In California, there is no such thing as a “prescription for weed”. You don’t get one from a doctor, the dispensaries don’t describe it as such.

What you do get is a recommendation by a doctor that you would benefit from cannabis. This is a critical difference. It’s merely a doctors opinion you would benefit.

And as many have noted, sone doctors appear to hold the opinion most adults would benefit. They might not be wrong.

Btw, old injuries can have lasting pain for the rest of your life. Difficult to control pain. Medicine recognized this in the 90s, and one result was the opioid crisis. (Turns out opioids aren’t great for chronic pain.)

Oh and it isn’t a bs script either. Because it’s not a script. As I noted above. To quote a certain movie, that’s funny not a single word you just said was correct.

Given that California legalized recreational use as of Jan 2018, you are technically correct as to the mechanics of medical cannabis, but that's not the best kind of correct.

In Oregon there is a real distinction, and patients do need a doctor to refer them to get a card[1], which gives them lower prices than recreational customers get at dispensaries.

1: https://ommpsystem.oregon.gov/

Perhaps I did just completely misquote what my (Californian) friend told me.

He's splitting hairs a bit. It's true that a doctor gives a patient a recommendation instead of a prescription (so you can purchase cannabis legally), but otherwise what you wrote is correct.

I disagree, and the reason Is that the word prescription is a legal and medical jargon term with specific meanings and ethical requirements.

However an opinion is not. Thus building a moral barrier there.

Some other opinions that many doctors have: everyone should drink more water. Everyone should exercise. Many people will get this advice/opinions without a prescription for such.

Right, but a doctor is bound by the Hippocratic Oath, and because the recommendation, specifically, for cannabis has legal implications (i.e. the patient can now purchase it under the law), a cannabis rec has similar ethical considerations as a prescription.

Doesn’t the charade corrupt the integrity of the medical profession?

No, that's what happened when you disconnect medical science from law and instead use culture and moral as legal basis.

There is no good decision here, the alternative, refusing on medical ground is not correct either. There is no medical ground to refuse the guy some weed, when it is perfectly legal for him to buy unlimited quantities of alcohol which, medically, is as bad or worse.

In both cases, the law puts the doctor in a position where he needs to bullshit. Some will chose to ignore the global context and look at the patient request in isolation, other will do the opposite.

edit: also "pain" is intrinsically difficult metric for a doctor.

It does, actually.

The doctors who do this (largely running a cash-only practice) are really a disgrace to the profession.

It's good to be willing to think outside the box and practice with compassion, but it's another thing entirely to create prescriptions for surreptitious indications that is motivated by personal profit.

Could they be motivated instead by the belief that by giving the recommendation for cannabis they are reducing the overall potential for harm to the patient?

How dare a doctor with experience in a medical marijuana state speak the truth...