Essay on Medicinal Marijuana: Miracle Drug Of the Future?

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Medicinal Marijuana: Miracle Drug Of the Future?

The many tales and legends surrounding the medical use of marijuana can be traced as far back to the ancient Chinese and Greek civilizations, who both believed that on top of its psychoactive capabilities, marijuana was effective in treating pain. Several thousand years later, Queen Victoria was urged by her doctor to take marijuana in order to relieve such pains as migraines or menstrual cramps. However, despite the many historical anecdotes regarding marijuana’s medicinal uses, scientists, doctors, and politicians in the United States have been quarreling over the same question for many years: Should marijuana be sanctioned for medicinal usage?

Certain states,
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In the end, strong medical evidence, credible experts, and the touching stories of patients in need of marijuana, gives the supporters of legalization a much stronger case than those opposed. The opposition’s limited amount of reliable evidence and emotional appeal, led them to rely on the credibility of experienced politicians and journalists to dissuade legalization.

“Cannabinoids, the active chemical compounds in natural marijuana, ‘appear to hold potential for treating pain, chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting, and the poor appetite and wasting caused by AIDS or advanced cancer’" wrote Cynthia Cotts, referring to a report done by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) on marijuana (32). Cott’s inclusion of this concrete evidence provided by the IOM is used to portray to the reader a clear indication of the types of benefits medical legalization could lead to; well-researched scientific evidence being the strongest in this situation. While supporters of legalization present the fact that previous to the IOM studies, the last tests done on marijuana were in the late 1970s and 80s, by presenting this newly found information from the IOM, they stir in the reader a feeling that more research should be done to see what other
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