Medical cannabis and the church

[Calm]

Just dropping here for now as off to do the things...no restriction on topic on my account, derail all you want  

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/09/mormon-church-medical-marijuana-491924

[strappinglad]

I wonder if the Church had a position on Oxy ! 

[Duncan]

14 minutes ago, strappinglad said:

I wonder if the Church had a position on Oxy ! 

I had a situation a few years and the ER Dr. gave me 2 or 3 and I never said tickety-boo to anyone, didn't think I had to let my Bishop know what medication I needed! hhahahha!

 

unless you're talking about Oxy Clean, then forget it

Edited June 9, 2021 by Duncan

[AtlanticMike]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

Just dropping here for now as off to do the things...no restriction on topic on my account, derail all you want  

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/09/mormon-church-medical-marijuana-491924

My wife asked me a couple weeks ago when pot is legal in Virginia if I'm going to try it. I think it's going to be legal sometime this year. But I have no desire at all. I deal with so many people who smoke pot that I just dont care to try it. But, I also think that it should be totally legal for medical use. It has never made sense to me how a natural herb/weed should be illegal medically, but they'll give people 120 Xanax a month. Pot is supposedly way less addictive than most man made Pharmaceuticals. Probably like everything else it's all about the 💰. As far as the stance the church takes, if they're ok with members popping pills there shouldn't be a problem with medical cannabis.

 

[Calm]

40 minutes ago, strappinglad said:

I wonder if the Church had a position on Oxy ! 

Allowed for medical purposes under the care of a physician. 

[Calm]

23 minutes ago, Duncan said:

didn't think I had to let my Bishop know what medication I needed

You don’t. 

[Calm]

19 minutes ago, AtlanticMike said:

wife asked me a couple weeks ago when pot is legal in Virginia if I'm going to try it. I think it's going to be legal sometime this year. But I have no desire at all.

I do not like the highs at all.  I cannot see what is enjoyable about them, but I suspect I just don’t react like most people (with narcotics I get a migraine before I get anything beyond what I would call a natural level of relaxation, basically how I felt before the RLS kicked in 24/7). I have had a few as I have experimented with what helps my sleep disorder and depression the best.  It is not easy to be precise with dosage. 

Edited June 10, 2021 by Calm

[LoudmouthMormon]

One thing the church did, was see how horribly legal MJ was implemented in other states, learn from the mistakes, and urge/press/leverage for bills that do it better.

Colorado, for example.  We made mistakes that nobody talks about.  We basically legalized trade with criminal cartels, as well as opened the door for them to set up shop in our state and do horrible things.  We made growing plants a constitutional right for state citizens.  Sounded good at the time.  What ended up happening, is a cartel will show up, rent half a dozen homes, and destroy them by hollowing them out and turning residential property into industrial growing houses - and the only laws they'll be breaking is landlord/tenant law.  So they'll bring in illegals to work the plants, promise to pay after the 3rd harvest.  They'll take the first two harvests as the eviction proceedings move through the system, and then disappear during the 3rd harvest, just as deputies are showing up with final eviction orders.  They'll abandon their workers, who get deported (or not).  Each rental property costs around ten grand, in rent, obscene water usage, power usage of grow lights and industrial air conditioners.  Each harvest can net them a $100 grand in Colorado, or a million if smuggled out of the state.  Cartels are happy, because it's easier to grow and smuggle in the states, than having to move product across the US border. 

Yay Colorado!  Colorado Springs, for example, had to divert like half a dozen cops from other duties, into full-time illegal grow up duties.  

What Utah is legalizing, makes that a lot harder. 

[MiserereNobis]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

I do not like the highs at all.  I cannot see what is enjoyable about them

Next time you use your medicine pop some Grateful Dead in your ear buds  

[Calm]

43 minutes ago, MiserereNobis said:

Next time you use your medicine pop some Grateful Dead in your ear buds  

I have found out that R&B moved from great to magnificent when ‘lifted’.  I was listening to it when I got hit, turned it off in hopes of sleeping and pretty quickly turned it back on again 

It helped to keep me out of a very negative thought loop. I start panicking and wondering how much more control I am going to lose and what happens if I get so out of it I can’t call for help.

Last time I went to the dispensary, I got talking with an experienced user there who helped with basic questions I couldn’t find online. It helped me be hopeful with it again. I really want someone to just come live with me for a couple of months holding my hand and telling me what to do.

Edited June 10, 2021 by Calm

[Calm]

1 hour ago, LoudmouthMormon said:

What Utah is legalizing, makes that a lot harder. 

I have no complaints at this time except that my psychiatrist is booking out twice as far now. I lucked out that my clinic had someone willing to get credentials. She does Ketamine as well, so it was a natural choice. By the end of the year, the town next door should have a dispensary and I will likely be dropping by frequently to discuss details with the pharmacist as I can drive that far without triggering vertigo. 
 

I was a little annoyed I had to renew the medical card after 3 months, but it was cheaper than expected and this time it is 6 months.  I find that very reasonable.  I don’t use that much (“less is more”), so not that expensive for me as well. 
 

The dispensary itself is very clean and quiet and nice, friendly staff. Warehouse by the tracks. No one hanging around outside trying to get freebies or obviously splitting the product. The clients are well behaved, no one comes across as high or a stoner, though a few looked like they might be living a bit rough....not like I have been there tons, 4 or 5 times since December. 

Edited June 10, 2021 by Calm

[AtlanticMike]

14 minutes ago, Calm said:

I have found out that R&B moved from great to magnificent when ‘lifted’.

Try Erykah Badu if you like R&B. Great voice.

Edited June 10, 2021 by AtlanticMike

[Calm]

6 minutes ago, AtlanticMike said:

Try Erykah Badu if you like R&B. Great voice.

Nice...

[The Nehor]

42 minutes ago, Calm said:

I have no complaints at this time except that my psychiatrist is booking out twice as far now. I lucked out that my clinic had someone willing to get credentials. She does Ketamine as well, so it was a natural choice. By the end of the year, the town next door should have a dispensary and I will likely be dropping by frequently to discuss details with the pharmacist as I can drive that far without triggering vertigo. 

I thought there wasn’t anything backing the use of marijuana to treat any psychiatric conditions. Add in the correlation of marijuana use with some forms of psychosis and that seems odd. Note this does not mean marijuana causes psychosis. It is the correlation and causation thing. It may be that those more prone to psychosis are more likely to use marijuana.

[Calm]

3 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

I thought there wasn’t anything backing the use of marijuana to treat any psychiatric conditions.

Possibly not. All I know is when I take it, no dark depression and some days of actual lightness and a rare one of happiness. When I don’t, I have to really work at staying out of the dark right now (whether it is a new level of depression or due to the frustration and honestly hopelessness of dealing with the dizziness/vertigo that feels like it robbed me of what little independence I had, I don’t know).
 

But that could be because it improves the quality of sleep...I would be surprised though if that was the only mental effect. 
 

The official reason is for pain...which it doesn’t affect for me. 

Edited June 10, 2021 by Calm

[The Nehor]

5 minutes ago, Calm said:

Possibly not. All I know is when I take it, no dark depression and some days of actual lightness and a rare one of happiness. When I don’t, I have to really work at staying out of the dark right now (whether it is a new level of depression or due to the frustration and honestly hopelessness of dealing with the dizziness/vertigo that feels like it robbed me of what little independence I had, I don’t know).
 

But that could be because it improves the quality of sleep...I would be surprised though if that was the only mental effect. 
 

The official reason is for pain...which it doesn’t affect for me. 

Yeah, I am there with you with the happy days getting rarer. The amphetamines help me focus and keep me from the darkest mental spirals. I went off them for a month just to try and check and yeah, after I got through the week of withdrawal the dark spiraling despair came back.

Good times.

[strappinglad]

Calm, have you been tested for other possible reasons for the dizziness, like inner ear crystals ? 

[Calm]

1 hour ago, strappinglad said:

Calm, have you been tested for other possible reasons for the dizziness, like inner ear crystals ? 

I was first diagnosed with the crystal thing (BPPV for benign positional something vertigo) and then Meniere’s. It is weird because sometimes position matters and any movement to the left including looking forward and just reaching back can trigger it and I get seconds of random spins and other days that kind of position doesn’t matter at all and there is a sickish headache that is the dominant symptom and I know that bending over or being vertical longer than 15 minutes will set off that version’s bad side.  And I am almost always dizzy like the volume goes up and down but never gets shut off and I don’t think that is how either are supposed to work. 
 

It is a pity my son decided to be a computer engineer rather than a doctor. I should be filthy rich so I could afford a doctor who just devoted themselves to me. 
 

I am currently working with a doctor who is less traditional, have done half the tests I need to. The others are waiting for me to get out of a brain fog enough so it doesn’t hurt to think about thinking...I don’t know how to explain the sensation. It is like my brain decides to stop breathing and suffocate itself if I ask it to initiate thought rather than just respond like I do in the board.  It makes no sense to me that I can manage one form of complicated thinking, reasoning and the other it is like I am suddenly carrying 500 lbs of weight. 

Edited June 10, 2021 by Calm

[MiserereNobis]

10 hours ago, Calm said:

It helped to keep me out of a very negative thought loop. I start panicking and wondering how much more control I am going to lose and what happens if I get so out of it I can’t call for help

From the Grateful Dead song “Franklin’s Tower”: “If you get confused just listen to the music play!” 😊

[provoman]

Bot sure about the title of the article.

 

The Church did nothing to "unlock" medical marijuana, unless and only if repeated opposition and failure of the lameslatures to act, the People said "enough" and cored in favor of medical marijuana.

"When Madsen first introduced a medical marijuana bill in 2015, a church representative showed up to his office to inform him of its opposition.

“They came in and told me, ‘We're opposing your bill.’ There was no discussion,” said Madsen, the grandson of former LDS prophet Ezra Taft Benson who served as a senator for ten years and remains an active church member.

“[They said] ‘we just came by as a courtesy call to tell you we're going … in to Senate leadership, and we're going to tell him to do everything he can to kill the bill,’” he explained."

 

If true, this borders on onfensive to a secularly governed societity.

[Calm]

28 minutes ago, provoman said:

“[They said] ‘we just came by as a courtesy call to tell you we're going … in to Senate leadership, and we're going to tell him to do everything he can to kill the bill,’” he explained."

 

If true...

It would seem to be contradicted by the following quote:

Quote

Current Senate Majority Leader Evan Vickers said the church has never asked him to kill a piece of legislation. Still, he explained that the church does step in when they're concerned about an issue and, he acknowledged, they got involved on marijuana.

“The general stance, where the church comes out and says, ‘We're opposed to this or you know we favor this’ … it happens less than you think,” Vickers said in an interview.

Madsen may have ramped up the drama, his previous about “gun to their head” feels like he likes overstatements.  Medical cannabis is not a threat to the Church (as is implied by the imagery of a gun) in a way that if they had chosen to say nothing it would have significantly damaged it.  I might look up other sound bites from him to see if there is a pattern of overstatement. 
 

Vickers could also be downplaying it.

 

Not sure why you think it is offensive unless they played the ‘if you don’t do what we asked, you will be damned to hell’ bit.  Would you consider it inappropriate for any powerful organization to put pressure on lawmakers or just churches and if just the latter, could you explain why you see a difference?

Edited June 10, 2021 by Calm

[The Nehor]

There is probably no contradiction really. They can walk in and say they are opposed to it and convey they want it killed. To one person that is a command. To another it is a suggestion. To another a threat. It is a (relatively) innocent example of the mafia boss saying he wants someone taken care of and it is understood that he must be discredited, blackmailed, and/or killed.

By relatively innocent I mean that I doubt the church leaders were threatening or directly coercing. We see the same thing in other venues like, for example, a head of state suggesting that the Capitol building is full of enemies who are doing bad things and suggesting people go and tell them to stop after several other speakers used violent rhetoric as well. It might be understood in such a case that he is supporting violence but the head of state can whine that they didn’t actually tell them to do anything illegal.

Edited June 10, 2021 by The Nehor

[rodheadlee]

🙄

[provoman]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

It would seem to be contradicted by the following quote:

Madsen may have ramped up the drama, his previous about “gun to their head” feels like he likes overstatements.  Medical cannabis is not a threat to the Church (as is implied by the imagery of a gun) in a way that if they had chosen to say nothing it would have significantly damaged it.  I might look up other sound bites from him to see if there is a pattern of overstatement. 
 

Vickers could also be downplaying it.

 

Not sure why you think it is offensive unless they played the ‘if you don’t do what we asked, you will be damned to hell’ bit.  Would you consider it inappropriate for any powerful organization to put pressure on lawmakers or just churches and if just the latter, could you explain why you see a difference?

Yes, there is no telling which version is true.

It borders on offenisve that a religion can so weild such control over a secular government.

Do I see a difference between "corporations" and "churchs" influencing govenrment...yes, but it isn't much of a difference. 

The main difference though, is the wall of separation of Church and State. 

"The United States Supreme Court has explained that the First Amendment‘s ―first and most immediate purpose rested on the belief that a union of government and religion tends to destroy government and to degrade religion. For this reason, past courts have treated the First Amendment as though it ―erected a wall between church and state. On one side of the wall is ―freedom or ―independence from secular control or manipulation  for religious organizations. And on the other side, a protection of ―temporal institutions from religious interference." ~ Utah Supreme Court, Williams v. Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses, June 3, 2021

[The Nehor]

1 minute ago, rodheadlee said:

🙄

Sorry, I was bored.