Since 1937 marijuana has been illegal in our country for all purposes. From that time many Americans have thought of it as a dangerous drug, and its medicinal value has been disregarded simply because it has been labeled as an illegal substance. Recent studies show that marijuana is indeed safe and has many modern medicinal applications. It is proven to be beneficial in the alleviation of symptoms of AIDS, glaucoma, cancer, and epilepsy—only to name a few. I feel that the majority of the public does not know all the facts about the medical use of marijuana. Without substantial public support, marijuana will continue to be prohibited by the government and many patients will continue to not receive necessary treatment.

Perhaps the biggest misconception of marijuana is that it is not safe. On the contrary, marijuana is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known. No one has ever died from an overdose, and it has a wide variety of therapeutic uses (4). According to Dr. Lester Grinspoon, Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, “marijuana is one of the least toxic substances in the whole pharmacopoeia” (3). It is also one of the most tes

Throughout its long medicinal history, marijuana has established a wide variety of therapeutic applications. Most recently, it has been used to treat some AIDS patients. It can reduce the nausea, vomiting, and loss of appetite caused by the virus itself and other drugs (4). Marijuana also reduces pressure within the eye and thereby alleviates the pain and slows—sometimes stops—the progress of glaucoma, the leading cause of blindness in the United States (3). Marijuana treats epilepsy and has been known to prevent epileptic seizures in many patients. It is considered to be the best medication for many types of epilepsy and for most victims’ post-seizure trauma (1). In addition, marijuana alleviates nausea and pain associated with cancer chemotherapy treatments. Research has shown that marijuana has also been proven to relieve migraine headaches, control plasticity of multiple sclerosis, and help emphysema patients breathe easier. (1). All of the scientifically proven treatments that I have just discussed will have no incorporation in medicine until steps are made for its long overdue legalization.

The government used to claim that marijuana kills brain cells. Government experts now admit that pot doesn’t kill brain cells. This myth came from a handful of animal experiments in which structural changes (not actual cell death, as is often alleged) were observed in brain cells of animals exposed to high doses of pot. Many critics still cite the notorious monkey studies of Dr. Robert G. Heath, which purported to find brain damage in three monkeys that had been heavily dosed with marijuana. This work was never replicated and has since been discredited by a pair of better controlled, much larger monkey studies, one by Dr. William Slikker of the National Center for Toxicological Research and the other by Charles Rebert and Gordon Pryor of SRI International. (2) Neither found any evidence of physical alteration in the brains of monkeys exposed to daily doses of pot for up to a year. Human studies of heavy users in Jamaica and Costa Rica found no evidence of abnormalities in brain psychology. Even though there is no evidence

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