🚀 go-pugleaf

Daniel J. Hertzman <NOdhertzSPAM@total.net> wrote in message
news:TsCs6.29103$ZT5.792420@news.total.net...

[snip]
> I should definitely listen to CBC more... missing out on a lot

Heh heh... we don't have much choice. We did away with TV over a year ago.
Out here in the boonies the 'net connection is too slow for reliable
streaming media, and CBC is the only station we can get on the radio...
except for an AM twang station from Sask.

But I'm absolutely not complaining... I've lost my ability to tolerate
commercial broadcast media anyway. The ads are bad enough, but *everything*
is skewed to a commercial viewpoint, and the assumed attention span is the
length of a pop tune at most. CBC is one of the few quality alternatives.

The "Ideas" program is particularly good. I did find the name of the episode
in question, BTW, it was "Naked in the Pharmaceutical Marketplace".

> > > I would be curious as to how people use
> > > prescription drugs vs. illegal drugs, and how much of each, I would
> > > hazard a guess that at least 10 times more prescription drugs are used
that
> > > illegal street drugs.
> >
> > Indeed I would expect it would be much higher yet.
> >
> I agree, which is why I think that the stat you mentioned sounds more
> shocking than it actually is...

Stats *are* pretty easy to manipulate, aren't they? Still, it forces one to
question one's own preconceptions, and that's valuable.

Speaking of stats, that was another point raised in the program. We, as
patients, were encouraged to request data (such as probabilities of
improvement) in absolute, rather than relative, numbers. I.e. if drug x
improves my chances of survival "by 50%", does that mean, say, from an
absolute probability of 2%, to 3%? Or 40% to 60%, or what?

> > > Also I would be curious how they defined death by
> > > prescription drugs. E.g.,  If a patient w/ cardiac disease is given a
> > blood
> > > thinner that isn't strong enough, and the patient dies did s/he die
> > because
> > > of the prescption drug?
> >
> > Can't swear to this. However, the points being made at the time revolved
> > around issues such as (a) drugs that killed thousands of people outright
> > because testing was in some way inadequate, e.g. it hadn't revealed side
> > effects in certain segments of the population, or interactions with
other
> > drugs, (b) misdiagnosis, (c) mistakes made in prescribing (e.g. a
decimal
> > point in the wrong place, illegible prescriptions) and such. The theme
> that
> > emerged from the program was that people need to be a lot more
> > discriminating when accepting prescriptions, and ask a lot of questions
to
> > get at information that often isn't volunteered or perhaps even known by
> the
> > prescribing physician. Caveat emptor, basically.
> >
> I have to agree to all this... I happen to be a medical student, and one
of
> the things that are constantly emphasized to us is the proper taking of a
> history, but unfortunately there is no magic formula, and it comes down a
> lot to the patient.  A patient who can describe his or her situation
better
> will receive more accurate treatment.  Though asking the right questions,
is
> an important minimum.

Near the top of the program, it was mentioned that the average visit to the
doc these days is about 8 minutes long. In a large percentage of these cases
(the number slips my mind) the patient leaves with a prescription.

Although I have no expertise whatsoever, my intuitive response to this is
that we're relying perhaps too heavily on drugs. But I also think we're
getting exactly what we are demanding, i.e. the magic bullet. God forbid we
should be instructed to alter our lifestyle.

Perhaps it's a societal flaw that we tend to be focused on cure rather than
prevention. IMHO there's a lot about modern life that's harmful, but it's
challenging to face that end of the problem. Easier to take a pill after we
get sick, eh? Same principle applies to the legal system. Easier to lock
folks up than address the root causes of crime.

Another problem that was raised with prescription drugs is that there isn't
much of a formal mechanism for individual physicians to report side effects.
Needless to say, once their product has been approved, the drug co's don't
really want to hear about it. Seems there ought to be a repository of data
to which physicians could contribute information easily, ideally on-line.

> <snip>.
> > > >
> > > > Anyone besides me suspect that Aspirin would be illegal if it grew
on a
> > > > house plant? (I guess I'd better not mention anything about wolf
> > > > willow.)
> > >
> > > No, it wouldn't be illegal in that case, though Aspirin would be
illegal
> > > if it grew in a houseplant AND gave you a high, but anything that
gives
> > > you a  high would be illegal (the exception being alcohol and
cigarettes
> > > of course which have the luxury of what is basically a grandfather
clause).
> > > I'm not saying its a good way to determine the illegality of a
substance,
> > > but it is the one we presently use in our country.
> >
> > Why do you suppose that is? (That isn't a challenge; I'm genuinely
> curious.)
> > Is it solely Christian morality, or, as some suggest, protection of
> > commercial interests, or neither or both? (Didn't really mean to turn
that
> > into a multiple choice question...)
> >
> > And why is it that the lessons of prohibition seem never to have been
> > learned?
> >
> I personally suspect a little bit of both with the addition of trying to
> justify the past bad decisions by continuing and expanding them.
> Interesting side note.... one of my profs informed my class that marijuana
> was legal during prohibition, and thus was becoming very popular.  Around
> the time that prohibition was about to end the alcohol makers feared that
no
> one would be willing to buy their products once they came back to market
so
> they created a huge publicity campaign on the evils of weed (The most
famous
> of which constantly shows up in reperatory theatres... but I'm presently
> forgetting its name).

Ah, Reefer Madness. We laugh at it now, but we're still stuck with the
results of the outrageous paranoia that it represented.

>  The campaign was successfull, marijuana was made
> illegal with the public consenting, and we've been stuck with that ever
> since then.

Against a background of claims that the marijuana user basically lost their
minds and might rape or even kill. Tsk tsk.

More recently, one of the pitches I hear being used to justify continued
prohibition is that the pot of today is much stronger than the pot of hippie
times. Perhaps this is true, but if so, so what?? Scotch is a lot stronger
than beer, too. That's why I don't pour myself a tumbler of Scotch and knock
it back like lager. Duh.

There's also a claimed connection between prohibition and hemp that sounds
entirely plausible to me. Around the time of prohibition, the first patents
on synthetic fibres had been taken out, by DuPont I believe. Hemp had been
labour-intensive to process, and wasn't expected to be able to compete with
synthetic fibres. But then some bright fellow invented the hemp equivalent
of the cotton ginny - a gizmo that made fibre extraction much easier. Next
thing you know, the eeeevil hemp plant and its ilk were outlawed, *against
the strenuous objections of the American Medical Association* by the way.

You may know that hemp made a brief reappearance in WWII. Indeed, American
farmers were encouraged by posters with slogans like "Hemp for Victory".
Once the war was over, that was the end of that.

At least we have figured out in Canada that there *is* a difference between
the fibre and the recreational drug. Yet the paranoia continues. Last I
heard, there were problems exporting some hemp products to the US because
they had some infintesimally tiny THC content. Like, near the threshold of
detectability. It's just plain silly.

My partner is into textiles, and would love to grow some hemp out here on
our acreage. For now she's going to have to stick to flax, though, since
it's still an onerous process to get a permit for hemp. Hobbyists are
basically excluded. We have lots of stinging nettle growing naturally here,
though. It's also an excellent fibre, and looks quite a lot like hemp, so
all is not lost. But I digress...

There's a fellow before the courts in Canada right now who's challenging the
constitutionality of the marijuana laws. It'll be interesting. The thrust of
the argument is that the weed isn't harmful enough to warrant being banned.
My prediction: 50/50 chance that the court will strike down the law. In the
event that it does, there is a 100% chance that massive pressure from
America will result in a reversal of the decision.

> > > >
> > > > OK, I'm gettin' carried away. This Fair Trade coffee really packs a
> > > > wallop...
> > > >
> > >
> > > Speaking of which, by the unnatural high standard, coffee also would
> > > probably be illegal because of the caffeine.
> >
> > No doubt. And soft drinks, chocolate bars, etc. etc. ad nauseum.  If you
> > choose to "protect" people from something through legislation, where do
> you
> > draw the line? I'd wager that fast food and inactivity causes many more
> > physical and emotional health problems, lost productivity etc. than do
> > illegal substances. Do we outlaw fast food and legislate exercise
> programs?
> >
> > This brings us back to the original thrust of this thread, with which I
> > strongly agree: I don't think the government should be in the business
of
> > trying to protect us from ourselves. That's something we need to take
> > personal responsibility for.
> >
> 100% agree with you here, people have should have the freedom to make such
> choices about their own life w/o intereference from the state, and with it
> they should take the potential consequences.  Though, I must be clear that
> it should be a responsibility of the state to inform the citizens of the
> potential dangers of anything they do.

Thanks for a pleasant chat. Rare experience on Usenet...

-smw