Medical Marijuana Ethical Dilemmas

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In the medical profession, doctors and nurses run into ethical dilemmas every day whether it be a mother who wants to abort her baby or a patient who has decided they want to stop cancer treatment. It is important for the nurse to know where they stand with their own moral code, but to make sure they are not being biased when educating the patient. Nurses are patient advocates, it is in the job description, so although the nurse may not agree with the patient on their decisions, the nurse to needs to advocate for the patient regardless. Medical marijuana is becoming increasingly popular with patient with chronic pain, cancer, HIV patients, and patients with epilepsy. Patients who use medical marijuana are able to use many different forms of …show more content…

More and more nurses and doctors are turning their heads when patients are in the hospital and have marijuana tinctures or lotions, because they know that patient needs to have that relief. It is estimated that 2,604,079 people in the United States use a type of medical marijuana. (Number of Legal Medical Marijuana Patients, 2016) If those 2,604,079 people were to be hospitalized, then every single one of them would be losing their ability to use that medical marijuana for an plethora of conditions. Medical marijuana helps HIV patients to help increase their appetite, patients with epilepsy to decrease the neuron signals in the brain, patients with chronic inflammatory issues, cancer patients to help increase their appetite, patients with chronic pain, and even in patients who have …show more content…

Although this is typically seen with recreational marijuana. Although some effects of patient’s using marijuana, can be that they lose motivation to participate in activities, and they may become tired, because the effects can cause your body to slow down. Marijuana mainly affects the neurons in the brain and the pathways, and when a patient uses marijuana they are inhibiting the normal brain development and the normal function. Effects of medical marijuana will be decreased because it is less potent than recreational marijuana, but may still affect the person. Some short term effects can be impaired memory, inability to problem-solve, and altered sense of time. Long term effects can be learning dysfunction from abnormal brain development, especially in teenagers. Studies have shown that although tobacco is usually the drug that leads to lung complications and problems, patients who smoke medical marijuana can also have lung issues because the drug is irritating to the alveoli. (Morrow,

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