Is there proof of medicinal benefits of marijuana?

Old time use for glaucoma and appetite enhancement for AIDS and Chemo patients. There will be more as studies (legitimate) are published.

Last I checked, the five biggest lobby groups against the legalization of marijuana are alcohol companies, tobacco companies, pharmaceutical companies, police unions, and private prisons.

Smoke it and find out for yourself.

It's almost impossible not to be able to get Marijuana these days.

"The greatest amount of evidence for the therapeutic effects of cannabis relate to its ability to reduce chronic pain."

So who cares what the Feds do?

They are going to stick to the old Nixon arbitrary old fashioned nonsense scheduling. Vicodin is cool but a plant bad! Plants aren't made by big Pharma.

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Smoke it and find out for yourself.

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I don't have seizures.

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I don't have seizures.

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Maybe it will help something you're not now anticipating.

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Why does it remain on the schedule 1 list?

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Great question. There is no good answer.

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but if it helps with seizures where nothing else does it's crazy not to allow doctors to prescribe it under Federal law.

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It should be, at the very least, moved to a lower schedule so it may be studied.
As it stands, medical literature is not particularly fun to read, I'll post an excerpt, link, and summarize it below:

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Evidence concerning the potential anti-seizure efficacy of cannabinoids reached a turning point in the last 12 months, with the completion of the first high-quality placebo-controlled trials of a purified oil-based liquid CBD preparation in patients with Dravet syndrome and Lennox-Gastaut syndrome.85,86,124 The results of these studies demonstrate that, at a dosage of 20 mg/kg/day, CBD added on to pre-existing AED treatment is superior to placebo in reducing the frequency of convulsive (tonic-clonic, tonic, clonic, and atonic) seizures in patients with Dravet syndrome, and the frequency of drop seizures in patients with Lennox-Gastaut syndrome. In the latter patients, a dosage of 10 mg/kg/day treatment was also superior to placebo. Therefore there is now for the first time class 1 evidence that CBD improves seizure control when added on to other AEDs in patients with two difficult-to-treat epileptic encephalopathies. Available data, however, do not allow to conclude that CBD per se has anti-seizure activity. At least for the trial published in full,85 a majority of patients were receiving concomitant clobazam therapy, and it is unclear whether the reported seizure benefits, as well as adverse effects, were related to a direct action of CBD, or were mediated by a previously described 5-fold elevation in plasma N-desmethylclobazam levels.

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from here

Short version: It does seem to help in two very specific and rare seizure disorders, but it is not clear whether CBD itself helps reduce seizures or if it makes other drugs more effective. This definitely calls for more studying to be done, but it is also a pretty far cry from what I see some people saying, which is something to the effect of "it can cure seizures!" (I'm not suggesting you or any specific person in this thread is suggesting that).


There was an AAFP article sometime in late 2015, early 2016 that summarized the current evidence supported by controlled trials (rather than anecdotes of "it helps with (anxiety, etc.)"). I'll see if I can dig it up if anyone replies back and is interested to see summaries with links to the limited (both in size and quality of evidence) that has been done.

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I didn't realize 9 states now have legal recreational marijuana.

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There's really no difference between that and medical Marijuana.

You would have a more difficult time getting two Advil from a Doctor in an Emergency room for a foot that was chopped off in a chipper accident...

Than if you went to any private doctor in any city and said...my foot hurts, I stepped on a tack.

Here's your Medical Marijuana license!

It's more difficult to buy cigarettes for someone who is under 18 than someone under 18 being able to buy Medical Marijuana...

"Kids bully me at school!" - Here's your medical Marijuana license!

"I had Spam for lunch, it made me nauseous." - "Here's your medical Marijuana license!

Marijuana is basically defacto legal regardless of the Feds.

Which is a good thing because the entire initial scheduling was all arbitrary bullshite and Pharma worried it might be better than their pills.

Cures a nauseated stomach. Guaranteed.

Neuroprotectant. According to the neurosurgeon it saved my best friends life