Every year, thousands of people die from prescription drugs, bringing more awareness to the dangerous substances that are being prescribed by doctors on a daily basis. In recent years, more and more people throughout the United States have been calling for the legalization of medical marijuana.
Since the 1990s, twenty-three states and Washington D.C. have legalized medical marijuana, despite it still being considered a schedule I drug by the Drug Enforcement Agency. This classification has made it difficult for researchers to study the effects of the drug on various medical conditions. However, patients are still looking to medical marijuana as an alternative and here’s why.
You Can’t Die from Overdose
Medical marijuana is a safer alternative to recreational and prescription medication. Having a significant amount of THC in your system won’t lead to your death. In fact, there hasn’t been a single account of death from marijuana overdose ever recorded, unlike with prescription medications. In fact, it would take approximately 40,000 times the amount of THC for a fatal overdose of marijuana.
According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, there were an estimated 64,000 drug overdose deaths in 2016; this included both illicit drugs and prescription medications. That same year, it is reported that approximately 88,000 people died from alcohol-related causes.
Has a Low Risk of Abuse
Marijuana, contrary to popular belief, is not as addicting as you may think. According to Dr. Sanjay Gupta, the chief medical correspondent for CNN, the public has been systematically misled about the addictive nature of marijuana. In 1944, New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia commissioned a study that found that “marijuana did not lead to significant addiction,” in the medical sense of the word.
Research has shown that only about 9- to 10-percent of adult users end up becoming addicted to marijuana, this is referred to marijuana use disorder. In comparison, cocaine hooks about 20-percent of adult users, heroin about 25-percent, and tobacco a whopping 30-percent of its users eventually become addicted.
It Can Help Relieve Medical Ailments
Marijuana has been shown to be very useful in treating many different medical conditions. It has been hugely successful in helping to relax muscle tension, relieve chronic pain, and reduce muscle spasms. The National Cancer Institute recently conducted trials studying the effects of two FDA approved cannabis-based drugs on chemotherapy-related nausea and vomiting in cancer patients.
In recent years, medical marijuana has been used to treat everything from anxiety and depression to multiple sclerosis and has been shown to slow the progression of Alzheimer’s disease. The increase in the use of marijuana to treat various medical conditions has also led to a rise in specialized medical clinics, which help patients obtain the most effective product to provide them with relief and symptom management. You can find these type of services by conducting a simple internet search on medical marijuana clinics.
More and more research is being done on the effects of marijuana on various medical conditions as more and more patients look to medical marijuana as an alternative to prescription medication.
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