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... Furthermore, these drugs have terrible side effects encompassing bone softening, reduced production of red blood cells, swelling of the gums, and emotional disturbances. Overdoses my cause rapid uncontrollable eye movements, loss of motor coordination, coma, and even death. Studies have shown that treatment with cannabis is extremely successful. Here is a case of a 24 -year-old man, a sufferer of epilepsy: "With the phenytoin (prescription medication), I had about one seizure a week. After smoking two to five joints per night, along with the original medication, the attacks no longer occurred.
Even better, side effects exhibited by the prescription medication alone no longer occurred. It was a miracle. " (Grinspoon) Marijuana has been shown to be especially effective for sufferers of multiple sclerosis. Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is a disorder in which patches of myelin (the protective covering of nerve fibers) in the brain and spinal cord are destroyed and the normal functioning of the nerve fibers themselves is interrupted. There is no known cure yet for MS. Corticosteroids provide some relief, but also produce weight gain and mental disturbances. Drugs that treat muscle spasms can cause drowsiness, dizziness, weakness, confusion, liver failure, diarrhea, speech and verbal disturbances, seizures, headaches, impotence, erotic blood pressure, depression, feelings of suffocation, and confusion.
Greg Paufler was a suffering MS patient for many years. His doctor told him to take ACTH, a drug to retard the destruction of MS. After six weeks, he gained 130 pounds, found it hard to breathe, and was continuously drowsy. One evening, his friend brought over some marijuana. He smoked it, and Greg's symptoms disappeared.
He contributed this first to the mild high. His spasms became less severe. He thought that was caused by the ACTH. However, he continued to deteriorate. He soon lost his ability to speak, and see. He could not move at all.
Doctors gave him megadose's of medications, but nothing helped. He was severely disenchanted with the medicine. One night he smoked a few joints with his friends. This same night he was able to walk, if for only a few steps.
His doctor was unbelieving of the effects of marijuana. To prove that it was the marijuana, he stopped smoking for a week. His condition then began to deteriorate again. The marijuana really was beneficial. When he smoked, he could walk unaided, and see clearly.
To prove the skeptics, he stopped smoking again for six months. He became blind, and lost control of his arms, legs, hands, and feet. He was now addicted to Valium and became depressed. He started smoking again. Within three weeks, he started to improve.
After six months, he could read, write, walk, and could teach his children how to play soccer. He could kick the ball. He was reborn. On a scale of 100, his doctor rates his present health at ninety-five.
The medical benefits of marijuana have also been witnessed in patients suffering from paraplegia and quadriplegia. Paraplegia is weakness or paralysis of muscles in the lower body caused by disease or injury in the middle or lower part of the spinal cord. If the injury is near the neck, the arms as well as the legs are affected and quadriplegia develops. Pain and muscle spasms often accompany both. Sufferers have noticed that cannabis not only relieves their pain more safely than optics, but it also suppresses their muscle jerks and tremors. AIDS sufferers have also attested to the benefits of smoking marijuana.
Doctors can treat AIDS with medications such as AZT. Unfortunately, AZT suppresses the production of the red blood cells by the bone marrow, decreases the amount of white blood cells, and has many damaging effects on the immune system. It also sometimes causes severe nausea that heightens the danger of semi-starvation for patients who are already suffering from nausea. AIDS patients who smoke marijuana have noticed reduced pain, and the elimination of vomiting and headaches. Patients who have stopped taking AZT and instead used marijuana alone have often found that they feel free of the virus. These results have been obtainable through the smoking of 2 - 3 joints per day.
Marijuana smokers who suffer from chronic pain have likewise seen the benefits. Chronic pain is usually treated with option narcotics and various synthetic analgesics, but these drugs have many limitations. Options are addictive, and tolerance eventually develops; nonaddictive analgesics are not powerful enough. THC has been shown to relieve pain for several hours at doses as small as 5 mg, and even longer at 20 mg. THC also proved to be a sedative.
It had fewer physical side effects than other commonly used analgesics. Sufferers of the migraine have furthermore seen how marijuana can reduce severe pain. Migraine, a severe headache that lasts from hours to days, results from dilated blood vessels in the brain. Visual disturbances and vomiting often accompany it. Marijuana has been shown extremely effective in preventing migraines. In contrast to ineffective analgesics, marijuana smokers do not exhibit side effects. "THC has been shown to inhibit the release of serotonin from the blood of migraine suffers during an attack. " (Grinspoon).
This release of serotonin relieves the migraine, and can also prevent further attacks. Pruritis sufferers have testified to the substantial benefits of smoking marijuana. Pruritis is severe itching and inflamed skin. Steroids are only partially effective, and produce serious side effects with long term use.
People who suffer from this condition have noticed that upon smoking marijuana for a few day s, their skin problems are cured. Just like the vast majority of marijuana smokers, they show no side effects. For chronic depression and other severe mood disorders, marijuana has proven to be an 'upper'. Other drugs for these conditions can cause dry mouth, blurred vision, weight loss / gain , constipation, dizziness, insomnia, and reduced blood flow to the brain. Marijuana does not cause these symptoms. For people who cannot use legal drugs, Marijuana has been the cure they have needed.
For asthma, marijuana serves as a powerful bronchialdialator with little or no side effects, compared to traditional asthma cures that can cause sleeplessness, jitteriness, nausea, bone loss, seizures, and bleeding. THC even helped non suffers breathe easier and clearer. In asthma patients, THC reversed bronchia constriction. For suffers of insomnia, cannabis is a great help. Cannabis has a long history as being a sleep inducing drug. New evidence shows that cannabidiol is the chemical that causes this.
One controlled study of fifteen insomniacs found that over a five week period "sleep quality was significantly influenced by 160 mg of cannabidiol as two thirds of the subjects slept more than seven hours... most subjects had few interruptions of sleep and have reported having a good nights sleep. " (Grinspoon). Marijuana has also been shown to have a positive effect on nausea sufferers. In the past, abortion was often necessary to save the woman's life if she suffered form hyper emesis gravid arum - a greatly heightened form of morning sickness in which the sufferer is never free of nausea and vomiting throughout the pregnancy. Nowadays, the women are placed in hospitals and fed through an IV. Some have now discovered that they can do without the IV by smoking marijuana, proven to suppress vomiting and nausea symptoms.
The relief given by marijuana can be beneficial to sufferers of many diseases. Without nausea, patients who get their nutrition intravenously can now get their food naturally. This enables patients to rebuild their strength, and it helps the body precipitate the healing process. Sufferers of dystonia can also attest to benefits derived from smoking marijuana. In 1981, it was reported that patients with idiopathic dystonia improved when they smoked marijuana. This is a group of disorders characterized by abnormal movements and postures resulting from prolonged spasms or muscle contractions.
Animal studies confirmed that cannabinoids might have antidysotonic properties, and scientists undertook another human experiment in 1986 that showed the same results. The hemp plant shows its unique versatility by having many uses in industry. Hemp has many distinct benefits over its counterparts in industry today. Hemp usage would result in a cleaner and more efficient industry. One use of hemp in industry is as a fiber. The process of converting hemp into a fiber is quite simple, and is easy to do.
The stalk of the hemp plant has two parts, called the bast and the hurd. Workers can weave the fiber (bast) of the hemp plant into almost any kind of cloth. It is very durable. In fact, the first Levi's blue jeans were made out of hemp for just this reason. Compared with all the other natural fibers available, hemp is more suitable for a large number of applications.
It is easy to harvest hemp for fiber. A field of closely spaced hemp is allowed to grow until the leaves fall off. They then cut down the hemp and it lies in the field for some time washed by the rain. They turn it over once to expose both sides of the stalk evenly.
During this time, the hurd softens up and it returns many minerals to the soil. They call this process 'retting, ' and after this step is complete, they bring the stalks to a machine that separates the bast and the hurd. They can then weave the bast. The cloth that hemp makes may be a little less soft than cotton, (though there are also special kinds of hemp, or ways to grow or treat hemp, that can produce a soft cloth) but it is much stronger and longer lasting. Hemp requires little fertilizer, and grows well almost everywhere. It also resists pests, so it uses little pesticides.
Hemp puts down deep roots, which is good for the soil. When the leaves drop off the hemp plant, it returns minerals and nitrogen to the soil. Hemp has been grown on the same soil for twenty years in a row without any noticeable depletion of the soil. Using less fertilizer and agricultural chemicals is good for two reasons. First, it costs less and requires less effort. Second, many agricultural chemicals are dangerous and can contaminate the environment-the less we have to use, the better.
Another industrial use for hemp is in victuals. Hemp seed is a highly nutritious source of protein and essential fatty oils. Many populations have grown hemp for its seed. Most of them eat it as 'gruel', a food similar to oatmeal. The leaves can be used as roughage, but not without slight psycho-active side-effects. Hemp seeds do not contain any marijuana, so they do not get you 'high'.
Hemp seed protein closely resembles protein as it is found in the human blood. It is easy to digest-many patients who have trouble digesting food are given hemp seed by their doctors. Hemp seed was once called 'ernestine' and was used by scientists as the model for vegetable protein. Hemp seed oil provides the human body with essential fatty acids. Hemp seed is the only seed that contains these oils with almost no saturated fat. As a supplement to the diet, these oils can reduce the risk of heart disease.
It is because of these oils that birds will live much longer if they eat hemp seed. With hemp seed, a vegan or vegetarian can survive and eat virtually no saturated fats. One handful of hemp seed per day will supply adequate protein and essential oils for an adult. Hemp has been used to 'bail out' many populations in time of famine.
Because of various political factors, starving people in today's underdeveloped countries are not taking advantage of this crop. In some places, this is because government officials would call it 'marijuana' and pull up the crop. In other countries, it is because the farmers are busy growing coca and poppies to produce cocaine and heroin for the local Drug Lord. Yet another industrial use of hemp is in the manufacturing of paper. Both the fiber (bast) and pulp (hurd) of the hemp plant can be used to make paper. Fiber paper was the first kind of paper, and the first batch was made out of hemp in ancient China.
Fiber paper is thin, tough, brittle, and a bit rough. Pulp paper is not as strong as fiber paper, but it is easier to make, softer, thicker, and preferable for most everyday purposes. The paper we use most today is a 'chemical pulp' paper made from trees. Hemp pulp paper can be made without chemicals from the hemp hurd. Most hemp paper made today uses the entire hemp stalk, bast and hurd. High-strength fiber paper can be made from the hemp baste, also without chemicals.
The problem with today's paper is that so many chemicals are used to make it. High strength acids are needed to make quality (smooth, strong, and white) paper out of trees. These acids produce chemicals that are very dangerous to the environment. Paper companies do their best to clean these chemicals up. Hemp offers us an opportunity to make affordable and environmentally safe paper for all of our needs, since it does not need much chemical treatment. Because of the chemicals in today's paper, it will turn yellow and fall apart as acids eat away at the pulp.
This takes several decades, but because of this publishers, libraries and archives have to order specially processed acid free paper, which is much more expensive, in order to keep records. Paper made naturally from hemp is acid free and will last for centuries. The chemicals used to make wood chemical pulp paper today could cause us trouble in the future. Environmentalists have long been concerned about the effects of dioxin and other compounds on wildlife and even people. Beyond the chemical pollution, there are agricultural reasons why we should use cannabis hemp instead. When trees are harvested, minerals are taken with them.
Hemp is much less damaging to the land where it is grown because it leaves these minerals behind. A newly discovered use of hemp in industry involves the production of biomass fuels, or fuels made from plants. The pulp (hurd) of the hemp plant can be burned as is or processed into charcoal, methanol, methane, or gasoline. The process for doing this is called destructive distillation, or 'pyrolysis. ' This charcoal may be burned in today's coal-powered electric generators. Methanol makes a good automobile fuel, in fact it is used in professional automobile races. It may someday replace gasoline.
Hemp may also be used to produce ethanol (grain alcohol). The United States government has developed a way to make this automobile fuel additive from cellulosic biomass. Hemp is an excellent source of high quality cellulosic biomass. One other way to use hemp as fuel is to use the oil from the hemp seed-some diesel engines can run on pure pressed hemp seed oil.
However, the oil is more useful for other purposes, even if we could produce and press enough hemp seed to power many millions of cars. Biomass fuels are clean and virtually free from metals and sulfur, so they do not cause nearly as much air pollution as fossil fuels. Even more importantly, burning biomass fuels does not increase the total amount of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere. When petroleum products are burned, carbon that has been stored underground for millions of years is added to the air; this may contribute to global warming through the 'Greenhouse Effect', (a popular theory which says that certain gases will act like a wool blanket over the entire Earth, preventing heat from escaping into space. ) In order to make biomass fuels, this carbon dioxide has to be taken out of the air to begin with-when they are burned it is just being put back where it started.
Another advantage over fossil fuels
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