yeah, who’s talking about treating it as a no side effect remedy? some people would gladly give up driving, etc. as the price of being rid of monstrous pain. as long as they have the sense to know about it. if marijuana was in the pharmacopoeia still, its side effects would be respected.
I think the real problem is that very little research has been done on its properties. I suspect two factors: 1, the fact that the feds banned it makes researchers a lightning rod for controversy, and the fact that Big Pharma won’t do much with it because they can’t patent it. That being said, for the patients whose suffering it relieves it is a gift from God, not unlike the coca leaves that help Andeans breath the mountain air, or the fermentation process that made our forebears’ water safe to drink.