Stomach, marijuana helps restore the appetite in people who have lost weight from cancer or AIDS. Nausea, it combats nausea from chemotherapy and reduces vomiting (John Cloud, Time). Cannabinoids can relieve pain, reduce vomiting, and stimulate appetite in people with diseases, such as AIDS, that cause them to lose weight (Lila Guterman, Chronicle of Higher Education). One such report was released by the National Academy of Sciences" Institute of Medicine in 1999. After an eighteen-month review of already published research on medical marijuana and testimony from doctors and patients, the report's authors concluded that the active components in marijuana appear to be helpful in treatment of pain, nausea, AIDS-related weight loss, and muscle spasms in multiple sclerosis (Jennifer Thomas, USA Today). Some AIDS patients prefer to use marijuana instead of their prescription drugs because it does not have the negative side effects that their prescription drugs do, and marijuana must give these disease suffers at least some sort of relief if they are willing to break the law in some states to get it. Also, no one has ever died of THC poisoning which is the active part of marijuana; no one has ever died mostly because a 160-pound person would have to smoke nine hundred or more joints in a sitting to reach a lethal dose (John Cloud, Time). .
Some state and even parts of the national government support the use of medical marijuana. In November 1998, voters in six states (Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington) passed ballot initiatives in support of medical marijuana. A federal appeals court said Tuesday the federal government could not punish California doctors who recommend marijuana to their patient (Bob Egelko, The San Francisco Chronicle). With physician- patient communications protected, patients in nine states can now assert their rights to use marijuana as medicine (Reuters Science).