Why do people still think Marijuana can be prescribed?

As a pharmacist what type of medical marijuana abuse do you see?

I see tons of abuse, and zero Rx’s. MJ is a C-1 narcotic like Heroin, LSD, and PCP. It cannot be “prescribed” or “dispensed” legally in the good ole USA.

I’m in college and I always hear of Doctors illegally prescribing Marijuana to kids who pay a couple hundred bucks. Is this just talk or does it actually happen? How big of a problem is this and how can it effect your pharmacy?

Doctors cant prescribe a C-1 narcotic nor do pharmacies stock C-1 narcotics (research facilities excluded). Regardless of what those fruity fucks in California say, MJ is illegal, and always will be illegal. States cannot make a less-strict law to override federal law (however they can make a state law more strict than federal).
DEA has the final word, and the only reason why there is this MJ Rx bullshit floating around is that they have bigger things to worry about like inspecting pharmacies for vicodin use and making our lives hell than to bust some broke stoned pothead.
So the “Doctor” that is “prescribing” this MJ is just a glorified pusher who should have his license revoked and publically strung up by his peers by propagating this stereotype. The “kids” who are buying this shit for a few hundred bucks are getting ripped off and should just visit their local stoner for a better deal.
MJ is not an Rx drug, and the people who are getting “Rx’s” for it are just rationalizing their abuse and pulling the wool over the retarded eyes of the local law enforcement. If I were a cop, and some douchebag showed me an Rx for MJ, i’d laugh at him and arrest him (if he had some on him). I’d win in court every time.

Comments #

Comment by DAN S on 2007-11-29 09:02:31 -0800 #

well, again get your facts straight. I am a pharmacist in Hawaii and we do have “legal MJ”. Specific Doctors can perscribe and patients can legally grow at home( not more than 2 plants ) if you want more info email me

Comment by Prophetess of Doom on 2007-11-29 09:06:13 -0800 #

Hiya… Just so you will know, that all of the Good Ol US of A is not on the same track. Marijuana is legal in my county. Here is a link to the website of our Sheriff’s office. http://www.mendocinosheriff.com/services/prop215/index.html Yea, it tells you were the Phophetess is from but as you can see, not all counties are created equally. I honestly don’t have a problem with MJ if it is grown and used according to Prop 215. If it is NOT, then the buggers who grow and sell it commercially should go right to jail. But who am I to tell a terminal cancer patient that they cannot get some relief? It’s not for me to decide. It’s for the Doctor and the patient to decide. Just like with Plan B or legalized abortion. NO we don’t dispense it at our pharmacy, don’t be confused. It is dispensed at legal dispenseries OR grown at home for home use.

Comment by Pre-PharmD on 2007-11-29 09:36:45 -0800 #

We actually watched a 60 Minutes video on this in one of my undergrad classes. It is largely a CA thing, I think. “Doctors” (they are MDs, but won’t be for long) are “prescribing” marijuana for a litany of things, with very little or no patient history and with very little or no presenting indications. So, yes, in CA, you can pay a couple hundred dollars and get a “prescription” for marijuana. However, it’s still a Schedule I drug and it’s still federally illegal. Federal law overrides state law and so every “couple weeks” (according to the video, made in the late 90’s I think) these “dispensaries” are raided, and all their pot and records are confiscated. Not a great idea, if you ask me.
The most sane argument I’ve heard on either side of the medical marijuana debate came from an FDA official who acknowledged there may be as of yet unproven benefits but there is simply no way in hell that the FDA can regulate marijuana (such as how much active ingredient is in “an ounce” or whatever).
And AP, PCP is a C-II! I just learned this last week, and I too was amazed. It was withdrawn in the 1960’s from being even a veterinary anesthetic and is no longer available but has never been reclassified.

Comment by Shalom (R.Ph.) on 2007-11-29 16:14:08 -0800 #

What all the “heads” that are hollering for the legalization of marijuana conveniently forget to mention is that the major psychoactive component of MJ, delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, is legally available in capsule form (Marinol). The raw leaf is a C-I, yeah, but the capsule is only a C-III. Doesn’t even need a triplicate anymore. (Not that I’ll be stocking it at $1180.20 a bottle, unless I have a script in hand…)
But of course that’s not good enough for them, it hasn’t got all the other crap that you find in cannabis leaves. You know what that reminds me of? Remember when Cenestin first came out, and the manufacturer intended it to be a generic for Premarin. It had the same nine horse estrogens that were in the brand name product. So what happened, Wyeth filed an amendment to their NDA that said that one particular substance in it, heretofore identified as an impurity, was now an active ingredient, and therefore Cenestin couldn’t be claimed as therapeutically equivalent because it didn’t have that whatever. It’s the same sort of horse piss in this case, I think.
What bugs me the most is, the most common indication for THC is for chemo-induced nausea/vomiting. Now do you really want to give someone who *already has cancer* a drug that’s administered by *smoking* it??
OK, I can see pot-heads wanting to expand their consciousness, or whatever the hell it’s called. Just don’t go calling it a medicine, dammit.

Comment by kevin on 2007-11-29 16:40:18 -0800 #

I was prescribed Marinol which I was told was (I’m paraphrasing) the magic essence of marijuana, specifically the essence that suppresses the urge to vomit. It did induce euphoria similar to smoking marijuana but mainly just made me feel paranoid. I explained to my oncologist that Marinol was mostly the bad of marijuana and not much of the good. I did prefer it however to Zofran which suppressed the physiological urge to vomit but unfortunately not the feeling like one should vomit. Incidentally I have a GP who is more than happy to write prescriptions provided one undergo whatever other treatments he can administer to make money off an insurance company, but I must agree with you that if I were looking for pot, I’d find a friend of a friend to be much more affordable option.

Comment by greensunflowerRN on 2007-11-29 18:30:25 -0800 #

May you never have a hard to treat, painful illness.

Comment by rph3664 on 2007-11-29 19:53:16 -0800 #

I smoked weed twice as a teenager because I wondered what it would be like. Most boring thing I ever did.
A decade later, I dated a man who was a heavy weed user. I was in pre-pharmacy at the time and he once asked me, “If we’re still together when you graduate, can you get drugs for me?” HELL NO! It was a learning experience, to say the least, and I said then and will say now that I was equally responsible for the failure of that relationship.
I personally see no difference between growing your own marijuana and making your own beer and wine. Millions of people should not have beer or wine; millions of people (lots of overlap here too) should not have marijuana either. And anyone who says it isn’t addictive is lying; my ex-boyfriend tried to quit and had withdrawal symptoms. That he really didn’t want to quit was a factor as well.
The town where I used to live had a public access TV show produced by NORML. They once aired a panel discussion, which in its time was broadcasted on C-SPAN, with people who advocated the legalization or at least the decriminalization of marijuana. One of them was conservative writer and historian Richard Brookhiser, who used weed to control cisplatin-induced nausea and vomiting when he was undergoing treatment for testicular cancer and the then-new Zofran stopped working.
He said that anyone who thinks cancer patients will become addicted to pot is nuts – that it’s the ultimate aversion therapy. His statement: “If you associate marijuana smoke with hospital odors, nurses slapping your arm to raise a vein for chemo, and that little American Standard logo on the inside of your toilet, trust me, you won’t want to smoke it for fun.
His wife later said that after a few cycles, he couldn’t tolerate the smell of the smoke any more, so she made tea with it, which he drank and it also worked.
My ex-boyfriend’s mom died of cancer a few years before I met him. Did he offer her any of his stash? No. Go figure.

Comment by Mike on 2007-11-30 00:37:23 -0800 #

here’s my two cents on the medical MJ thing. it IS illegal in ALL 50 states (including HI) since the FEDERAL statues do not allow it. It is available in some states because your state laws allow it, but when the two laws conflict, the more stringent law applies. However, the state DEAs in some of these states have turned a blind eye. This is why it is being dispensed. If the Feds put their collective foot down, the illegal dispensing would stop. Most likely it would take a FEDERAL prosecution of an RPh to open everyone’s eyes. Just because your state board ( and law enforcement) say it’s ok, that doesn’t mean you’re off the hook federally. You can still be prosecuted federally even if you are in a state that allows medical MJ.

Comment by Don on 2007-11-30 10:10:35 -0800 #

Just thought it might be worth mentioning one subtlety to the Federal law overriding state law argument. Federal drug law is allowed due to the interstate commerce clause in the Constitution. If somehow, any interstate commerce can be avoided in the growing and selling of MJ state law would trump federal law. On the flip side it is really hard to do anything without some bit of interstate commerce.

Comment by Prophetess of Doom on 2007-11-30 11:16:17 -0800 #

The link that I shared shows that MJ is accepted in our county and in our state. The DEA does raid the huge commercial growers here. You will see helicopters flying around looking for the bastards who ruin our redwood forests. May they all rot in hell for killing the enviroment. I don’t agree with commercial growing. But I’ve seen good friends/patients die of cancer in my little town. Cried with their families. If the patient is getting some relief by sparking up, all the more power to them. The DA won’t do anything, the sheriff and the city cops won’t do anything. If the DEA comes after them, good luck. In fact, I knew a girl who was arrested for a non-drug related incident who when released from county jail, the deputy/jailers returned her MJ pipe and Marijuana to her. Heh! It’s different out here with all the “fruity fucks”. Now that was funny, TAP!

Comment by brenda on 2008-05-18 19:22:21 -0700 #

Is it possible to tell if you smoked marijuana or took a marinol. I do both. But now have to drug test..and want to know if they can the difference?

Comment by brenda on 2008-05-19 05:38:44 -0700 #

is it possible for labs or doctors to tell if you’ve been inhaling MJ or taking marinol?

Comment by prophet on 2010-10-05 18:30:34 -0700 #

First off your A government crack dealer. All that safe trash you prescribe is so safe that astra zenica and phizer are getting sued like no other. You really do drink the kool aid don’t you. Drug companies get people elected in this country and they take your doctor on a trip and load him up with the free samples. I think your just sacred that if they provide medical marijuana we wont need pill counters. How many people you know overdose on MJ. Ask heath ledger about your pills. Do you think Thomas Jefferson cared what a man put in his body. Your a fake brainwashed repuli-cant clown and this good ole USA is turning to crap because of old world fat slops like you. The good news, your generation will be dead soon enough. I hope there is still a constitution when your dust. (Ronald Reagan sucked, that is why god made him a waking talking grown baby.) “we don’t a republican we need a Washington” I pray for 2012. click, click I wont be hiding under my mothers bed but you will be. Go to cali and tell them how fruity they are just hope your mack 10 proof. (when you watch someone die from cancer and puke every hour you tell them they can’t smoke weed. Marinol has to be swallowed pharmasweety when you can’t keep stuff down pills don’t work when their in a pile of puke. Marijuana or the drug that kept china a third world country(opium-opiate)? Use the brain God gave you or better yet just shut the fu$k up.

Comment by Disabled and hate it. on 2012-06-29 04:53:01 -0700 #

Actually, if you read the 10th amendment of the Constitution of the good ole US of A as you so arrogantly refer, you will find that federal law does NOT override state law. Yellow journalism and propaganda is what made the DEA what it is today, so no wonder you are regurgitating the nonsense it spews forth! Way to think for yourself.

Comment by qerou on 2012-07-24 10:08:36 -0700 #

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxKGT3wcnRY tell this guy that its not medicine

Comment by Brendon on 2012-09-23 21:42:07 -0700 #

while you are technically correct about the illegal (category 1) federal status, I’m pretty sure nobody would go to a pharmacy for “prescription” weed, and why would they? Dealing with a fucking narrow-minded, vulgar person like yourself looking down on them playing the archetypal patriarchal pharmacist. What you can’t deny is that the therapeutic index of marijuana is vastly superior to any other pharmaceutical you and the drug companies peddle. Is there any other drug/medicine that has the number of applications (nausea, lack of appetite, anxiety, analgesia, list goes on…) with the ZERO PERCENT risk of overdose? Hopefully someday people can buy any drug or medication they want on the free market and put sorry motherfuckers like you out of your misery. Don’t flatter yourself, you are a glorified bean counter.