Ganja: Boom or Boon Effects?
Increasing numbers of eye patients are being taken off medical marijuana after months of therapy with it by many leading eye doctors.
But no one is saying that to marijuana’s adoring public users and fans.
According to one prominent New York eye doctor, its side effects have been documented after individual subject studies. These studies, according to him, show that apart from its desired effect on glaucoma, there are significant other side effects, such as the rapid and significant lowering of peripheral vision, which can also lead to blindness…and maybe quicker than glaucoma would.
That in my estimation means they are literally ‘swapping black dog fi monkey’ and maybe worse.
I heard this just today from a highly experienced ophthalmologist who says and insists, that it’s all a “money thing.“ He refused to speak on record because such a statement will “negatively impact him” as a professional.
He thinks not enough research observation was done on the patients to determine the drug’s effect on other clinical, systemic and optical conditions before politicians started hailing its virtues, a.k.a glaucoma benefits.
According to him, authorities ran with the one positive and ignored all the negatives. He says marijuana undoubtedly has benefits for glaucoma but can cause existing underlying and hitherto unknown eye and clinical conditions to exacerbate and become much worse than the glaucoma and cause blindness anyway.
He insists that the authorities and the American Medical Association are well aware of these findings but have been squelching them for financial reasons. Needless to say, none of his patients will be getting prescriptions for any marijuana derivative any time soon. He says he will not be held responsible for recommending them to any of his patients because he is not going to live with that on his conscience.
According to him, they have always known how damaging overall smoking is to the eyes and if they really wanted to help they would have concentrated on producing eye drops, which would isolate and treat the situation, but they exploit “weed’s” popularity, which is mainly in its feel good high.
He said that in his opinion, they know that people will use any excuse to have legal access to any such “upper” and they want to capitalize on that, seeing that those smoking weed directly, versus those using the drops to alleviate eye injury will always be a positive population ratio of over a thousand to one in favour of the former. Other hard narcotic drugs like heroin, morphine, cocaine, opium etc have little or no social redeeming value and cannot be endorsed for mass usage except in a controlled environment. They could never justify its unrestricted sale to the public.
There are many reasons to believe that authorities have been holding down on these discoveries for monetary gain. It has been documented by these same health authorities in their journal recently, that ganja causes fatal heart attacks, insanity, erectile dysfunction, memory loss, hallucination, angry outbursts, blurring of vision, lung disease, cancer (though at a lower incidence rate than cigarette smoking), ruptured blood vessels in the eye, addiction, among other serious situations, yet all these findings are ignored in favour of one solo benefit. Well, let’s say two. I forgot to mention the dopamine (feel good) effect. The Glaucoma Foundation is even backpedaling somewhat on its glaucoma benefits.
It has been in the press a lot lately that the marijuana industry is poised to ‘take off,’saving the government in a big way because it is rated to be five times more valuable than gold and is expected to make a lot of millionaires in the process and in a short time. Green Gold!
Seems they are prepared to sacrifice the health of the people they are sworn to serve and protect in order to beef up their coffers and fatten their bank accounts.
This leaves one to wonder if these purported glaucoma benefits could just be a cloak they are operating under to enhance its sale legally. Its hallucinogenic effect makes for extremes in social interaction.
Fool the people and destroy them in the process, just so that the rich get richer
Seems they have pulled another fast one on us.
When will it ever change?
More importantly, when will the people learn?
By Ava Ramdeen – a former staff writer and subeditor of The Daily Gleaner ,The Jamaica Daily News, and Caribbean Life News in New York, as well as Managing Editor of the Caribbean Media Network 1995. Email feedback to [email protected] and kandiearth@hotmail
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