Many patients suffering the effects of serious illnesses await legislation legalizing marijuana use for medical treatment. Those with HIV/Aids, cancer, multiple sclerosis and epilepsy believe in the drug’s ability to relieve pain, nausea, weight loss and muscle spasms more readily then many other available prescription drugs.

However, owing to an ambiguous host of state and federal laws, voter initiatives and general misinformation, it is unclear whether marijuana can be consistently used as a legal medication in any of the United States.

Proposition 215

A number of states have passed voter legislation decriminalizing the use of marijuana for medical use. California’s Proposition 215 is perhaps the most infamous. In 1996, nearly sixty percent of voters in California passed Proposition 215. The initiative allows patients to use, grow and distribute marijuana for medical purposes. It also allows physicians to prescribe the use of marijuana to patients who they believe would benefit from the drug’s use.

From the point of view of the Federal government, though, no means exist in this country to procure, grow, transport or use marijuana legally, either medicinally or recreationally.

Civil Disobedience

Californians, in acts of civil disobedience, have continued to ignore the Federal government’s position on the issue. Grass roots organizations are plentiful resources for patients who use marijuana to treat their symptoms. Cannabis buyers’ coops and groups support the patients’ right to medical treatment of their choice. Groups such as these have not only come under Federal scrutiny, but some have been raided, with activists and patients arrested and physicians harassed and threatened.

Quantifiable Research

Many marijuana advocates argue that there is a glaring lack of any formidable scientific research the kind of which can influence lawmakers and voters, alike. This void of research, they maintain is a direct result of government opposition and hypersensitivity to the marijuana issue.

Marijuana Derivatives

Many lawmakers contend that patients needing the relief that marijuana affords them can choose to use dronabinol, known in its trade name as Marinol. Marijuana, as defined by the Controlled Substances Act of 1970, is classified as a Schedule 1 drug. A Schedule 1 drug is one that is addictive, dangerous and of no medical consequence. Dronabinol, though, has been classified as a Schedule 2 drug, addictive, but with medicinal uses.

Dronabinol is derived from the active compound found in marijuana, Tetrahydrocannabinoid, or THC. Dronabinol is frequently prescribed to treat HIV/Aids patients as relief from nausea, weight loss and neuropathic pain. Patients who prefer to use THC is its natural form, marijuana, argue that Dronabinol has a laundry list of side effects associated with its use. They contend that not only does marijuana not possess dangerous side effects, but that inhaling the smoke of marijuana as opposed to taking a pill facilitates the drug’s entrance into the bloodstream, making relief more immediate.