Medical Marijuana
Essay Preview: Medical Marijuana
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Alcohol accounts for 100,000 deaths annually in America. Cigarettes claim 400,000 Americans lives every year. The use of all illegal drugs combined – cocaine, heroin, marijuana, angel dust, LSD, etc. account for only about 3,000 deaths annually. According to the National Institute of Drug Abuse, however, there have been no deaths that can be unequivocally attributed to marijuana use. Yet, the federal government has banned the use of marijuana, while allowing alcohol and cigarettes, even allowing them to be advertised on television and in magazines. Cigarettes cause lung cancer, hypertension, heart disease, stroke, pneumonia, bronchitis, emphysema, among many other long term diseases. Compared with cigarettes and alcohol, the health risks and societal costs associated with even chronic marijuana use are mild.
In fact, Marijuana even prevents 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. Cigarettes and alcohol have no known medical values.
In the 1980s six states health departments performed studies on the efficacy of marijuana. Tests conducted in New Mexico with 250 patients showed that Marijuana is far superior to the best available drug, Compazine, and smoked marijuana is clearly superior to oral THC. The report stated, “More than ninety percent of the patients who received marijuana reported significant or total relief from nausea and vomiting”. No major side effects were reported.
In the New York study, conducted in three hospitals with 199 patients, Marijuana succeeded, overall at all 3 hospitals, at reducing emesis (nausea and vomiting) in 92.9% of the cases. Marijuana was the most effective antiemetic, or drugs used to treat nausea and/or vomiting.
The Tennessee experiment studied the effect of marijuana on patients who had failed on other antiemetic therapies. 90.4% success was reported for smoked marijuana; 66.7% for oral THC.
Despite the bias towards oral THC, the California study concluded that smoked marijuana was more effective and established a safe dosage regimen that minimized adverse side effects.
In Michigan, 165 patients were randomly assigned to use either Torecan, an antiemetic, or smoked marijuana. 71.1% of marijuana users reported no or moderate nausea and 90% chose to continue using it. 8 out of 83 patients who had initially been randomly assigned to marijuana chose to switch to Torecan. 22 out of 23 patients randomized to Torecan chose to switch to smoked marijuana. Side effects included increased appetite, a positive effect, reported by 32.3%, insomnia, reported by 21% and sore throat, reported by 13 patients out of 165.
The criminalization of cannabis is denying Americans the right to this natural antiemetic. In Canada, this criminalization was declared unconstitutional “in not allowing seriously ill Canadians to use marijuana” as a result of the Hitzig vs. Canada case of 2003. The Canadian government had allowed marijuana for medicinal purposes, but their was no legal method of acquiring the drug. The Ontario Superior Court had ruled that Canada must provide a supply of the drug to citizens. Canada produces about 400kg of medical marijuana annually, in an abandoned mine in Flin Flon, Manitoba. On April 19, 2005, the Canadian government additionally licensed the prescription sale of a natural marijuana extract – effectively liquid marijuana – called Sativex.
One of the biggest arguments against legalization is that Marijuana is an addictive, “gateway” drug. That is not the case; most people who smoke marijuana smoke it only occasionally. A small minority of Americans – less than 1 percent – smoke marijuana on a daily basis. An even smaller minority develop a dependence on marijuana. Some people who smoke marijuana heavily and frequently stop without