Is it possible for an illegal drug to be deemed as legal for medical purposes? This is the case for Marijuana. Cannabis, also known as marijuana, is an preparation of the Cannabis plant intended for use as a psychoactive drug or medicine. When people hear the word “marijuana”, they think of drugs, ruined lives, and addicts. Although marijuana does have a good side, that side being used for its medicinal properties. Medical marijuana has the potential to become a natural alternative drug to alleviate pain from many common diseases in this day and age. While recreational use of marijuana is controversial as is any drug, many believe that the drug should be made legal to use for medical purposes. Medicinal use of marijuana dates back to 2737 B.C. where Chinese Emperor Shen Nung recorded marijuana as a medical drug, and documenting the drug’s effectiveness in alleviating pain. Up until 1937, when the Marijuana Tax Act was passed, marijuana was a legal source for medicine in the United States. Because of this setback, it has become increasingly difficult for researchers to study medical marijuana. Neurosurgeon Sanjay Gupta personally apologized for dismissing the value of scientific research for medicinal marijuana usage. Although there are sixty-six cannabinoids in marijuana, two inexact have been the subjects of most studies examining medical uses: delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabinol (CBD). Medical marijuana is a growing legalization movement throughout the United States that now consists of sixteen states that allow the use of medicinal marijuana. If further scientific research is funded, maybe one day the United States will hopefully legalize medical marijuana use in every state.
Marijuana can and should be used as...


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... promised to sign it,” wrote Williams. In 2012, Williams told the LA Times how much medical marijuana has helped him throughout the years by “reducing the pain in my lower extremities and mitigating spasticity when I sleep.” Medical cannabis treatments have proven highly effective at managing many symptoms of multiple sclerosis.

The most well known disease that medical marijuana has been used on is Cancer and the main symptoms that it has been used to counteract: nausea, pain, and weight loss. In a study of smoking marijuana for nausea and vomiting from chemotherapy, 14 out of 15 patients had effectively reduced their symptoms compared with a placebo. This study also examined “plasma levels of THC and found a correlation between higher levels and antiemetic effect”(Kramer 2015). Table 1 shows the effects of smoked marijuana on chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting