This latest paper did not include new research, but analyzed previous literature on the subject. Advocates of medical marijuana have long argued that medical research of the drug continues to operate under the assumption that it's dangerous. Research on the drug has been hard to come by, mostly thanks to the federal government's classification of the drug as a schedule 1 substance -- the most dangerous type of drug with "no accepted medicinal use and a high potential for abuse."
Last year, Sanjay Gupta, neurosurgeon and CNN's chief medical correspondent, apologized for his role in dismissing the medical legitimacy of marijuana. "It doesn't have a high potential for abuse, and there are very legitimate medical applications. In fact, sometimes marijuana is the only thing that works," he wrote in an op-ed. "We have been terribly and systematically misled for nearly 70 years in the United States, and I apologize for my own role in that.
Only a small percentage of marijuana studies consider medical benefits, with the vast majority focusing solely on potential ill-effects. "
I don't think this article gives a ringing endorsement for your stated position. Especially when you consider that it is part of the evidence that you posted to support that position, as opposed to one that I posted to refute it.
“ultimately concluding that short-term problems like diminished cognitive and psychomotor function and long-term issues like mental illness, dependence and memory problems outweighed any potential pain mitigation effects”
Have ANY of these doctors actually tried the medications that they’re prescribing?!
With all of these ‘dangers’ they just described what my pain medications do to me. Worse, my pain medications are ripping apart my stomach and liver, destroy my immune system, my hormonal system, and degrade my bones.
There is NO study that says that marijuana causes even half of the damage that my prescribed medications are actually doing to me - right now.
I’m so sensitive to infections from the steroids that I may as well have AIDS. I’m on antibiotics all of the time and they have their own effects on the body. The anti-fungals (that counter the antibiotics) are destroying my liver. My surgeon told me that my bones are turning to ‘mush’ from these medications.
The meds that I’m given to help me sleep have destroyed my ability to learn and form new memories. I had to drop a college class because I couldn’t do the memorization work to take a simple test. And I’m the woman to studied astrophysics for FUN. Now I have terrifying black-outs.
ALL of this is from prescription drugs.
If medical marijuana can reduce my pain and get me off of all of the medications that are killing me, then we have a winner.
And I’m not talking about ‘street’ pot with a ton of THC and none of the medicinal benefits. I’m talking about medical MJ that has more of the CBD that actually reduced inflammation and nerve pain WITHOUT the high.
But even if it does make me high - so what? You don’t think that the opiates make me high and unable to function? If marijuana messes with my memory - so what? The benzos that the doctor prescribes me has already destroyed me on that front.
But MAYBE I’ll spare my immune system, my endocrine system, and my bones, stomach and liver with pot.
Sounds like a fantastic trade-off, to me.