Long Time No See

     It's been well over a year since I've posted anything to this blog. I admit that I'm naturally inclined towards sloth. While  that isn't the entire reason for my failure to post  it is a large part. The rest of this post explains the other reasons.
     One reason for not posting is that I am an old angry gay white guy of Iberian-Basque-Celtic ancestry and each day I keep discovering more stuff for me to be angry about. It has kept me really busy.
      Another is my recent health history dealing with an orphan auto-immune neurological condition called  Myasthenia Gravis or MG for short. It is an orphan disease because it affects only 7 or 8 people per hundred thousand of the general population. So there isn't much interest in a cure. The pharmaceutical industry however has great interest in selling drugs especially palliative drugs for chronic conditions. There is only one palliative drug (and its generic form) on the market for MG and it isn't very effective at controlling the condition's effect on neuro-muscular function and it is pretty toxic, at least to me.
     Then came  the other diagnosis: another cancer had invaded my body. This was colon cancer. There was a partial blockage of my transverse colon. I was pretty much thunder struck. I had feared such a cancer since I was an 8 year old boy when my mother's friend was diagnosed with it in her descending colon (very bad). She had a colectomy and a colostomy and did live on into her 90s another fifty plus years. I didn't have that extensive a surgery and I managed to survive not only the surgery but also six months of chemotherapy. Chemo is not fun although I did drop from almost 220 pounds to 175 pounds. It is a diet to be avoided. I now have stretch marks but I have no visible surgical scar. For whatever that's worth.
     Happily I am in remission from both of my cancers. I was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2011. I treated it aggressively with radical surgery. I finished my chemo for the colon cancer in the middle of January and I'm now recovering from the damage chemo did to my body. My oncologist said recovery may take a year or more since chemo affects every organ system in your body from the top of your head to the soles of your feet.
     I survived this thanks to the chemo nurses who were just incredible, my physicians who were wonderful and who showed no signs of any god complex and my friends who hauled my butt from doctor to doctor and treatment to treatment (Myasthenia doesn't allow me to drive) and who took care of most of my needs during those six months. My friends also seemed to understand that I am the kind of person who when sick retreats to the very back part of his personal cave and tries to sleep off the sickness. It's no exaggeration that during that period I was sleeping 16-18 hours every day.
      Another thing: Cannabis really does have therapeutic value in spite of what the DEA says to the world. The DEA should be abolished but that's not about to happen, so I would just as happily see the DEA stop practicing medicine. So to recap I got through this part of my life due to the care of my healthcare providers, the love of my friends, lots of sleep and a good quantity of medical mota.
     Next thing up for discussion is why I am an old angry gay white guy

Andrew Sullivan on Cannabis.

Andrew Sullivan for whom I have great respect writes this week about cannabis and its use among high school students in the US. I have read the article and I am not sure I agree with it. First of all he cites a study cited in an article in USA Today in which the author of the article says “As states increasingly adopt laws allowing medical marijuana, fewer teens see occasional marijuana use as harmful, the largest national survey of youth drug use has found.” That is all well and good and I am not questioning the numbers set out in the article respecting the views of adolescent responders.

What causes me pause however is Andrew's take on the study. One of its basic assumptions both in Andrew's comment and in the USA Today article,without citation to authority other than the 'everyone knows' argument is that pot is harmful to the adolescent brain. I am not willing to accept that without reference to some science. I refuse to accept the argument that “everyone knows” this or that thing. That argument is fallacious ab initio for the simple reason that 'everyone' does not know this or that article of presumed fact. I understand that there have been very few studies of cannabis and its harmful effects on the human brain generally, if any there are. I also understand that the paucity of such studies results from the institutional corruption of the federal agency charged with regulation of cannabis and its use. The Drug Enforcement Administration doesn't want studies about cannabis. Studies inhibit the administration's mission which is the total prohibition of the cultivation, preparation, transportation, transfer, possession and use of a plant by anyone. In short DEA is the occupying army in our 75 year old failed War on Drugs.

Remember in a free society we need a good and substantial reason to criminalize an action, an activity or a thing, we do not need a reason to make such an action, activity or thing legal. In a free society the default setting is or should be 'lawful.'