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29837 tn?1414534648

Medicinal Marijuana laws explained

I will start treatment in a couple of days. People are confused, as I was until today, regarding Medicinal Marijuana laws. I live in Las Vegas, Nevada and got my prescription and letter for Medicinal Marijuana from my doctor. Here in Nevada, you can grow your own once you pay $200 to the Dept. Of Agriculture for your "card".

The question was: Can you go to another state where they have Medicinal Marijuana dispensaries and get Medicinal Marijuana if your state has no dispensaries?

Just got off a long distance call to a dispensary in California. Here's what they said. You must be a resident and have an ID to prove it, of the state you're purchasing it in. In other words, I live in Nevada and would travel the 300 miles to get it in L.A., but they won't give it to me because I'm not a resident. This is obviously a State or Federal law, or both.

So, in conclusion, I have to grow my own. The downside there is that you may or may not get a good yield. The upside is, if you get a good yield, you know it won't be mixed with chemicals or additives like you find in street marijuana.

I hope this helps. I guess I will grow my own because I did have three prior treatments with many brutal side effects. I already have quantity of life, I now will need quality of life in the next 48 weeks. So be it. Hope this helps clear up some of the clouds in the Medicinal Marijuana law regarding purchasing it from legal dispensaries... Good luck to all my peers here ready to start. Let's go forward with mad determination. Remember, the treatment is not forever.

Magnum
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29837 tn?1414534648
Isn't Hydrogen Peroxide a chemical that when inhaled from a plant can pass through the liver? Unless I'm mistaken, even if you spill gasoline on your skin, it can enter your body and pass through your liver.

Please send me complete instructions or point me to a site on growing techniques, since I never grew any. I would like to have some knowledge for example, on the outside weather conditions. As of now, we are in the mid 60's in Las Vegas. Is that warm enough for outdoor planting? Thanks in advance...

Magnum
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Avatar universal
Actually, I've never grown my own.  The person to address this to is New Sojourn.  I would imagine that cannabis plants would love double dug, heavily amended soil for good drainage and full sun.   But I've had no experience with telling the boys from the girls, and so on.   Btw, please keep us posted on the enzyme situation.   You're wise to cut back and see what effect that has.

Interesting questions from Indy, but to save time I'll just suggest you go to a NORML website and read there.   Very bad idea to buy on the street, as you don't know what you're getting.   I eat organically grown food and I vape organically grown cannabis--grown outdoors, that is, not under lights indoors, as plants grown that way usually need more boosting.    And I dose carefully: the point is to control negative physical symptoms, not to get blithered.

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Avatar universal
One of my favorite topics.  I live in Southern California, and we fortunately (probably thanks to the Bay Area <g>) have access to some of the finest strains available today.  Hindu Kush had a nice harvest a month or so ago.

My concern though is this:  I started smoking (not vaping -- which I probably should have) probably around July this past year.  I've never had any problems with elevated liver enzymes on tx until after I started smoking.  BTW, I was smoking once or twice a week using mostly a glass pipe, sometimes a bong.

I'm curious if anyone else has had this problem.  I've gone up to 115 on one of my numbers, which is the highest I've ever gone.  I did run this by my hepatologist before I started, but once my nurse practitioner found out, she was pretty upset.  She says that THC is still processed through the liver and causes problems.

So what I've done is I baked most of my stash into brownies and froze them, just in case.  In the meantime, I'm not smoking anymore to see if my numbers drop.  I anticipate that they'll normalize.  Once that happens, I'm going to try brownies and see if avoiding the actual smoke and just ingesting it causes any difference with my enzyme levels.  I'll keep folks posted.

In the meantime, I'm still battling some pretty strong nausea and sleep problems.  Appetite seems to have normalized a little, but I did have a brownie on New Year's Eve to gauge their effectiveness.  They were mild, not too strong.  Didn't get the munchies, but feel like my appetite's been kind of normal, which is a nice change.  Still have frequent nausea throughout the day.  

BTW, just off topic a little, Califia, I hope I might be able to bug you later on about growing advice.  Came into some good seeds and would like to try growing this spring.
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80575 tn?1207132364
Are you being seen by Dr. Kwo now?  He's really on top of HCV and I respect him a lot.  Let us know if you get into the Schering PI trial...they sent me the forms for the trial about a month ago.
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Avatar universal
Thanks for answering my questions all. The fact that it helps a person sleep sold me as I took ambien every night for the 48 weeks I was on tx, and I continue to have problems with sleep. Nausea and lack of appetite were not problems for me, but I understand how smoking would help those having those side effects.  Which states allow MM? How willing are doctors to prescribe? Do you buy from a legal source or is it ok to buy it on the streets? Is Marinol (sp) as effective as smoking?
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Avatar universal
i think the medical marijuana munchies is making me gain weight!..If anyone is experiencing serious weight-loss and needs help..i can help
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Avatar universal
Would that be high and dry, perchance?  

And yipes, grateful not to have been on tx when I opened the garage doors to discover several churning feet of grade 4 whitewater .

Well, it's not Andrew or Katrina!   Repeat 3 times:  it could be worse, it could be worse, it could be worse.....
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86075 tn?1238115091
Hey enough already with giving us all your rain! stay dry my friend.
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Avatar universal
Where are my manners?   The first order of business should have been a hearty "Good Luck" to you.   May the third time be the charm!

I use a Vapor Brothers device.  They can run aywhere from $100 to $160, and apparently they even show up on Ebay.   The state-of-the-art machine is called the Volcano, made in Germany, and this one is clinically proven to remove nearly all particulate matter.  It also runs around $500, alas.   Terribly ill people who can't make it through the day without regular infusions of medicine are generally advised to go with this one.   By the way, if  you can use any assistance in the Bay Area, I'd be glad to help.   Got my papers 'n everything.

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Avatar universal
In the future I will seek your approval, for anything I write or even think for that matter. Why you feel the need to barge into discussions with your sage advice says something to me. I suspect it says something to others. If you just have to let me in on exactly how you feel, well please don
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Avatar universal
In a 2002 study, Dr Sylvestre discovered that her study subjects who were smoking pot had a much higher treatment success rate than the non-users.Dr Ethan Russo, a neurobiologist "Dr Russo suggested that the results may be the attributable to an immunological response.


Marijuana (Cannabis) is a powerful antiemetic that has been shown to be particularly effective controlling nausea and stimulating the appetites of immune surpressed patients such as those with HIV or undergoing chemotherapy. Cannabis has anti-depressant and anti-anxiety properties. It is an anti-inflammatory  and immuno-modulating, agent that can help minimize portal inflammation and slow the progression of both cirrhosis and Hepatocellular carcinoma. The cannabinoids have been shown to be powerful anti-inflammatories and anti-oxidants. They have also been shown to have anti-neoplastic activity, at least in gliomas (a form of brain cancer). Cannabinoids both slow programmed cell death (apoptosis) in normal cells while accelerating apoptosis in cancer cells. Cannabis has the added advantage of easing, or even completely eliminating, the muscle pains and cramping that patients often experience. Marijuana is an effective analgesic. Cannabis has also been demonstrated as effective with rheumatoid arthritis, MS, and Crohn's. Recent studies published in the past few years have shown that cannabinoid receptors throughout the digestive tract act to reduce immune-reactivity and to surpress the vagal drive of the digestive system, slowing the digestive process, allowing more nutrients to be absorbed at a slower rate, thus putting less stress on the liver.

I have the full study with citations in PDF form, but no links. Perhaps a google search of the Docs involved may find the studies.
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29837 tn?1414534648
I'm sold....

Magnum
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29837 tn?1414534648
What brand of vaporizer do you have? Where can I get one without being ripped off. I too want to take care of my body and I don't smoke, so smoking anything is against my nature, but feeling better is not.


Magnum
Helpful - 0
86075 tn?1238115091
i vowed I wouldn't answer your invariable retorts, I'm an idiot, I have no team on the field, what? whatever. I don't take milk thistle.
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29837 tn?1414534648
Thanks for your help. As for assistance in the Bay Area, I appreciated it, but again, I can't get it from another state unless I come there and find someone with a prescription and a residence in that state. So... I'm going to gas up my Lear jet and see you tomorrow.

Be sure to have plenty of food, as well as good movies for us to watch. (wishful thinking). Seriously, I am trying to find out if there are any places to get it in Nevada, but so far, my search is for naught. I also wrote to the Medicinal Marijuana Board in Utah (my neighboring state), and am awaiting a response. I can't understand the bizarre thinking in Nevada. They allow Medicinal Marijuana but have nowhere to get it! Why am I not surprised?

Magnum
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Avatar universal
Well, the offer is still good, but maybe you should turn that Lear around and head straight to Switzerland for a total blood change?   Heck, it's been working for Keith Richards.  

No doubt you've seen these, but I'll mention them anyway:
http://www.lvnorml.com    and     http://tinyurl.com/aug56
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29837 tn?1414534648
When I got a prescription for Medicinal Marijuana (the distribution center in L.A. said the community and law enforcement is down on the word "pot" and we should refer to it as  Cannabis or Marijuana), the doctor said he heard but could not confirm that it causes liver scarring. He gave me the prescription and letter because there is so far no 100% truth in that confusing conclusion.

So, in essence, until I know 100% that it causes liver scarring, and read it in a reputable source like The New England Journal Of Medicine, and not some supposed vague study, I will continue to ease my suffering with Cannabis. I can't answer the question of its benefits for everyone, but let me say this. It gives me a tremendous appetite, and even if my appetite was cut 75% by treatment, Cannabis would negate that by making me hungry enough to eat a regular meal. I'll buy that.

The other aid benefit for me, is sleep. Under the past three treatments, I was averaging 4-5 hours every night, even with Ambien and Temazepam. With several hits of Cannabis, I could not keep my eyes open after an hour or so, and got a good night's sleep of at least 6-7 hours or more. I'll buy that. How about you?

Magnum
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Avatar universal
After 3 months of constant nausea and bad migraine on tx, I got myself registered as a MM patient here in California.   The doctor that authorized me practically insisted that I invest in a vaporizer in order to avoid consuming the carcinogens produced by smoking.  So I vaped when the pain started to come on, tiny amounts at a time, easy to calibrate.  A major godsend to anyone on chemo, no question.   And despite the admonition by the French researchers (whose methodology I do not respect) that users of  cannabis will have lower response to interferon, I am happy to report  that I am still negative 5 months post-tx.
(My genotype was the hardcore 1b.)  Anyone interested in keeping up w/ cannabis research should do a google on Tod Mikuriya, M.D., who posts some very interesting material on his site.   The man is a serious scientist and he, for one, is convinced that there is no liver toxicity involved with cannabis use.  

The French studies have tried to implicate cannabinoid receptors in the development of liver fibrosis.  It's an interesting problem, discussed or rather yelled about here many, many times.   I still insist that the increased presence of cannabinoid receptors in the body is compensatory, rather than a causal factor in cirrhosis.  (If anyone wants me to translate that, I'd be happy to.)

NewSojourn:   A green thumb goes a long way in turning crude but effective approaches into great thorticultural technique!

Happy New Year, everyone.  May it  bring all of us health, serenity, and renewed enthusiasm for life.
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Avatar universal

When you call IU you might want to check with tereasa anderson about a new study that Dr. Kwo is starting.

Stay well.........John
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Avatar universal
Sorry to break in this thread, but I didn't want to open another one for a comment to Mike. Thanks for your input. I guess I need to make some phone calls and find out info re trials with PI with IU. I finished IDEAL and had a breakthrough? (tested positive after 24 weeks). My nurse told me that Sherling-Plough trial with PI was only for tx naive. Maybe I was too late. I'll let you know what they say. Thanks!
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Avatar universal
I'm kind of curious as to how smoking pot helps with tx. I've been on here on here awhile and notice that some folks recommend pot but those same folks condemn alcohol.  Is smoking ok for the liver? I guess that I'm jealous, cause I have to do random tests at work.... but seriously, is smoking ok? Are there other recreational drugs that are ok for someone with HCV?
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107513 tn?1232286464
Well my warped minded, totally 100% delusional friend... I might have just seen a hint of truth in ONE of your statements.. In a post down below, you stated:

"Hepatitis C is not like breaking a bone, setting it and casting it. It is a very different animal. There are no simplistic answers. Beware of those who have simplistic answers, as simplicity is just dandy in the design field, but with HCV, simplicity will not be found however hard your quest is to find it."

Hmmmm, simplicity will NOT be found.. Now that is ONE thing I think EVERY person on this forum CAN agree with when it comes to HCV..

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107513 tn?1232286464
Little trick for you growers that I picked up, is too dilute a solution of hydrogen peroxide and water in a mister, and mist the plants at night.. The added O2 molecule REALLy adds to the budding, and yields larger and better buds.Also, once plant reaches a foot or so, pinch off the top to force plant into branching.  

I grew up in Jamacia if ya forgot!! LOL
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Avatar universal
Hey, thats kinda what I thought.  It would make life easier if we could have our Rx's filled in other states.

As to growing your own, we just stuck some cuttings in the garden and left for Amsterdam last April and 2 wks later they were still there and by Sept I had a good crop w/o half trying.  this yr, we're doing it right.

Last yr, I grew about 6-8 plants w/varing degrees of success.  This yr, I can grow up to 20 plants legally in WA- and that should last thru the winter.

Just keep the males plants away.  A freind gave me some seedlings and one was a male so I have lotsa seeds this yr.  B/will cull the males.

I grew in a raised container bed that was 2 ft high x3ftW x6ft long.

this yr,m we're putting in a greenhouse for the herb, tomaotes and orchids.

And its ok to smoke and a real thrill to grow your own legally.  BTW, my next door neighbor is a state trooper and it doesn't bother him if he even has ever looked over the fence!
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