In 1937 marijuana was banned by Congress. The only question asked was, "what's the position of the American Medical Association?". It actually was in favor of keeping marijuana legal for medical purposes. But the response given to Congress by whoever was pushing the bill (some diligent drug war historian will tell me who) was that the AMA wanted to ban it. And banned it was. And soon the AMA decided that it didn't approve of medical marijuana--a position it holds to this day
60 years and billions of wasted dollars later, one major physician's group has decided to change its mind. The American College of Physicians is now urging and easing of the ban on medical marijuana. We can only hope that the ridiculous ban on medical marijuana use, despite its therapeutic properties that exceed many FDA approved medications, are closer to being lifted with this type of support.
The medical use of marijuana is handicapped by a major problem. No published study has focused on the smoked form. Most of the recent literature focuses on the specific components, rather than the blend of hundreds of compounds that are present in the native plant.
Further, the smoked form has many carcinogenic chemicals. This issue gets scant coverage. Yes, MJ can give you pain relief, but are you willing to have lung cancer after smoking it for 10 years?
Posted by: Cliff Gevirtz,MD | Feb 19, 2008 6:05:44 AM"The medical use of marijuana is handicapped by a major problem."
That's is, it can be grown in your own home and doesn't have to be produced by and purchased from big pharma.
I do agree that side effects need to be studied and considerd, but look at every drug ad on TV and you will hear about many side effects that users and docs consider (hopefully) when prescribing. Everything's a trade off.
Posted by: Peter | Feb 19, 2008 6:36:17 AM
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