California Medical Marijuana Is Doping Our Youth

Marijuana is being used to help treat Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) with children in California, has medical marijuana gone too far? This is one of those things that is a question of ethics and certainly needs to be addressed before there is a catastrophe. In 1999 California voters passed a law which allowed doctors to recommend cannabis for medical use, including minors. A seventeen year old with leukemia is a far cry from a twelve year old with ADHD. In California Marijuana can be recommended "for any ... illness for which marijuana provides relief". It has been known for a long time that marijuana inhibits focusing and motivation, how marijuana could be considered useful for ADHD is beyond me; the Washington Times reports, "ADHD is described as a neurological disorder that prevents children from focusing on a specific task. In essence, people with ADHD have difficulty with self-regulation and self-motivation, owing to problems with distractibility, organization and prioritization".

In the United States we are guilty of over-medicating our children and as a result our children suffer. With 14 million Adderall prescriptions last year it is obvious that we are too quick to medicate. Now we are drifting into the world of alternative medications like marijuana to fix our problems with out doing all the research. There needs to be a certain level of digression by doctors when recommending marijuana, otherwise we will be fueling addiction throughout our youth. "What they don't realize is that marijuana use during childhood and the early-teen years produces significantly different effects than marijuana use later in life. The behaviors exhibited by introducing tetrahydrocannabinol -- the active ingredient in marijuana -- to the brain are similar to those demonstrated by alcohol consumption", reports the Washington Times.

We need to start getting real with ourselves regarding the benefits of medical marijuana. Its uses are limited and do not apply to everyone, it has side-effects that have no place in a child's life. If marijuana is going to be legal it needs to be treated like every other prescription drug and be held up to the same scrutiny. We wouldn't give Oxycontin to a child for a hang nail!

Nursing Home Residents Who Need Pain Drugs

The war on drugs has totally disrupted the health care system in America. Patients and seniors in long-term-care facilities are having trouble getting pain medication; serious delays are causing needless suffering. A number of staff members working in nursing homes steal the patients pain medication to sell or use; the DEA in response now requires doctor's signatures along with a sleuth of other approvals when pain medication is ordered. The Washington Post reports that lawmakers have become concerned and, "wrote to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. this month, urging that the Obama administration issue new directives to the DEA and support a possible legislative fix for the problem, which has bothered nursing home administrators and geriatric experts for years". There doesn't seem to be an easy solution to this problem; on the one hand there are not enough doctors to be around every nursing home at all times, on the other a serious number of prescription pain medications such as: morphine, Oxycontin, Percocet, and Vicodin are being stolen. How to secure the distribution of opiates and provide nursing home residents who need pain drugs in a timely matter is the question?

Pharmacies that provide pain medication to nurses without all the approvals in order face tens of thousands of dollars in fines. "The system is broken. It isn't working, and patients are suffering," said Claudia Schlosberg, director of policy and advocacy for the American Society of Consultant Pharmacists. "While we need to ensure there are proper controls on the medications, the overall law enforcement concern has to be compatible with meeting patients' needs, and right now it's not", according to the Washington Post. Scholsberg has a good point, patients' rights need to prevail over all else, there obviously needs to be some restrictions but they can't get in the way of a patients' well being. Nobody would want their loved ones to suffer while in the care of someone else, it just is not acceptable.

It does not seem right that the war on pain has to suffer from the war on drugs; I guess that is war though, they are usually not fair. Nurses and doctors cannot effectively manage their patients' pain as a result of the Drug Enforcement Agencies strict policies. Hopefully, a compromise can be found that will stop all the delays and still monitor the drugs in order to keep them off the streets.