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This article talks about the pros of medical marijuana and how beneficial it can be to those who suffer illnesses that can be treated. “

Marijuana is safer than some other medications prescribed to treat the same symptoms. For example, it may be used instead of opioids for pain management. Opioids are highly addictive and are typically not recommended for long-term use in treating chronic pain.” Other prescriptions can lead to the user to get addicted to them and it’ll just harm them even more, but with marijuana it’s not addictive and can help lower the symptoms of their illness.

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The Debate Over the Legalization of Marijuana

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The debate over legalizing medical marijuana is a spirited one, and the proposition has many pros and cons. Explore the arguments on both sides.

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The four minute video goes through the biochemistry of weed and how CBD and THC are similar but have different effects on a person

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The seven minute videos goes through the different effects cannabis can offer to treat different illnesses.

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Medical Cannabis Basics | Gastrointestinal Society

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“For every person who advocates for the legalization of marijuana for medical purposes, there is another who argues against it. Some of the arguments from the opposition include:

Frequent marijuana use can seriously affect your short-term memory

Frequent use can impair your cognitive ability.

Smoking anything, whether it's tobacco or marijuana, can seriously damage your lung tissue

Smoked marijuana contains cancer-causing compounds.

Marijuana carries a risk of abuse and addiction.”

Marijuana could have those traits but its way safer than cigarettes or E cigs and alcohol yet those are legal to obtain. Marijuana has been studied to reduce people illness symptoms and many advocates for it to be legalized & prescribed to them.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Debate Over the Legalization of Marijuana

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The debate over legalizing medical marijuana is a spirited one, and the proposition has many pros and cons. Explore the arguments on both sides.

# data[].attributes.body
“Marijuana is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known. No one has ever died from an overdose, and it has a wide variety of therapeutic applications, including:

Relief from chronic pain. medical marijuana can help many people suffering different types of diseases or illnesses that have been scientifically tested to treat.

For cancer, Marijuana can stimulate the appetite and alleviate nausea and vomiting, which are common side effects of chemotherapy treatment.

GLAUCOMA. Marijuana can reduce intraocular pressure, alleviating the pain and slowing—and sometimes stopping—damage to the eyes. (Glaucoma is the leading cause of blindness in the United States. It damages vision by increasing eye pressure over time.)”

these statements back up how marijuana can help with different illnesses and it’s benefits for each illness that has been studied to lower symptoms and there’s no risk of dying from smoking or taking oral medication containing THC or CBD

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For thousands of years, marijuana has been used to treat a wide variety of ailments. Until 1937, marijuana (Cannabis sativa L.) was legal in the United States for all purposes. Presently, federal law allows only four Americans to use marijuana as a medicine.

On March 17, 1999, the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine (IOM) concluded that "there are some limited circumstances in which we recommend smoking marijuana for medical uses." The IOM report, the result of two years of research that was funded by the White House drug policy office, analyzed all existing data on marijuana's therapeutic uses.

The Medical Value of Marijuana

Marijuana is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known. No one has ever died from an overdose, and it has a wide variety of therapeutic applications, including:

Relief from nausea and appetite loss;

Reduction of intraocular (within the eye) pressure;

Reduction of muscle spasms; and

Relief from chronic pain.

Marijuana is frequently beneficial in the treatment of the following conditions:

AIDS. Marijuana can reduce the nausea, vomiting, and loss of appetite caused by the ailment itself and by various AIDS medications. Observational research has found that by relieving these side effects, medical marijuana increases the ability of patients to stay on life-extending treatment.

Marijuana can stimulate the appetite and alleviate nausea and vomiting, which are common side effects of chemotherapy treatment.

HEPATITIS C. As with AIDS, marijuana can relieve the nausea and vomiting caused by treatments for hepatitis C. In a study published in the September 2006 European Journal of Gastroenterology & Hepatology, patients using marijuana were better able to complete their medication regimens, leading to a 300% improvement in treatment success.

GLAUCOMA. Marijuana can reduce intraocular pressure, alleviating the pain and slowing-and sometimes stopping-damage to the eyes. (Glaucoma is the leading cause of blindness in the United States. It damages vision by increasing eye pressure over time.)

CANCER. Marijuana can stimulate the appetite and alleviate nausea and vomiting, which are common side effects of chemotherapy treatment.

MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS. Marijuana can limit the muscle pain and spasticity caused by the disease, as well as relieving tremor and unsteadiness of gait. (Multiple sclerosis is the leading cause of neurological disability among young and middle-aged adults in the United States.)

EPILEPSY. Marijuana can prevent epileptic seizures in some patients.

CHRONIC PAIN. Marijuana can alleviate chronic, often debilitating pain caused by myriad disorders and injuries. Since 2007, three published clinical trials have found that marijuana effectively relieves neuropathic pain (pain cause by nerve injury), a particularly hard to treat type of pain that afflicts millions suffering from diabetes, HIV/AIDS, multiple sclerosis, and other illnesses.

Each of these applications has been deemed legitimate by at least one court, legislature, and/or government agency in the United States.

Many patients also report that marijuana is useful for treating arthritis, migraine, menstrual cramps, alcohol and opiate addiction, and depression and other debilitating mood disorders.

Prior to 1937, at least 27 medicines containing marijuana were legally available in the United States.

Marijuana could be helpful for millions of patients in the United States. Nevertheless, other than for the four people with special permission from the federal government, medical marijuana remains illegal under federal law!

People currently suffering from any of the conditions mentioned above, for whom the legal medical options have proven unsafe or ineffective, have two options:

1. Continue to suffer without effective treatment; or

2. Illegally obtain marijuana-and risk suffering consequences directly related to its illegality, such as:

an insufficient supply due to the prohibition-inflated price or scarcity; impure, contaminated, or chemically adulterated marijuana;

arrests, fines, court costs, property forfeiture, incarceration, probation, and criminal records.

The History of Marijuana's Legal Status

Prior to 1937, at least 27 medicines containing marijuana were legally available in the United States. Many were made by well-known pharmaceutical firms that still exist today, such as Squibb (now Bristol-Myers Squibb) and Eli Lilly. The Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 federally prohibited marijuana. Dr. William C. Woodward of the American Medical Association opposed the Act, testifying that prohibition would ultimately prevent the medical uses of marijuana.The Controlled Substances Act of 1970 placed all illicit and prescription drugs into five "schedules" (categories). Marijuana was placed in Schedule I, defining it as having a high potential for abuse, no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States, and a lack of accepted safety for use under medical supervision.This definition simply does not apply to marijuana. Of course, at the time of the Controlled Substances Act, marijuana had been prohibited for more than three decades. Its medical uses forgotten, marijuana was considered a dangerous and addictive narcotic.

After 16 years of court battles, the DEA's chief administrative law judge ... ruled on September 6, 1988: Marijuana, in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known.

A substantial increase in the number of recreational users in the 1970s contributed to the rediscovery of marijuana's medical uses:

Many scientists studied the health effects of marijuana and inadvertently discovered marijuana's medical uses in the process.

Many who used marijuana recreationally also suffered from diseases for which marijuana is beneficial. By accident, they discovered its therapeutic value.

As the word spread, more and more patients started self-medicating with marijuana. However, marijuana's Schedule I status bars doctors from prescribing it and severely curtails research.

In 1972, a petition was submitted to the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs-now the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)-to reschedule marijuana to make it available by prescription.

After 16 years of court battles, the DEA's chief administrative law judge, Francis L. Young, ruled on September 6, 1988:

Marijuana, in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known....

... [T]he provisions of the [Controlled Substances] Act permit and require the transfer of marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule II.

It would be unreasonable, arbitrary and capricious for DEA to continue to stand between those sufferers and the benefits of this substance....

Marijuana's placement in Schedule II would enable doctors to prescribe it to their patients. But top DEA bureaucrats rejected Judge Young's ruling and refused to reschedule marijuana. Two appeals later, petitioners experienced their first defeat in the 22-year-old lawsuit. On February 18, 1994, the U.S. Court of Appeals (D.C. Circuit) ruled that the DEA is allowed to reject its judge's ruling and set its own criteria-enabling the DEA to keep marijuana in Schedule I.

Many patients would never consider the idea that an illegal drug might be their best medicine.

However, Congress has the power to reschedule marijuana via legislation, regardless of the DEA's wishes.

The Compassionate Access Program

In 1975, Robert Randall, who suffered from glaucoma, was arrested for cultivating his own marijuana. He won his case by using the "medical necessity defense," forcing the government to find a way to provide him with his medicine. As a result, the Investigational New Drug (IND) compassionate access program was established, enabling some patients to receive marijuana from the government.

The program was grossly inadequate at helping the potentially millions of people who need medical marijuana. Many patients would never consider the idea that an illegal drug might be their best medicine, and most who were fortunate enough to discover marijuana's medical value did not discover the IND program. Those who did often could not find doctors willing to take on the program's arduous, bureaucratic requirements.

In 1992, in response to a flood of new applications from AIDS patients, the George H.W. Bush administration closed the program to new applicants, and pleas to reopen it were ignored by subsequent administrations. The IND program remains in operation only for the four surviving, previously approved patients.

The Support for Ending Marijuana Prohibition

There is wide support for ending the prohibition of medical marijuana among both the public and the medical community:

Since 1996, a majority of voters in Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington state have voted in favor of ballot initiatives to remove criminal penalties for seriously ill people who grow or possess medical marijuana.

A May 2013 Fox News poll found that 85% of Americans think "adults should be allowed to use marijuana for medical purposes if a physician prescribes it."

Organizations supporting some form of physician-supervised access to medical marijuana include the American Academy of Family Physicians, American Nurses Association, American Public Health Association, American Academy of HIV Medicine, Epilepsy Foundation, and many others.

A 1990 scientific survey of oncologists (cancer specialists) found that 54% of those with an opinion favored the controlled medical availability of marijuana and 44% had already suggested at least once that a patient obtain marijuana illegally.

State governments that want to allow marijuana to be sold in pharmacies have been stymied by the federal government's overriding prohibition of marijuana.

The Need to Change the Law

The federal government has no legal authority to prevent state governments from changing their laws to remove state-level penalties for medical marijuana use. Twenty-one states and the District of Columbia have already done so: Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, Rhode Island, and Vermont through their legislatures, and the others by ballot initiatives. State legislatures have the authority and moral responsibility to change state law to:

exempt seriously ill patients from state-level prosecution for medical marijuana possession and cultivation; and

exempt doctors who recommend medical marijuana from prosecution or the denial of any right or privilege.

Even within the confines of federal law, states can enact reforms that have the practical effect of removing the fear of patients being arrested and prosecuted under state law-as well as the symbolic effect of pushing the federal government to allow doctors to prescribe marijuana.

State governments that want to allow marijuana to be sold in pharmacies have been stymied by the federal government's overriding prohibition of marijuana.

The U.S. Supreme Court's June 2005 decision in Gonzales v. Raich preserved state medical marijuana laws but allowed continued federal attacks on patients, even in states with such laws. While the Justice Department indicated in 2009 that it would refrain from raids where activity is clearly legal under state law, that policy change could be reversed anytime. While the Justice department indicated in 2009 that it would refrain from raids where activity is clearly legal under state law, that policy change could be reversed anytime.

Efforts to obtain FDA [US Food and Drug Administration] approval of marijuana also remain stalled. Though some small studies of marijuana have been published or are underway, the National Institute on Drug Abuse-the only legal source of marijuana for clinical research in the U.S.-has consistently made it difficult (and often nearly impossible) for researchers to obtain marijuana for their studies. At present, it is effectively impossible to do the sort of large-scale, extremely costly trials required for FDA approval.

In the meantime, patients continue to suffer. Congress has the power and the responsibility to change federal law so that seriously ill people nationwide can use medical marijuana without fear of arrest and imprisonment.

Books

Greg Campbell Pot, Inc.: Inside Medical Marijuana, America's Most Outlaw Industry. New York: Sterling, 2012.

Jonathan P. Caulkins et al. Marijuana Legalization: What Everyone Needs to Know. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.

Vanda Felbab-Brown Shooting Up: Counterinsurgency and the War on Drugs. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2010.

Steve Fox, Paul Armentano, and Mason Tvert Marijuana Is Safer: So Why Are We Driving People to Drink? White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing, 2013.

Margaret J. Goldstein Legalizing Drugs: Crime Stopper or Social Risk? Minneapolis, MN: Twenty-First Century Books, 2010.

Erich Goode Drugs in American Society. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2012.

James P. Gray Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed and What We Can Do About It: A Judicial Indictment of the War on Drugs. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2012.

David L. Hudson Jr. The War on Drugs. New York: Chelsea House, 2011.

Michael D. Lyman Drugs in Society: Causes, Concepts, and Control, 6th ed. Boston: Anderson Publishing, 2010.

Alyson Martin and Nushin Rashidian A New Leaf: The End of Cannabis Prohibition. New York: The New Press, 2014.

Trish Regan Joint Ventures: Inside America's Almost Legal Marijuana Industry. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2011.

Michael J. Reznicek Blowing Smoke: Rethinking the War on Drugs Without Prohibition and Rehab. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2011.

Robin Room et al. Cannabis Policy: Moving Beyond Stalemate. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.

Paul Ruschmann Legalizing Marijuana. New York: Chelsea House, 2011.

Nicholas Schou The Weed Runners: Travels with the Outlaw Capitalists of America's Medical Marijuana Trade. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2013.

Katherine Tate, James Lance Taylor, and Mark Q. Sawyer, eds. Something's in the Air: Race, Crime, and the Legalization of Marijuana. New York: Routledge, 2014.

Samuel Walker Sense and Nonsense About Crime, Drugs, and Communities, 7th ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2011.

Periodicals and Internet Sources

Doug Bandow "It's Time to Declare Peace in the War Against Drugs," Forbes, October 17, 2011.

William J. Bennett "Legalizing Drugs Won't Prevent Abuse," CNN, February 15, 2012. www.cnn.com.

Art Carden "Let's Be Blunt: It's Time to End the Drug War," Forbes, April 19, 2012.

Mona Charen "Where Ron Paul Is Right," National Review Online, December 2, 2011. www.nationalreview.com.

Elizabeth Dickinson "Legalizing Drugs Won't Stop Mexico's Brutal Cartels," Foreign Policy, June 22, 2011.

Ralph Espach "Should Central America Legalize Drugs?," Atlantic, February 28, 2012.

Michael Gerson "Ron Paul's Land of Second-Rate Values," Washington Post, May 9, 2011.

Marie Gottschalk "Kicking the Habit," New Republic, February 13, 2012.

Glenn Greenwald "Drug Decriminalization Policy Pays Off," Politico, October 14, 2010. www.politico.com.

John Hawkins "5 Reasons Marijuana Should Remain Illegal," Townhall, January 21, 2014. www.townhall.com.

Gene Healy "Pardon Me, but Obama's Right on Clemency for Non-Violent Drug Offenders," DC Examiner, April 29, 2014.

Erik Kain "A Victory Against the War on Drugs," Mother Jones, May 31, 2012.

Beau Kilmer "Has US Gone Further than Netherlands over Marijuana?," CNN, October 18, 2013. www.cnn.com.

Mark Kleiman "How Not to Make a Hash Out of Cannabis Legalization," Washington Monthly, March-May 2014.

Harry Levine "The Scandal of Racist Marijuana Arrests-and What to Do About It," Nation, November 18, 2013.

Sylvia Longmire "Legalization Won't Kill the Cartels," New York Times, June 18, 2011.

Zbigniew Mazurak "End the War on Drugs Now," American Thinker, March 26, 2011. www.americanthinker.com.

Gavin McInnes "Legalize Pot. It's Bad for You," Intercollegiate Review, March 10, 2014. www.intercollegiatereview.com.

John McWhorter "How the War on Drugs Is Destroying Black America," Cato's Letter, vol. 9, no. 1, Winter 2011.

Jeffrey Miron "Making the Case for Marijuana Legalization," CNBC.com, April 20, 2012. www.cnbc.com.

Ethan Nadelmann "The Forty-Year Quagmire: An Exit Strategy for the War on Drugs," Nation, June 17, 2011.

Leonard Pitts Jr. "If Not Drug Legalization, What, Mr. President?," Miami Herald, April 17, 2012.

Gustin L. Reichbach "A Judge's Plea for Pot," New York Times, May 16, 2012.

Debra J. Saunders "Medicalization of America's Drug War," San Francisco Chronicle, April 19, 2012.

Charles D. Stimson "Legalizing Marijuana: Citizens Should Just Say No," Memorandum, no. 56, September 13, 2010. www.heritage.org.

Jacob Sullum "Everything You've Heard About Crack and Meth Is Wrong," Forbes, November 4, 2013.

John P. Walters "Legalized Drugs: Dumber than You May Think," Weekly Standard, vol. 17, no. 32, May 7, 2012.

Margaret Wente "Legalizing Drugs Isn't the Answer," Globe and Mail (Toronto), October 20, 2011.

George F. Will "Should the US Legalize Hard Drugs?," Washington Post, April 11, 2012.

Source Citation

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For thousands of years, marijuana has been used to treat a wide variety of ailments. Until 1937, marijuana (Cannabis sativa L.) was legal in the United States for all purposes. Presently, federal law allows only four Americans to use marijuana as a medicine.

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“Cannabinoids are also effective in treating nausea and vomiting, which are common symptoms of many types of cancers as well as side effects of chemotherapy used to treat cancer. By stimulating appetite, cannabinoids can be helpful in treating wasting diseases, which can include chronic diarrhea and unexplained weight loss. Other conditions for which marijuana may prove beneficial include muscle spasticity, Parkinson's disease, glaucoma, and depression.”

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Medical marijuana refers to the use of the cannabis plant or its derivatives to treat a medical issue. Among the arguments for legalizing medical marijuana is its ability to treat symptoms of serious diseases and conditions, including AIDS, glaucoma, cancer, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, and chronic pain. Following the results of the November 2018 elections, in which Missouri and Utah voters approved the use and sale of medical marijuana, legislation to permit the use of medical marijuana has been approved in thirty-three US states, the District of Columbia, Guam, and Puerto Rico. Ten of those states and the District of Columbia have also passed legislation allowing the recreational use of marijuana by adults. Implementation of medical marijuana legislation has experienced delays in several jurisdictions, including Florida, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, and Oklahoma, as lawmakers work to comply with changing laws and find the most equitable approach to licensing businesses in the emerging and highly profitable industry. A poll conducted by the Pew Research Center in September 2018 found that 62 percent of Americans supported marijuana legalization for recreational use, while an April 2018 poll of registered US voters conducted by Quinnipiac University found that 93 percent supported legalizing marijuana for medical purposes. Despite such levels of public support, some medical practitioners and lawmakers continue to argue against legalization for medical use because of the possible health risks, as well as the risk that such legislation could increase the likelihood of recreational use of the drug.

Main Ideas

The use of the cannabis plant and its derivatives for medical benefit is commonly referred to as medical marijuana. As of December 2018, thirty-four states have approved the use of marijuana for medical treatment.

Because the US federal government classified marijuana as a controlled substance in 1970, research into the medicinal qualities of the plant has been limited. Researchers have been able to conclude, however, that marijuana may be an effective treatment for some maladies and associated symptoms.

Marijuana contains hundreds of chemicals, including over one hundred chemicals unique to the plant known as cannabinoid. Scientists are still investigating how each of the chemicals interacts with the mind and body.

Smoking, which can lead to negative health outcomes regardless of the substance being used, is the most common method of consuming marijuana. For this reason, health care professionals who support medical marijuana recommend that patients explore alternative ways to take the drug.

From 1978 to 1992, patients could petition the federal government to use medical marijuana under the US Food and Drug Administration's Compassionate Investigative New Drug (IND) program.

Marijuana use remains illegal under federal law, but an amendment, originally introduced in 2014 and reauthorized each subsequent year, prevents the federal government from funding law enforcement efforts that would undermine the authority of individual states to legalize medical marijuana use.

Cannabinoids

Marijuana can refer either to the cannabis plant or more specifically the plant's dried leaves and flowers. Marijuana contains more than five hundred chemicals, more than one hundred of which have been identified as unique to cannabis and are known as cannabinoids. Of these, the most pharmacologically active is delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). Medical researchers have concluded that cannabinoids can be helpful in treating pain associated with chemotherapy, postoperative recovery, and spinal cord injury, as well as neuropathic pain, which is often experienced by patients with metastatic cancer, multiple sclerosis, diabetes, and HIV/AIDS. Cannabinoids can be extracted from marijuana to create pills, tinctures, and other products. Cannabidiol (CBD) lacks the psychoactive potency of THC but has been shown to produce some notable health benefits. In 2018 the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Epidiolex, an oral solution of CBD, for treatment of two severe forms of epilepsy, Lennox-Gastaut syndrome and Dravet syndrome, in patients two years of age and older. Epidiolex's approval marked the first time that FDA approved a drug derived from the cannabis plant; however, the FDA had granted approval for the manufacture of dronabinol, an artificially produced cannabinoid chemically similar to THC, in 1985.

Cannabinoids are also effective in treating nausea and vomiting, which are common symptoms of many types of cancers as well as side effects of chemotherapy used to treat cancer. By stimulating appetite, cannabinoids can be helpful in treating wasting diseases, which can include chronic diarrhea and unexplained weight loss. Other conditions for which marijuana may prove beneficial include muscle spasticity, Parkinson's disease, glaucoma, and depression. A 2018 review of medical studies by researchers at the University of Alberta found that the most commonly reported adverse effects of cannabinoids included dizziness, sedation, confusion, and dissociation. In reviewing media reports on medical marijuana, the authors found that 79 percent of articles contained inaccurate information. Like most scholars involved in studying the effects of marijuana, the authors urged health care professionals to consider the adverse effects of the drug as well as each patient's individual needs before recommending its use as a medical treatment.

Many health organizations have endorsed the use of medical marijuana and advocated its further study, including the AIDS Action Council, American Public Health Association, American Academy of Family Physicians, American Medical Student Association, and the New England Journal of Medicine. In 2009 the American Medical Association reversed its previous policy against such use and urged the government to reconsider marijuana's illicit status with the goal of facilitating further clinical research into marijuana's medical benefits. The organization reaffirmed its position in 2017, recognizing health conditions that marijuana could be effective in treating and urging more research, but opposing the recreational use of marijuana.

Not all physicians agree, however, that marijuana should be prescribed for medical conditions. Many doctors do not feel comfortable prescribing marijuana because of the lack of scientific data available on the associated health benefits and risks. Shortly after medical marijuana became available throughout Maryland in 2017, Gene Ransom, chief executive and medical director of the Maryland State Medical Society (MedChi), expressed concern that changes to state law were not being driven by scientific evidence and characterized the opinions of MedChi members as being divided similarly to public opinion.

Marijuana Smoke

In addition to extracting cannabinoids for pills and tinctures, doctors can prescribe less refined versions of the drug in the form of vapor, edibles, topical lotions, and the plant itself. While medical marijuana can be administered in several forms, the method most commonly associated with the drug is smoking. Opponents of marijuana legalization argue that its smoke contains carcinogens and may increase the risk of lung cancer and other respiratory tract cancers among users. The American Lung Association (ALA) discourages smoking marijuana because it damages the cells within the lungs that fight against infection while at the same time weakening the immune system. The ALA advises patients to discuss the use of medical marijuana with their doctor and to seek out methods other than smoking.

As with smoking tobacco, the possibility of developing lung cancer from smoking marijuana has generated concern. However, studies have revealed that marijuana smoke functions differently than tobacco smoke. A study published in 2012 in the Journal of the American Medical Association that studied marijuana exposure over twenty years found that moderate and occasional marijuana smoking did not impair lung function. A 2014 study by the International Lung Cancer Consortium also found "little evidence for an increased risk of lung cancer among habitual or long-term cannabis smokers, although the possibility of potential adverse effect for heavy consumption cannot be excluded."

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), long-term use of marijuana can lead to dependence and, in severe cases, addiction. It is also associated with increased rates of depression, anxiety, and schizophrenia. NIDA acknowledges marijuana's therapeutic value in treating pain, nausea, and loss of appetite, however, NIDA does not endorse it as a medication, because it contains many chemicals with unknown health effects and because it is usually consumed by smoking, which is associated with health risks. NIDA has funded studies to ascertain whether increasing access to medical marijuana would help address issues associated with the opioid public health crisis in which many Americans suffer from addiction to street opioids and prescription painkillers, including tens of thousands of people who die annually from overdose. Though the studies suggest that access to medical marijuana may result in reduced opioid prescriptions and overdose deaths, NIDA warns that further research will be required to understand the true impact of medical marijuana on opioid use.

Critical Thinking Questions

What legal challenges did the first state to approve the use of marijuana as a medical treatment encounter?

What are the opinions of different medical associations regarding medical marijuana, and which position most closely aligns with your own beliefs?

Do you think the legal status of medical marijuana should be determined by the federal government or remain an issue to be legislated by individual states? Explain your answer.

Legislative Milestones

The federal government has classified marijuana as a Schedule I controlled substance, which means it has a high potential for abuse and has no medical value, since the passage of the Controlled Substance Act of 1970. In 1976 patient Robert Randall successfully petitioned the FDA for the right to use marijuana following a criminal conviction for growing and using cannabis to treat his glaucoma symptoms. When the federal government attempted to reverse that decision two years later, he filed a lawsuit and the court ruled in Randall's favor. Following this decision, the FDA created the Compassionate Investigational New Drug (IND) program, through which individuals could petition for legal access to marijuana for medical use. The Compassionate IND program was closed to new patients in 1992 after public health officials declared that it held little scientific value; as of December 2018, however, three of its original patients continue to receive medical marijuana through the program. The FDA continues to maintain an IND program for patients to gain access to other drugs that have yet to complete the approval process.

In 1996 activists in California, led by a man named Dennis Peron, organized a ballot proposition to legalize medical marijuana. Proposition 215, also called the Compassionate Use Act of 1996, passed by 55.58 percent of the vote, making California the first state to approve medical marijuana. The proposition, as later expanded by California Senate Bill 420, allows patients to grow, possess, and collectively distribute marijuana for personal medical use on the recommendation of a licensed physician. The federal government threatened to sanction or prosecute physicians who recommended medical marijuana. A class action suit, Conant v. McCaffrey, was brought in 1997 by a group of California physicians who alleged that these threats violated their constitutional rights. In its decision in 2002, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld the right of doctors to recommend marijuana to patients for medical reasons. The Conant decision allows physicians to discuss medical marijuana use with patients, to record this information, and to recommend marijuana use. It does not permit physicians to write prescriptions for marijuana or to help patients obtain it. Nor does it permit them to recommend marijuana use without a medical reason.

The movement to legalize medical marijuana experienced a major setback in 2005, when the US Supreme Court ruled in Gonzales v. Raich that the federal government has the right to ban the use of cannabis even in states with compassionate use laws. The decision did not overturn states' compassionate use laws, which existed in eleven states at the time of the ruling, but did permit the federal government under some circumstances to prosecute medical marijuana users.

In 2014 Congress passed the Rohrabacher-Farr Amendment, which forbid the federal government from spending money to pursue action against legalized medical marijuana laws and individuals using marijuana in accordance with those laws. Originally presented as the Hinchey-Rohrabacher Amendment in 2003, Congress passed the amendment in 2014 as part of the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Bill. Congress had previously voted down the amendment five times. In 2016 the Ninth District Court of Appeals used the Rohrabacher-Farr Amendment to establish that the federal government could not prosecute a patient using medical marijuana in accordance with state law. Congress renewed the amendment in March 2018 by including it as the Rohrabacher-Blumenauer Amendment in the fiscal year 2018 omnibus spending bill.

The Compassionate Access, Research Expansion, and Respect States (CARERS) Act, a bill proposed by cosponsors Senators Cory Booker (D-New Jersey), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-New York), and Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) in 2015, would remove medical marijuana from the restrictions imposed by the Controlled Substance Act, downgrade marijuana to a Schedule II drug, and ease restrictions on marijuana cultivation and commerce. The CARERS Act has gained bipartisan support and was reintroduced in 2017 but had not been voted on in either house of Congress by the end of 2018. The Marijuana Justice Act, first introduced in 2017, seeks to remove marijuana's Schedule I classification but also eliminate and expunge federal criminal convictions for marijuana violations. In 2018 a bipartisan group of senators, including the original sponsors of the CARERS Act, introduced the Strengthening the Tenth Amendment Through Entrusting States (STATES) Act, which would allow states to determine their own marijuana legislation. As of December 2018, neither the Marijuana Justice Act nor the STATES Act has reached the floor for a vote.

In February 2017 the administration of President Donald Trump indicated that the US Department of Justice would pursue action against states that have legalized the recreational use of marijuana but will not seek to interfere with the medicinal use of the plant. Though Attorney General Jeff Sessions spoke explicitly about his opposition to marijuana legalization, his resignation in November 2018 cast uncertainty on how the Department of Justice would respond to states that permit medical marijuana use after his departure.

Source Citation

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Medical marijuana refers to the use of the cannabis plant or its derivatives to treat a medical issue. Among the arguments for legalizing medical marijuana is its ability to treat symptoms of serious diseases and conditions, including AIDS, glaucoma, cancer, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, and chronic pain.