I will go on a bit of a tangent here, but while you're right that general public and political winds may be favoring slightly loosening pot rules, this does not appear to be the case within the field of medicine. Many physicians, myself included, see "medical marijuana" as mostly a political construct by folks pro marijuana to get there drug of choice legalized.
There are a few true evidence based medical conditions for which marijuana is considered a legitimate treatment. It's medical indications are really not well known and randomized study evidence does not support the use of marijuana for acute pain, insomnia, anxiety disorders, depression, PTSD, Parkinson disease, Alzheimer disease, or cancer treatment (outside of treating severe nausea/vomiting.). And almost a third of patients using cannabis for medical purposes met criteria for cannabis use disorder in a meta-analysis of observational studies. And, on a more ominous note, daily inhaled cannabis use was associated with increased cardiovascular risk.
FDA as of yet has not approved marijuana for any medical indication.
The libertarian tendency in me says you can do what you want. But for the foreseeable future, the FAA is going to take a dim view of pot. Even if it becomes unscheduled and completely legal it will likely stay on as a "no fly" drug.
Again, pontificating on which schedule pot is, well, is this helping you get your medical? Sure, I'm posting tangentially as well. The difference is I was able to play the game and get my medical.
So now I'm allowed to pontificate...
I didn't really decide to zero in on marijuana and bring that topic up, but I suppose I did raise the topic of marijuana scheduling.
Up until now, 90% of my comments on the marijuana topic have been legal/regulatory in nature. My one response to WellKnow about "narcotic" being an exception. But you guys are wading more into actual medical/health and mental consequences. Which I welcome! Talk about whatever you want; it's all interesting.
Some might argue that in some super minor way, marijuana legalization could soften some attitudes and help me in a very negligble way. I'm not making that argument; I'm saying
maybe there is a slim possibility it could slightly lessen the stigma against my medical certificate. Really, my marijuana history is ancient and not very large, although maybe they will treat it as though it's the biggest deal ever. My military record says I have only smoked marijuana 34 times, only as a child.
When will tractor-trailer drivers, aviators, sea captains, LEOs and military combatants be allowed to smoke marijuana during leave and liberty? Not any time soon, I suspect. Maybe never. I don't feel any need to do that. If they allow that, it will probably drive our wages down, since potheads everywhere will feel welcome to attempt to enter our professions, lol.
Most medications are approved at the federal level by the FDA, and states cannot really have much say in the matter, typically, to my knowledge, but the Trump admin/DEA just federally legalized medical marijuana, on a case-by-case basis,
based on whether or not medical marijuana is already legal in a given locality/state. I guess we could say, medical marijuana is federally legal de jure recently for the first-time-ever,
but if there is a state with no state-legal medical marijuana, there is no mechanism to federally-legally consume medical marijuana in such state; it would be illegal in the eyes of the state AND illegal in the eyes of federal govt at this moment. That is bizarre and something that has probably never been done before in medical law/regulation in the USA, I suspect. But it was an ingenious way to make it legal federally but also give states the freedom to keep it illegal if such a state chooses, and it preserves the state-state medical marijuana regulatory organizations and mechanisms. If they ever transition medical marijuana to being wholly federally legally in the traditional FDA mechanism used for all other medications that we use in this country, it will be a huge project, and of course the FDA has to determine it is a medically useful and safe substance before any of that can happen unless they want to really bend the rules in a bizarre way or totall flip the script on how that works (no pun intended). I hope I am speaking in a way that is substantively true and mostly accurate. Of course, with Covid we saw the FDA bend the rules for medically approving things
My endorsement or lack thereof of your analysis of medical-legal marijuana policy and your analysis of marijuana's effect on humans is pretty irrelevant; You're a professional, and I'm not. Your opinion matters, mine does not. But for what it's worth, I totally agree 100%; I think 95% of the time or more, medical marijuana is a total joke. Maybe it's always a joke. I have no idea. I suspect the potential benefits of marijuana for small groups of people do not necessitate having it be a readily available medication in an almost-OTC fashion everywhere, and having 10 to 30% of our population using THC regularly. I often say that maybe the prohibition crowd ~90+ years ago might've been onto something, and I think the same thing about abstaining from marijuana also, but those ships have sailed, so if people want to drink and smoke in their homes, then I guess there is probably nothing we can do about preventing it, and maybe regulation and legalization are the ethical policies to have. I have no idea what is morally right or wrong on that subject. Medical marijuana was possibly a semi-covert, obfuscating stepping stone on the path to eventual complete recreational legalization.
One thing I am 99% certain of. Repeatedly inhaling combustion/smoke is not good for humans. Calling anything inhaled/administered via that method "medicinal", in the 21st century, is absolutely retarded, and anyone with a medical degree who has advocated for medically consuming marijuana in that manner is probably a total clown, and gives the profession a bad name
