this is a false equivalency for two reasons: marijuana is not physically addictive, and THC doesn't have near the same capability to incapacitate people that heroin does.
As a lifetime medical patient, this is not entirely true. There are plenty of physical withdrawal effects. The primary one being headache and hypertension. Another one is lack of dreaming/REM sleep (as cannabis usage depletes your melatonin/serotonin levels, which effects your REM sleep.)
"THC doesn't have near the same capability to incapacitate people"
THC-Vivarin will hit you so hard I'd be surprised if you could remain standing despite the fact it only lasts for about 15 minutes.
i don't know what you've been smoking, but as a daily "practically 24/7" smoker myself, i've never experienced any of these when i leave the country and go without cannabis for weeks (or months) at a time. for background: i smoke first thing when i wake up, and i pretty much take a hit from the bong every 30 mins as i work from home. my work and lifestyle allows for such frequent consumption. point i'm making is, i'm a very heavy smoker so i'm a reasonably good gauge for addictive potential.
every 6 months, i take a tolerance break by visiting family in another country. guess what happens when i go cold turkey during these visits? absolutely nothing. no shaking, no foaming at the mouth, no physical withdrawal whatsoever. do i get a little bit irritated if i think about how i can't get weed? sure. but if i choose not to think about it? i don't even notice anything different at all.
regarding the lack of dreaming, yes that may be true. however, as someone who also works out every day at the gym, i felt absolutely no difference in physical recovery nor mental recovery at all.
i think the point i'm making is: whatever "withdrawal" you're experiencing is entirely in your own head. you want to believe it's there, so it's there.
Every human's body chemistry is different, so no, you are not a good gauge. To boot, I consume WAY MORE than you - I go through about 5-6 grams of concentrate a day. Get your leg replaced with titanium and plastic composites and see if your consumption doesn't jump up to really high levels due to chronic post-operative pain.
"every 6 months, i take a tolerance break by visiting family in another country."
Tolerance breaks simply aren't on the menu for me.
"i think the point i'm making is: whatever "withdrawal" you're experiencing is entirely in your own head"
Except I go to a doctor and they can physically measure everything, right down to my blood pressure, when I'm in withdrawal, and then watch everything change after I take a hit, so no, it's REAL.
Again, licensed MEDICAL patient. State card-carrying. I go to real doctors while you rely upon your own anecdotes.
Huh?
I hope for her sake and her sons the long term effects on children are ok and that she isn't giving 10x the required therapeutic dose because she whipped it up in her kitchen.
Every parent has only one subject; every child raising is a trial. You only have one chance and have to choose one approach.
This drug is used worldwide by maybe a billion people. Scaremongering is unhelpful.
Aspirin is used by billions of people and it's dangerous to give to children.
She obviously has no clue how to manage safe dosing for a trial and that is ignorant and dangerous.
Just because it's natural and everyone's doing it doesn't mean it's safe: hemlock is natural, "everyone" used to smoke cigarettes.
But nobody is actually arguing that it's safe because it's natural. You don't have to, the data is conclusive: it is nigh on impossible to die of marijuana usage no matter what your age is. There are few other substances in a home that that can be said of.
Whatever you think the long term side effects would be it would seem pretty damn hard for them to outweigh the unceasing agony of this child's existence without marijuana. And as has been said numerous times before, everything major has already been ruled out so long term effects are not going to be catastrophic on the level of regret when you consider how much this child's quality of life has been improved.
Marijuana is used by millions of people and is probably safer than aspirin. Granted if you're breathing weed smoke instead of air 24/7 you probably won't fare too well but that's not what's happening here: small amounts, carefully tested on adults, of a substance scientifically believed to be safe. (which cigarettes never were on this order)
This was a desperate act, by a desperate parent who had been abandoned by a medical industry that's happy to lose a generation of sick children because hey! process.
On the other hand, this "just put them to sleep all day" is a particularly outrageous "solution" for autistic children, that often are very smart and sensitive people and deserve to be respected and loved, as any other children.
One of my friends complained for months about headaches, loss of libido, tummy cramps while getting off of it after years of use.
Or one of the other many reasons why there can be correlation without causation.
Source - lifelong medical cannabis patient.
Currently we think cannabis is not physically addictive, and we think it might be psychologically addictive for some people.
People de-toxing from alcohol addiction can literally die if they do it wrong. That's never going to happen with cannabis.
Tens of millions of dollars of meth are sold by pharma companies in the US each year.