Medical marijuana patients face transplant hurdles

This makes me wonder about something. What about the donor's say in the matter? Besides just choosing whether or not to be an organ donor, can you have a say as to whom can, or can not, receive those organs. Example, could I make it official that I don't want someone to be denied my liver or kidneys, or any other organ, simply on grounds of cannabis use?
 
You may be able to specify that your liver can ONLY be used by a cannabis user.
but it might just go to waste. Or some doctor may get around your request by citing that you were not in your right mind. The world is a cold place if you want to smoke pot them I guess you need to be able to afford a liver if you need one.
 
robd said:
you act like what drugs you do or dont should have ANY factor in saving someones life....are u kidding me? there shouldnt be a fucking criteria to deciding if ur the kinda person we feel deserves their life being saved...
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Jack'susername already said it, but when there is a shortage of organs, yes, yes there does need to be a criteria. To take it to extremes, if there is a 30 old year doctor or a 50 year old alcoholic deadbeat that it reason's the doctor should get it. Had he simply been denied because of the marijuana, that would be harsh, but if it's that competitive for the liver I could see it being used as criteria. Granted, as someone else said, it is a bit of a catch-22 for him.

How do the doctor's live with themselves? Easy, they are desensitized. They have to make decisions all the time on who will live and die.


Also, it really discredits the decriminalization movement when people just shout "OMG!" or "That's awful!" or whatever whenever someone who happens to use drugs also happens to be discriminated against for it. People are actively discriminated against for tobacco and alcohol use as well in these circumstances. Activities have consequences both good and bad. People who drive sports cars pay more in insurance etc. etc. Even if drug use where completely legal stimulants cause problems with the heart amongst other things. Heron addiction is the only addiction with very little physiological problems when done safely.
 
zombiesarepeaceful said:
that's fucking sick. I don't care what the dude did, he doesn't deserve to live like that
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What you (and all the people who made similar comments) fail to realize is that SOMEONE is going to live in this manner.
 
Wow... just wow... They wont give this man a liver because of the fact that he was medically prescribed marijuana and followed the doctors orders?! This is total horse crap, seeing how i recently read about a 22 YO binge drinker who had destroyed her liver before her 21st birthday and after she got the transplant she continued to binge drink and party! But they wont give this man the liver he needs because he smokes marijuana!? Woot for American health care.
 
lib.sOCialist said:
Wow... just wow... They wont give this man a liver because of the fact that he was medically prescribed marijuana and followed the doctors orders?! This is total horse crap, seeing how i recently read about a 22 YO binge drinker who had destroyed her liver before her 21st birthday and after she got the transplant she continued to binge drink and party! But they wont give this man the liver he needs because he smokes marijuana!? Woot for American health care.
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where did you read this? link? and if the choice had been between her and someone who never did anything to harm their liver, i guarantee you she would not have gotten it. did you read the part about him contracting hepatitis from sharing needles with "speed freaks"? like has already been pointed out half the respondents don't seem to understand is that there is a shortage of organs. you guys have so much compassion for this who got hepatitis from sharing needles, yet you don't give a crap about the person who may have not ever done anything to harm their liver but will be denied a transplant because this guy got the liver instead?
 
The man is 56 years old now. He says he contracted hepatitis c as a teenager. A lot of time has passed since then.

If there is a younger person in immediate need of a liver who isn't doing risky things, they should get it. Otherwise, there is no reason to deny someone a liver because they use a non-toxic drug prescribed to them or because of mistakes made 3 or 4 decades earlier.

It is also disgusting that they would charge a dying man with a crime for growing prescribed weed. He'd probably be behind bars if he wasn't so close to death.
 
foundationx4 said:
WOW! im sooo glad i dont live in the US. sounds worse everyday
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Second that. They hand out prescription drugs like candy, which are legal counterparts of nearly all illicit street drugs. Hydrocodone / Oxycodone / Hydromorphone / Oxymorphone instead of Heroin, Dextro-amphetamine / mixed Amphetamine salts / Dextro- methamphetamine / Methylphenidate instead of street Meth, Diazepam / Alprazolam / Clonazepam / Temazepam etc. instead of GHB or Alcohol(for the underage teens). But when someone smokes medicinal cannabis because they are in tremendous pain, their chance of a organ transplant goes "up in smoke", so to speak. Also pretty funny that you can get 30 years of prison for selling iodine to someone who produces meth with it, but meanwhile you can also get a prescription for meth when you have ADD/ADHD. That country still lives in the middle ages.

I pity the poor bloke for not getting a transplant because he smoked medicinal cannabis as a painkiller, which is known to be effective for that purpose, and not physically addictive like opioids.
 
Psych0naut said:
Second that. They hand out prescription drugs like candy, which are legal counterparts of nearly all illicit street drugs. Hydrocodone / Oxycodone / Hydromorphone / Oxymorphone instead of Heroin, Dextro-amphetamine / mixed Amphetamine salts / Dextro- methamphetamine / Methylphenidate instead of street Meth, Diazepam / Alprazolam / Clonazepam / Temazepam etc. instead of GHB or Alcohol(for the underage teens). But when someone smokes medicinal cannabis because they are in tremendous pain, their chance of a organ transplant goes "up in smoke", so to speak. Also pretty funny that you can get 30 years of prison for selling iodine to someone who produces meth with it, but meanwhile you can also get a prescription for meth when you have ADD/ADHD. That country still lives in the middle ages.

I pity the poor bloke for not getting a transplant because he smoked medicinal cannabis as a painkiller, which is known to be effective for that purpose, and not physically addictive like opioids.
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he was using it for nausea and apatite, not as primarily as a painkiller.
 
Maybe organs should be awarded by random lottery so a lot of self-righteous decisions don't have to be made by less-than-righteous committees and insurance companies...
 
All you guys who are complaining about the "injustice" going on here need to think this through. A lack of compassion is not the problem here, it is a lack of organs as other people have said. For everyone who gets an organ, there are at least several people who die for want of one.

If you're on a team deciding a transplant, it's a no brainer than you're going give an organ to a person who has never done drugs, over someone who maybe has only used pot once.

You HAVE to develop exclusion criteria, even if they don't make the most sense. It's the same thing as arbitrary test score cutoffs for graduate programs. If you only have so many "slots" you have to cut people somehow. Past drug use is a much more reasonable exclusion criteria than hair color.

And believe you me, if there was research that blonde hair was more strongly correlated with adverse transplant outcomes, they'd ban people with blonde hair from getting transplants, too.

I bet most of you who are complaining aren't even registered organ donors. Your hypocrisy in this case is stupefying.

Also, in response to another poster, the Hippocratic Oath is no longer required for physicians and is not taken by most. The line you are talking about, "do no harm," is not actually present in the oath anyways. The line you are thinking of (since you've obviously never read it) is "Never to do deliberate harm to anyone for anyone else's interest." Basically this is saying to not involve yourself in legal executions. That is all.
 
As much as it makes my blood boil to read that article, I have to say this part of a much larger and more worrisome pattern, which is itself just an effect of a much larger and more worrisome problem. The pattern I've noticed is ever more intrusive means in the US to find proof of a potential applicant / client / patient's drug use past or present, as a means of disqualifying them and turning them away. This is all just a logical outcome of overpopulation, though. When resources get scarce and people vying for them get more numerous, people will draw lines and attack anyone who crosses them. It's helpful and convenient for them if these lines are well historically precedented. (drugs are bad mkay?)
 
MyDoorsAreOpen said:
As much as it makes my blood boil to read that article, I have to say this part of a much larger and more worrisome pattern, which is itself just an effect of a much larger and more worrisome problem. The pattern I've noticed is ever more intrusive means in the US to find proof of a potential applicant / client / patient's drug use past or present, as a means of disqualifying them and turning them away. This is all just a logical outcome of overpopulation, though. When resources get scarce and people vying for them get more numerous, people will draw lines and attack anyone who crosses them. It's helpful and convenient for them if these lines are well historically precedented. (drugs are bad mkay?)
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it's not a consequence of over population, it's a consequence of how resources are being used. in the example of organs, as the population increases, so does the number of organs. i agree with what blue_locus said. half the people complaining here probably aren't even registered organ donors. and when it comes to health, recreational drugs are for the most part, bad.
 
One wonders if being a rock climber is enough to get you kicked off the list...I mean suppose two months after the transplant and--SPLATT!--another liver wasted that could've gone to a couch-potato.... :\
 
"Marijuana, unlike alcohol, has no direct effect on the liver. It is however a concern ... in that it's a potential indicator of an addictive personality," Sade said.
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this reasoning does not make any sense
 
8o This is now on my top 10 list of horrible ways to die; along with burning at the stake, and flesh eating bacteria; to be judged unworthy of life by your fellow man, and simply ignored.

Im really starting to believe I dont belong on this planet.
 
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