In such cases, unrelenting vomiting may lead patients to drop out of a potentially lifesaving chemotherapy regimen (Fackelmann).
Therefore, there may be other drugs capable of treating the debilitating affects of illnesses such as cancer, but many of these drugs have harsh symptoms of their own, and many patients find they get more relief from marijuana, and can tolerate its affects much more easily.
Third, should the FDA approval process be circumvented with legislation? Having the FDA approve medicinal marijuana is simply another stepping stone in the process, and it should be circumvented with legislation because there have already been numerous studies as to the benefits of medical marijuana that can be used to illustrate the importance of legalization. Patients who use marijuana medicinally show improvement over those who do not in many areas, and these studies, along with studies on the long-term usage of the drug in other areas where it is legal, such as the Netherlands, point to success in managing marijuana and its affects. One doctor writes, "'Thousands of patients with cancer, AIDS, and other diseases report they have obtained instant relief from these devastating symptoms by smoking marijuana. The alleviation of distress can be so vivid that some patients and their families have been willing to risk a jail term to obtain or grow the marijuana'" (Fackelmann). Thus, the FDA should use available studies, and allow the question of medicinal marijuana to be decided through legislation that would affect the entire nation, rather than leaving it to a few states to approve or disapprove.
Would legalization send the wrong message to children? This is probably the most difficult argument to analyze, because it is so controversial. Children in our society today already use marijuana in record numbers, and so "sending the wrong message" may already be far too late. Marijuana is not perceived as a dangerous drug in much of the nation, and the worst symptoms from marijuana may be smoking it, it is much more dangerous than smoking cigarettes, especially on young lungs.
