tagged w/ Pain Relief
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The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit against Wal-Mart for the termination of a Michigan employee whose doctor verified his illness qualified for medical marijuana use.
Wal-Mart, the nation's largest retailer, fired Joseph Casias in November 2009 after he failed an on-the-job injury-related drug test. Casias suffers from a rare form of cancer in his nasal cavity and brain, and he relied on his doctor's medical marijuana prescription to alleviate the daily pain. Casias is one of about 20,000 legal medical marijuana users in Michigan.
"Medical marijuana has had a life-changing positive effect for Joseph, but Wal-Mart made him pay a stiff and unfair price for his medicine," said Scott Michelman, staff attorney with the ACLU Drug Law Reform Project.
"No patient should be forced to choose between adequate pain relief and gainful employment, and no employer should be allowed to intrude upon private medical choices made by employees in consultation with their doctors," Michelman said.
Wal-Mart officials say they are sympathetic to Casias' condition, but the company needed to put the safety of its customers and associates first.
"As more states allow this treatment, employers are left without any guidelines except the federal standard," wrote Lorenzo Lopez, a director of media relations at Wal-Mart, in an e-mail to CNN. "In these cases, until further guidance is available, we will always default to what we believe is the safest environment for our associates and customers."
The ACLU's lawsuit, filed in Calhoun County Circuit Court in Michigan, comes at a time when the controversy over medical marijuana is still being debated in many states. To date, 14 states have laws allowing the use of medical marijuana, which protect legal users from criminalization. But the laws are murky when it comes to protecting users from termination by their employers in some states.
Casias told CNN in March that he never arrived at work high and used the medical marijuana only outside of his work hours.
Michigan is an at-will employment state, which means employers can terminate a worker for any reason except for being in a federally protected class such as race, gender and religion. The ACLU is arguing legal medical marijuana users should also be protected under a Michigan law.
"I was angry they did this to me because I always tried my best," Casias said to CNN in March. He had worked for Wal-Mart for nearly five years to support his wife and two young children. He started at the company as a grocery store stocker in 2004 before moving up to become an inventory control manager. He earned an Associate of the Year Award at Wal-Mart in 2008, a year before his termination.
He has battled with his cancer for more than a decade. The lawsuit says the medical marijuana was able to provide him with pain relief.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/06/29/medical.marijuana.walmart.lawsuit/?hpt=SbinThe American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit against Wal-Mart for the... more
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[caption id="" align="alignright" width="240" caption="marijuana joint by Torben Bjørn Hansen on flickr"][/caption]
While the New Jersey legislature deliberates plans to legalize medical marijuana, and become the 14th state in the nation to do so, larger debates continue to looms. In one corner, defenders of legalization point to people like convicted MS-sufferer John Wilson, jailed for first degree maintaining or operating a drug production facility. His motivation for growing 17 pot plants in his backyard stemmed largely from his inability to afford the monthly cost of $2000 for prescription pain relief.
On the other side of the spectrum, medical and ethical questions have been raised. Does marijuana use cause cancer? What message does this send to children? Sure, it's a difficult debate to navigate, and in order to get anywhere in these murky waters, one must ask some other complex questions. Where does marijuana fall on the spectrum of recreational drug use? Is it any more egregious in comparison to alcohol or cigarette smoking? The desire to ease pain and suffering is an understandable argument, but it's also tough to justify in context of legalized substance use. And abuse.
Consider other legalized prescription drugs that have been co-opted for recreational use, and in turn resulted in an epidemic. I'm thinking, of course, of the overabundance of legal oxycontin and pain pill mills in South Florida which result in trafficking to areas like the Appalachian Mountains.
Our own Mariana Van Zeller filed a report on South Florida based oxycontin pill mills last October for Vanguard. One of the subjects in Mariana's report was Todd, an oxycontin addict whose family had been impacted by oxy abuse several times. Shortly after filming, Todd decided to quit abusing prescription drugs altogether. Through therapy and hard work, Todd has managed to stay oxy free. However, Todd still thinks about using, and frequently smokes marijuana.
Visit Vanguard on Current to watch the full episode of The OxyContin Express
Which brings us back to the legalization debate, and the values of marijuana for prescription use.
Certainly, nobody wants to see a replication of the pill mills in South Florida, but would the same situation develop with marijuana legalization? Amanda Reiman PhD from UC Berkeley has a supportive perspective regarding marijuana use based on findings that 65% of the people at the Berkeley Patient's Group use marijuana because it has less adverse side effects than alcohol, illicit or prescription pills.
“Substituting cannabis for alcohol has been described as a radical alcohol treatment protocol,” said Reiman. “This approach could be used to address heavy alcohol use. People might substitute cannabis, a potentially safer drug than alcohol with less negative side effects, if it were socially acceptable and available.”
We'll wait and see if New Jersey manages to push the medical marijuana legalization initiative through, until then John Wilson remains in prison awaiting trial, still suffering from the pains associated with MS. Sen. Lesniak has stated that he is going to urge Governor Jon Corzine to pardon Wilson before his trial begins.[caption id="" align="alignright" width="240"... more
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The Chinese have been using acupressure and acupuncture to effectively relieve chronic pain for over 3000 years.The Chinese have been using acupressure and acupuncture to effectively relieve chronic... more
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A recent study published in the Journal of Neuroscience by authors Peggy Mason, PhD, professor of neurobiology, and Hayley Foo, PhD, research associate professor of neurobiology at the University of Chicago, is the first to show that while ingesting food or drink, a powerful painkilling effect occurs.A recent study published in the Journal of Neuroscience by authors Peggy Mason, PhD,... more
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elle35
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added this
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2 years ago
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The drug is a mouth spray containing two chemicals found in cannabis, tetrahydrocannabinol and cannabidiol.
Sativex has already been licensed for use in Canada to relieve pain in people with MS.
The Home Office has now said the drug can be imported to the UK for individual patient's use.
"This is a move in the right direction"
Mike O'Donovan, MS Society
Not available in California yet. :(
The drug is a mouth spray containing two chemicals found in cannabis,... more
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