Dr. Yes, I don't pretend to get more than the gist of this abstract, but it's interesting. So we're looking at a possible broad-spectrum antiviral, am I reading that right? Or at least not a skinny-spectrum antiviral (I'm trying to come up with impressive terminology, too).
Sarahg, good for you for writing, and I loved this quote: ' "I think it's time we begin the discussion about why we don't allow marijuana for medical use when we do allow many more toxic and harmful prescription drugs for pain. For me, it's a common sense kind of thing. There is pain and suffering that is occurring that does not need to occur because we say medical marijuana is not legal," Mundy said Friday.' It's just what the doctor who prescribed for me said. She also asked me an interesting question, "Does it help with anger?" I said yes, because it helps me think about things in a different way. She was compiling data to compare it to alcohol, a known provoker of anger. Not to mention liver damage, and all kinds of other nasties. Why alcohol is considered benign and marijuana evil was a wonderment to both of us.
leaves: for me, marijuana is only a partial painkiller, but I have known people with injuries who depended on it to keep functional. If there's one thing this disease makes clear, it's that everybody is different in their responses. I rely on marijuana more for its ability to help me sleep, and keep nausea and depression and anxiety away. (By the way, I really like your signature.)
About this last: I have noticed that a lot of people seem to assume that drugs act on them; it's not a two-way deal. In my observation and experience, this is entirely untrue. Consider the amount of discussion on this forum about remedies which work wonderfully for one and devastatingly for another. Clearly, our bodies are entering into a dialogue of pharmacological action. (It's called pharmacodynamics, I believe.)
So I think, in terms of drugs which are psychoactive, it's really important to understand that we are not passive things standing there while the drug acts on us. (There are cultures which would find us absurd for even imagining this for a minute.) If my first experience of a psychoactive drug is without guidance, it might also be in a setting which makes me anxious (it might even be on a level I'm not conscious of; something like the flickering of fluorescent lights, or offgassing carpets, or a stuffy room). That anxiety might be augmented by the drug. After that, I would associate the drug with that anxiety, and I might expect (and set myself up for) anxiety whenever I took it.
The source of anxiety might also be inside. If I am given to low-level anxiety, or I have something nagging my mind, or if I simply have a feeling I don't want to feel, then marijuana might augment that, too. My experience is that marijuana makes us more sensitive on a lot of levels. (I don't understand how that works with nerve pain, but then plant drugs are much more complex and subtle than synthetic ones; they aren't just a sum of their chemical constituents. There's something extra there, which I call the spirit of the plant, but if that's too woo-woo you can just call it incomplete scientific understanding.)
What I'm trying to say is that at least some of the problems with marijuana might be that it is bringing up things we'd prefer not to look at, the way lancing a boil brings up pus. It doesn't feel great, but it's healing.
Another problem with marijuana might have to do with the heavy onus illegality puts on it; I certainly feel different now I'm using it legally, it's a great relief to me. But I still feel sort of degenerate, because it's illegal in many places and because it gets me high and makes me feel good. The culture I was born to looks on pleasure with great suspicion. Is pleasure really so unhealthy?
