Dalai Lama Supports Medical Marijuana Use

[diablo1974]

It really depends on the effectiveness of Marijuana use for medical purposes. ROI...how much improvement is compared to normal medicine treatment than using prohibited drugs such as Marijuana. We cannot deny the risk of drug traffickers making use of this 'convenience' to illegally grow more than sufficient use for personal gains. Hence, proper regulation and 'clean' law enforcers needs to be installed in proper.

[icy]

By the way, did you know that marijuana is free in North Korea?

What do North Korean use it for?

[Matibhadra]

What do North Korean use it for?

As far as I am informed, for whatever they want. Freedom means freedom, at least in North Korea.

Last year on the social news site Reddit, an American consultant who said he has traveled to North Korea every year since 2008, said while he was in North Korea, he and his group came across North Korean citizens growing marijuana in small gardens. Weed in North Korea, the consultant wrote, seemed to be used mostly "as a medicine."

"The drug is especially popular among the lower classes of North Korean society. After a day of hard manual labor, it is common for North Korean workers to smoke marijuana as a way to relax and soothe tight or sore muscles," wrote Vice reporter Ben Tool, citing North Korean sources.

Meanwhile in the ”Land of the Free” (US delusional self-epithet) police made a marijuana-related arrest every 42 seconds in 2012, according to US News and World Report -- while all the banksters assaulting your household from the privately owned Federal Reserve are free in the streets. This is the obviously meaning of freedom in US.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/08/marijuana-in-north-korea_n_4067341.html

[Kim Hyun Jae]

The more we label something as "untouchable" or "illegal", there will be room for smuggling, smugglers and the control of underworld business and cartel. People are attracted to anything that is either vice, illegal or unobtainable by law. It entices people's curiosity and greed towards the kind of income it can attract including power.

If the Dalai Lama supports the move to make marijuana available as a medicine to treat and help many of the poorer patients within limited dosage to relieve their temporal pain, I don't see any reason to oppose it either.

[Q]

No offense but HHDL always gives exception in certain things... like... Trijang Rinpoche is allowed to practice Dorje Shugden haha!

Ok... fine, that's not a very nice thing to say.

Anyway, back to the topic, this is one of the times when I go like... HHDL is the most fabulous person on earth. I've seen terminally ill patients that are in hospice... trust me, many times the pain is unbearable that those morphine just cant take away the pain (at least without accidentally killing them...). Medicinal marijuana really is a good option for them.

But just out of curiosity sake... will taking medicinal marijuana cause negative karma? If it does, then why HHDL approve it's usage?

Also, i have always had this question in my mind... if our karma forces us to have a terminal disease that causes a lot of pain... will lessening the extent of pain suffered from that disease lessen the negative karma that we expend?

[icy]

Medical professionals and patients believe that marijuana is valuable in combating nausea and loss of appetite related to chemotherapy and AIDS treatments, in reducing pain from multiple sclerosis and in treating an array of other maladies.  However, it is not wise for the laws legalizing it as recreational pot.

[Manjushri]

hahha, funny how HHDL portrays himself to be so open, probably gaining brownie points from the mass public, but on the other hand, further suppresses and causes great suffering to those who practise Dorje Shugden.

His Holiness supports marijuana use for medical purposes - ie. if it relieves the sufferings and ailments of others, he supports the method of using this drug to alleviate their suffering. Dorje Shugden practitioners are suffering with the dilemma to chose between their gurus and being politically correct, they are suffering from their unjust treatment, they are suffering from the implications the ban has caused, but what is His Holiness doing about it to support or relieve their sufferings? How come HH supports Marijuana for medicinal use so that others are relieved from their pain, but totally sideline another group, who are also suffering, but from a different cause? Suffering is suffering.... contradictory much, HH?

[maricisun]

I do agree with HHDL on the use of medical drugs like Marijuana. It does helps to alleviate pain during much suffering for cancer patients or other serious illness. Morphine are also used as long as it is being used moderately and not for pleasure or being addicted to it.
As long as they follow the laws and regulations, it does helps patients to ease their sufferings.

[OMB]

I fully support HH Dalai Lama!  Marijuana has been cultivated and used for medicinal purpose for atleast 4000 years across many cultures. No reason to oppose to it as it does ease the pain/suffering of the patients.

[Klein]

This makes logical sense. Drugs as an object itself creates neither good or bad karma. It is the action created by people in an altered perception or the attachment towards the object which makes it bad or good. It does not apply only to drugs but to most things that exist in our daily lives.

In the case of using marijuana for its medical values which can help assist pain is not a bad thing. Truly dependent on motivation as well.

I agree. Just like alcohol is neither good or bad. What we do after we drink alcohol will create either good or bad karma. Too much alcohol will influence how we think and the things we do.

[brian]

I think if marijuana can save one person's life, then why not use marijuana to save than to inflict more pain and kill? Why will they want it to be like this way? There are a lot more types of drugs from the hospital that we can use to drowse ourselves. as long as it is not overdosed or misused, i feel it is entirely fine. morphines are being used in hospitals to cure and calm patients. It is still drugs... I congratulate Dalai Lama for this support as i see no harm in this.

[icy]

With a majority of Americans now in favor marijuana legalization, President Barack Obama is now saying weed is no more dangerous to individuals' health than alcohol.

In an interview with the New Yorker's David Remnick published Sunday, Obama said while he believes marijuana is "not very healthy," the drug isn't as harmful as some insist.

“As has been well documented, I smoked pot as a kid, and I view it as a bad habit and a vice, not very different from the cigarettes that I smoked as a young person up through a big chunk of my adult life. I don’t think it is more dangerous than alcohol," Obama told Remnick.

When asked if he believes marijuana is less harmful than alcohol, Obama said it is less damaging "in terms of its impact on the individual consumer."

"It’s not something I encourage, and I’ve told my daughters I think it’s a bad idea, a waste of time, not very healthy," he added.

[icy]

The Dalai Lama was recently interviewed in Washington about medical marijuana:

You support the use of medical marijuana. Have you ever smoked pot?

No. Never. These kinds of substances are generally considered poison, very bad. But for particular illnesses, this is sometimes deliberately used. So that’s up to the doctor, or up to scientists. The ability to judge reality is something very unique. Our brain is something very special. So if that is damaged, that’s awful. So alcohol and drugs are very bad.

[Jessie Fong]

The Dalai Lama was recently interviewed in Washington about medical marijuana:

You support the use of medical marijuana. Have you ever smoked pot?

No. Never. These kinds of substances are generally considered poison, very bad. But for particular illnesses, this is sometimes deliberately used. So that’s up to the doctor, or up to scientists. The ability to judge reality is something very unique. Our brain is something very special. So if that is damaged, that’s awful. So alcohol and drugs are very bad.

So, HH has never smoked marijuana. He was just expressing his personal opinion that he supports the use of marijuana as a medicine or for medicinal uses. It's just one person's opinion but the fact that HH is a well-known figure worldwide, obviously anything that he mentioned attracted interest.

[cookie]

The state of California recently step toward fully decriminalizing the possession of small amounts of marijuana
There is no existing evidence of anyone dying of a marijuana overdose, but this doesn't preclude the possibility of experiencing adverse or unpleasant effects when it is consumed in large amounts. For comparison's sake, alcohol overdoses claim approximately 5,000 casualties per year.This is often cited as a reason that marijuana is safer than other drugs, like alcohol.
No serious proponent of medicinal marijuana would claim it cures anything. Marijuana does, however, treat symptoms — pain, nausea — that are caused by a wide range of illnesses. Hence it can be used for pain management and anti-nausea(e.g for chemotheraphy patients)
Marijuana has been used for ages in treating many ailments through its pain relieving actions. But unfortunately, the degenerated human has decided to be greedy and used it to "contaminate" minds and lives of those who have no control. Sad !