July 16, 2013
?| ?
Like this article?
Join our email list:
Stay up to date with the latest headlines via email.
Darlene Arden is a certified animal behavior consultant who recently began to advocate for medical marijuana?on behalf of pets. She says her purpose in life is to speak for the voiceless, so who better to defend than our furriest companions?
?Pets cannot speak up and say ?Hey, this hurts,?? she says, noting that just decades ago it was common veterinary practice not to provide any pain medication for pets. ?There was a time when veterinarians would do surgery and not give the poor animals any kind of pain control in the belief that if the animals felt pain, they wouldn?t move that body part.?
Of course, cats and dogs do feel pain just as humans do, and they function far better with pain medication. Arden says pet owners should do everything possible to relieve their animal?s pain. ?
?I think we should be living in a kinder, gentler society,? says Arden. ?Animals need love and they give us unconditional love, so the least we can do is help them.?
Arden is an authority on the care of toy breeds and has written several books on pet care. In lectures around the world and in regular animal care columns she speaks on behalf of our pets. After recognizing the benefits medical cannabis can have for human patients in pain, she says it?s time to think about using the herb to treat pets, too.
?You think about how much good this has done for cancer patients, and yet in most of the country not only is it withheld from pets, it?s withheld from people who desperately need a drug that has been proven to work, because [the government is] afraid of the drug people, the ?potheads,?? she says. ?That means they?re punishing sick people because they don?t want well people to get it. That, to me, is crazy.?
Arden is neither liberal nor conservative. She says she simply votes for whichever policies make the most sense. While she has never smoked weed, after researching the topic extensively she became an advocate. Between the relief cannabis can provide to medical patients, and the negative historical impacts of prohibition on society, she says legalization seemed an obvious choice. ?
When a ballot initiative was up for the vote to legalize medical marijuana in Arden?s home state of Massachusetts?in 2012, she voted for it. While the initiative passed, Massachusetts has yet to open a dispensary due to ongoing rhubarb over regulation and location. ?
Jump over to California, where medical marijuana dispensaries have operated since 1996 when Proposition 215 legalized the drug for medical purposes, and you?ll find a few animals already being treated with cannabis via an ingestible ?magic cheese.?
Los Angeles veterinarian Doug Kramer, who runs the Vet Guru animal center, became the first vet in the nation to offer medical cannabis to animals, he told New York Daily News,?when he treated his elderly husky, Nikita, with marijuana. He said after he gave the dog cannabis, she ?stopped whimpering and started eating, gaining weight and meeting him at the door again.? While the dog passed away weeks later, he was able to improve the quality of the end of her life.?
Kramer also told New York Daily News he believes that the active ingredient in pot, THC, could be the key to mitigating pain for dogs in particular. In an interview with the Missoulian, Kramer said he?d grown ?tired of euthanizing pets? when he thought there was more he could do to help them feel better.?
?I felt like I was letting them down,? he said in the article.
Republished with permission from: AlterNet
Foo Canoodle Isaac path Tropical Storm Isaac path Hurricane Katrina Hurricane Isaac Path Isaac Hurricane
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.