Weed,Pot,Marijuana,Bud.All synonyms for the drug that is extracted from the herb hemp.Even though the debate over legalizing medical marijuana or legalizing recreational use have just started to become prevalent in our lives in the past few decades,there have been many diverse uses for this plant and the drug Cannabis over thousands of years in human history.Whether it be the ancient Egyptians doctors subscribing Cannabis to treat eyes (glaucoma), inflammation, cooling the uterus, as well as administering enemas(Lise Manniche, PhD ,An Ancient Egyptian Herbal, 1989) or in the present,when a severe cancer patient is being administered marijuana to treat her terminal pain,and even your local, stereotypical stoner munching on his Fritos in-between joints, weed has a wide variety of uses all around the world and throughout history.People debate on the matter of marijuana being legalized on a federal level,either recreationally or medically.They will even debate if medical marijuana really is a viable source of medicine for patients. There are also individuals who believe marijuana being legalized is no different than tobacco or alcohol legalization,stating that those two legalized drugs and vices have even more profound negative effects on your health than smoking a blunt,as far as recreational use is concerned.But no one can debate on the fact that the legalization of marijuana discussion is very prevalent in our society, and isn’t going anywhere anytime soon,with more and more countries across the world starting to decriminalize marijuana, and have a dramatically different attitude toward marijuana legalization than even just a mere 40 years ago.
Marijuana being used in the medical field is not a new concept in the history of medicine,it is now just being revisited after years of being outlawed in medicine in the united states.In fact , is was actually added into the US Pharmacopeia(an official public standards-setting authority for all prescription and over-the counter medicines) in the year 1850, listed as being a medicine for numerous afflictions, including: neuralgia, tetanus, typhus, cholera, rabies, dysentery, alcoholism, opiate addiction, anthrax, leprosy, incontinence, gout, convulsive disorders, tonsillitis, insanity, excessive menstrual bleeding, and uterine bleeding, among others.(Richard Glen Boire, JD and Kevin Feeney, JD Medical Marijuana Law, 2007) It wasn’t until 61 years later that any state began to outlaw Cannabis,when Massachusetts added it into legislature in 1911,and then were followed by Maine, Wyoming and Indiana in 1913; New York City in 1914; Utah and Vermont in 1915; and Colorado and Nevada in 1917.This was brought upon by a “Progressive Era faith in big government, the 1910s marked a high tide of prohibitionist sentiment in America. In 1914 and 1916, alcohol prohibition initiatives would make the state Meanwhile, the legislature was tackling such morals issues as prostitution, racetrack gambling, prizefighting, and liquor.Amidst this profusion of vices, Indian hemp [aka cannabis] was but a minor afterthought.”(Dale Gieringer, PhD “The Forgotten Origins of Cannabis Prohibition in California,” Contemporary Drug Problems, Summer 1999).Throughout the next few decades,a number of different factors led to the use of marijuna being minimized,with very high taxes and enforced time behind bars for possesion of the drug, all of this culminationg in President Nixon’s “War on Drugs” which he stated At a June 17, 1971 press conference.Over 24 years after Nixon’s speech and 84 years after medical marijuana was first outlawed, California became the first state to legalize medical marijuana in 1995.From 1995 on to the present, more and more states have begun to legalize medicinal marijuana,where as of now there are 20 states that have legalized medicinal marijuana,and even two states,Colorado and Washington, which have legalized recreational use of weed.
As far as laws across the world in places other than America, only one country has absolutely no laws regarding marijuana as illegal,and that country is North Korea.There are a number of countries who have decriminalized marijuana so much to the point that there are only laws regulating the amount of marijuana you are allowed to grow and have in your possesion.Uruguay, for example, laws state that each household is allowed to grow 6 plants and harvest 480 grams of marijuana per year,must be 18 years of age,and can only purchase marijuana from federally licensed pharmacies.(Mariano Castillo, CNN) The Netherlands is another country where marijuana is fedeally illegal, but there is a law called “Gedoogbeleid” which translates to a Policy of Tolerance.The actual wording of the law is difficult,but in streetterms you can just explain it as an official ‘closing of the eyes’ by law enforcement.(Dailysmoker.com).
Now that we have a layout of the history of medicinal marijuana and laws across this nation and globally, we can look at the actual uses of and whether or not licensed doctors agree or disagree on the actual value of medicinal cannabis.Throughout the 20 states and D.C with legalized medicinal cannabis, the symptoms it is listed as treating vary from very specific ailments,like HIV/AIDS, or very broad “ailments” , some being listed as just “pain” or a migraine headache.Some doctors believe these disparate state lists are evidence that there’s a lack of evidence, when it comes to widely using marijuana for palliative care.(Fred Mogul,reporter WNYC News)“There are some things we know it works well on, like relieving certain kinds of pain or increasing appetite,” Haney said, citing cancer and HIV treatment as areas that clearly benefit from either smoking marijuana or taking a prescription pill called Marinol, that uses a synthetic version of THC, a key compound found in cannabis. “But the data is much weaker for many of the other indications.”(Dr. Margaret Haney, from Columbia University’s Substance Use Research Center) The FDA (Food and Drug Administration) official stance on marijuana is that of a Scheduele 1 controlled substance – in other words, an illegal narcotic. But the FDA and the federal government essentially look the other way at the state programs of Washington and Colorado.(Fred Mogul)
There are other doctors that believe that a wide spectrum of ailments for medical marijuana use are similar to the gray area that surrounds other off-label use of FDA-approved pharmaceuticals.“Many different drugs are approved for one indication but more often are used for something else.In the hospital here, we have patients that we treat for pain using Gabapentin. It’s really a seizure medicine, but hardly anyone uses it for anti-seizure medicine, even though that’s what the label says.”( Dr. Sunil Aggarwal, a medical resident at NYU studying physical medicine and rehabilitation, who has a doctorate in medical geography and an upcoming clinical fellowship at the National Institutes for Health.) Overal,not only across America about in other countries, most doctors would approve of medical marijuana,according to a CBS News survey.Doctors surveyed were given a hypothetical case about a woman named “Marylin,” a 68-year-old woman with breast cancer that had metastasized — or spread — to her lungs, chest cavity and spine. They were asked if they would give her medical marijuana to help her with her symptoms.More than three-quarters of the North American physicians approved the use of medical marijuana in this scenario. About 78 percent of doctors outside the U.S. who responded supported the use as well.(MICHELLE CASTILLO CBS News Reporter) These results were from a pool of 1,446 doctors from 72 different countries and 56 different states and provinces in North America.The debate is ongoing, but supporters of medicinal marijuana , as far as those people in the medical field, have always leaned toward the side of having atleast the option to subscribe medicinal marijuna in their arsenal.Will the rest of the nation, and those in positions of legalization power, particularly the 30 states without legalized medicinal marijuana, begin to lean and agree with these doctors? Time will tell , but the indications is that they will begin to, with decriminalization very prevalent in this nation and across the world.
