Kickas.org Forums Ankylosing Spondylitis General Discussion #1 AS Web Support Group Only in Canada

Loz, your quote from the Mayo Clinic was quite right. However (did you sense that coming), I would amend this last statement when it comes to AS Kickers and pot:

"And depending on the severity of your condition, ankylosing spondylitis can affect the mobility of your rib cage. Damaging your lungs by smoking can compromise your ability to breathe."

They've obviously never power toked. Man, the rib expansion you get on that is outstanding!! Best rib exercise I've ever done!

Hugs,

Kat

Dear Kat:

While I'm glad you've had the benefit of rib expansion on occasion , unfortunately smoking is just not a good method of delivery. There are reports of increased lung and head and neck cancer in people who smoke marijuana.

I've heard that one joint is comprised of about 400 different substances, some of them are pyschoactive (or get you high), some have the medicinal benefits, many others are inactive. One of the purposes of identifying and purifying the products that have the medicinal properties is so that it can be delivered differently. Currently drugs like nabilone are in pill form, but an up and coming drug is in a mouth spray.

Some other reasons for extracting the medicinal component is to have better 'quality control'. When you smoke a joint, you never know how much of each substance you're actually getting, and what's more on occasion some toxic substances sneak in there (I cant remember the specifics, but there was a crop of marijuana once that was sprayed with pesticide and resulted in the death of people that used it).

I'm not criticising, just relaying what I've heard from a medical perspective.

Hugs,
Jeanna

Kindness in words creates confidence
Kindness in thinking creates profoundness
Kindness in giving creates love
~ Tao Te Ching

Hey Brad - sorry again for unintentionally misleading you. I feel a bit dense about that still ....

I pulled some abstracts off of pubmed. There's many more, but these are some of the articles that I'm most interested in reading.

Review of clinical benefits

Neuroprotection

Anti-inflammatory properties

Marijuana and IQ scores

The last one was published in an journal called the Canadian Medical Association Journal. I believe the PubMed link also has a free link to an online copy of the article. The CMAJ targets general medicine and the articles are quite 'readable'. The jist of the article is that people they've classified as heavy users have a noticeable change in IQ scores, but that it likely doesnt affect global assessment greatly.

Happy reading ,
Jeanna

Kindness in words creates confidence
Kindness in thinking creates profoundness
Kindness in giving creates love
~ Tao Te Ching

Edited by strutsy on 07/11/03 05:05 PM (server time).

Brad,

"Kills brains cells? Duh... I should be brain dead by now." Don't think that I haven't heard that line before, and you can guess from whom.

My feelings are this: life is terribly short, and there is nothing that we can do to appreciably lengthen it. Since we are guaranteed a lack of quantity, the focus should be on quality. If a particular drug increases the quality of your life - great! However, no drug is perfectly safe. So whether you take Tylenol for pain or smoke pot, there are deleterious side effects. The question is: do the positives outweight the negatives? It is a question that only the individual can answer, not society as a whole. In the U.S., that question is answered by a single government agency. Thus bureaucrats make decisions that effect my quality of life. Quite frankly, that pisses me off!

Keep kickin' AS!

Jim

Very good point Jim,

That's what I was tryin to say, in my confused sort of way. What improves the
quality of life for many sick poeple? This humble little weed does. But like any
med it's not going to help everyone. I only know it helps me, and I wish others
could also benifit from it's use.

Any bad side effect it may have, I have not noticed. No need for sleeping pills,
muscle relaxers, anti - depressants, etc...etc... I do however keep pain killers
on hand for those nasty flares. Yet if that's not enough good things this plant
can do, you can make a shirt out of it. The U.S. constitution was writin on it.
( hemp paper that is.) With so many good things going for it since the dawn
of time. Why has it recieved such a bad rap? Why so little research?

Why in the world would a cop shoot someone over it? Or send someone to
jail for using it? That to me anyway is outragous and should never happened.

Anyway, have a good one eh?
Hope you all find what works for you.

Brad

"Anyway, have a good one eh?"

How very Canadian

Big Polar Bear Hugs,
Jeanna

Kindness in words creates confidence
Kindness in thinking creates profoundness
Kindness in giving creates love
~ Tao Te Ching

Hi All,
I've tried only2 tokes, no more cause than the paranioa sts in. Worked wonders.


Terry

Brad,

I've been asking myself the same questions? Unfortunately, it doesn't look like things are going to get any better here in the U.S. Check out this news article: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/07/11/MN290994.DTL

When I read the article, I was struck by the fact that it doesn't matter which political party is in the White House as far as the drug war is concerned. More people were incarcerated under Bill Clinton than any other president. But, I think Bush is determined to beat his record. Am I surprised. Not really. During the Bush camp's victory party on the night of the election they were playing The Who's song entitled Won't Get Fooled Again. The last verse of this song says, "meet the new boss, same as the old boss." Was this a simple faux pas or a freudian slip?

Keep kickin' AS!

Jim

Edited by Michelle in Md on 07/14/03 04:21 PM (server time).

Jeanna, I would never have thought you were criticizing, honey. We all deal with this in our own ways. Sometimes, we don't agree with each other's way, and so we express concern (NSD controversy comes to mind).

I agree that smoking causes damage. However, so would the pharmies I'd have to take otherwise to get a good night's sleep. For me, it's more a question of the lesser of two evils.

Of course, my next question is, what chemicals are they using to create the medicines based on pot extracts?

Yes, I heard about that pesticide loaded pot. Man, that's scary. Kind of makes me want to grow my own, as I'd be guaranteed organic pot. However, until I can't get arrested for that, I guess I'll have to make do with what I can get.

Hugs and thank you,

Kat