About Medical Marijuana/Cannabis.

Medical Marijuana has finally become recognized in modern times as the valuable analgesic and medicine so universally accepted in the not-too-distant past. Millions of patients are now able to reduce or eliminate their reliance on laboratory produced pharmaceuticals. Many of these prescriprion drugs having serious side effects involving the stomach , kidneys and liver. Just closely watch disclaimers for the many drugs advertised on television, with long lists of dire possiblities, including death, as a result from using some medicines - all approved by the FDA. If you are not worried about the side effects of medicines you take, maybe you should be. Marijuana is not a panacea for all ailments, but it is a safe and powerful medicine with huge potential for humanity as we go into the future. Scientists are just now starting to explore the growing possibilities of this amazing plant and are expressing their excitement about what they are finding.

Scientists examine samples of cannabis
from a Chinese tomb nearly 5,000 years
old. The marijuana was female flower
tops only. These ancients were cultivating
marijuana hybrids for maximum potency.

Time and again we hear from our patients how using some form of marijuana has helped them in a variety of profound ways. Such as weaning themselves off addiction to expensive pain medicines. Or how their stomach lining was being damaged by vicodin, oxycontin, advil, aspirin, and how they felt trapped between pain and addiction. And how medicinal cannabis has saved them from having no other choices.

With more people finding pain relief using cannabis, we see a lifting of the social stigma against marijuana. Marijuana has long been a natural part of mankind's evolution, being consumed since prehistory. Before its prohibition, it was regularly prescribed by doctors (even to infants and children), for everything from stomach disorders to sleep and nervousness problems, including melancholia and depression. It was regularly applied to skin rashes (for farm animals too), and as a plaster for corns and callouses. It has always been available everywhere on the planet and has benefitted users throughout recorded history. The amount required to kill a person is more than can be consumed by any traditional methods.

Today, besides pain relief (the legally allowed medical reason), marijuana is being researched for a wide array of possible medical uses, including cancer treatments and ADHD in teenagers. The fact that the smoking of cannabis produces many of the same sooty ash products as tobacco is often pointed to as a major health risk. However, there has been no connection yet between heavy smoking of marijuana and lung cancer or emphysema. Scientists suspect there are other chemicals present in marijuana smoke that protect cells from becoming cancerous. It has also been conjectured that coughing provoked by marijuana acts to clear the lungs of debris, ash and soot, which may otherwise become triggers for disease. Besides, smoking is just one way to consume marijuana. Vaporizers and edible products are both popular alternatives to smoking cannabis.

Since the general ban on researching marijuana has eased, more discoveries and explanations concerning marijuana and its possible medical uses continue to make the news. More information on the safety and efficacy of marijuana use may eventually lead to a reasonable view of pot smoking in general. The crime of marijuana is that it was ever made illegal, equal to heroin or cocaine in the eyes of the law. This forced it into the black market of those other much more dangerous drugs.

The myth of the pot menace has misled many to believe that cocaine must not be a danger either, since pot was in truth not the demon drug as advertised by law enforcement, it stood to reason that other drugs also might not be dangerous, might be as safe as hemp. The act of outlawing pot made it a gateway drug by forcing it into proximity of truly dangerous underground drugs. Notably, because marijuana was just as illegal, dealers stood to gain more by switching to cocaine. Possessing a pound of pot and a pound of coke were just as serious criminally, but the profit on cocaine was astronomical compared to selling cannabis. It is argued that criminalizing hemp directly and dramatically contributed to the surge in cocaine distribution and use that began nearly forty years ago.

The illustration to the right shows some of the many marijuana-derived products. The plant represents economic potential in such a broad spectrum of areas, it would seem inevitible that, as it is accepted to be the boon to humanity which it truly is, marijuana will become the "green" path of many new future economies. Green for the environment as a sustainable agriculture, and green for the wallet, as in profits. Not only is marijuana healthy for the body and the environment - it increases the health of the overall economy, too.

It is time to shed the synthetic, superstitious bugaboos surrounding marijuana and embrace this lowly weed as something nobel and good. Let's move forward, leaving behind those manufactured hysterics villifying the so-called "marijuana menace".