Now that I’ve puffed on this piece from the Hippocratic Post, I thought I’d pass it on to you.
Mike Barnes, a professor of neurological rehabilitation at Newcastle University, is advocating for the legalization of marijuana. He estimates that 1/3 of the millions of people smoking pot inthe UK are using it for medical reasons.
There’s already a legal medication derived from marijuana–Sativex. It can help multiple sclerosis patients with spasticity. Dronabinal, another medication made from synthetic THC, is used to help chemotherapy patients deal with nausea.
Pot can also help with:
- migraine relief,
- increasing appetite,
- relieving pressure around the eyes,
- and some forms of dystonia.
Barnes wants the drug legalized because marijuana is made from cannabinoids. There are more than 70 different kinds of cannabinoids that occur naturally and each one has different properties. Because of the illegality of marijuana, it’s difficult to study the exact effects of the different kinds of cannabinoids.
Currently, 11 countries in Europe and 24 states in the U.S. have legalized marijuana for medicinal use.
But for those suffering from rare diseases like dystonia, that number needs to improve.