For a copy of this book you can contact us on (032) 481 5550 or email us at [email protected]
Editors Note: This article first appeared in the New York Post
To contain the coronavirus, governments have scaled down society to its bare bones, allowing only essential services to operate. Hospitals. Grocery stores. Takeout restaurants and pharmacies. Things that literally mean life or death.
Does getting high count? Of course, it doesn’t.
Yet several governors have bowed to pressure from Big Weed and added pot shops to the short list. In Colorado, Gov. Jared Polis initially restricted marijuana businesses to curbside or takeout-style service only. It took less than a week, however, before he caved to pot-industry lobbyists and reversed course, allowing full indoor sales to carry on.
Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker wasn’t so easy to bend, so last week, Big Weed filed a lawsuit against him, demanding he deem recreational-marijuana businesses “essential” and allow them to operate.
While the industry lawyers are fighting for pot rights, legal pot peddlers are celebrating massive increases in sales. One executive has even gone so far as to claim that marijuana is “recession-proof.” According to CNBC, one California-based chain is enjoying a 20 to 25 percent increase in sales.
Given this rise in sales, it’s worth pointing out that a host of public-health organizations have raised the alarm about the dangers of smoking marijuana, or anything for that matter, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. As we face down a disease that targets lungs and the immune system, promoting pot is dangerous.
Today’s marijuana isn’t Woodstock weed. Pot packaged and sold in shops can be up to 99 percent THC, the active ingredient. And those shops don’t primarily serve the sick and dying. Regardless, there are Food and Drug Administration-approved, marijuana-based medications still at pharmacies for those people who truly rely on these products to deal with end-of-life care or severe illness.
But giving pot shops a free pass at a time like this is the wrong thing to do.
First, smoking or vaping marijuana may make COVID-19 symptoms worse. According to the National Institutes of Health (corona czar Dr. Anthony Fauci’s mother organization), the World Health Organization and the American Lung Association, there are certain groups of people more susceptible to developing a severe case of COVID-19, and among them are those who use marijuana or tobacco.
In a recent blog post, Dr. Nora Volkow, director of one NIH institute, stated that “because it attacks the lungs . . . COVID-19 could be an especially serious threat to those who smoke tobacco or marijuana or who vape.” Marijuana smoke is extremely harmful to the lungs and has even been found to contain many of the same harmful components as tobacco smoke.
There is even evidence that it leads to the development of chronic bronchitis. Plus, research suggests that marijuana use increases the risk of infections such as pneumonia, a condition commonly seen in the most severe COVID-19 cases.
And you aren’t out of the woods if you take edibles, either. THC has been shown in studies to hurt the immune system and jeopardize overall health. In fact, THC can be an immunosuppressant, according to studies.
When a foreign viral body, such as the novel coronavirus, enters the body, your immune system shoots into overdrive and creates proteins that work to destroy the foreign invader. THC works against the body’s ability to create these proteins, giving the viral infection the upper hand. The result: more severe symptoms or a longer road to full recovery.
The marijuana lobby, concerned only with profits, has now even demanded government-bailout money.
What are they smoking?
Instead of bowing to the demands of Big Weed and their well-funded lobbyists, we should be doing everything in our power to mitigate the harms associated with this outbreak. In the interest of the health and safety of Americans, marijuana stores shouldn’t be deemed “essential” — they should be closed. And not a dime of taxpayer money should go to them while they’re reaping record profits.
Finally, we need to discourage dangerous pot use while people are shut in. Prior generations sacrificed far more in times of crisis. We can give up a little pot.
Dr. Kevin Sabet, a former drug-policy adviser to President Barack Obama, is president of Smart Approaches to Marijuana.
Editor’s note. This first appeared at First Things and is reposted with the author’s permission.
The 1973 dystopian film Soylent Green featured several shocking moments, including overpopulation riots and men calling women “the furniture” required for sex. But the most disturbing scene showed Edward G. Robinson entering a euthanasia clinic, choosing to be put down rather than live with his existential anguish. What was once fiction is becoming reality. Assisted suicide, unthinkable then, is popular now. Since the movie was released, many have come to view human existence as a relative, rather than absolute, good. The sanctity of life ethic has been replaced by the drive to eliminate suffering, even if this requires eliminating the sufferer. And the raw power of this logic has led directly to suicide clinics and a right to death on demand—since no one can judge what another person considers to be unbearable torment.
Assisted suicide activists insist that euthanasia is only for the seriously ill, and offer vacuous promises of strict guidelines to protect the vulnerable. Such bromides have never made sense to me. If there is indeed a “right to die,” if the most important good is “choice” rather than “life,” how can the right to commit suicide remain limited to the seriously ill? After all, many people suffer more intensely and for a longer time than the sick. Once one accepts the moral propriety of euthanasia, the logic eventually leads to death on demand for anyone who desires to die.
Still, even I never expected full-bore death on demand to arrive in the West for another decade. I was too optimistic. A recent ruling from Germany’s highest court has cast right-to-die incrementalism aside and conjured a fundamental right both to commit suicide and to receive assistance in doing it. Moreover, the decision has explicitly rejected limiting the right to people diagnosed with illnesses or disabilities. As a matter of protecting “the right of personality,” the court decreed that “self-determined death” is a virtually unlimited fundamental liberty that the government must guarantee to protect “autonomy.” In other words, the German people now have the right to kill themselves at any time and for any reason. From the decision (published English version, my emphasis):
The right to a self-determined death is not limited to situations defined by external causes like serious or incurable illnesses, nor does it only apply in certain stages of life or illness. Rather, this right is guaranteed in all stages of a person’s existence. . . . The individual’s decision to end their own life, based on how they personally define quality of life and a meaningful existence, eludes any evaluation on the basis of general values, religious dogmas, societal norms for dealing with life and death, or consideration of objective rationality. It is thus not incumbent upon the individual to further explain or justify their decision; rather their decision must, in principle, be respected by state and society as an act of self-determination.
The court wasn’t done. The right to suicide also includes a right to assist suicide:
The right to take one’s own life also encompasses the freedom to seek and, if offered, utilize assistance provided by third parties for this purpose. . . . Therefore, the constitutional guarantee of the right to suicide corresponds to equally far-reaching constitutional protection extended to the acts carried out by persons rendering suicide assistance.
The court also opined that Germany’s drug laws might have to be changed to facilitate the absolute right to die that “the state must guarantee”:
Sufficient space must remain in practice for the individual to exercise the right to depart this life and, based on their free will and with the support of third parties, to carry out this decision on their own terms. This not only requires legislative coherence in the design of the legal framework applicable to the medical profession and pharmacists but potentially also requires adjustments of the law on controlled substances.
This is stunning and appalling: In Germany, autonomous people now have the absolute right to commit suicide and receive assistance in doing so for any reason or no identifiable reason at all. The court’s ruling is so encompassing that it seems to apply even to children capable of making autonomous decisions, since being underage is a “stage of existence.” While the court stated that minor restrictions such as waiting periods might pass legal muster—the government may also prohibit “particularly dangerous forms of suicide assistance” (whatever that means)—the German constitution now requires, literally, death on demand.
That will not be the end of it, either. One radical court ruling leads to another. The right to commit suicide could soon become a right to be killed outright. After all, everyone isn’t physically or emotionally capable of committing suicide, and homicide can achieve death more swiftly and with less discomfort than a do-it-yourself demise. Since Germany’s absolute right to assist in suicide is open-ended and not limited to doctors, why not permit friends to kill friends?
The ruling also opens the gates to social anarchy. How can the state now restrict the taking and selling of addicting drugs? Drugs may be harmful, but if an autonomous person chooses to spend their days high, how can the state gainsay that decision or inhibit the commercial providers who supply the fixes? How can the state restrict any surgical or chemical sex changes? And on what basis can the state prohibit people who identify as “transabled” (people who have body identity integrity disorder) from amputating their healthy limbs or severing their healthy spinal cords? If suicide is no longer a harm the state has a duty to prevent, how can the state thwart a person’s desire to destroy his bodily functions? Indeed, how can the state restrain any personal behavior or vice, so long as the desired autonomous act does not directly harm an unwilling other?
I am reminded of Canadian journalist Andrew Coyne’s prophetic words more than twenty years ago. Reacting to his country’s strong public support for a father who murdered his disabled daughter as a supposed act of compassion, he wrote: “A society that believes in nothing can offer no argument even against death. A culture that has lost its faith in life cannot comprehend why it should be endured.” If we don’t change our current cultural trajectory, we will become “Germany” too. Wesley J. Smith is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute. His latest book is Culture of Death: The Age of “Do Harm” Medicine
Doctors For Life International (DFL) has been actively assisting the needy communities in South Africa during the Lock-down period. To date DFL have hand delivered essential parcels to about 1000 households in rural KwaZulu-Natal. These parcels contain 5 litre bottles of aQuelle spring water, packs of 500ml aQuelle flavoured water, hand sanitisers and masks. It also includes COVID-19 info brochures translated to Zulu. The parcels are distributed by DFL volunteers and much time is taken in educating the families and children on hygiene and Coronavirus information.
“It is a wonderful opportunity to show compassion to those struggling during this trying time.” said Johan Claassen, the program director for medical operations at DFL. “The people are so thankful where-ever we go” he said.
DFL would like to thank aQuelle, Emseni farming, Medical Mission International (MMI) and DSS for their assistance and donations to help make these outreaches happen.
Doctors For Life International highly recommends that ALL South Africans now wear face masks in public. The Centers For Disease Control and Prevention as well as the U.S. Government is officially recommending this.
We suggest that the public begin making their own cloth face masks to avoid draining health professional supplies in hospitals etc.
You can wash them daily with boiled water and a disinfectant such as JIK.
Need some help making a mask?
Visit this website to get some tips: CDC
Doctors For Life International responds to the needs of KZN rural communities during #SALockdown by donating aQuelle water, information on COVID-19, hand sanitizer and face masks. We thank our donors, partners and the volunteers who join us on this project!
If you’d like to get involved, you can donate essentials which we will take to the community.
Doctors For Life International has launched a WhatsApp Helpline for all South Africans seeking more information on the COVID-19. Calls to this number are also welcome.
COVID-19 Helpline at (+27) 72 149 7819
The following discussion on fetal pain does not attempt to suggest having an abortion procedure should depend upon whether or not an unborn baby can feel pain or not. Especially since there are thousands of Biology and embryology textbooks, modern DNA studies, Medical Dictionaries, Science professors and medical researchers that all confirm that life begins at fertilization. This is a scientific certainty that alone should discourage abortion. Furthermore, it is also well documented how women suffer emotionally, psychologically and in the long term physically due to choosing an abortion. This discussion of fetal pain is to share new insight on previous thought standards that are now changing because of new research on the cortex.
British psychology professor Stuart Derbyshire and John C. Bockmann, a physician’s assistant in the U.S. Army, published a paper in the Journal of Medical Ethics titled “Reconsidering fetal pain.” They conclude that according to several published papers on the necessity of the cortex for pain experience may have been exaggerated, for example, one study demonstrated continued pain experience in a patient with extensive damage to cortical regions generally believed to be necessary for pain experience. A further study has demonstrated activation of areas generally thought to generate pain in subjects congenitally insensitive to pain but receiving noxious stimuli. Those two studies appear to neatly dissociate pain experience from the cortex. In conclusion unborn babies can feel pain at 18 to 20 weeks, and possibly as early as 12 or 13 weeks.
Ingrid Skop, MD Obstetrician from the USA, has seen unborn babies in the womb at 16 weeks gestation, withdraw their limbs when they accidentally encounter the amnio needle as she performs the Amniocentesis procedure (a process in which amniotic fluid is sampled using a hollow needle inserted into the uterus, to screen for abnormalities in the developing fetus.)
When the unborn baby feels pain, the following can be measured in response to pain:
According to reports by The National Institutes on Health and National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), the populations most vulnerable to the coronavirus are individuals who smoke or vape marijuana, or have a history of smoking or vaping marijuana.
NIDA reports that “Because it attacks the lungs, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 could be an especially serious threat to those who smoke tobacco or marijuana or who vape:”
NIDA concludes: “We can make educated guesses based on past experience that people with compromised health due to smoking or vaping and people with opioid, methamphetamine, cannabis, and other substance use disorders could find themselves at increased risk of COVID-19 and its more serious complications-for multiple physiological and social/environmental reasons. The research community should thus be alert to associations between COVID-19 case severity/mortality and substance use, smoking or vaping history, and smoking- or vaping-related lung disease.”
https://learnaboutsam.org/covid-19-and-marijuana-what-you-need-to-know/
Reviewed by researchers from: University of Colorado at Denver, Harvard Medical School, Boston Children’s Hospital, University of Connecticut, Yale University University of Kansas, and more.
EXECUTIVE HIGHLIGHTS
Today’s highly potent marijuana represents a growing and significant threat to public health and safety, a threat that is amplified by a new marijuana industry intent on profiting from heavy use. State laws allowing marijuana sales and consumption have permitted the marijuana industry to flourish, and in turn, the marijuana industry has influenced both policies and policy-makers. While the consequences of these policies will not be known for decades, early indicators are troubling. This report, reviewed by prominent scientists and researchers, serves as an evidence-based guide to what we currently observe in various states. We attempted to highlight studies from all the “legal” marijuana states (i.e., states that have legalized the non-medical use of marijuana). Unfortunately, data does not exist for several “legal” states, and so this document synthesizes the latest research on marijuana impacts in states where information is available.
Full Impact Report link 