Filling the Scott Adams void.
Whole Damn Henhouse
The Colorado MMJ Program
I’m done with it. Got started on the weed to soothe my arthritis back around the time I left Lockheed for greener pastures. Everybody gets it to some extent, sooner or later. For whatever reason, genetics, injuries, mine’s been extreme. I have three orthopedic surgeries to show for it so far – both hips and the right shoulder.
As things went on, the c-spine injury from 2000 deteriorated to where un-checked radiculopathy was inducing constant sleep loss and severe acute nerve flare elbow pain. It was actually kinda funny how the first resident I saw about that episode diagnosed it. She just pushed down on my head to light it up, same as I’d been doing then lately, moving or sitting in certain positions. So I had some physical therapy for the C6-7 nerves and ended up getting the shoulder repaired in the outcome of that diagnosis. a few years later in 2019 I was subjected to another nerve root damage at L4-5 pursuant to left hip malpractice. It was far worse than the c-spine I did myself moving tires, with fusion removal of the leaking disc constituting my fourth orthopedic surgery, following a year later.
I might seem to have an exceptional amount of orthopedic surgery and nerve damage experience, with needs and wants for pain medication and anti-inflammatory only growing over the years. The Veterans Administration put me through the gamut of whatever they were offering for it. Venlafaxine, Etodolac, Tramadol, Gabapentin, and lots of NSAIDs for years only seemed to make me immune to opiates. I’m pretty sure I was on a max dosage of some of that stuff for literally years. Ongoing addiction/withdrawal cycles were no fun, either. I called it quits after watching myself walking around doing the yardwork in my own little movie one day. It’s called de-personalization, and the pharmaceuticals eventually gave it to me real bad – probably close to serotonin syndrome. I understand this is a desirable psychotropic effect sought by certain drug addicts, dunno. Scared the crap outta me, and I was the biggest consumer of psychedelics in our little street gang, back in the day.
The only real reason or purpose I can imagine for the MMJ program(s) was to get a foot in the door. Tax revenue is the primary government objective. That alone makes the Colorado MMJ program an oxymoron on it’s face. It costs upwards of $300 to get the certification and commensurate tax break. Then an annual subscription fee, all of which goes to the doctors, with reduced tax revenue for the government. Being unaware of the actual demographics involved, I’m probably somewhere in the middle of the volume consumer group for example purposes, but WTF do I know?
My tax break enabled me to just about break even, cost-wise. Why spend time giving the doctors money, when it could be going to the schools? All they do is sit around taking appointments, trying to determine if the patient is telling the truth about their symptoms, with no fiduciary responsibility of any kind, handing out medcards for their tidy little profit. Oh wait, I remember now – they’re not handing out anything. The State takes care of that with their online spreadsheet containing another copy of everybody’s PII waiting to be compromised. I saw the no-brainer there right off the bat, but continued doing the MMJ thing eight years just because the queues and wait times are shorter.
The article linked below, is only a high level intro. It’s what the pharma industry needs to focus on, and what doctors need to recognize for what it is. Economic competition is the only reason it was banned in the first place, and the reason pharma and alcohol fear it now. Put it in the repertoire with everything else and be thankful we have something that actually works for some of these chronic, degenerative maladies. My closing remark on the Colorado MMJ program is: No disrespect to the overworked, underpaid IT staff, but that online spreadsheet looks like something I might have come up with twenty years ago.
Medicine is not a rote discipline, much as many in the field would like to believe.
VA Again
Tomah VA contacting patients whose neurological disorders may have been improperly dismissed.
I wonder if the difference between improperly and deliberately will ever be publicly disclosed? They tried to lump my two spinal injury claims occurring under wildly differing circumstances at different times into one rating for the purpose of a malpractice cover-up.
I suppose an improper neurological exam is better than none.
Marijuana Moment
No news to me. I was on a pretty severe downward spiral my last few years with the VA. The analgesic effect for me is very different from opiates, but works nonetheless. Opiates totally block pain at various types/levels/dosages/usage patterns. I still sense pain, acutely at times, but the chronic stuff less before squelching somehow.
It’s actually kinda disturbing sometimes how when I’m walking the dogs I can physically sense inflammation building in the nerves driving my back, butt and legs. but it doesn’t bother and hurt to the point of stopping me. I just pay a little price later and the next day.
Stop Donating Sperm!
Keep it to yourself if you must, but between the Catholics forcing unwanted births and the Dutch seeding the planet, our human so-called race is speeding headlong into oblivion.
Not Looking Good
“VA Chief Acquisition Officer Michael Parrish earlier this month told lawmakers the department was negotiating the addition of new accountability and enforcement mechanisms to the $10 billion EHR software contract.”
So accountability and enforcement mechanisms sounds like an afterthought? You can be absolutely certain accountability was the main issue in my malpractice scandal. We’ll soon see how enforcement shakes out in that case…
LATE UPDATE: VA Has Skirted the Law for Too Long.
Mifepristone
It is absolutely absurd to me, how this post categorizes Health and Politics together here.
Sunny D
The effects of marijuana legalization across the country are beginning to have real impact. As expected, some of those effects will be indirect and unintended. Lots of people are getting off opiates and the alcoholic beverage companies are losing sales. Those companies are looking for new products and markets, with their version of insobriety now trailing economic indicators in the competition with weed .
It ain’t just your father’s Sunny-D anymore. It’s the tip of another iceberg, and alot of kids are gonna get drunk.
Healthcare? Seriously?
Four kidnapped Americans crossed into Mexico for health care. Don’t know what more evidence you need to know how seriously fucked healthcare is in this country today.
LATE UPDATE: Two shot to death, two returned, along with the purported five Gulf Cartel members who did it, with a letter of apology. Ooops, sorry wrong place, wrong time, better luck next time!
Thank You
Somebody must be paying attention somewhere…
Proposal calls for VA to study effects of medical cannabis on vets with PTSD, chronic pain.
Maybe they’ll get another crack at it. This is one of those bi-partisan topics the MAGA can’t make much money with, so they’re just actively ignoring it because alot of the base likes to get high. I’ll remain cautiously optimistic.
Smoking Cannabis
… is not generally speaking, a healthy thing to do. But that goes for pretty much any combusted material you might inhale – even from mundane environmental sources. I imagine from a strictly particulate standpoint, many commuters get way more dirt in their lungs just sitting in traffic or tooling up and down the thoroughfares than us lucky people inside or out in the country. You could probably choke yourself with just about anything if you go crazy enough with it.*
Smoking anything is really old school in this era of modern electronics. Above low 400°F temps is where carbon monoxide and other toxic combustion byproducts begin to appear. I didn’t listen to the Forbes audio piece linked by Cannabis Culture – media click mongers. It was nice how in the text they pointed out glaring shortcomings in an earlier study which tried to assert just the opposite.
Here’s the deal – compared to smoking, vaping is safe and effective.* It also appears to be the only way for me to ingest an effective dose without invoking hyperemesis by eating the stuff. Just now off another 3-day vape break, and as before, detect no change in pulmonary function, feel or effect. In fact, I suspect something in the Kief I’ve been using actually improves it, by stimulating mucous membrane activity and opening the small sacs deep down in there.
It’s certainly not for everybody, especially the rare cases in people lacking the liver enzymes to metabolize it. But if you can tolerate it, it’s the best remedy for any number of chronic conditions including arthritis and nerve root damage. My VA prescription history stands as proof. Link withheld to preserve bandwidth.
Seven Month Fire
New Mexico is still on fire – since last June. I guess the hoopla petered out in the first couple months after the affected populations were burned out. Similar to Alaska’s regional combustion experiment, Climate Change continues feeding on itself. The Forest Service might’ve even done them a favor, getting it started when they did. Who knows what would have happened if it got started later somewhere else?
FDA Punts CBD
“FDA has repeatedly disregarded evidence demonstrating safety that is relevant to CBD at the levels commonly used in supplements and continues to rely heavily on safety concerns related to high dosage Epidiolex to support the agency’s inaction,” Mister said in a statement.
Sounds about right for an agency reeling from the Covid fiasco. I suppose the rationale is if they do nothing, at least they can’t be blamed for a bad outcome. It seemed to work for SARScOv2, so what the fuck.
In all reality, it probably doesn’t matter what they say or do in the long run. Worst case scenario, customers will continue sorting trough the morass of scam and fraudulent products on the market. Best case scenario, cost will rise slower without onerous labeling, testing and tracking regulations.
CBD is but one of Cannabis’ many potentially game-changing therapeutics. That’s why they had to use so much Epidiolex™ – they were trying to isolate it. They just got lucky, stumbling on one of who knows(?) how many ways to affect seizures. Idiots. Taken together, both CBD and THC, along with the plethora of minor Cannabanoids, will eventually re-define the pharma industry. And they are terrified. There’s no longer enough afternoon TV marketing slots available for their government-approved scams.
Hamlin’s So-Called “Injury”
Naturally all NFL league and fandom is terribly concerned with and sympathetic to Damar’s condition. Another more subtle aspect of the scenario I’m worried about is the media continuing to push the false injury narrative. It’s more sensational that way – you know, like when they immediately started re-hashing the recent Tagovailoa case having absolutely nothing to do with or related to Hamlin’s event in any way whatsoever, except that it happened during a football game.
Damar was not injured. The play was not even an especially impactful one, by NFL standards. These type issues, far more common at the college and high school levels, are almost always worked out of the system by the time players get to the NFL. That’s why it was so shocking and rare – nothing to do with player safety or NFL medical issues. It’s just an unfortunate fact of life, overly sensationalized by the fake news media.
Here’s what an actual NFL-induced injury looks like.
VA Health Records
“McDonough has said the pause is needed to ensure the system is working properly and that patients aren’t put at risk.”
Seems odd coming from me, but the Secretary most certainly has this right. I addressed the issue last year. Now it seems maybe my concerns were well founded. I’m convinced medical record keeping was a big factor in the VA malpractice debacle I’ve been working my way through since January 2019. Between that and the Narxcare bullshyt, they almost killed me.
Despite what the HMO’s and Insurance companies want, real Universal Healthcare is coming. We need to get this part figured out first.
Full Circle
“China’s vaccine nationalism is deeply tied to Xi’s pride, and accepting Western assistance would not only embarrass Xi, it would also pierce his oft-propagandized narrative that China’s governance model is superior,” said Craig Singleton, deputy director of the China program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
The opportunity to see how the difference between smart people and dumb people plays out at global scale is upon us. They reported five(?) new deaths? First they clamped down on the press and healthcare people back in late 2019. Then they implemented the most draconian suppression policies anywhere. Now, lacking effective vaccines, China descends into chaos.
LATE UPDATE: This Mint article is concerning.