Marijuana and Its Medicinal Use

The use of marijuana medicinally has been restricted by international law in the last century. Although in the past decade that began to change. In the United States, there are more than 20 states that have legalized the use of medical marijuana. The situation in the US is a bit strange because although their medical use is legal according to the various state laws, federal laws still completely ban consumption. Marijuana used medicinally is not new and doctors have written about it for quite some time. Until about 50 years ago, marijuana formed part of usual medical kits, being prescribed for nausea, neuralgia, convulsive disorders, etc. Even it was known that Cannabis extract was given to children to stop them from crying.

Marijuana does not cause physical addiction, but could it could cause psychological addiction depending on the psyche of the consumer, and if they have had any mental problem. Virtually no deaths in history for an overdose of marijuana have been reported, for it to be lethal to a person, they would have to consume about 40,000 times the dose needed to be intoxicated. There are very legitimate medical uses of marijuana, including cases in which it’s the only thing that works, as it’s the example of a girl from Colorado (Charlotte Figi) who began to suffer seizures shortly after her birth, coming to have at 3 years age over 1000 monthly seizures meanwhile taking seven different drugs. Medical marijuana has calmed his brain, seizures have been limited to 2 or 3 per month. A study led by researchers at the University of California and published in the journal “Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research” shows that even heavy use of marijuana in adolescents from 16 to 20 years, for a long period, would have absolutely no negative effect on the individual’s brain.

In contrast, there are those who disagree with the use of marijuana, they argue that it’s a “bridge drug” which could lead consumers to consume more harmful substances, substances that can be very harmful to one’s health. The Catholic Church is one of these exponents, strongly opposing the possibility of legalizing marijuana even for medical purposes, ensuring that if consumption was allowed, then there could be an increase in the levels of violence, endangering the safety of any society.

So too, is the Administration of Drug Control of the United States that includes marijuana as the substance of Schedule 1, is this category of substances which “are not accepted for medicinal use and have a high potential for abuse”. Dr. Howard C. Samuels said in one of his articles against the medicinal use of marijuana: “you do not need to have a Ph.D. to realize that people who do not use marijuana for medical purposes exploit the spirit of argument only to get high.”

The global picture is changing, this leads the need to establish new limits; the measures of prohibition have achieved nothing concrete and I think it’s time to try different approaches. The main problem behind this plant is the ignorance of people, the insufficient information that has existed around it; besides, how you can really know the health benefits of a plant that is illegal? We need a new legal framework that allows the study of these benefits further, without ruling out any possibility.