Medical Marijuana's Hazy Law Issues

There's a pretty thin line that isn't that hard to cross, when you're talking about the lawfulness of drugs. But despite this, our society decides to concentrate on the fact that marijuana License has gained legal prescription opportunities, such as the issuance of medical marijuana card to a patient, rather than focusing on its own carelessness. We are absolutely comfortable with forgetting that patients want marijuana not to simply get high, but to remove pain and make their lives better. This is what any medical marijuana dispensary works for. In fact, marijuana has been vindicated to possess various medicinal properties, and is specifically advantageous in removing severe pain with various persistent medical conditions and such lethal illnesses as cancer. Medical marijuana is an approved medicine in the number of countries, involving Belgium, Netherlands, Australia, Canada, and Israel. Nevertheless, the debates regarding marijuana only rage on in the USA, where the laws that regulate this issue are shrouded with mystery at best and are unbelievably obscure. Up to this date, 14 of the USA states allow to sell marijuana for medical purposes. This whole situation is as hazy as it's been ever since. While we can't disclaim that marijuana has certain intoxicating properties, the thing is that it has been vindicated to have true and efficient medical values. Thus, the least the federal authorities can do is regulate the sale of marijuana in states that approved medical marijuana for sale and use through medical dispensary services. Therefore, they could be tracking those, who abuse the drug, meantime permitting patients that really need it to persist doing so and not fearing arrest or harassment.

She appreciated the progress they said they were making, but like any good scientist she didn't want to rely on anecdotal evidence. She wanted documented proof, clinical trials of large patient populations that run in the gold standard of a peer-reviewed journal that marijuana was the right approach to treating PTSD, or any other ailment for that matter. People use it to treat a variety of medical issues, such as multiple sclerosis, arthritis, epilepsy, glaucoma, HIV, chronic pain, Alzheimer's, cancer and others. With medical marijuana legal in nearly half of the states, more doctors are wondering what impact this drug really has on people. They ask for dosage information. They want to know about its long-term impact on patients. Sisley looked for answers to these questions in medical research, but she didn't see much. When she decided to do the studies herself and applied for federal approval, she was met with miles of red tape and resistance -- like many other researchers before her. That's because marijuana is one of the tightest-controlled substances under federal law.

The U.S. government considers it a Schedule I drug, meaning the Drug Enforcement Administration considers it to have no medical value. It's right up there with heroin and LSD. To do research on marijuana, scientists need approval from several federal departments. And that approval is rare. Most marijuana studies focus on the harm caused by the plant. The studies on its medicinal qualities are small, early stage or observational at best. Here are 10 of them, based on the ailments people commonly use medical marijuana to treat. Again, because there is such limited research on this topic, these areas are based on results that CNN would typically not report on because the work is in a far too early stage to see if it really works. But that is the point some doctors and medical researchers are making. In a human study of 10 HIV-positive marijuana smokers, scientists found people who smoked marijuana ate better, slept better and experienced a better mood. Another small study of 50 people found patients that smoked cannabis saw less neuropathic pain.

Medical marijuana and some of the plant's chemicals have been used to help Alzheimer's patients gain weight, and research found that it lessens some of the agitated behavior that patients can exhibit. In one cell study, researchers found it slowed the progress of protein deposits in the brain. Scientists think these proteins may be part of what causes Alzheimer's, although no one knows what causes the disease. A study of 58 patients using the derivatives of marijuana found they had less arthritis pain and slept better. Another review of studies concluded marijuana may help fight pain-causing inflammation. Studies are contradictory, but some early work suggests it reduced exercise-induced asthma. Other cell studies showed smoking marijuana could dilate human airways, but some patients experienced a tight feeling in their chests and throats. A study in mice found similar results. Animal studies have shown some marijuana extracts may kill certain cancer cells.

Other cell studies show it may stop cancer growth, and with mice, THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, improved the impact of radiation on cancer cells. Marijuana can also prevent the nausea that often accompanies chemotherapy treatment used to treat cancer. In a small pilot study of 13 patients watched over three months, researchers found inhaled cannabis did improve life for people suffering from ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease. It helped ease people's pain, limited the frequency of diarrhea and helped with weight gain. Medical marijuana extract in early trials at the NYU Langone Medical Center showed a 50% reduction in the frequency of certain seizures in children and adults in a study of 213 patients recently. Glaucoma is one of the leading causes of blindness. Scientists have looked at THC's impact on this disease on the optic nerve and found it can lower eye pressure, but it may also lower blood pressure, which could harm the optic nerve due to a reduced blood supply. THC can also help preserve the nerves, a small study found. Using marijuana or some of the chemicals in the plant may help prevent muscle spasms, pain, tremors and stiffness, according to early-stage, mostly observational studies involving animals, lab tests and a small number of human patients. The downside -- it may impair memory, according to a small study involving 20 patients.