"...it’s well known that smoking marijuana can reduce pressure within the eye, a hallmark of the disease.
But the drug may also reduce the blood supply to the optic nerve - the last thing a glaucoma sufferer needs - and it doesn’t seem to prevent blindness. Even if marijuana could save eyes, smoking it enough would take extraordinary effort. ‘In order to substantially reduce eye pressure,’ says Dr. Harry Quigley of John Hopkins University’s Wilmer Eye Institute, ‘you’d have to be stoned all the time.’"
--
Can Marijuana be Medicine?, Newsweek, February 3, 1997
"Glaucoma? It borders on malpractice to give marijuana for glaucoma. While it can reduce intraocular pressure (with huge doses of pot), it also can constrict blood supply to the optic nerve, exacerbating vision problems. There are far safer and better drugs."
-- Pot as Medicine, Washington Post, February 7, 1997)
Interesting. But there are different types of glaucoma. For some it causes severe pain to the point that they cannot function. Sufferers claim that marijuana gives them relief. And most of these people are people that would not otherwise ever considering using marijuana. There are other drugs that help significantly with the blood flow and the pressure issues. Those don't necessarily make the pain go away.
Just for the record, I have glaucoma. Fortunately for me, so far anyway, it is controlled with conventional treatment (Lumigan eye drops). I have no pain from it. I've had episodes of complete but temporary blindness in one eye or the other. That is how I found out I had it... When sleeping the slightest pressure on the eye would cut off the blood flow... A bad way to wake up... I did have some pain before treatment but I thought it was just eye strain.
With treatment all detectable symptoms have gone. My eye pressure is still higher than normal but not damaging.
I should add the only people I've heard of taking marijuana for glaucoma were not trying to control eye pressure. They were trying to control pain so they could function. They had already tried everything the medical profession could offer.
The bottom line is, if it works for them, I'm not going to stop them.