BENEFITS OF MEDICINAL MARIJUANA
POST UNIVERSITY
GABRIEL JAIME

The current United States of America rules and regulations governing the policies on marijuana use stands as perhaps one of the most unwarranted. In a nation where more severely damaging drugs are legal, alcohol abuses being the biggest, marijuana has been illegal for the better part of 70 years. The prohibition on marijuana use is absolutely unnecessary considering that it is safer than either alcohol or cigarettes and does not have the crippling addictive properties of many pharmaceutical prescription pain medication (NORML, 2003). Marijuana has been found to have many, many medicinal purposes.
Medically, some of the best uses of marijuana include but not limited to pain relief especially neuropathic pain suffered mostly by those with nerve damage, marijuana has been used as nausea control medication. Medicinal marijuana also has appetite stimulating characteristics, which are extremely beneficial to AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) patients as well as cancer patients. It has also helped many patients with psychiatric symptoms and conditions, withdrawals from other medications, anorexia and controlling inflammation (Cannabis Medicine). Compared to pharmaceutical grade opiates, which have an extremely high dependency level, marijuana is slightly addictive but with similar benefits as opiates. The classification of drug type that marijuana is classified under is held for drugs with the highest possibility of addiction once consumed. Based off studies, marijuana has a less than 5% chance of “addiction”, whereas these other schedule 1 drugs have ratings above 75% chance of becoming addictive. This paper will review efforts to reschedule marijuana under federal law, and explore the development and evolution of state medical marijuana laws and how federal law and policy has affected states