Dispensaries are the drugstores of the future, here and now in California

[Payaso]

From a historical perspective, in America during the prohibition era not only churches were sanctuaries for alcoholics, but drugstores were apparently also THE place to catch a buzz, legally (at that time).

For most of the 1920s, a patient could get a prescription for one pint every 10 days about as easily as California patients can now get "recommendations" for medical marijuana. All it took to acquire a liquor prescription was cash — generally about $3, the equivalent of about $40 today — placed in the hand of an agreeable doctor. It cost $3 to $4 more to have it filled by the local pharmacist. Dentists were similarly licensed, as were veterinarians who believed their patients too could use a belt of Four Roses bourbon.

Then as now, the adaptability of the medical profession was impressive. In 1917, as the 18th Amendment establishing Prohibition was working its way through the ratification process, the American Medical Assn. ousted alcohol from its approved pharmacopoeia, adopting a unanimous resolution asserting that its "use in therapeutics … has no scientific value."

But the Volstead Act, which spelled out the enforcement and regulation of Prohibition, nonetheless made an exception for medicinal use, and in 1922, just two years into the dry era, the AMA demonstrated how open minds can be changed — or, perhaps, how capitalism abhors a missed opportunity. The results of a national survey of its members — a "Referendum on the Use of Alcohol in the Medical Profession" — revealed an extraordinary coincidence: The booming prescription trade had been accompanied by the dawning realization among America's doctors that alcoholic beverages were in fact useful in treating 27 separate conditions, including diabetes, cancer, asthma, dyspepsia, snake bite, lactation problems and old age. In a word, the assertion that medicinal alcohol had "no scientific value," from the AMA's 1917 resolution, no longer had any scientific value. One especially agreeable Detroit physician provided these instructions on his prescriptions: "Take three ounces every hour for stimulant until stimulated."

Pharmacists who wanted a piece of this highly profitable new business devised practices appropriate to their clientele. Those with high-end customers, mindful of the power (and profit) in brand names, dispensed the prescribed "medicine" in the distillers' own bottles, which looked exactly as they had before 1920 except for the addition of a sober qualifying phrase on their newly printed labels: A 100-proof pint of Old Grand-Dad, for instance, still announced that it was "Bottled in Bond," but just beneath that familiar legend appeared the improbable phrase, "Unexcelled for Medicinal Purposes." At the bottom end of the retail ladder were operations like Markin's, a drugstore on the north side of Chicago. After police officers apprehended a drunk emerging from the store with bottle in hand, an assistant city attorney informed Mayor William E. Dever in 1923, "The officers testified that [the liquor] burned their tongues and that when they touched their matches to it, immediately there was a flame."

So you may ask, what has changed? Not much...from the physicians providing 'recommendations' to the willing dispensers of the medicine. It all worked out in the end with alcohol, what's the difference with cannabis - except for the fact that it is a legitimately healing medicine?

For the full story click here.

 

[BiG H3rB Tr3E]

Like ive said a thousand times before...

Relegalize cannabis or criminalize alcohol and tobacco. There are no exceptions. If cannabis, the safest recreational "drug" in exsistance is too dangerous for us to consume, then you must criminalize the use of alcohol and tobacco as both are proven far more hazardous than any amount of cannabis, processed or raw.


P.S. Thank you payaso. I always enjoy your posts.

 

[humboldtlocal]

Great story. I was watching "antique roadshow a while back and they had some of these prohibition era bottles on there. They all said "for medical use only". History sure does repeat itself.

 

[LifeIsGrowing]

We'll all have our day soon enough. The sky's are looking brighter more days than not. Nice to see nothing ever changes.. Good old American way.

-LifeIsGrowing

 

[Jibman]

So i should go to jail for having a cig after work? Or going home and having a beer before i medicate for sleep. I understand the problems that those substances cause, But cannabis seems to make dumb people even dumber. So should we ban cannabis? Banning and criminalizing things is a bad way to go.

 

[Ras Mason]

The fight goes on.

 

[SeniorBuzz]

re: the meaning of "drugstores" was as clear as gin: Those were the places you went to get medically prescribed alcohol, a legally acceptable source of liquor during all 13 years of Prohibition.

my question is: what was the progression of drugstore alcohol dispensary, suppliers, i.e, alcohol producers/mmj growers from often illegal to legal corporations

one other thought:

has anyone else noticed an increasing amount of mmj available?

POLICE: LACK OF MARIJUANA RULES CAUSE VIOLENCE
http://www.kulr8.com/news/state/93894219.html

 

[toohighmf]

haven't noticed a shortage since the early '90's...

 

[SeniorBuzz]

How much will the price of mj, in CA, decrease this year.

California #1 in agriculture

 

[Grass Lands]

How much will the price of mj, in CA, decrease this year.

California #1 in agriculture

are we talking retail or wholesale...I see retail holding firm or slightly increasing, as for wholesale there is a good chance it will decrease...how far, who knows?

The trick here is create a supply and demand and the only real way to do that in this market is to have a cut or two that is "pure fucking ice" that no one else has...supply and demand my friend, that is what it is all about...

Peace
GL

 

[SeniorBuzz]

are we talking retail or wholesale...I see retail holding firm or slightly increasing, as for wholesale there is a good chance it will decrease...how far, who knows?

The trick here is create a supply and demand and the only real way to do that in this market is to have a cut or two that is "pure fucking ice" that no one else has...supply and demand my friend, that is what it is all about...

Peace
GL

in the meantime,

while we are waiting for the "pure fucking ice"

just grow really good stuff

so we don't run out

while you are searchin'

I see mmj dispensaries, as a way to put

a dispensary on the front end of a very large indoor grow

owned and operated, as a not-for-profit,

by the growers in agreement, with the county

 

[kmk420kali]

I see mmj dispensaries, as a way to put

a dispensary on the front end of a very large indoor grow

owned and operated, as a not-for-profit,

by the growers in agreement, with the county

You don't see a security issue there??