So in other words ... ban all guns huh?

Jesus.

When will people ever learn that making government policy on the actions of one lunatic isn't good.

In fairness to you it was a fuckin' lob serve by you and I couldn't resist charging the net and acing your serve.

I've used this same argument at least 1000 times here. I call in the "do something" disease and it typically infects liberals. Making government policy on any fucking thing, based on one event or action by a crazy person isn't good use of the governments power. You'll never be able to manufacture enough foam rubber padding to protect everyone from every sharp object in life. I've learned long long ago that it's not government's job to protect us from everything because it means the loss of liberties and freedoms every single time. Dope is a good litmus test with some pretty good parallels with firearms. Anti-gun haters have irrational fear of guns and create irrational gun laws. The anti-gun efforts haven't stopped gang bangers from killing each other. The War on Drugs (TM) cost this nation tens of billions a year and hasn't had much of an impact on stopping the losers from losing. Both efforts cost us citizens countless liberties and freedoms and simply bolster government bureaucracies creating felons out of normal citizens whose only crime is wanting to defend themselves or find some relief from their demons.

I argue two points - less government and more personal responsibility, liberty, and freedom.

Doctor Sylvan you know that the government forbids such studies as cannabis joins heroin and LSD as schedule 1 controlled substance with no currently accepted medical use in the United States and a lack of accepted safety for use even under medical supervision.

That just strikes me as completely irrational and total lunacy.

Well like that's your medical opinion.

I recommend a read Lt. Col. Dave Grossman's book On Killing and On Combat where he documents the improvements in PTSD treatment and prevention from the lessons learned from the American Civil War forward. In WWII the most common combat injury was "combat fatigue" where whole units were rendered nonfunctional due to the near continuous combat stress they suffered. One thing that Grossman cites that helped the WWII combat vets over say the Vietnam vets was the decompression that the WWII vets went through together as they sailed home on transport ships as whole units. Units also tended to be regional ones drafted and serving together from the same county. In Vietnam lots of lessons were learned the hard way. A soldier was dropped into a unit full of strangers, went into combat with them, and then following their tour they were plucked out on a Tuesday and dropped into their home town by the following Friday. Lots of wrong there and plenty of Vietnam vets still pay the price for those mistakes sadly.

The prevention and treatment of the crazy levels of stress that killing another human being is an on-going several method effort. It involves subtle and small things like changing the shape of an Army practice target from a bullseye to a human silhouette to the recreation provided in the green zones in Iraq this afternoon.  

I've had the honor of listening to Col Grossman talk a couple of times and his arguments make a lot of sense. Anyone who has been in combat or had to kill ought to read his books. Those in the military or police service ought to read them before entering combat or having to take a life.

The uncomfortable fact that liberals and some here embrace is that life is dangerous. No amount of government protection will ever be enough to protect everyone from everything. Here we at least will argue that self defense involves a personally owned firearm where the liberals will say it involves dialing 9-1-1 and hoping the government arrives in time.

My argument is that the juice isn't worth the squeeze when it comes to weed.

I will gladly defend the argument that alcohol is a better drug to outlaw and make a schedule 1 drug rather and marijuana. Is there any known medically accepted use of booze?

Some of the doctors involved in this thread might provide some common medical treatments with the drug alcohol.

Yeah, let's do tobacco next ...

I will counter argue that like about 99% of federal laws that it's forbidden by the 9th and 10th Amendments of the US Constitution, which oddly enough were voted on and are Constitutional law.

Drugs are bad.

I was prescribed a hydrocodone bitartrate pill to control a service related injury (USN, 1981-2005, NEC codes 4747, 4746 and a few others). On day one I was shown the side effects and through the tears I read and signed off. 40 minutes later I was functional again. I took those sons of bitches like candy for seven years fearing the return of the pain. That opioid took the mind-numbing crippling pain down to the point that I was able learn to walk (nearly normally!) and function in life again. The dope was part of my daily routine, wake up pill, before and after lunch pills, before and after dinner pills, before sleep pills. I knew that the pain was there, it just didn't trigger pain, only a sort of constant state of mild anger.  

Shit just writing about this has my leg trembling and my heart racing ... that's awesome.

One night at a party a friend's wife who is an RN saw me pop a pill. The bottle is marked as a controlled narcotic will a bunch of bright orange warning labels. She asked me if she could see the bottle and how long I had been taking them. At that point it was seven years. Her eyes about popped out of her head and she wanted to know why in God's name I was on them for that long. The Navy and VA doctors following issued them to control the pain. She recommended that I consult with my doctor and to stop taking them and get on something less damaging to my liver.

Over the next two weeks I stopped taking the pills cutting down my daily dose looking for that pain to return. Eventually I went a whole day without a pill. The pain returned but instead of being the 1000 watt tower of speakers in-your-mother-fucking-face screaming loud pain it was a 10 watt speaker in a living room pain. When my regular VA appointment came up the doctor asked me about my prescription. I told him I had quit. His eyes about fell out of his face! You can just quit cold turkey ... I stopped him and explained that how over a couple of weeks I weaned myself off. He gave me advice to keep the pills and to take one as needed. He cut me from 5mg to 2.5mg pills.

My personality returned. A veil lifted. I was a better me in every single sense of the word off the opioid analgesic and antitussive dope. I had pain days and occasionally took a half a pill now-and-then as I over worked my legs and back. I haven't taken a pill in about five years now. Oddly yesterday I had an attack of pain in my knee that hit about a level 9. I was still able to talk and think but couldn't walk at all. I suffered for about 2 minutes crying out in pain and shedding tears. The pain was about driving a 3" nail though your knee cap and into the bone level. Crazy. After two minutes the event stopped and the pain just reduced to a say, staple in your knee pain. I could walk again but all twisted up like I walked 17 years ago when first injured. Within a couple of hours the event ended. I was able to finish my day job and did four hours on podium last night teaching at the university.

The military and VA doctors were setting me up for liver failure in an attempt to control my pain and make my life better. That's life and the trade-off serious dope carries with it. If medical cannabis has even the smallest amount of chance of treating pain or other condition with fewer side effects than that which is in current use then we ought to be rational (that's a thing, look it up) and study it at least as hard as we have studied the poison of the clostridium botulinum. From what little I know of the history of marijuana that was once legal for a majority of this nation's history and that for some pretty irrational reasons was made illegal.

BTY - how do you maintain access to all your troops civilian medical records?