OC85

Perhaps we aren't really disagreeing, then. As for drug companies controlling the supply, I don't think thats relevant, as I don't believe that drug companies should have a corner on the market. In my opinion, that is part of the problem. The current system has become more about ensuring the profits of pharmaceutical corporations than delivering relief to patients. Part of the beauty of MJ is that it can be produced cheaply by anyone with a growers license [a good friend of mine happens to have one]. For that matter, patients would easily be able to grow their own supply, if they wanted to. Imagine having a drug that delivers better results than current opioid pain relievers, that users do not develop a tolerance for, that has no known lethal or toxic dose, that patients could grow themselves. [Good quality MJ can be grown for about $300/kilo, including electricity to power the necessary lighting, fertilizer, everything.] This is what pharmaceutical companies are most afraid of, and the reason why they lobby so strongly to keep MJ illegal. However, I really do believe that the legalization of MJ [including recreational] would still go a long way toward solving our budget problems. If you could produce it for about $0.30/gram [which is easily doable], you could impose a $3 tax on a pack of 10 pre-rolled joints, and still sell it for about $10. Even if people could grow their own, most wouldn't bother, with retail prices like that. I want to make my point about the dangers of MJ clear. I do not claim that it is not damaging. Chronic use leads to damage to the brain, lungs [chronic irritation, but not cancer], liver, cardiovascular system, etc. However, alcohol also causes these same problems [worse, in many cases]. All I'm saying, is that MJ is no more damaging that alcohol. [On this point, we are in agreement.] Interestingly enough, MJ is NOT legal in Amsterdam. Law enforcement simply turns a blind eye to legitimate businesses who sell in "coffee shops". The reasoning is, this way they know who is selling, and can largely remove the criminal element, while providing a relatively safe environment for consumers. I think there is a strong logic to this approach. Finally, I never said that MJ is the only drug used in Amsterdam. My only point is that if you remove the fear of criminal prosecution, it is relatively easy to find people for study who use MJ, but do not take any other drugs. [Also, I as not saying that it would not be difficult to find pregnant women for research study who only use MJ. I was saying that it is not necessary to study pregnant women. There are many substances including prescription, over the counter, and everyday chemicals such as caffeine that pregnant women should avoid. It is common sense that they should not smoke MJ, as well. I was simply saying that it is not terribly difficult to find adult research subjects [who are not pregnant] that use MJ only.]

Again, nodoby was talking about that, and nobody cares. Even if MJ has a teratogenic effect [which it probably does], this is irrelevant to legalization, as alcohol and nicotine also preduce birth defects.

I think you're just way off on another tangent, more than anything. We were just talking about general studies done on marijuana. No one mentioned anything about official FDA trials. I know how those work, and I was talking about academic research, which absolutely backs up what I'm saying. And, again, no one is talking about pregnant women. I never said cocaine was the only enhanced drug, I'm just saying that it is not so much of a problem that you cant find research subjects exposed to only marijuana. Also, even if it WAS a problem, research done in Amsterdam yields the same results. Marijuana is no more dangerous than alcohol, and there is no credible research that has concluded that MJ's illegal status is justified. [ETA: just so you don't go off about pregnant women again, I'm talking about studies on adults who are not pregnant.] [Also, I think it is you who are not reading my posts, as I was clearly not arguing your point about the difficulty of studying pregnant women. Instead, I made it clear that there is no need to study the effects on pregnant women. Who says you need to do full FDA trials for medicinal MJ? It is already being prescribed in California and elsewhere. It doesn't matter what the pharmaceutical companies have to go through, since half the point of legalizing medicinal MJ is to cut them out of the game, and go with a natural remedy.]

Ha! I love how we're pretending that America is the only country capable of doing credible research.... There are so many things wrong with this post, its not even funny. First of all, most marijuana sold in the USA is "pure", as you call it...we're not talking about coke or meth here. I'm not saying it doesn't happen sometimes, but it's definitely not the norm. If a dealer soaked his bud in something, that would cause people NOT to buy it. There are many different strains of marijuana that have been developed over the years through selective breeding, and they have a range of different potencies and subjective effects. Dealers don't get more business by adulterating their stock, then get people to buy by getting "good $#!@". Second, no one mentioned anything about pregnant women. We know for a fact that nicotine and alcohol have teratogenic effects, but that doesn't mean we should outlaw them. Its common sense that you should stay away from most anything that puts your body chemistry into an altered state when you're pregnant. Third, the idea that is rare to find someone who only smokes MJ and doesn't use any other drugs is simply ludicrous. I know a lot of people like to say that marijuana is a "gateway drug" but this is simply not true. The main evidence people offer up for the gateway drug theory is that something like 9 out of 10 people who use hard drugs tried marijuana first. This doesn't even mean they used MJ regularly before moving to hard drugs. It simply means that they at least smoked it once [as more than 40% of high school seniors have]. Furthermore, I would like to think that educated people such as nurses understand that correlation does not establish causality. If 9 out of 10 hard drug users tried MJ first, then I guarantee you that 99 out of 100 drank alcohol before their first line of coke or injection of heroin. Does that mean drinking alcohol causes hard drug use? The fact is, there have been vast amounts of solid, credible research done over the years, both domestically and abroad, government funded, and private, and they all say the same thing. The negative effects of both short and long term use are no worse than alcohol, and it is no worse for society. Every single legitimate study ever done will tell you that marijuana is by far the safest drug you could possibly use [this includes alcohol and nicotine], and that is a fact. [i think the fact that there is no known lethal dose should probably tell you something]. Again, I'm just saying, you should get your facts straight. ETA: [This isn't meant as a personal attack in any way. Sorry if you took it that way.]

And yet, so many people would rather stay way up on their moral high horse than actually, you know, take the time to look at actual facts.....

Exactly. BabyLady, you are forgetting that there is a difference between simply being illegal, and being a criminal offense. For example, parking tickets result from an illegal action, but it is not a criminal offense, so you can get as many parking tickets as you like, and as long as you pay them, you will have no criminal record. In some states, possession of less than one ounce of marijuana is treated the same way. Also, like I mentioned before, in several California cities, the local police departments have even decided to stop ticketing people for personal use/possession. My cousin lives in San Fran, and from what she tells me, you can literally be smoking a J in the park and as long as you aren't breaking any other laws, nothing will happen to you. I believe Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, West Hollywood, and one or two other cities in California treat MJ the same way. The point, for those of you that keep crying "ILLEGAL", is that the laws and perception of marijuana are rapidly changing in some parts of the country, so there is really no basis for judging the actions of others based on the strict laws in one's own home state.

I think I'm putting Paris on my list as well...I'd like to go back for a couple of weeks. The food was amazing, even the cheap casual stuff was good. A friend of mine and I would stumble back from DiscoQUEEN at 5 in the morning and stop at this hole in the wall crepe place and scarf down breakfast crepes [which may have hasted even more wonderful when drunk], then somehow make it back to our hotel [right around the corner, but it seemed like a journey at the time] and crawl into bed. Fun times. I'd also like to pop over to Versailles for a couple of days, maybe take a picnic lunch and hang out on the palace grounds and explore the gardens for a while...

...just one more reason my MJ is safer than narcotic pain meds. Even chronic users do not develop a tolerance.

I've wondered about that....If you have a legitimate prescription for MJ, and you get caught in a drug screen at work, can the BON take action against your license? I know that MJ is federally illegal, but the state says its OK. Since the BON is a state, and not federal organization, how can they refuse to recognize a prescription for MJ as legit?

Actually, I was just referring to smell. People think those other things about Americans because we generally do make crap cars, overfeed ourselves [super Size Me, anyone?], and make some terribly unrealistic movies filled with deplorable violence [box office blockbusters].

I'm really sorry, but thats not what I meant. I meant if you are a native speaker and , after 12 years of school and speaking the language every day, couldn't learn grammar well enough to pass the English section, then you are obviously in need of remedial education and are not ready for nursing school. I never meant anything negative about people who speak English as a second language. I was just saying that native speakers have no excuse for not passing at basic test on the grammar of their own language. Again, I'm sorry for the misunderstanding.

...that makes me kind of sad. NP is something I was seriously considering as a final goal, but there's no way I'm going to make it by 2012. Almost every single person I know who has a Doctorate tells me the same thing: "If you can get by with a Masters, then consider yourself lucky. Getting my Doctorate was an absolute nightmare, and I'm not even sure if it was really worth it. Worst. years. of my life." Not to mention the cost.....

This is a point I was going to bring up. What some people consider BO may not be due to a lack of hygiene. Certain foods really do seem to come out of your pores and affect your body's natural scent. I remember a former neighbor of mine once shared a story from when he and his wife had first started dating. He is from Oklahoma, and is a very "meat and potatoes" kind of guy. She was born and raised in Japan and had recently emigrated. Apparently, he noticed a difference in her smell and finally had to ask , "Why do you always smell like fish?". Her reply was, " I don't know, why do you always smell like beef?". They shared a good laugh over that. Just goes to show you that all things are relative, I suppose.... ETA: Also demonstrates that America is not the gold standard. People shouldn't assume that they are "normal" and foreigners have a "weird" smell. They may be thinking the same thing about you as you are about them.

I wouldn't worry, the English and math entrance exams for most private LVN programs are an absolute joke. Basically, if you are a native English speaker, you should pass easily [and if you don't, then you have no business applying for nursing school anyway]. The math shouldn't be much of a problem either. If you have a decent grasp of basic algebra, then there shouldn't be any issues. Honestly, I think most of these programs have an entrance exam just so they can have the appearance of being somewhat selective about their students...they are not. To put things simply, if you have a high school education and are willing to pay the money, you're in.

Hence, the fairly biased opinion. Personally, I prefer German. As a total package, I'm partial enough to BMW that I chose to buy one. However, when you take an objective look at the car's capabilities, and the technology behind it, even I'll admit that the GT-R is pretty hard to beat. Besides, where else are you going to spend 75K and get a hand built engine [assembled by a single engineer in a sealed clean room, no less], one of the worlds most impressive 4-wheel drive systems, a sequential gearbox that uses separate clutches for even and odd gears [results in immediate shifts], and some of the most advanced computer systems ever put into a road car? Not to mention the insane level of attention to detail ["Oh no, we can't just fill the tires with plain air! It has to be pure nitrogen....more stable."]. Also, the interior and ride quality of a Corvette? Not up to par. Not by a long shot. In the end, buying a sports car is usually an emotional decision based on a lot of subjective criteria, so I'm not saying that everyone should go out and buy a GT-R. But if we're looking at things objectively, and don't take personal preference into account, then GT-R wins hands down.