Why Do People the Government Says Don't Exist Keep Writing Me?
David Borden at Drug War Chronicle - the vegetable banners in DC claim that cannabis is not a medicine. So why does Mr. Borden keep hearing from people for whom it obviously is a medicine. Maybe because the gummint's idea of medicine is completely broken. Drug prohibition is a cruel hoax. And, of course, entirely motivated by money.
Why do these people whom the government claims don't exist keep writing me? So much for the "hoax" -- the hoax is calling it a hoax. Another particularly misleading argument we hear from prohibitionists is that "there are better medicines" than marijuana for the conditions people are using it for. Even if it were true (across the board in the way they are claiming), the idea that there are better medicines implicitly contains within it the implication that marijuana is at least a medicine -- and therefore not a hoax.
But the argument is fundamentally flawed. Medicine is an individual matter. The best medicine for me, for a given condition, might not be the best one for you, even if you suffer from the same condition, and vice versa. Doubtless some medications stand out as having a superior track record overall to other ones -- some doubtless stand out for their negatives too, and there may even be some conditions for which one choice of medicine really is the best one across the board. But in general that's not the case -- the idea that there is one best medicine, for all patients, is a false one, and being the "best" is not the standard that's in place for approval of a drug as a medicine. The standard is that the drug has medical benefit, and can be taken with a sufficient degree of safety. Those who argue that there are better medicines than marijuana are applying a double standard, and one that doesn't really make sense.
