audio Stash.

Russ Belville
NORML National Outreach Coordinator