More Legal Weed, More Problems (For Physicians): Ethicist скачать в хорошем качестве

More Legal Weed, More Problems (For Physicians): Ethicist

Ethicist Art Caplan discusses considerations for marijuana as access increases through deregulation. https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/... -- TRANSCRIPT -- Hi. I'm Art Caplan. I'm at the Division of Medical Ethics at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine. Marijuana in the US has had quite a history. It's been viewed as a gateway drug to heroin, opioids, and addiction. It's been seen historically as something that drives people into uncontrollable, dangerous behavior. Some may remember seeing films way back from the 1920s and '30s, excerpts about reefer madness. It has wound up on the highly regulated Schedule I list of drugs since, I think, the Nixon administration, as a dangerous substance. We all know that there's been a huge push to change policy at the state level. Many states have added access to marijuana for medical purposes and allowed that to happen. Other states, some driven by referendum, have had recreational use legalized. It's fair to say that in nearly all parts of the country, the cops aren't prosecuting people for smoking a joint out in the street. They're probably not even paying much attention if you're growing it at home or in your garden anymore. It's just become something that slowly is being decriminalized, slowly is being normalized. I don't oppose that shift. The problems and dangers are not such, I think, as to treat this on par with heroin or opioids. It's just not that kind of a substance. On the other hand, I've long argued that we don't know enough about use and we don't know enough about its dangers for doctors and health professionals to counsel people about marijuana use. What don't we know? Well, for one thing, when you legalize marijuana, you're letting it be grown under controlled conditions. What that means is some of the old worries about getting respiratory diseases from fungi and things that got into marijuana are not there anymore. That's good news. The bad news is it's more potent. People used to think, I'll just smoke something, and maybe I'll have to do that a little bit more to get a high. Today, the level of THC, the chemical that makes you high from marijuana, is much more present. You're gonna get a bigger bang for the buck. When the government grows it, when commercial entities sell it, we're in a different world of potency, and I don't think people understand that. Transcript in its entirety can be found by clicking here: https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/...