There have been many testimonials on TV recently from people claiming that medical marijuana has been an effective treatment and in some cases a cure for wide variety of ailments. One woman claimed that it cured her lung cancer, simply made the cancer disappear.
This is anecdotal “evidence”. Is there any credible medical evidence that it is effective in other than a narrowly defined range of conditions?
Have heard testimony that it helps some forms of epilepsy and can help with nausea and improve appetite, eg chemo.
The smoked form raises the specter of potential lung inflammation from the small particulate matter and byproducts of the burning of the product being inhaled.
The orally infested form has a lot of issues as to potency and how quickly effects manifest. Some OD because the ingest more because effects take longer than they expect.
I attended a session about it at the American Thoracic Society Conference in Denver last year. There still is not that much research in the field. UCLA’s Dr Don Taskin has been doing quite a bit of research on it, as I recall.
Oh yea, several of the MJ grower workers are developing health problems in connection with cultivation and harvesting–allergies and asthma. I have more notes if anyone PMs me.
I heard an interesting NPR segment that one of the reasons we have little scientific evidence about the medicinal effects (if any) of marijuana is simply that its status as an illegal drug makes it extremely hard to study and to get funding to study.
MJ is known to treat a few issues very well, like nausea and poor appetite, which makes it excellent for people on chemotherapy and HIV meds.
Lung cancer? OMG. I guess you can attest to unproved claims like that, without rankling the FDA, because you’re not actually shilling for a product per se, not in the sense of promoting Bob’s Vitamin P. Still, caveat emptor.
I’ve read of studies done in other countries in which significant relief was obtained for people with Crohn’s disease. I recall claims of “remission” but am not certain about that. If you google Crohn’s and MM, you’ll get a lot of hits.
My mom has been a MJ patient for many years. Replaces many of her pills. Another good friend uses it for her Crohns.
I don’t think it’s curing cancer but I do think it’s a great option for a lot of people.
Link? I’ve never heard of an OD from MJ.
It was mentioned at the session I attended, which I mentioned above. MJ is legal in Denver and the speakers indicated it was tough to have a good way of measuring potency for ingestables and we’re having some serious issues with over-ingestion because of the lag between eating and effects. I am not aware of it being printed out in a formal article.
If more time would have been spent finding out what might potentially be a benefit and less time and money arresting and jailing people for possession or worrying that it might lead to “hard drug” use, we might have had the medical truths decades ago. I think there’s been alot of fear mongering and I don’t use pot, but even I can see how ludicrous we’ve been as a society. So pot is bad and will land you in jail, but cigarettes and alcohol are legal in almost every state? It would be good for the medical community to come together on this issue with research to back up the stance. I can live with a well crafted approach either for or against, but fear mongering has never been an appeal to me for laws.
Whatever marijuana’s potential benefits – and there may be many – there is also the problem that it’s an unregulated natural product. It’s worse than those dietary supplements that have been causing lots of trouble because they’re at least subject to some regulation (FDA can pull them off the market if they harm people). Marijuana isn’t regulated. Its potency can vary. It can be contaminated with pretty much anything. Its side effects are poorly researched.
Another problem is that when it’s used for medical purposes, getting high is an undesirable side effect. That might not matter to someone who is desperately ill with cancer, but if you’re using it for less disabling conditions, the high can interfere with your ability to conduct your life.
Driving while high can be quite dangerous and should be covered by many driving while impaired statutes.
It’s unregulated now because it’s illegal :-). It takes change to make change. If there are potential positive benefits then perhaps it should be regulated. We do get to choose which drugs we take or don’t take under advisement, we choose to use alcohol or cigarettes or not, so why would marijuana be any different? I’m not sure I agree about ability to conduct your life as an argument. Believe me as a product of college in the early seventies I’ve known many pot smokers and many who have done so their entire lives even with professional careers. There are people who can’t control their smoking, can’t control their drinking, can’t control their use of prescription drugs so I presume there may be a percentage of pot smokers where it could potentially interfere with their “life” but I can’t accept that as a blanket reason for our curious national debate… but yet we allow cigarettes and alcohol. I choose not to use, but intellectually I can certainly understand the irony.
I think I know more people who use pot than don’t. Really.
And many of them are high end professionals- mostly professors.
The vast, VAST majority of people who use pot don’t have any issues with it. Same as people who use alcohol or gamble or do any other things.
I don’t use but I am far from against it. If my pain keeps getting worse with my autoimmune issues, I will certainly consider turning to it. I’m up to something like 14 pills a day right now- if weed can get rid of a few of those, bring it on. I won’t smoke and there is no need to smoke it.
The fearmongering around weed is absolutely ridiculous.
"Another problem is that when it’s used for medical purposes, getting high is an undesirable side effect. "
They’ve actually made progress with strains that are high in CBD (health benefits of medical marijuna) and low in THC (the high). The near future and additional research are bound to produce new strains tailored to deal with specific health problems.
I agree with @momofthreeboys’ comments on Marijuana vs. alcohol and cigarettes and for me that is for legalization of recreational use. Here, we are talking about medicinal use. Given the type of drugs that can be prescribed throughout our country and their health risks and addiction rates, it blows my mind that anyone can make a case against legalizing medical marijuana with a doctor’s prescription.
If you haven’t seen this documentary featuring Sanjay Gupta its worth a watch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnVHxOPEbqc
I am not a user of weed, but I do believe in common sense and our country’s policy on this issue is not sensible.
I have a friend who uses medical marijuana to help with her migraines. She lives in DC and medical marijuana is legal and she buys it from a dispensary. She showed me several different packets and they were labelled as to the specific chemical components and their percentage. They also had instructions about what time of day to use, etc. Some might make you more high and/or drowsy, others were OK for heading out to work in the morning. I was amazed at how orderly it all was! I don’t think it will be too long before marijuana can be dosed properly as other plant extracts like digitalis and atropine are.
We have a dispensary about two miles from where we live which is down the street from where my trainer works in an industrial area, so I drive by often. When it’s open, the parking lot is always filled. From time to time I look at their Facebook page to see the conversations going on. There is lots of talk about strains and which strains are better for which conditions. They truly have educated patient advocates who are trained to direct you to the best strain for your condition.
I fully believe there are people who are helped enormously from this. Illinois’ response has been slow, meaning people applying for a use permit are slow to trickle in. Part of it, too, is that Illinois has the most restrictions on book of any state that allows dispensaries now, so a lot of people who are helped in other states, cannot get it here. There is a strong grass-roots movement to get that list expanded, but the governor keeps shutting it down, thus limiting the medical conditions which are approved. As I read the Facebook comments, I know there are a lot of people hurting who need it, and a lot of people who would benefit but who can’t afford it. That’s the thing, without insurance coverage that prescription drugs provide, these people have to pay out of pocket, and some of them just don’t have the money; some of them are already on disability due to their chronic condition. It’s really sad. I have read stories of people who were able to wean themselves off of their narcotic pain killer, which is always a good thing, when they were able to access medical marijuana.
I’m within walking distance of two commercial retailers and have a good friend who has a state-sanctioned pot farm. Samples of the product are sent to test labs. Sourcing is very tightly regulated, much more so than the medical business.
Maybe it’s too early to draw any sociological conclusions out of Washington’s legalization, but so far it seems to be not many changes other than more conspicuous consumption.
Where’s @emeraldkity4 ? Anyone know if she’ll be back on this site? She was a big proponent.
we have had one OD in Colorado. Student from Wyoming was visiting friends and ate too much marijuana laced food.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/marijuana-cookie-death-colorado-warning-labels-cdc/
other articles
http://www.cpr.org/news/story/denver-emergency-room-doctor-seeing-more-patients-marijuana-edibles
First, I am not a fan of pot. But I think it’s a bit disingenuous to call these deaths overdoses. An OD is usually a physical response that results in severe sickness or death like one would get from heroin or other narcotics. Making bad decisions while you are high is not an OD.
It’s true that if we’re going to legalize MJ – and I live in Colorado, where it is legal – we need an awareness campaign to prevent deaths such as the one listed in #16. We need regulation, more studies, we need to resolve many serious issues (banking, for example.) I’m confident with time they will be resolved. The “war on drugs” has been a disaster, and I for one feel proud to be living in a state on the vanguard of important change.