I see this a a preemptive strike on the insurance and provider side. Say they are going to cut costs and drop prices to sway the government away from either A.) Taking over them completely or B.) Offering a similar version but much cheaper than private insurance (effectively forcing them out of business). By cutting this amount of money they are attempting to stay in business. And staying in business makes a lot more money than being squeezed out by the government.

He was stating that it is not CHEMICALLY addictive. While it can be psychologically addictive. Just like any habit forming process can be.

He means there are a lot of drugs right now that have an effect, but the method of effect is not known. Only that there is no foreseeable side effects and works on the selected treatment. Take a look at any opiate/pain medication. They think it works on a certain receptors, but because its in a human body they don't know for 100% certainty. All the studies that look at how the drug binds are mostly in rats, mice, rabbits, and pigs. You can't cut open a persons head and take brain sections to see where a drug is binding in a human. And most of the times the doctors have no idea, because the drug reps don't tell them/know anyways.

On the other hand medical marijuana has been proven to help terminally ill cancer patients and others on chemo have an appetite and be able to eat. Helping them to recover faster. Plus for many even if it doesn't do the things that you mention the people still have some of their pain eleviated. What would you say if 60 years ago one of the most prescribed medications out there was speed? for about 10 to 15 years I believe it was prescribed for everything from headaches to allergies to needing a pick me up.

But You're opinions are valid. I think there should be a large UNBIASED study to see if there truly are effects. IF there are true notable benefits, legalize it for medical use. If not, end the debate, but don't politicize the study and let the scientists do their job.

Personally I think they should flat out legalize it and tax it. And give the same punishments to it that you get with alcohol. Age limits, DUI, and the like. Problem solved, doesn't hurt anyone, and the gov't gets their tax money.

Thank you Montana, This was one of the best things I had read in a long time.

http://www.lp.org/blogs/donny-ferguson/monday-mes...

In short summary, Montana now has exempted all firearms and ammo made and kept in Montana from Federal regulation laws.

I agree (Give credit where credit is due Obama got it right this time) and most Research has been hurting for 8 years because there is no money put into the NSF grants or other programs. BUT, we have some other priorities right now and in general where is the money going to come from? If he had stated this before the trillions already spent there would be no problems what so ever with it. I think its more bad timing.

The reason why they are not closing the border is because it has already spread to this country. No point now we already blew our chance. With the way people travel from country to country now we could get it from people in any European country or Asian country or Australia. The cat is out of the bag and whether the pandemic gets worse or not is in gods hands now. It will take 5 to 6 months to get a vaccine made. By then it will be over one way or another. Personally I think its going to blow over, just please let our government not make things worse.

Oh but remember? They just now are starting a pay as you go policy. AFTER they dropped trillions, NOW we can start cutting or raising taxes after we got the TRILLIONS of pay offs. And no one wants to say yes you are going to have to pay ridiculous taxes, because even then the MSM cannot spin that one off and get them re-elected. They will wait until the last possible minute to disclose the percentage amount of tax increases. Which has to be ridiculous, but everyone still has their head in the sand (oh no it will not happen to me he is the great B.O. he won't raise my taxes). I am so sick of my stupid generation, they are all about me me me and give me whatever I want. Someone else will pay for it. (I'm 26 and my generational idiots got this guy elected).

I have to say, while I think this is a good idea in general, right now we have some other priorities. Putting money into schools and scientific education is always a good idea and its going to take a bit of cash to get ourselves back on top. BUT, right now after all of the crap that we've spent money on and in the middle of a giant recession we should be more concerned with the massive amount of debt we are in and all of the rest of the frivolous spending our government has done. Fix the economy and balance the budget first.....THEN start giving away money.

This isn't engineered. This happens all the time. It's just usually not news. The influenza virus has a genome that has 8 pieces. And along with a very very error prone replication system, if there happens to be a bird or human in the area that happens to have one or the other the viruses just grab whatever flu DNA happens to be around and packages it as another virus. thats why we can get H1-H10 and N1-N8. I think there are more, I just can't remember. and the H and N actually stand for different types of proteins on the outside of the virus that attach to its host differently. So every year we have a virus that starts as say an H1N3....and through out the year that strain can change. Plus this is almost a purely animal strain. Humans normally get influenza B. this is an influenza A strain. So out of the billions and billions of virus particles that were in these animals 1 just happend to get spread to a human. Considering the odds and the sheer amount of virus around, its not too surprising. Which is why even though nothing came out of the bird flu from past years, it was worth it to monitor it.

The fact that he got the NOBEL prize was the biggest shame for science I have ever seen, and a huge disgrace to my profession and colleagues. ESPECIALLY, when the lady who was also in the running was much more worthy. The story is that this lady living in Germany or Poland (I forget which) at the beginning of WWII was hiding and helping to get jewish children out of the country so they didn't get sent to concentration camps. Eventually she was found out and sent to one herself. But not before keeping a log of every child she help save and who their parents and family were and burying that in her back yard. After WWII she returned to what used to be her home. Snuck into the back yard (because the Nazis sold the property to someone else) and dug up the notebook. Since then she has spent her life finding these children and uniting them with their families, by herself and not asking for a penny in return.

Good show nobel committee, good show. Thanks for all of your fantastic politicizing of something that was supposed to remain above the politics of the world, and cheapening what used to be one of the greatest scientific prizes in the world into a cheap political pandering.