Medical Marijuana, Good or Bad?

​"Why not use marijuana for medical purposes?"
​Impaired thinking, lung and heart affects, harm to infant in pregnancy, interference with digestive process, risk of serious mental illness. Marijuana use has also been linked to other mental health problems, such as depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts among teens. This is a drug to be medically dispensed, where medically required.

I too have studied Marijuana, Medical cannabis, and I come from a health science degree trained background. I can get quite annoyed when any drug advice is spread by social media, without citing respected research, so I'll make no health claims for the drug. The fact that this is a drug means that we should accept advice from someone trained to understand our anatomy and physiology, as well as the chemical substance we are considering using, prior to considering taking something. 

Having said that, the young, the rebellious and experimental, and certainly the gullible, and those who fall for every snake oil seller telling them this stuff cures that condition, without supplying the accredited study information, will take this drug in whatever form, regardless of what I say. This is a useful, if well-controlled drug, in the same way, that opium and heroin have uses. 

That does not mean that all should, or could, safely use it. It would appear that, as with those other drugs, for sufferers of medical conditions that require symptom management that cannot be achieved in by lifestyle management or safer ways, there is enormous potential benefit for the elderly and terminally ill. One needs to choose to use this drug with extreme caution to manage medical conditions for the young in our society, because the risks may outweigh any benefit. 

The greatest risk with this drug is its potential to adversely alter the way the brain works in the most vulnerable, and most likely to experiment with this drug, teenagers. The brain change may be sudden, and irreversible. Well, young people risk brain damage every time they binge drink and I'll just be seen as an old wowser telling them not to exceed a safe limit, on all occasions. Do even mature women these days understand what a safe limit is? 

We are a drug abusing society. I'm a rarity in that I treasure my brain function too much to be convinced by social media, or social events, to do drugs, and I'm not gullible enough to experiment with drugs. Yes, if my unwell, seventy-six-year old husband, who I care for, due to his declining health ever suffered. I'd consider any drug, that might assist. For now, he isn't suffering, so, I weigh up any drugs offered to him, and to me, to manage symptoms, and make decisions based on all the pros and cons, from reputable research, before I accept those treatments. 

Do remember that those, "Scientists say," testimonials about cancer cures and the like that are spread around social media could easily be three-year eleven science students, those unqualified, "Doctors or researchers say"-without the full name of an accredited study reports are garbage. Medical cannabis will be a drug that should be prescribed and dispensed by trained professionals, and not something dispensed over social media, Certainly, you can create it yourself, but you can create ICE and other drugs too, but should we? 

As for disease cure—all vegetables and fruit can cure, and people have consumed an excess of single fruit or vegetable substances said to cure terminal illness until thy have died of the substance they over consumed. Be careful claiming cures. Better to just eat a healthy diet that consider one substance is a cure for a disease and be careful with those substances that have powerful medicinal properties for all drugs—yes, all drugs, have side effects to be carefully considered. 

The main reason for pharmaceutical dispensing of drugs is accuracy of dose—not something the more grower can achieve. If you are terminally ill, I don't care if you want to dose yourself. I'd sure care if you offered it to my grandson. 

There are dangers when people trivialise drug use. Legalising a small amount of Marijuana, medical cannabis, for home use, in the same way that we allow for a limited amount of home brew alcohol seems reasonable, if people understand that there are always serious health risks, including some accidental brain damage ad deaths, not magic cures involved. It is a drug. There isn't any argument about that. 

Isn't it wise then, given that the drug will have an effect on our mind and body, that just as alcoholic beverages are regulated, to ensure accuracy of dose, that marijuana, medical cannabis, remains that, kept for medical use where a qualified person decides that the benefits will outweigh the risks, and who has accurate research information on what it can and cannot do? 

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