Medical Marijuana Use and Consequences…?
Question by Plogsties: Medical marijuana use and consequences…?
The following appeared in the medical literature:
“Physicians Who Use Marijuana are ‘Unsafe to Practice’
Kate Johnson
Oct 29, 2012
MONTREAL, Canada — Physicians who legally use medical marijuana to treat their own debilitating conditions such as chronic pain or nausea are considered unsafe to practice medicine in the state of Colorado until such time that they no longer need the treatment, according to a policy from the Colorado Physician Health Program.
“We took a conservative stance,” Doris Gundersen, MD, Medical Director of the Colorado Physician Health Program, told Medscape Medical News after her presentation here at the International Conference on Physician Health (ICPH). “We don’t want to deny them treatment…but until they no longer need it, or we have better ways of correlating impairment, they can’t practice.”
She said Colorado is the first state to come up with such a policy, prompted by reports of physicians who were legally using the substance. “The medical board appealed to us about how to manage this, there were several physicians referred and we happened to see they were also using marijuana — they had legitimate [Medical Marijuana Registry identification] cards,” she said.
“This is where we got a little nervous. All of the associate medical directors at the Colorado Physician Health Program are psychiatrists and addiction specialists, and we recognized very quickly that this may not be compatible with practicing medicine safely…. We don’t want physicians excluded from treatment that they need, but at the same time we need to protect the public,” Dr. Gundersen said.”
Do you think this is an over-reaction? Or is it justified that even medical use of marijuana should be assumed to impair performance?
Best answer:
Answer by Thomson Thomson
It’s a tough argument.
This can be seen as an overreaction as marijuana, if used appropriately, is more good than bad. However, it is very difficult to use appropriately, there are many people who don’t, and it can impair performance in some cases. For pain relief it is definately very good, particularly for extended use. it does not have addictive properties, it has very few remission symptoms, and provided the user is post adolescent, it wll generally have very few (if any) side effects. This is compared to say, morphiene, which is highly addictive and causes the deaths of many people.
I, for one, would prefer to have a physician who is unnoticeably high versus addicted to morpheine. Their usage of the marujuana should definately be managed or monitered more heavily, but whether they should be totally banned from practice is another question entirely.
Know better? Leave your own answer in the comments!
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