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Marijuana: Medical Marijuana
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Marijuana is medicine for millions of patients around the US. Federal opposition persists in spite of successful medical marijuana programs in several states. States, cities moving to allow medical use by those in need. Click here for the latest news and information about medical marijuana.
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Marijuana is not a completely benign substance. Marijuana is a powerful drug with a variety of effects. However, except for the harms associated with smoking, the adverse effects of marijuana use are within the range of effects tolerated for other medications. The harmful effects to individuals from the perspective of possible medical use of marijuana are not necessarily the same as the harmful physical effects of drug abuse. When interpreting studies purporting to show the harmful effects of marijuana, it is important to keep in mind that the majority of those studies are based on smoked marijuana, and cannabinoid effects cannot be separated from the effects of inhaling smoke from burning plant material and contaminants.
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Marijuana was used medically in the US until the late 1930s. Then there were claims of "reefer madness." Supposedly, marijuana caused crime, violence, insanity, and death. In 1970, US drug law classified marijuana as having a high potential for abuse and no medical use.
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Marijuana was introduced into India from China and from there it spread to North Africa and Europe as early as A.D. 500. The Spanish introduced it to the New World in 1545. The English settlers at Jamestown (1611) used hemp produced from the marijuana plant's fibers to make clothes. The hemp industry started in Kentucky in 1775 (in 1860, 40,000 tons were produced). The Harrison Narcotics Act became law in 1914 and aimed at controlling the sale of narcotics. Utah became the first state to pass an anti-marijuana law in 1915, and by 1931 twenty-nine states had criminalized the non-medical use of marijuana.
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Marijuana, it seems, is exempt from this public understanding. When a presidential candidate is found to have taken a single, uninhaled toke decades ago, it is a cause for national concern. And when a 41-year-old mother of two who suffers from an inoperable brain tumor, a seizure disorder, wasting syndrome, and other documented medical conditions treats it with cannabis, there is no concern or compassion. She is branded a common criminal.
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Marijuana is a frequent precursor to the use of more dangerous drugs, and signals a significantly enhanced likelihood of drug problems in adult life. The Journal of the American Medical Association reported, based on a study of 300 sets of twins, "that marijuana-using twins were four times more likely than their siblings to use cocaine and crack cocaine, and five times more likely to use hallucinogens such as LSD."28
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