Marijuana has been undisputedly documented over the centuries as not only a recreational drug, but also as a powerful medicine. Marijuana’s past, present and future are all key ingredients at the center of the argument for medical marijuana.

Marijuana’s History

Marijuana, historically known by its scientific name cannabis, has been used as a medicinal drug for over five thousand years. The plant originates in Asia, but has endured all environments and been cultivated into dozens of different varieties.

Legal and Illegal Medicine

The ambiguity of state versus Federal law makes the arena of legal medicinal marijuana a particularly sketchy one. A number of states’ voters have enacted initiatives to legalize marijuana for use by patients and doctors. However, the Federal government defines the use of marijuana for any purpose or the prescribing of it by doctors to be absolutely illegal. In acts of civil disobedience, states like California allow organizations to provide patients with marijuana for medical use and propose to protect them under state law. In response, the last few decades of Federal administration has brought a significant crackdown in the practice. Patients and physicians have been arrested and plant supplies have been destroyed.

The Politics of Marijuana

Since the Prohibition era of the 1930s, marijuana use of any kind has suffered from social stigmas as devised and popularly advertised by racist, greedy and misinformed politicians and social leaders of the early 1900s. Since then, the plant has been categorized by the Federal government as a dangerous drug with no uses to medicine. Because of this definition, government at the national level can continue to restrict research on the plant’s viability as medicine.

Treatments

In the meantime, though, many patients, especially in California, seek marijuana in order to gain relief from symptoms associated with a number of serious illnesses. Most patients who use marijuana claim that its effects are immediate and more effective than other mainstream prescription drugs. Marijuana is most often used medicinally to treat HIV/Aids patients suffering from intense nausea and vomiting, neuropathic pain, and loss of appetite. Cancer patients continue to find relief from the debilitating effects of chemotherapy treatments by smoking marijuana. Marijuana as a treatment option is also used for those patients with epilepsy and multiple sclerosis.

The Future

Grassroots organizations on both sides of the marijuana argument are committed to getting the word out not only nationally, but globally. Because of these dichotomies of opinion, the advancement of marijuana as a medicine will be slow, at best. Anti-drug advocates, with strong government support, argue that the health and social risks from marijuana use are greater than the benefits of inconsistent medicinal uses.