Research

Evidence of human use of the cannabis plant goes back to 8000 BC in China, although it is believed the plant originated in the region of present-day northern India. Throughout history, people have produced textiles, cordage, and other important materials from cannabis fibers. Animals and humans have consumed cannabis seeds and seed oil. And since early times, people have found medical, spiritual, and psychological benefits from the use of the flowering buds of female cannabis plants.

Ancient herbal remedies applied marijuana for a wide range of ailments, including constipation, rheumatic pain, female disorders, earache, jaundice, glaucoma, asthma, muscular dystrophy, epilepsy, and excitability. It was used to prolong life, improve judgement, lower fevers, induce sleep, stimulate appetite, aid in childbirth, and better the voice. Queen Victoria is said to have sipped marijuana tea for menstrual cramps.

 Cannabinoids are the active ingredients in marijuana. Delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) is the primary active cannabinoid -- the part that produces intoxication and most therapeutic effects. In 1992, scientists discovered that the human brain is flooded with naturally-occurring cannabinoids, which they labeled "anandamide" from the Sanskrit word meaning "internal bliss." Latching onto tiny receptor sites all over the brain, anandamides play key roles in keeping us
healthy, happy, and free of pain. While cannabinoids are common in human and animal nervous systems, marijuana is the only plant known to contain them.

In 1937, cannabis "marijuana" was placed on a restricted status through use of tax laws by the U. S. Congress, over the objections of the American Medical Association. In subsequent decades, restrictions were strengthened as a result of propaganda from federal law enforcement agencies. After widespread usage by young people in the 1960s, federal drug laws placed marijuana in the most restricted category, Schedule I, which defines marijuana as having no medical value. There was no scientific evidence behind this decision.

Since the 1970s, efforts have been made to remove marijuana from Schedule I and/or to make it available for medical use. The U. S. Drug Enforcement Agency's administrative law judge Francis L. Young, after reviewing the evidence for a 1989 hearing, concluded not only that marijuana's medical utility had been adequately demonstrated, but that marijuana had been shown to be "one of the safest therapeutically-active substances known to man." Unfortunately, without stating any reason, DEA administrators refused to abide by his recommendation to reschedule marijuana to a less-restrictive category.

After an eighteen-month study commissioned by the National Office for Drug Control Policy, the Institute of Medicine concluded in its 1999 report that:

The report has been criticized for refusing to consider any patient's direct experience with marijuana. All studies reviewed were laboratory experiments on animals or involved synthetic THC. See the full report at http://newton.nap.edu/catalog/6376.html

A significant amount of medical research has been accumulated showing beneficial effects of marijuana use. Legitimate studies have not been able to prove marijuana harmful to health, especially compared to prescription drugs often used by patients who gain benefit from marijuana use. Many patients report that marijuana is less harmful than the prescriptions, including medications for pain, muscle spasticity, digestive disorders, and appetite stimulants.

Critics argue that marijuana use should not be approved by a popular vote, but rather by an action of the Food and Drug Administration. However, FDA approval involves requirements that marijuana will most likely never meet. First, a ‘sponsor’ must spend millions of dollars to produce the necessary laboratory tests. It is not likely that such an investment would be made, since many potential ‘customers’ for this substance would simply grow their own. Second, a complex natural substance such as marijuana is not easily tested, since tests are geared toward single-ingredient synthetic drugs.

Marijuana’s primary active ingredient, THC, has been synthesized as a pharmaceutical drug, most often marketed as Marinol. This disproves marijuana’s placement in Schedule I as having no medical value. Marinol is not as effective as natural marijuana and is very expensive.

Some opponents of marijuana as medicine argue that its users would be hazardous to the work place and community. However, prescription drugs often carry warnings about operating machinery and driving. A study performed for the UK Department of the Environment, Transportation and the Regions by the Transport Research Laboratory, "The Influence of Cannabis on Driving," concludes that though cannabis intoxication does have an effect on driving ability, the effects of alcohol are much worse, and that marijuana users notice their impairment and compensate by driving slower and more carefully. Click here to view full report. http://www.dft.gov.uk/stellent/groups/dft_rdsafety/documents/page/dft_rdsafety_504567.hcsp  

Advocates for medical marijuana argue that the choice whether to use marijuana in medical applications should be a decision made by a patient and his/her medical professionals, not by an act of government that is based on social hysteria. State laws allowing medical use began to gain passage in the early 1990s after a federal program which had dispensed marijuana to selected patients had been closed to new applicants. As of July 2006, five patients continued to receive a monthly federally-supplied canister of 300 pre-rolled marijuana ‘cigarettes’ from the federal marijuana farm in Mississippi.

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Links to additional research information:

NORML – http://www.norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=4393

Patients Out of Time – http://www.medicalcannabis.com/