Marijuana is for real, say Doctors

Many people want marijuana to become available for the treatment of numerous medical disorders. For most disorders the evidence that this “grass” can do anything is very weak. However, now researchers in California show that for certain disorders, marijuana may actually provide good pain relief.

Researchers indicate that marijuana may be useful for some types of neuropathic pain. These non randomized studies done indicated that marihuana when used by HIV patients, decreased pain intensity compared to the sugar pill. Marijuana also helped relieve pain in individuals suffering from spinal cord injury and other traumatic disorders of the spine. Another study revealed that medium to high doses of marijuana countered the pain caused by injection of capsaicin. In all the above studies, it was observed that marijuana was better than placebo cigarettes.

So far, only the state of California has undertaken active research to finally establish the role of marijuana in medicine.

However, this does not mean that everyone agrees with the above findings.

In fact there are more data which show that marijuana does diddly squat. Some researchers believe that the studies showing marijuana relieves pain are flawed. Moreover, while marijuana may relieve pain the smoke may also cause injury to the lungs. Further, there is evidence that the smoke may even induce lung cancers.

Marijuana contains hundreds of other compounds; most of which have never been purified or isolated. Now research is focused on isolating the active ingredient in marijuana that reduces pain.

The second problem with most studies is that most people used other pain pills and marijuana at the same time and so it is not possible to decipher the actual benefits of marijuana. While marijuana may have some analgesic activity, the long term risks of marijuana smoke may override its benefit.

Even though some states have approved marijuana, controversy about its health benefits still continue.