Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to you Stuff you Should
Speaker 1: Know from House Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome
Speaker 1: to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. This is Charles W.
Speaker 1: Chuck Bryant, who is seated across from me. Hello, and uh,
Speaker 1: you put the two of us together, you get a
Speaker 1: podcast called Stuff you Should Know? Like it or not exactly? Um,
Speaker 1: how are you doing? I'm well, I'm glad. Uh, Chuck,
Speaker 1: We're going to talk today about why don't think is
Speaker 1: a pretty important issue. Uh, medical marijuana. We've spoken for
Speaker 1: about the potential health benefits a plenty of other drugs, ecstasy, LSD, psilocybin, mushrooms.
Speaker 1: I feel like it's high time. Did you do that
Speaker 1: on purpose? Sadly not interesting that we did medical marijuana.
Speaker 1: This article had a couple of those little puns that
Speaker 1: I thought were one strain of research man that silverman
Speaker 1: thought he was so funny for getting that in there
Speaker 1: and just like freaking the man out. So where do
Speaker 1: we start? Do you have an intro? No? I don't
Speaker 1: have an intro. I feel like this, uh, this subject
Speaker 1: itself needs no intro. It's using pot marijuana for medicinal purposes,
Speaker 1: and apparently there is a pretty extensive body of research
Speaker 1: showing that it does in fact help, that seven hundred
Speaker 1: and thirty thousand UH people who have grave diseases and
Speaker 1: illnesses aren't really just faking so they can smoke pot,
Speaker 1: that the stuff is helping. UM. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: diseases that Jacob Silverman lists that this UM that medical
Speaker 1: marijuana has been shown to howl with. Do you know
Speaker 1: what they are? You recite them in alphabetical order. Well,
Speaker 1: I have two lists UM. The list in the article
Speaker 1: says nausea, especially chemotherapy, nausea, loss of appetite, chronic pain, anxiety, arthritis, cancer, AIDS, glaucoma,
Speaker 1: MS or multiple sclerosis, insomnia, A d H D epilepsy, inflammation, migraines,
Speaker 1: Crohn's disease, and if you're terminally ill, to improve your
Speaker 1: quality of life. This is a list on the sign
Speaker 1: outside of the Cush Doctor at Venice Beach, California. And
Speaker 1: there's a lot more things on this list. Do you
Speaker 1: suffer from? UM? They also include in here sickle cell anemia, UM,
Speaker 1: psychiatric disorders basically anything autoimmune, sleep, disorders, and it says,
Speaker 1: I think either sleeplessness or too sleepy? Does it say that? Yeah? Um?
Speaker 1: Any any well? At list about twenty more things, and
Speaker 1: then at the bottom it says, or any chronic or
Speaker 1: persistent medical symptom. Write anything fingernail hurt right now. So
Speaker 1: that's what the cush doctor will And that is an
Speaker 1: actual I'm not just making that up at Venice speech.
Speaker 1: I saw the picture. It says, cush doctor, and um,
Speaker 1: you can go in there with your little card and
Speaker 1: get you some pot. So what you've just gotten at
Speaker 1: is the heart of this problem. Like there is plenty
Speaker 1: of legitimate, bona fide medical research that shows that marijuana
Speaker 1: does help ease symptoms. It does a special double weighamy
Speaker 1: on people who are nauseated and don't have any appetite,
Speaker 1: which is a terrible symptom of several diseases, cancer AIDS.
Speaker 1: So you have this part of the medical establishment saying yes,
Speaker 1: pot helps, and then you have the drug warriors, the
Speaker 1: d e A, lots of US district attorneys, plenty of
Speaker 1: the square Americans, um saying now it's a drug, and um,
Speaker 1: there's gonna be plenty of guys like the cush doctor
Speaker 1: who are just gonna sell it to anybody they can
Speaker 1: and use any medical marijuana laws that you enact as
Speaker 1: a shield to operate criminally from behind, like don't don't
Speaker 1: take that drug. So um. For a long time, the
Speaker 1: medical marijuana idea has been taken up by states. It's
Speaker 1: been a state's rights issue also, um. But the federal
Speaker 1: government apparently was the first ones to ever legalize um
Speaker 1: or sell or supply legal medical marijuana from a program
Speaker 1: that ran from nineteen seventy. UM. It kind of petered
Speaker 1: out in the states, starting with California really took up
Speaker 1: the cause. Yeah, for a while, they did not sit
Speaker 1: very well, especially during the Bush years. That did not
Speaker 1: sit well with the federal government, and the Feds used
Speaker 1: to routinely raid uh legitimate uh medical pot dispensaries that
Speaker 1: were operating within the letter of state law because federal
Speaker 1: law supersede state law. So the d A can read
Speaker 1: you anytime they want, because according to the federal government,
Speaker 1: pots still a drug. It doesn't matter what your state says,
Speaker 1: right right. UM. With Obama, he came into office saying,
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm not going to waste the resources
Speaker 1: of the d O j on cracking down on legal
Speaker 1: pot operations. Yeah, that was in two thousand nine, um
Speaker 1: and memo. Yeah, and things really launched after that, like
Speaker 1: more states pass legislation and more dispensaries like in l A.
Speaker 1: At the time, after that passed, they say there could
Speaker 1: have been up to a thousand dispensaries in l A proper,
Speaker 1: but then they and said no, it was more like six.
Speaker 1: But what happened recently, well, UM, the the head of
Speaker 1: the d A, UM, a woman named Michelle Leonhardt was
Speaker 1: She was appointed by Bush and Obama reappointed her and
Speaker 1: shortly after her reappointment, she rewrote the d a's position
Speaker 1: on medical marijuana, saying like no, it's a drug and
Speaker 1: we're gonna go after it. And her, let's see leon
Speaker 1: Hart with the help of the district attorney no USA
Speaker 1: U S attorney UM by less name of Hague. I
Speaker 1: can't remember first name, Melissa Hague maybe she Um. She
Speaker 1: started basically prosecuting we're sending sending the d e A
Speaker 1: to medical dispensaries, and everything just totally changed, like it
Speaker 1: just went backwards by years when it looked like it
Speaker 1: was all about to change. Yeah, and um, the media
Speaker 1: and especially the liberal media have held Obama's feet to
Speaker 1: the fire, and they're like, dude, what is up with
Speaker 1: this reversal? And um, isn't this probably just election year
Speaker 1: campaign strategy And they're like, no, it's not a reversal. Really,
Speaker 1: it's sort of the same as it always was. Really
Speaker 1: but not really No, And apparently with so this is um.
Speaker 1: Chuck and I both thread a really good article called
Speaker 1: um Obama's Warm Pot in Rolling Stone. It's very thorough. Um.
Speaker 1: But the the there there has basically been a step
Speaker 1: up in the way that medical marijuana and the people
Speaker 1: who use it and prescribe it are being treated by
Speaker 1: the federal government. Um. With there there's been a hundred
Speaker 1: raids so far, at least a hundred rates carried out
Speaker 1: under Obama's watch. So if it keeps if it keeps
Speaker 1: up with this pace, then um, he will be worse
Speaker 1: than Bush as far as medical marijuana raids. Uh. And
Speaker 1: this one guy, Rob Campia, who was executive director of
Speaker 1: the Marijuana Policy Project, said that Obama is the worst
Speaker 1: president on medical marijuana. Crazy. It is just totally crazy
Speaker 1: because that's not what he said during the campaign. And Uh,
Speaker 1: the I don't know, no what need astorney. I'm one
Speaker 1: of the residents of Colorado that was campaigning hard to
Speaker 1: you know, to keep this going against Obama even though
Speaker 1: he voted for him, said he needs to watch it
Speaker 1: because quote, medical marijuana is twice as popular as he is.
Speaker 1: So he says he's already lost that vote no matter
Speaker 1: what happens. So we'll see how this shakes down, all right. So, uh,
Speaker 1: California has been studying this since about two thousand. In
Speaker 1: earnest um, they were given about nine million bucks to
Speaker 1: do genuine medical research on the effectiveness of marijuana for
Speaker 1: different usually pain causing and nausea causing diseases. And um.
Speaker 1: It's always been hard to do these studies though, because
Speaker 1: the federal government, if they're gonna give you money, they're
Speaker 1: gonna regulate like where the pot comes from. And this
Speaker 1: at the time was that you see San Diego. They
Speaker 1: would only let them get it from one place, one source,
Speaker 1: and then they would visit them. Federal agents would in
Speaker 1: uh the Medical Cannabis Research Center to verify that it
Speaker 1: was kept in a vault that was bolted to the floor,
Speaker 1: so they would, you know, they want to come by
Speaker 1: and make sure they were all sitting around smoking joints
Speaker 1: and like playing ping pong. You guess which I mean.
Speaker 1: I guess if you are kind of hung up on
Speaker 1: testing with medical marijuana, that's cool. That's your right to
Speaker 1: drop by and make sure that everything is here and
Speaker 1: it's not being Yeah, I'm not liking that. Um. The
Speaker 1: federal government started, like like the the head of the
Speaker 1: Bureau of Alcohol to back on firearms. Then a lighter
Speaker 1: to firearms dealers saying it's um, it's illegal to sell
Speaker 1: afire are armed to a person addicted to marijuana. So
Speaker 1: if you are, if you are receiving medical cannabis, you
Speaker 1: just had your Second Amendment right strip from your banks
Speaker 1: are worried about getting prosecuted for money laundering by dealing
Speaker 1: with dispensaries medical marijuana dispensaries. So now it's starting to
Speaker 1: go to a cash only I eat, more dangerous business
Speaker 1: for prone to robberies and tax evasion. It's just like
Speaker 1: definitely going backwards, huge huge steps backwards. It's crazy, and
Speaker 1: by backwards, I should say, if you're pro medical marijuana, sure,
Speaker 1: let's talk about why um pot might help. Okay, th
Speaker 1: HC is in um it's a cannaba cannabinoid in marijuana,
Speaker 1: and that's what makes you feel high, and it's also
Speaker 1: where you find your medicinal properties. They're all locked in
Speaker 1: there together because we produce our own cannabinoids in the
Speaker 1: form of indo cannabinoids naturally. Yes, so we have endocannabinoid receptors, right,
Speaker 1: an abinoid, Yeah, cannabinoid. I like the way you said,
Speaker 1: it's kind of pleasing phenomena UM in our body. And
Speaker 1: when they are when they receive something, when something is
Speaker 1: recepted to them, uh, they release things like pain relievers,
Speaker 1: reduced anxiety. It has a whole just a whole lot
Speaker 1: of effects on us mood, memory, appetite. Well, it has
Speaker 1: a negative impact on memory. I think, well, it's it's
Speaker 1: just to regulates these responses whether or not there makes
Speaker 1: you sleepy or hungry or not. So with some with
Speaker 1: some diseases, UM, this combination of UM introducing THHC to
Speaker 1: the ENDO can now I can't say it correctly. Endocannabinoid
Speaker 1: receptor UM results in increased appetite, results in UM lesson
Speaker 1: muscle spasms. If you have multiple sclerosis, UM or if
Speaker 1: you're quadriplegic, UM results in just a greater outlook a
Speaker 1: sense of well being if you're dying. All these things
Speaker 1: that have been studied and document it is actually working.
Speaker 1: I got one for you. Uh. They did a study
Speaker 1: in mice that showed that the cannabinoids may protect against
Speaker 1: development of certain types of tumors, both benign and cancerous.
Speaker 1: And not only that, listen to this. It appears to
Speaker 1: kill only the tumor cells and may even protect the
Speaker 1: healthy cells from cell death. That is some pot That's
Speaker 1: pretty rad. That's all I'm saying. So on the other hand,
Speaker 1: you've got people saying, Okay, all right, I'm going to
Speaker 1: take the medical establishment at face value, and um say, yes,
Speaker 1: THHD hit your endocannabinoid receptors and produces it alleviates a
Speaker 1: lot of symptoms of certain diseases. Can we just not
Speaker 1: come up with something that doesn't get you high? And uh,
Speaker 1: some drug companies have been like, yes we can, and
Speaker 1: they introduced um shiny black pills called marian All, which
Speaker 1: is synthetic THHC. Josh, I have had a Marino pill?
Speaker 1: Really did it? Did it alleviate your symptoms? Uh? It
Speaker 1: was a very mild thing, to be honest. And this
Speaker 1: was this was many years ago when I was living
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles. But um, yes, I've had a marinal pill,
Speaker 1: and it's did you get it from Dr Couch? Now
Speaker 1: I didn't. But it is funny how you just pointed
Speaker 1: out because that kind of debated off air. I was like,
Speaker 1: should I say that I've had a marinal pill. We're like, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's an FDA proved drug, Like you can say that,
Speaker 1: but you can't say, yeah, I smoked pot and not
Speaker 1: get you know, the cross side stairs. Sure, it's just interesting,
Speaker 1: Yeah it is. That's I guess that's at the heart
Speaker 1: of all this. It's kind of like this this drug,
Speaker 1: the synthetic drug, yeah, uh, that you can get through
Speaker 1: a prescription right and go to your pharmacy and they'll
Speaker 1: give it to you. Um, you can have that, but
Speaker 1: this this drug gros in the ground, right, Yeah, that
Speaker 1: actually works better than this other drug, the synthetic version
Speaker 1: of it, supposedly. That's the big um complaint against marian
Speaker 1: all is that it's like it's a synthetic teaching, but
Speaker 1: it's lacking some really important parts. Yeah, well, and it
Speaker 1: absolutely is lacking. I mean chemically it's it's lacking. But um,
Speaker 1: but you can't have that and I'm really reminded of this,
Speaker 1: Like this is where like witches and doctors came from
Speaker 1: from the struggle of like the I guess some Middle Ages,
Speaker 1: so where science was really starting to kind of come
Speaker 1: about and um, to basically maintain a foothold or create
Speaker 1: a foothold for itself over Western society, it had to
Speaker 1: get rid of its rivals, which were um traditional healers
Speaker 1: who very quickly became witches and outcasts and were ostracized
Speaker 1: as backward and possibly even evil. So don't go to them,
Speaker 1: come to me, because I'm the guy with the beat on.
Speaker 1: We can protect you from the plague. Look at you,
Speaker 1: Arthur Miller. But isn't that Isn't that kind of analogous? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I think so. Um. There's also, uh, that's very astute, Josh,
Speaker 1: thank you. Um. There's also a tv X which is
Speaker 1: um a pain reliever, and it is actually an extract
Speaker 1: of real marijuana administered by spray and I think they
Speaker 1: have that's in England, Spain, and Canada, and it's in
Speaker 1: trials here in the US. Yeah, so that's not synthetic,
Speaker 1: that's actually an extract. Yeah. I'll bet everybody who uses
Speaker 1: it goes oh, I can't. I don't feel any pain,
Speaker 1: but you might as well just use this. Uh what's
Speaker 1: the stuff you spray when you have tonsillitis? Oh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: might as well just use superl That's not the one
Speaker 1: I was thinking of, though, is the uh so, Like
Speaker 1: you said, most experts agree that mare and all um
Speaker 1: and it's at vax actually in clinical riles show to
Speaker 1: have less of an effect than actual the marijuana plant itself.
Speaker 1: But the d e A points out t S this
Speaker 1: is what this is legal that and they make a
Speaker 1: pretty good point here that um may and all is
Speaker 1: the THHC what morphine is to opium. Like, yeah, you
Speaker 1: might need morphine. We're not gonna tell you it's okay
Speaker 1: to go smoke opium for your pain. There's morphine. Go
Speaker 1: use the morphine. It's legal, it's regulated, it's taxed, and
Speaker 1: it's not gonna get you landed in jail unless you
Speaker 1: get your hands on it illegally. So the Feds are
Speaker 1: the ones who are definitely blocking this right now. UM
Speaker 1: this I should say in in a lot of states,
Speaker 1: there's eighteen states, including d C that have UM laws
Speaker 1: on the books that say, yeah, man, you you we've
Speaker 1: got legalized medical marijuana to some degree. Yeah, and Oregon
Speaker 1: is the king Daddy of medical marijuana. California was Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean there's probably more dispensaries and things like that.
Speaker 1: But in Oregon you are allowed to possess up to
Speaker 1: twenty four ounces of you what they call usable marijuana,
Speaker 1: or twenty four plants um, six of which can be mature,
Speaker 1: eighteen of which can be immature, which means they're like flowering,
Speaker 1: budding plants. They were Jeane jackets. So Washington's right behind them.
Speaker 1: You can possess twenty four ounces or fifteen plants, and
Speaker 1: uh not surprisingly, there are no states in the Southeast,
Speaker 1: and Michigan is the only state in the Midwest. Uh
Speaker 1: So yeah, in these in these Bible Belt areas, you're
Speaker 1: not finding any pro marijuana medical marijuana states going on
Speaker 1: and insert your own Detroit joke here. Uh we should. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we don't have to read through just all those other
Speaker 1: hippie states plus Iowa in New Jersey. Yeah, that's so
Speaker 1: surprised thing have them Maryland. The thing is, though, is
Speaker 1: a lot of these, like you said, a lot of
Speaker 1: them rushed to um get laws on the books. Delaware.
Speaker 1: I think Delaware just wanted to be like he remember us,
Speaker 1: we're really a state. UM, but a lot of them
Speaker 1: have backed off, like Rhode Islands UM Governor Lincoln Chaffee
Speaker 1: is a vocal supporter of medical marijuana and a big
Speaker 1: critic of the federal government for using like goon squad
Speaker 1: tactics to like fight it and basically over rule state law. UM.
Speaker 1: But even he's back down because federal prosecutors have been like, hey,
Speaker 1: don't make us come after your your state employees who
Speaker 1: are running these these dispensaries, because we'll put him in
Speaker 1: jail and they can do it. Thirty four states, Josh,
Speaker 1: have UM laws passed that recognized marijuana as having medical value,
Speaker 1: and I think New Mexico was the first one actually
Speaker 1: in the oh yeah, yeah, even before California and UM. However,
Speaker 1: you know, you know how these laws go. It's like
Speaker 1: the gay marriage laws. It's like it's legal and then
Speaker 1: it's repealed, and then it's legal, and then it's repealed
Speaker 1: and you can do it here, and now you can't.
Speaker 1: So there's been a lot of back and forth over
Speaker 1: the years with the states. UH, sort of on a
Speaker 1: roller coaster that duke in it out with the federal government. Interesting. So, um,
Speaker 1: let's talk about California. Let's take California as a state. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I love that place. I love California. So California is
Speaker 1: I think they were the first state with legal medical marijuana, right,
Speaker 1: I think so. I think it's properly to fifteen. Uh.
Speaker 1: And they said, hey, if you have a doctor's recommendation,
Speaker 1: because we should point out there's no doctor that can
Speaker 1: legally prescribe marijuana, because exactly if you walk into your
Speaker 1: local drug store, they'll be like, get out of here.
Speaker 1: We got marrin all. You want some of that, but
Speaker 1: we don't have any pot. Um. So a doctor can
Speaker 1: recommend it in a state where you have legal medical marijuana,
Speaker 1: that it can say, I doctor feel good, UH, say
Speaker 1: that Chuck Bryant uh suffers from glaucoma and to relieve
Speaker 1: the interocular eye pressure associated with his condition, I recommend
Speaker 1: that he um use medicinal marijuana. And then that's that
Speaker 1: signed Dr Kush right, and you, being a medical pot recipient,
Speaker 1: would keep that letter on you at all times, depending
Speaker 1: on if you were in California, which also passed the
Speaker 1: supplemental um law, saying you know what this is, you
Speaker 1: can lose your doctor's note or whatever. So let's just
Speaker 1: issue I D cards to people who have a doctor's recommendation. Uh,
Speaker 1: if you have an ID card or doctor's recommendation, you
Speaker 1: can grow and you can um buy pot and possess yeah,
Speaker 1: and ostensibly use it. You know what Senate bill that was, yes,
Speaker 1: I do. Can you believe it? I could not believe it.
Speaker 1: Two thousand three. Um, they passed Senate Bill four twenty
Speaker 1: in California which um stipulated the cards and um that
Speaker 1: you could have eight ounces of usable marijuana, six mature plants,
Speaker 1: or twelve imager plants. Senate bill. That's crazy is that
Speaker 1: the two thous three bill? Okay? Um, apparently even more
Speaker 1: than that. The state said, by the way, uh, let's
Speaker 1: take this down to the county level. You counties, if
Speaker 1: you feel like you want to expand upon this, go ahead.
Speaker 1: So some counties have been like sure, Like the Humboldt
Speaker 1: is one that definitely expanded the amounts that you can
Speaker 1: have in the situations in which it's not. Okay, boy,
Speaker 1: I had some Humboldt fog two days ago. What cheeze,
Speaker 1: it's cheese. But it sounds like marijuana doesn't it does.
Speaker 1: And now that you mentioned that, I think I've had
Speaker 1: that before too. Is really like yummy blue cheese. Um.
Speaker 1: And we got some of the store down the street.
Speaker 1: But I laughed, Emily, I was like, it always cracks
Speaker 1: me up because some both Fox sounds like one of
Speaker 1: those marijuana streams. It definitely does. Yeah, you got me
Speaker 1: with that one. You're like, you can't say that, chuck.
Speaker 1: Uh so if you so. California also has um what's
Speaker 1: called a caregiver law. Yeah. A caregiver is somebody who
Speaker 1: basically takes care of you if you're sick, right. Uh.
Speaker 1: In California, a caregiver can also refer to a person
Speaker 1: who supplies medical marijuana to people who have docutors recommendations. Right. Um,
Speaker 1: It's like your grandmother has glaucoma, she didn't know where
Speaker 1: to score, right, So you could be her caregiver and
Speaker 1: get this for her, or you can be the guy
Speaker 1: who's growing it for her. Right. Did you ever see
Speaker 1: the Curb your Enthusiasm where Larry got pot for his dad.
Speaker 1: He got medical marijuanta for his dad because he had
Speaker 1: I think it was glaucoma, And he smoked with him
Speaker 1: and showed him how to do it and everything, and
Speaker 1: like went in the bathroom and freaked out. It was
Speaker 1: pretty funny. Yeah, and the whole buying process. So it
Speaker 1: was the guy from Lost. Hurley from Lost was the
Speaker 1: pot dealer. It was really really funny. It was good.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, did you ever see the Mr. Show sketch
Speaker 1: about medical marijuana. The pharmacist who has the brownies? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and he always wants to play like the music he
Speaker 1: recorded on his four track Yeah for everybody. Well, it's
Speaker 1: it's funny. You mentioned that though, because at some of
Speaker 1: these dispensaries, um, you can buy things like brownies and
Speaker 1: butter and cookies and smoothies and yeah, because not everybody
Speaker 1: wants to smoke pot. Who has a medical cannabis exactly? Okay,
Speaker 1: so you have a recommended and you have a caregiver
Speaker 1: that you go to, and the caregiver, um, so this
Speaker 1: is where it gets really cloudy. They the Feds don't
Speaker 1: go after patients, even during the Bush years um and
Speaker 1: now which is worse than the Bush years. Um. They
Speaker 1: they have never gone after patients. It's basically, don't go
Speaker 1: after patients. Caregivers used to be protected, but because caregiver
Speaker 1: is also basically synonymous for pot dealer in medical marijuana
Speaker 1: states that that's no longer you're if you are one
Speaker 1: of those caregivers who's really like spending your You live
Speaker 1: with your elderly grandmother and you're taking care of her,
Speaker 1: and she has medical marijuana that she takes and you
Speaker 1: go get it for you're in jeopardy now too, because
Speaker 1: a lot of these operations have gotten very, very big,
Speaker 1: and though they may be bona fide and legitimate, they
Speaker 1: may not be making any profit, which is part of
Speaker 1: the law. Um, they are considered caregivers rather than like
Speaker 1: dispensaries or anything like that. So that's what's clouded the issue.
Speaker 1: You that's where a lot of the protections for regular
Speaker 1: people who are caregivers are being stripped away. It got
Speaker 1: out of hand and it was people like Dr Cush
Speaker 1: sprung up and all of a sudden there were dispensaries
Speaker 1: that weren't co ops where you have actually members growing
Speaker 1: the weed for the co op. That's just say weed
Speaker 1: stead of marijuana, medical weed, medical weed. Um. They supposedly
Speaker 1: a lot of them were buying it illegally, making profit
Speaker 1: off of it and kind of screwed it up. For
Speaker 1: the legitimate ones. It is a cloudy issue. That's where
Speaker 1: we're at right now. Basically, it sounds like some there
Speaker 1: were either um, some groups who just want pro or
Speaker 1: decriminalization of marijuana altogether, who were using this issue to
Speaker 1: just force it through, hammer it through, or probably more realistically,
Speaker 1: there were just a bunch of hoot dealers who found
Speaker 1: like a lot a very easy cuss immers by supplying
Speaker 1: these co ops. Americans, by and large, if you believe poles,
Speaker 1: are in favor of medical marijuana for people who really
Speaker 1: need it. Um CBS News did a poll last year
Speaker 1: UM seventy seven percent of Americans thought doctors should be
Speaker 1: allowed to prescribe it for serious illness. And there was
Speaker 1: a gallop pole in two thousand and ten UM that said,
Speaker 1: do you favor or oppose to reduce to allow medical
Speaker 1: marijuana just to reduce pain and suffering for people with disease,
Speaker 1: and seventy were proc said oh, and three percent said no,
Speaker 1: absolutely not. So it's pretty pretty low percentage. And again
Speaker 1: we're pointing out this is for people who need it
Speaker 1: for their disease. It's not to be confused with pot
Speaker 1: legalization for recreation. Two different things did you know that
Speaker 1: the v A in two thousand and ten, I believe
Speaker 1: UM said that recommended cannabis, medical cannabis for soldiers returning
Speaker 1: home them. What for PTSD, I believe PTSD. I'm sure
Speaker 1: all sorts of other things. It's a legitimate course of
Speaker 1: treatment for soldiers returning from the front lines. Wow, isn't
Speaker 1: that crazy? It's interesting? Uh. And speaking of l A,
Speaker 1: you know they hit their peak in uh two thousand
Speaker 1: nine ish with you know what, they said, anywhere from
Speaker 1: six hundred to a thousand dispensaries, and they said, you
Speaker 1: know what, the city said, this is getting way out
Speaker 1: of hand, Like you've got a strip mall over there
Speaker 1: with like three medical marijuana dispensaries in it. That's kind
Speaker 1: of ridiculous. So they ordered, um, four hundred and thirty
Speaker 1: nine of them to be closed. Uh. And I think
Speaker 1: what was the It was only dispensaries that registered with
Speaker 1: the city after the council adopted the moratorium in two
Speaker 1: thousand seven were allowed to operate. So about a hundred
Speaker 1: and thirty of the six hundred roughly were allowed to
Speaker 1: stay open that were registered after the moratorium or for
Speaker 1: it says, after which that doesn't make any sense. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it doesn't make any The most unfair law This is
Speaker 1: from the LA Times too. But now people are, you know,
Speaker 1: filing lawsuits and and such on on patients rights lawsuits
Speaker 1: and uh, stuff like that. It's a it's a wild ride, man.
Speaker 1: It's interesting to watch. You need to see anybody who
Speaker 1: can use the help of something like medical marijuana being
Speaker 1: denied it and suffer well. And that's the point of
Speaker 1: one of the attorney says, He's like, why should we
Speaker 1: treat them any different than the vicat and patient or
Speaker 1: the OxyContin patient. Um. They did do a study to
Speaker 1: when they closed down all those hundreds of dispensaries about crime,
Speaker 1: and it was a Rand Corp study and they found
Speaker 1: that crime went down, um with the dispensaries, and crime
Speaker 1: went up when they closed him. But it was a
Speaker 1: pretty hinky study. Admittedly, Yeah, they only looked at ten
Speaker 1: days before and ten days after, and um, it was
Speaker 1: within three tenths of a mile of the closed facility
Speaker 1: there was a increase in crime. H within six tenths
Speaker 1: It was just it was a pretty hinky study. Basically,
Speaker 1: Even the people that are for it were like, come on,
Speaker 1: you need to do a better job than this. If
Speaker 1: you're going to study crime, well, I will tell you this. UM.
Speaker 1: In that Rolling Stone article, the United Food and Commercial
Speaker 1: Workers Union estimates that umred jobs have been lost since
Speaker 1: the federal crackdown starting in the beginning of two thousand
Speaker 1: and eleven. Jobs in this economy. That's unconscionable us. All right,
Speaker 1: do you have anything else? No? I don't. Let's do
Speaker 1: a follow up on this in five years. Good idea. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you got anything else? I got nothing else. I don't either.
Speaker 1: If you want to learn more about medical marijuana, you
Speaker 1: can type those words into the search bar how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com. UM. That's m A R I JU
Speaker 1: A n A. I believe uh. And since I said
Speaker 1: handy search parts the time for listener mail. Actually I
Speaker 1: did have one more thing. Brownie Mary. You ever heard
Speaker 1: of her? She was a famous uh medical marijuana activists
Speaker 1: in San Francisco, This elderly woman who would make brownies
Speaker 1: for people, UM and you know, really went to the
Speaker 1: mat for for people in need. Her name was Mary Jane.
Speaker 1: That was her real name, Mary Jane. I can't think
Speaker 1: of her last name. Let's call her that. I don't
Speaker 1: know Brownie Mary because she delivered the brownies. I guess
Speaker 1: Brownie Mary or Brownie Mary Jane. That's much better. She
Speaker 1: always laughed about her name. Supposedly she was like, Hey,
Speaker 1: I guess I was destined to do this, but those
Speaker 1: of you don't know, Mary Jane is a street term
Speaker 1: for marijuana. If it's okay, Josh, I'm gonna call this. Uh.
Speaker 1: It was just sort of a weird email from a
Speaker 1: dude in Minneapolis. Hey, guys, I was just listening to
Speaker 1: the Mexican Wrestling podcast and you called for something to
Speaker 1: knock your socks off. I thought i'd shared this with you.
Speaker 1: Please take a moment to aim your feet away from
Speaker 1: anyone's face unless they want a knocked off sock up
Speaker 1: in their grill. Are you ready for this? I was
Speaker 1: an anthropological expedition. I was on one into the heart
Speaker 1: of the darkest Iowa, researching archaeological and cultural leads regarding
Speaker 1: a Mayan prince who fell out of favor and may
Speaker 1: or may not have traveled up the Mississippi in twelve
Speaker 1: seventy BC, setting up a kingdom in exile somewhere around
Speaker 1: the current town of Farmersburg. Ancient text also hint that
Speaker 1: he appointed a monkey as his head of agriculture, which
Speaker 1: was particularly interesting to me because I think monkeys are hilarious. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I was excavating near Farmersburg, uh their single stop sign,
Speaker 1: when I was suddenly surrounded by a street gang. They
Speaker 1: all had switchblades, so you knew they meant business. Their
Speaker 1: leader threatened me by saying, I only need to touch
Speaker 1: you once, like touching the wings of a butterfly, then
Speaker 1: you're dead, to which I replied, actually that's a myth.
Speaker 1: You can touch their wings without killing them as long
Speaker 1: as you know break the veins. Clearly a reference to
Speaker 1: our show on your dethence right, uh? Or no? Was
Speaker 1: that part of your Desthence in this manner, I opened
Speaker 1: up a dialogue and we discussed briefly butterfly anatomy, the
Speaker 1: difference between cumulus and Sirrhus clouds, and the way the
Speaker 1: sun works. They were so impressed by my knowledge they
Speaker 1: not only let me live, but they gave me a
Speaker 1: gift certificate to Applebee's made an honorary member of their gang,
Speaker 1: the Lords of Lepidoperative lepidoptery. This is the study of flies. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I just wanted to thank you and share a first
Speaker 1: day knowledge. Uh is truly power yours innertitude Matt from
Speaker 1: Innneapolis that I don't think it's true at all, but
Speaker 1: I think it's hysterical. And Matt took great time and
Speaker 1: crafting a very clever email. So yeah, of course not
Speaker 1: a monkey head of agriculture. I don't know, man, maybe
Speaker 1: that parts true. The minds were awfully rich, true, and
Speaker 1: they were I guess in Iowa. Yes, Um, well, let's see.
Speaker 1: If you want to take the time to craft a
Speaker 1: very clever email that captures our attention, we are always
Speaker 1: happy to read it. Um you can, well, you can
Speaker 1: tweet it to us if it's really short, tweet to
Speaker 1: s y s K podcast, hit us up on Facebook
Speaker 1: at Facebook dot com, slash Stuff you Should Know, and
Speaker 1: you can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at
Speaker 1: Discovery dot com. Be sure to check out our new
Speaker 1: video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join How Stuff Work
Speaker 1: staff as we explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities
Speaker 1: of tomorrow, brought to you by the reinvented two thousand
Speaker 1: twelve camera. It's ready, are you