Why give marijuana to cancer patients if it gives them more cancer?

Answer 1

There is still little evidence to support that smoking marijuana causes cancer. And studys that show that smoknig marijuana DOES cause cancer typically also point that the risk is much lower then that of tobacco. This is also balanced by studys that show that marijuana actually has protective effects against lung cancer. basically the difficulty of having true controlled studys of marijuana smokers (especially long term smokers) is hard to do since marijuana is a illegal substance.

Their is often a connection between people who smoke (or have smoked) tobacco and people who have smoke marijuanna making it difficult to distinguish damage to the lung between the two.

Another problem is that the quanitys people ingest often vary greatly. some people who smoke once a week or once a month are obviously going to see different effects then someone who smokes on a daily basis. Also the strentgh of THC in what people are smoking makes a large difference, for instance someone smoking "the good stuff" is going to smoke less to achieve the same effects as someone who is smoknig "ditch weed".

aside from SMOKING marijuana there are also many other ways to get the THC from marijuana into a person, or patients body. From topical sprays, lip balm, and food for example. which, to my knowledge, there has never been any studys to show if any of these ways to ingest have cancer causing properties. This is because smoking is typically the most effective way to get the most bang for your buck....which is very important to do when the drugs people are working hard to obtain are illegal. perhaps if these plants were more readily available people would be more optimistic about smoking it through a vaporizor which has the possibilty of eliminating as high as 99% of the toxins from smoke, but only utilizes atbest about 70% of the potential THC.

It is also intresting to note that the cannabinoids activated in smoking (or ingesting) marijuana exist naturally in large amount in the human body and even in substances such as chocolate.

but to more directly answer your question, cancer patients (as well as AIDS patients and a number of other illness's) often receive marijuana to simply make their quality of life better (the focus of much of medical practice). As well as to reduce certain types of pain (a common use for people suffering from Arthritis and cancer patients as well).

Some strains of marijuana help people get to sleep or to help people stay asleep through a night.

Some strains are used to help people undergoing kimo therapy to help regain their appetite (weight loss being a vary common side effect) as certain strains of marijuana often increase appetite.

Also marijuana often simply puts people in better moods...And as we all know their is scientific backing to the phrase that "laughter is the best medicine" and that doing so can boost immune systems and have other positive effects.

related to this, marijuana when used properlly can help reduce stress and anxiety which holds not only to help mental health but physical health as these 2 things often manifest them in negative ways in the human body. (think about when doctors tell heart attack survivers to avoid stress, or when people have developed shingles from stress or simply become worn down tired and suffer a lowering to the immune system..whic could be a big problem to an AIDS patient.)

While Marijuana is not for everyone, it seems that the positive effects of it far far out weight the potential negative effects for many patients and people in general.