What do you need Medical Marijuana for?

Answer 1

An Irish doctor, William Brooke O'Shaughnessy, was held mainly responsible for showing his Western colleagues about the healing properties of marijuana. He was an herb professor at the Medical College of Calcutta, and in conducted a marijuana experiment in the 1830s. O'Shaughnessy created preparations and tested animal effects. He continued on to administer this marijuana to patients in order to help treat muscle spasms/stomach cramps or general pain. Cannabis as a medicine became common throughout much of the world by the 19th century. It was used as the primary pain reliever until the invention of aspirin. Modern medical and scientific inquiry began with doctors like O'Shaughnessy and Moreau de Tours, who used it to treat melancholia and migraines, and as a sleeping aid, analgesic and anticonvulsant. By the time the United States banned cannabis in a federal law, the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act, the plant was no longer extremely popular. Skepticism about marijuana arose in response to the bill. The situation was exacerbated by the stereotypes promoted by the media, that the drug was used primarily by Mexican and African immigrants. Later in the century, researchers investigating methods of detecting cannabis intoxication discovered that smoking the drug reduced intraocular pressure. In 1972 Tod H. Mikuriya, M.D. reignited the debate concerning marijuana as medicine when he published "Marijuana Medical Papers." High intraocular pressure causes blindness in glaucoma patients, so many believed that using the drug could prevent blindness in patients. Many Vietnam War veterans also believed that the drug prevented muscle spasms caused by battle-induced spinal injuries. Later medical use has focused primarily on its role in preventing the wasting syndromes and chronic loss of appetite associated with chemotherapy and AIDS, along with a variety of rare muscular and skeletal disorders. Less commonly, cannabis has been used in the treatment of Alcoholism and addiction to other drugs such as heroin and the prevention of migraines. In recent years, studies have shown or researchers have speculated that the main chemical in the drug, THC, might help prevent atherosclerosis. Later, in the 1970s, a synthetic version of THC, the primary active ingredient in cannabis, was synthesized to make the drug Marinol. Users reported several problems with Marinol, however, that led many to abandon the pill and resume smoking the plant. Patients complained that the violent nausea associated with chemotherapy made swallowing pills difficult. The effects of smoked cannabis are felt almost immediately, and is therefore easily dosed. Marinol (Jojel), like ingested cannabis, is very psychoactive, and is harder to titrate than smoked cannabis. Marinol has also consistently been more expensive than herbal cannabis. Some studies have indicated that other chemicals in the plant may have a synergistic effect with THC. In addition, during the 1970s and 1980s, six U.S. states' health departments performed studies on the use of medical marijuana. These are widely considered some of the most useful and pioneering studies on the subject. Voters in eight states showed their support for marijuana prescriptions or recommendations given by physicians between 1996 and 1999, including Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Maine, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington, going against policies of the federal government. In May 2001, "The Chronic Cannabis Use in the Compassionate Investigational New Drug Program: An Examination of Benefits and Adverse Effects of Legal Clinical Cannabis" (Russo, Mathre, Byrne et al) was completed. This three-day examination of major body functions of four of the five living US federal cannabis patients found "mild pulmonary changes" in two patients. On October 7, 2003, a patent (#6,630,507) entitled: "Cannabinoids as Antioxidants and Neuroprotectants" was awarded to the United States Department of Health and Human Services, based on research done at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), and the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS). This patent claims that cannabinoids are "useful in the treatment and prophylaxis of wide variety of oxidation associated diseases, such as ischemic, age-related, inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. The cannabinoids are found to have particular application as neuroprotectants, for example in limiting neurological damage following ischemic insults, such as stroke and trauma, or in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and HIV dementia." Historian Jacob Appel has argued that the medicinal marijuana movement bears striking similarities to the medicinal beer movement of the 1920s. Both efforts attempted to muster medical expertise in the face of a national Prohibition and both pitted the rights of physicians against the authority of the federal government.