Boxes O'Onfi

Did I really defend my anger over the pharmaceutical industry a month or so ago when that pharmaceutical rep commented on my blog? What was I thinking trying to reason with that person? This morning I read the Los Angeles Times' report on the Oxycontin clusterfuck. It's titled 'You want a description of hell?' Oxycontin's 12-Hour Problem. Read it and come on back and rage on with me.

Despite all the clusterfuckery going on in the Presidential race, the particular topic of the pharmaceutical industry's stranglehold on -- let's just say EVERYTHING -- is of way more interest to me. It might be a stretch, but it's why I don't trust -- let's just say EVERYTHING -- germane to Big Pharma. That would include some of my favorite non-profits, like The Epilepsy Foundation, that get huge perks from pharmaceutical companies. That would include the CDC and vaccination policies, so if you're of the mind that I'm immoral, anti-science, stupid or otherwise cray-cray, do me a favor and fly, my pretties, fly!

I sort of feel like going rogue.

Remember my rant against the government and marijuana policy the other day?

Remember the nice physician I talked to at my friend's house over spring vacation? He objected to my bitter comment that neurologists who continue to prescribe multiple anti-epileptic drugs to their patients with refractory epilepsy are unethical.

They're unethical.

Why is marijuana not rescheduled, yet? Is it because the big pharmaceutical companies are working their asses off to make a synthetic version of the medicine and have so influenced lawmakers on both sides of the proverbial aisle that nothing will happen until they've discredited the grassroots movement enough to take total control?

Why am I still having to persuade family members of the efficacy of medical marijuana in lieu of powerful and addictive painkillers?

Why did I rip open the last box of Onfi in the supply I bought months ago, order a refill and get the runaround, once again, from the insurance company? Oh, I forgot. Onfi is a powerful and addictive narcotic that's not good for much other than sedation and temporary alleviation of seizures. And there are lots of people addicted to it and its even more formidable auntie, Klonopin, so the government has wizened up and is becoming stricter about how much you get and how often. I think at some point it was touted for restless legs, and sleeplessness and anxiety, but god forbid you should take it for over eight years like Sophie has, because then you're stuck with it maybe FOREVER.

Let me tell you this: Sophie is on the new strain of WEED, and it's working. She goes weeks with only one or two seizures. What do you think of that? Anecdotal? I work my ass off getting input from her medical marijuana doctor, my fellow mothers and fathers in the cannabis community, and my own reading to tinker with the strain and the dosage and the timing, and sometimes we find a sweet spot and it's glorious. Letting go of all the conventional stuff feels glorious, too. I'm no longer donating money to foundations that are underwritten by pharmaceutical companies. I'm not serving on any more boards of these companies, no matter how much "good" they do. I'm not going to vote for any politicians who receive large sums of money from pharmaceutical companies. That might mean everyone, so I'll write in a candidate instead. Like I said, I'm going rogue. I wish that I could let go of the Onfi and the Vimpat that Sophie's still on, but unfortunately, if I did so, she'd probably die. That's right. The withdrawal would probably kill her. So I'll continue to rip open the boxes and draw up the drugs in hopefully tinier and tinier amounts until she's off them completely.

Then, I'm getting stoned myself.

Surfing Around With Admins, Internecine Wars, Opioids and Arthritis

Given that it's nearly 11:00 Pacific Time, and most of you are already in bed and might be reading this tomorrow morning, let's just surf around tonight.

First of all, did you know that the FDA recently approved the use of Oxycontin for patients aged 11 to 16? Unless you've been living under a rock, and that's perfectly acceptable given what's going on in this crazy old world, oxycontin is a long-release painkiller that acts upon the brain like heroin. Here's the statement, reported by NBC news:

Dr. Sharon Hertz, director of new anesthesia, analgesia and addiction products for the FDA, said studies by Purdue Pharma of Stamford, Connecticut, which manufactures the drug, "supported a new pediatric indication for OxyContin in patients 11 to 16 years old and provided prescribers with helpful information about the use of OxyContin in pediatric patients.

Cue Mrs. Braddock's laugh.


Well, you know where this is going, right? I'm not going to put down anyone who wants to alleviate the suffering of a child in pain, but reeeeeeeeely? Raaaaaaaaaaahly?

As you know, my tiny little mother mind™ has been working overtime with countless other minds, far greater than my own, trying to lobby and persuade The Powers That Be that the efficacy of Charlotte's Web, of cannabis, of medical marijuana, etc. is far stronger than anecdote and certainly not attributable to the placebo effect, that it's a plant that's been used for thousands of years, that there are studies -- oh you know what I'm saying.  But hey, what do we know? What do they know?

Yesterday, I visited a prominent orthopedist in Beverly Hills, a young and handsome doctor who probably replaces the knees, shoulders and various body parts of a plethora of celebrities given the location of his office. Last week I developed a bum knee overnight, was driven, quite literally, nearly to my knees one afternoon with a stabbing, horrific pain, a sort of grim reminder that yes, Elizabeth, you are turning 52 years old on August 27th and have taken for granted your solid southern Italian peasant ancestry and were over-confident that these strong genes were somehow going to protect you from the vagaries of age. To make a long story short, my right knee has a touch of The Arthritis, but not enough to warrant any sort of treatment, which given that it'd be one of those gigantic steroid shots that I understand work but that actually spark up the primitive part of my brain that recalls injecting high dosage ones into my daughter's baby legs two decades ago -- I declined. I did ask the good doctor, though, about cannabis and its anti-inflammatory effects and if he'd heard about any of that. He gave a short, impatient laugh, waxed on a bit about how the claims that it cures everything! couldn't be taken seriously and that there wasn't any research, yadda, yadda, yadda.

OK.

The weird thing is that this headline:

FDA Approves OxyContin for Children as Young as 11

(read the whole article here) just doesn't surprise many of us and turns our already cynical and tiny little mother minds™ into tiny, little obdurate bricks. Show me the studies -- double-blind, placebo controlled, long-term studies of children.

Let's catch another wave, shall we?

Back on the ranch -- the marijuana ranch, that is -- I got into a little sparring with the self-described admins of a group on Facebook called Pediatric Cannabis Therapy. These admins (and really, why do we have to shorten the word adminstrators to admins?) decided that discussions about Charlotte's Web Hemp Oil (CWHO) and the Realm of Caring (ROC) are no longer allowed. I wish I could quote the rest of the message that they posted, but that wouldn't be ethical for a closed Facebook group. Suffice it to say that it was riddled with not just grammatical errors (which, admittedly, drive this tiny, little mother mind™ batty) but vindictive statements and lies pitting advocates of CBD legislation against those who hope for whole plant legislation. First of all, these two groups need not be mutually exclusive, but according to Pediatric Cannabis Therapy's new rules, they are. The amount of work that Paige Figi, the Stanley Brothers, Heather Barnes Jackson and a virtual army of volunteers in nearly every single state in this country has done in a a very short amount of time -- to help sick children get access to medicine -- is nothing short of astounding and admirable. CBD-only laws are not perfect ones, and most of us believe that they are but tiny steps toward a larger awareness of this plant's many benefits. It's been more than 80 years since marijuana was basically forced underground for political and economic reasons, and during the last sixteen months, enormous progress has been made by pretty desperate women and men whose children's lives are at stake.That being said,  members of the Pediatric Cannabis Therapy group were warned not to discuss Charlotte's Web by name or they'd be asked to leave the group. Insults flew for a bit and while I dropped in here and there (you know, surfing the waves, trying to stay cool, look cool), I finally unjoined the group. The crazy talk has happened before, and I just can't be bothered with it anymore. While perhaps boring to those of you who have no interest in The Marijuana Wars, today I wanted to suggest that those of you who do have an interest should probably avoid the Pediatric Cannabis Therapy Group for anything but the lowest form of entertainment -- a sort of Monty Pythonesque Office of Arguments:



I will say that many hundreds of decent people exchange valuable information there in spite of those pesky admins destroying the synergy (another ridiculous 21st century word that they didn't use but that bugs me so much I thought I'd throw it in there with the dirty bathwater), so if you decide to stay in the group or choose to join the group, I advise you to steer clear of The Admin Who Is Not a Beach Boy or certainly don't talk directly about The Product That Cannot Be Named.





After that shredding, I'm prone out.

Cowabunga!