It seems to me that the names marijuana or cannabis are often treated as though they represent a single product. In reality, people should be thinking of them much in the same way they think of alcohol suitable for drinking, as well as that which is not suitable.
When it comes to drinking alcohol, we have products that absolutely run the gamete. You can buy wine in the 99 cent store, or you can pay thousands of dollars a bottle, both may have the same percentage of alcohol in them. Practically the same thing can be said for virtually every type of liquor, etc. While the amount of alcohol you drink in a beer, glass of wine, or shot of liquor may be essentially the same, the effects of what you're drinking may be quite different because of everything else you're drinking. The hangover might be dramatically different in spite of the amount of alcohol actually consumed being the same.
We know their are all sorts of cannabis, and each have different effects in different users. Those who want to prevent the general use of all forms of cannabis no doubt have good reason because of the reaction of some users to certain forms of it. Still State's are saying let the user decide what they want to use. Perhaps their should be a middle ground that says what's safe to use for the majority of the people.
OWCP and others are taking a much more scientific approach by developing drugs from components extracted from cannabis. If one certain composition of cannabis components is found to work best for autism, that composition will be consistently available in the OWCP product, not the crap shoot you would have by smoking whatever form of marijuana you can get your hands on. The same can be said for virtually all the other diseases that people believe can benefit from the use of various cannabis components.
I don't know that most people who go to a marijuana store can differentiate between the various forms being sold there. With liquor you can judge by a number of factors, I don't know the same is true of marijuana in the stores. With OWCP's products I believe the consumer will be able to choose what they're looking for, and know that it will be consistently the same.
People who drink Scotch, Vodka, etc generally have favorites they prefer, and if they can afford them, it's what they always drink. I believe the same will be true of cannabis based products, as people determine what works for them, they'll come back to them as long as they consistently like the results of using the product.
Gary
