Catholic Church and medicinal marajuana?

[LittleSoldier]

I will just as soon as I can work out what it is you disagree with me about what the science is. You said that you agreed with me that science has found only putative therapeutic effects of some cannabis constituents. Yet for some reason you keep rudely telling me that I’m wrong and making false accusations about me.

Indeed. If you think that is the same thing as saying
" It’s a sin to use a legal substance from a plant that God created to ease one’s agonizing pain." then you are wrong as well as uncharitable.

You stated (in Post 82) that “neither I nor anybody else here states that it’s a sin.” But in Post 56 you stated that “the use of Cannabis is particularly sinful because it is an hallucinogen like LSD.” So which is it - is it a sin or not??

Please provide the post number where I stated anything like “science has found only putative therapeutic effects of some cannabis constituents.” I never used the word “only” and I never used the words “some cannabis constituents.” You stated that “the use of cannabis is particularly sinful because it is an hallucinogen like LSD.” You provided no scientific evidence to back up your claim that cannabis is a hallucinogen like LSD. You provided no Church teachings about the “sinfulness” of using marijuana to treat chronic pain. All you provided was your opinion. I stated that you were wrong. Nowhere did I say that you stated “It’s a sin to use a legal substance from a plant that God created to ease one’s agonizing pain.” I don’t understand what you are accusing me of here.

The only thing I agreed with you on was your phrase “putative, exactly like I said.” Going back and reading that now I think you misunderstood what I was agreeing with. I agreed with the word “putative” and that is because I know that research shows both significant and non-significant results. That certainly doesn’t mean that I agreed with everything you stated and, in fact, I don’t agree with everything you stated.

I said you were wrong once. You have told me I am wrong in the very post I am replying to. It’s in the above quote. So either you are being rude also, or neither of us is being rude when either of us tells the other he/she is wrong. You can’t have it both ways. When someone tells me I’m wrong I don’t consider it to be rude. You have also implied that I am uncharitable. I don’t even think that is rude. I am not rudely telling you you are wrong. I am not making false accusations about you. I am asking you to please back up your claims with scientific evidence and Church teaching.

In Post 82 you said that my argument is “long on emotion and short on facts.” Now that is getting a little rude.

LOL. I would like to meet one scientist who would agree with that claim. As the scientific taw goes, “the plural of anecdote is not data”.

(Hmmm, I’ve never heard that “taw” before.)

Well I can’t shake your hand through a computer, but you’ve just met one and if you were at my university I would introduce you to my thesis chairperson and my advanced statistics professor.

Please provide scientific evidence to back up your claims. You have not provided one reference (unless somehow I have missed it).

And I don’t need to agree with you on anything - you are the one making the claims and it’s up to you to back up those claims with evidence.

Either provide the scientific evidence which was requested (in several posts, now) or discontinue making your claims.

 

[LittleSoldier]

Your comparing apples and oranges here. I’m talking about usefulness with in specific regards to creating antivenin and you’re talking about it like I’m saying it to be useful over all. Whether rattlesnake venom causes death is moot, the fact remains that it has a use in making it’s own antivenin. When did I say rattlesnake venom was useful for anything else?

Look at the statement above at the top. When you say probably not, you are discouraging him from using marijuana. If you said, “I think it’s a good idea that I go out and drive, it might help me.” and I responded, “Probably not.” That would indeed be a discouragement from driving. You don’t have to tell someone specifically not to do something for it be a discouragement. Let’s ask him. Little Soldier. when you read the phrase “Probably not, according to every scientific study done so far” do you get the feeling those words are discouraging about using marijuana, encouraging about using marijuana, or indifferent about using marijuana?

When I read that phrase (and I’m assuming it’s referring to the use of marijuana in treating medical conditions) I get the distinct feeling that those words are discouraging about using marijuana. I get the feeling that whoever posted those words is telling me to not use marijuana to treat my chronic pain because it won’t work.

 

[LittleSoldier]

Indeed. That doesn’t mean that they are the same thing.

Uh, yeah. That’s why I said they go hand in hand.

 

[spn82756]

When I read that phrase (and I’m assuming it’s referring to the use of marijuana in treating medical conditions) I get the distinct feeling that those words are discouraging about using marijuana. I get the feeling that whoever posted those words is telling me to not use marijuana to treat my chronic pain because it won’t work.

My guess is that you use it because it works. For those opposed…what is the difference in using RX M instead of percocet…morphine…demerol or oxy?

 

[LittleSoldier]

My question was rhetorical. Of course God doesn’t make mistakes.

And everything He made has a purpose and Man has the right and duty to investigate the created world.

However you would have a very hard time trying to prove that EVERY one of the millions of different kinds of animals, plants and substances has some particular useful purpose IN MAN. You also might want to think again about the logic of “God made rattlesnake venom to help us because it enables us to produce rattlesnake antivenom as an antidote for rattlesnake venom.”

Would you please provide the post number where the poster (I believe it was Stringbeanduck) made the statement: “God made rattlesnake venom to help us because it enables us to produce rattlesnake antivenom as an antidote for rattlesnake venom?”

I can’t find this quote in any post. Thank you.

 

[LittleSoldier]

My guess is that you use it because it works. For those opposed…what is the difference in using RX M instead of percocet…morphine…demerol or oxy?

I haven’t used it yet, although I can apply for the state medical marijuana program. My pain doctor recommended it and my pcp will sign the papers (which I have). I’m trying to get off the opiates because they have apparently caused some brain damage in the language and memory centers. It’s hard to get off opiates. I’ve been trying for months and I just can’t seem to do it.

I’ve talked to several people who are on the state plan here and more online in a chronic pain forum. So far everyone who I have asked about it says it works very well. It gives me some hope because the pain I am in will never go away (unless a miracles occurs or I die).

I’ve had this severe pain for sixteen years now and I’m really getting tired of it.

 

[LittleSoldier]

LOL. I would like to meet one scientist who would agree with that claim. As the scientific taw goes, “the plural of anecdote is not data”.

Of course not; the plural of “anecdote” is “anecdotes.”

Here is a quote (with references) taken from a discussion of using anecdotes in one area of research:

One effective approach for utilizing specific events as (name removed by moderator)ut for identifying and framing problems is to observe the actual context of use – the workplace or other environment where a need occurs (Beyer & Holtzblatt, 1998; Holtzblatt & Jones, 1995; Suchman, 1987). Researchers go into the environment and observe and interview people operating in it. A lower cost approach is to collect retrospective accounts of actual events that involved a significant problem, need, or impasse.

Collecting anecdotes about such events is a powerful way to capture significant problems. The rich knowledge provided by reconstructing real events is especially important for defining new kinds of systems rather than simply improving existing systems (Beyer & Holtzblatt, 1998). Reconstructing specific events in detail provides good (name removed by moderator)ut for problem formulation. Such reconstructions include several different kinds of information that are essential for problem formulation:

Goals-- who is trying to what.
Context – physical and organizational settings, time constraints, what happened before and after, etc.
Detail – much of which might be treated as irrelevant in a more abstract approach to problem solving.

Anecdotes collected in this way can be about needs, problems in the existing technology, or problems in implementing new technology, etc. Such stories can be used in at least three ways.
Recall of the details of actual events can enrich planning discussions about new technologies.

The anecdotes can be distributed among prospective users of a new technology, to serve as ‘seed stories’ to spark recollection of other, related events. A collection of anecdotes could be generated in this way, which collectively would capture more dimensions of a need than any single anecdote would.
The anecdotes can be distributed among researchers working on new technologies to prompt new approaches.

REFERENCES
Beyer, H. and Holtzblatt, K., 1998. Contextual Design. Morgan-Kaufman Publishers: San Francisco, CA.

Jacobson, 1995. The use-case construct in object-oriented software engineering. In J. Carroll (Ed.) Scenario-based design: Envisioning work and technology in system development , 309-360.

Orr and Crowfoot, 1992. Design by anecdote–The use of ethnography to guide the application of technology to practice. PDC '92: Proceedings of the Participatory Design Conference, 31-37.

Suchman, L., 1987. Plans and situated actions: The problem of human-machine communication. Cambridge University Press: New York.

(research.ibm.com/knowsoc/project_focusing.html)

 

[Timbothefiveth]

do not agree with what you wrote , no grave offence at all , there is a lot of things contrary to moral law but most of us do them anyway

We sin. Therefore, another sin is suddenly not a sin? Explain how this is please. If most people speed, does that suddenly make murder not illegal?

 

[LittleSoldier]

One of many interesting articles on its medical use:

msnbc.msn.com/id/15145917

That is a very interesting article. Thank you for providing the link.

 

[LittleSoldier]

LOL. I would like to meet one scientist who would agree with that claim. As the scientific taw goes, “the plural of anecdote is not data”.

I don’t want to take this thread off-topic, but you laughed at my response to you (as indicated by the “LOL” above), so I am going to provide a bit more information about anecdotal evidence.

Here is a class that anyone who is interested in anecdotal evidence might consider useful:

"A great failing of modern psychology is the laboratory. Over the past century, a great many tests have been conducted on human and animal test subjects with the same flaw. What good does it do us to test the behavior of of a subject within a laboratory or other test facility? What we need to know is how a subject will respond to a stimulus not in a controlled-environment, but in the real world.

Osric University is one of just a handful of pioneering universities world-wide that is pushing the boundaries of psychological research outside of sterile labs and into a the environment where we actually live our lives. Our anecdotal research techniques take observations about real people, in real situations, and analyze the data to arrive at new conclusions that would be impossible to find in the confines of a lab.

In this course, we will look at data collection settings and formats, exploring multimedia data collection, and broad-sample, self-selecting group techniques and methodologies such as Internet-based surveys and interviews. We will address correspondent integrity issues, as well as read-between-the-lines analysis issues. Your grade will be based on 2 quizzes, 1 exam, and 1 anecdotal research project. The project will involve collecting 50+ datasets and then performing text-scan and manoselect analyses."

(osric.com/university/psychology/research.html)

 

[LittleSoldier]

I just read a report today that indicates that today’s more powerful marijuana increases the chances of becoming schizophrenic sixfold. If you know anyone with this illness you’ll understand that it is a serious, dreadful mental illness for which there is no cure.

On the other hand, an alcoholic can discontinue drinking.

I think we have enough legal means of poisoning ourselves. Do we need to legalize more?

I am requesting a reference for what you have stated here. I see that you are posting in other threads but you are ignoring this one. How do you think it makes you look when you make an unfounded statement??

This is my third request.

 

[Dan_Grelinger]

Uh no it doesn’t. Please show where the Church says using prescribed Oxycontin for a backache is illicit? Of course if we abused it, it would be a differant story, but we are not speaking of abuse.

Jermosh,

You are confused. My response you quoted was addressed to the suggestion that ***marijuana use ***was no more illicit than the use of Oxycontin. I did NOT suggest the use of prescribed Oxycontin was illicit. Please be more careful.

Thank you.

Dan Grelinger

 

[Dan_Grelinger]

Dan, would you please answer the following question:

Which law takes precedence, God’s Law or man’s law??

Both!

Many will present a question as ‘either/or’ when it is not nessarily so. “Did the beating you gave your wife kill her, or only maim her?” In this case it, the answer is obviously “neither”.

“Is the sky blue, or is the grass green?” Obviously the answer is “Both”.

If your question really is “When a law requires us to commit an immoral act, is following it sinful?” Then the answer is yes.

However, please tell me specifically what law REQUIRES you to act immorally. A law prohibiting the use of a substance would only be immoral, IF, when we DON’T use the substance (i.e. we follow the law), then we sin.

Any law that prohibits you from doing something you think you should be able to, does not cause you to sin by not doing it, except under very specific circumstances (as a law that does not allow you to attend Church on Sunday).

Please tell me how anyone can sin by NOT using marijuana?

Dan Grelinger

 

[LittleSoldier]

Both!

Many will present a question as ‘either/or’ when it is not nessarily so. “Did the beating you gave your wife kill her, or only maim her?” In this case it, the answer is obviously “neither”.

“Is the sky blue, or is the grass green?” Obviously the answer is “Both”.

If your question really is “When a law requires us to commit an immoral act, is following it sinful?” Then the answer is yes.

However, please tell me specifically what law REQUIRES you to act immorally. A law prohibiting the use of a substance would only be immoral, IF, when we DON’T use the substance (i.e. we follow the law), then we sin.

Any law that prohibits you from doing something you think you should be able to, does not cause you to sin by not doing it, except under very specific circumstances (as a law that does not allow you to attend Church on Sunday).

Please tell me how anyone can sin by NOT using marijuana?

Dan Grelinger

Wrong. God’s law always takes precedence. Laws written by humans can change on a whim; God’s law is always truth, and as truth, is unchanging.

I didn’t ask you about questions; I asked you about laws. The questions you posed have absolutely nothing to do with my question of you.

Now that I’ve read your post I understand why some of your other posts are so confusing.

 

[LittleSoldier]

Jermosh,

You are confused. My response you quoted was addressed to the suggestion that ***marijuana use ***was no more illicit than the use of Oxycontin. I did NOT suggest the use of prescribed Oxycontin was illicit. Please be more careful.

Thank you.

Dan Grelinger

This is an uncharitable post. People may sometimes misunderstand a question which is put to them or a point that is being made (not that I believe the poster you are replying to misunderstood what you wrote), but to tell someone “you are confused” and to “please be more careful” is unnecessary and condescending.

 

[spn82756]

Both!

Many will present a question as ‘either/or’ when it is not nessarily so. “Did the beating you gave your wife kill her, or only maim her?” In this case it, the answer is obviously “neither”.

“Is the sky blue, or is the grass green?” Obviously the answer is “Both”.

If your question really is “When a law requires us to commit an immoral act, is following it sinful?” Then the answer is yes.

However, please tell me specifically what law REQUIRES you to act immorally. A law prohibiting the use of a substance would only be immoral, IF, when we DON’T use the substance (i.e. we follow the law), then we sin.

Any law that prohibits you from doing something you think you should be able to, does not cause you to sin by not doing it, except under very specific circumstances (as a law that does not allow you to attend Church on Sunday).

Please tell me how anyone can sin by NOT using marijuana?

Dan Grelinger

Man’s laws never take precedence! As a matter of fact we are obligated to disobey man’s laws when they break God’s laws.

For example…in places where the distribution of birth control pills or abortaficients by prescription are required…Catholic and Protestant organizations have gone to court to defend a pharmacist’s decision not to distribute based on religious belief.

In the case of medical M…nowhere does the catechism consider it to be a sin when prescribed. It does consider using it for recreational purposes wrong…but that is the case with any legally prescribed drug. Perhaps you need to experience some pain to find out the problems with OPIATES. That what narcotics like percocet are…opiates.

 

[MM_for_LLPH]

I am new to the forum and this topic and current posts here make this very timely in my life. I have been so profoundly impacted from MM that it has single handedly changed my faith in God for providing answers, love for family and friends and love of each moment and the capacity for empathy and understanding. I know this post is going to be long winded - but when shouldn’t a life changing event be? I don’t think the answers to life’s great mysteries are still out there waiting to be answered or discovered - I think we have the truth and its waiting right outside for you. God has already naturally given us all we need with just the help of his love and grace. God even put the plant here first and said some things about using his bounty to create, innovate, incorporate , and be inspired by. He certainly didn’t say don’t eat of THIS fruit and Don’t seek the plant I put here to help you. Don’t take my word for it - just look at released documents from the Freedom of Information Act - you will find a long understanding of the potential if not the outright proof of its potential. Of what you CAN read in the documents - the rest is largely redacted - just leaving us with the Freedom of DISinformation Act. So when it comes when the legality of it - God says it is OK - I have my proof in MY story below, and the Powers that BE obviously know there merit - check quotes of leaders in almost every health org like AAFP, ACoP, AMSA, ANA, IOM, even old members of executive management in the FDA, DEA, DoJ, and so on………

 

[MM_for_LLPH]

In my 15+a day pill cocktails (do the math over 5 years, if you give me just one dime for each pill I took - ill give you my bank info.) I couldn’t experience things to even know how to live in the moment and remember it. Even if some of the medications I took were not directly tied to memory loss - the fog that prevented me from feeling or sensing anything real made me miss everything. Every moment of every day I existed, I was either in pain, remembering fonder times behind me or stressing about an incurable future. I couldn’t even generate genuine emotion, I felt like a psychopath because I had to fake emotion through the fog. I know what love feels like and I didn’t FEEL love for a very long time. My first days off of all medication other than MM where some of the most overwhelming and overwhelmingly positive individual moments in my life. I have never reeled from so much happiness and joy to be back among the functioning. Likewise I was able to face my fears and greatest failures against God and man alike and accepted that my past does NOT dictate my future - it only tells me where I came from and where I refuse to return. I can’t forget about where and what I have come from. I embrace THAT pain because to know happiness is also to know pain. Life is not about maximizing happiness or joy overload - its about accepting everything around you each moment and DOING something about what you see, touch, taste, hear and smell. I had had zero sensory (name removed by moderator)ut - except the pain that was never mitigated with traditional meds. Does anyone know what stress does to the body on a cellular level? It destroys the cells. Turns out that time when you almost got hit by that car - it really did take years off your life - or at least a whole lot of moments. There are a ton of great videos on You Tube from “Google Tech Talks” (my views do not represent theirs and vice versa…to an extent). They aim to bring in some of the leading minds everywhere through the fringes of popular accepted science to arts and everything in-between. It seems they are not afraid to invite people that have difficult things to say. There is a video there from Jon Kabat-Zinn, among other great videos, called Mindfulness, Stress Reduction and Healing - he is one of the leading researchers into medically based meditation. He cites a study in the video where they measure the breakdown of cells/the levels of breakdown or telomere degradation. . It took two populations - families with terminally ill children and “normal” families, on paper at least. Guess what? It does not matter what “real” stress you are in - both groups were shown to have almost identical plots. If your perceived reality is overly stressful - it IS as far as the machine that is your body is concerned - stress is like friction to a machine - eventually it will break it down. We all need maintenance. Change your perspective on stress and how it hits you - and you can start to control it and the pain arc and your mind/body. Lets say the problems in a relationship are “communication” or “he doesn’t say what’s on his mind or he doesn’t/she doesn’t express their feelings“. Could it be they don’t know how - they were never shown by their parents? If a three year old wants to just play with his dad and dad can’t because dad is on the bathroom floor in a sea of pain and vomit - that 3 year old starts to think daddy doesn’t love him - daddy says over and over that he loves his son so he doesn’t forget - but he can’t show his love by being there. Now my son KNOWS I love him because I can run around, wrestle, read and enjoy this time together. We have all but completely eliminated the more extreme of the mindless entertainment escapes and we are now just doing - not near as much watching - doing. So take that couple that has is under tons of stress, no energy, pure anger and distain for one another and help them to ease into how they truly feel and allow them to understand where it is coming from so they can address it and deal with it and put it behind them. This is the basic stuff psychology and psychotherapy or other mind approaches are based on and unfortunately there are still irrational stigmas despite our specific knowledge of most every part of the body except for a few things we don’t fully understand - the largest is the mind and the art of taking care of it. My mind used to be a toxic wasteland of doubt and longing to repent and fear that I was damned - now I have an odd clarity that enables me to focus and accomplish more in days that used to take months. Every role I have in life is vastly improved from productive member of society, active with the church, as a father, husband etc…the only roles I don’t fill right now are of patient and “the prescribed” - I am OK with that - Could you be too, for my sake, my souls’ sake and for that of what I love and care about? Its ok if you can’t because I can - and we should all have the right. So - if God is Love and I must know love to love God - I can finally be in his grace.

Call to Catholics - tell your positive story. Tell your negative story. We all need to know.

 

[Timbothefiveth]

God even put the plant here first and said some things about using his bounty to create, innovate, incorporate , and be inspired by. He certainly didn’t say don’t eat of THIS fruit and Don’t seek the plant I put here to help you.

This doesn’t justify the use of recreational drugs. His church has said we shouldn’t use recreational drugs. If you are talking about recreational drugs, this is like saying that since He created hemlock, using it to poison people is okay.

Don’t take my word for it - just look at released documents from the Freedom of Information Act - you will find a long understanding of the potential if not the outright proof of its potential. Of what you CAN read in the documents - the rest is largely redacted - just leaving us with the Freedom of DISinformation Act. So when it comes when the legality of it - God says it is OK - I have my proof in MY story below, and the Powers that BE obviously know there merit - check quotes of leaders in almost every health org like AAFP, ACoP, AMSA, ANA, IOM, even old members of executive management in the FDA, DEA, DoJ, and so on………

None of which are moral organizations. None of them have any moral authority. I understand how you could be passionate about medical marijuna, but recreational drug use is something entirely different.

 

[spn82756]

This doesn’t justify the use of recreational drugs. His church has said we shouldn’t use recreational drugs. If you are talking about recreational drugs, this is like saying that since He created hemlock, using it to poison people is okay.

This thread is not about using drugs recreationally. It’s about using prescribed drugs. And in some places marijuana is prescribed and tightly controlled.