Medical Marijuana; the Facts

See the document on a single page

Is marijuana good or bad, and if it offers so much to people with cancer, AIDS and multiple sclerosis...why does it remain illegal? Learn the facts, the benefits and the risks, and learn why medical marijuana faces some significant challenges to acceptance and legality.

Medical marijuana exists in never never land.

It's a controlled and illegal substance used for decades for intoxication, and more recently a potent medication that can ease the symptoms of several serious conditions and can increase the health and well being of people suffering from serious and terminal diseases.

Medical marijuana is illegal in all 50 states by federal law, and although a majority of people polled favor the use of medical marijuana in a controlled manner, as of yet, no legislation exists that allows doctors to prescribe this medication in complete security.

Medical marijuana faces some significant challenges to full scale approval, and although there have been numerous positive study outcomes on its effectiveness, there are also some health risks, it remains a widely abused and addictive drug, and there is little will within the private healthcare system to introduce marijuana on a large scale.

Why do People Use Medical Marijuana

Medical marijuana helps people enduring symptoms of disease, or enduring symptoms of harsh treatments for disease. Cancer patients, multiple sclerosis patients, Aids patients and Glaucoma patients, amongst others, have all felt medical marijuana's remarkable ability to ease their discomforts.

One of the most impressive effects of medical marijuana relates to its nature as an anti emetic and appetite increasant. For patients with AIDS wasting or cancer patients enduring severe regimens of chemotherapy, smoking marijuana can truly make the difference between life and death. Marijuana decreases nausea and vomiting and increases appetite. It allows these patients to eat, to gain strength and nourishment, and to arrest continuing and problematic weight loss. Medical marijuana seems to work better than anything else currently available for those people suffering and unable to keep food down.

It also seems to help a great deal to reduce the pains of glaucoma and the pains of multiple sclerosis, and it also eases the anxiety present with all of the above conditions.

Because of marijuana's real efficacy as a life saving drug, several organizations including the AIDS Council, The American Public Health Association and the California Medical Association, have all called for an easing of regulation on its use.