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Cannabinoids, can they help?
The cannabis plant, more commonly known as marijuana, has had a big impact
around the world. Leaving people to believe that it is a very bad thing, a gateway drug,
and that it can ruin lives. As well as it has left a smaller amount of people to think that it
may not be that bad at all, and that it may even have some medical uses to it. 15 states
and Washington D.C. have passed laws making this plant available to patients with
diseases such as Multiple Sclerosis (MS), AIDS, Cancer, and other health problems. This
debate that cannabis is good or bad has been going on for many decades, with laws that
came into place starting on 1913 in California, and marijuana being called one of the
worst drugs around.
There are many people that believe that cannabis is very hazardous. Very many
doctors have told us about the risk of cancer and other diseases that are more than likely
side effects to consuming it. Doctor Bottel from Switzerland and a couple of his
colleagues looked at data, that seems to show that cannabis may be a leading cause to
trigger schizophrenia sooner on patients with hereditary psychological problems. They
published this article to tell the public about the risks that cannabis imposes in the human
brain.
Doctor Bottel is only one of many doctors that think about cannabis as being a
very hazardous plant. A cardiologist from Germany, named Kaiser Schmid, came together
with a group of doctors to study the effects cannabis has on the heart. On these tests they
ran, the doctors found that patients that consumed marijuana had a higher heart rate than
the non-users (Schmid), therefore increasing the chances of heart attack or strokes. Dr.
Schmid also clarifies that the higher chances of strokes or heart problems may also have

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other factors besides the consumption of cannabis, such as where the person lives,
altitude, weight and height. Nonetheless he recognizes that cannabis should have more
studies done in order to figure out more about it and the cannabinoids (active compounds
of the cannabis plant, THC being the most well known) in it.
In the middle of the debate whether cannabis is good or bad, Dr. Thomas
Stuttaford, the medical correspondent for the Time magazine acknowledges that
marijuana helps patients with MS and other hard to cope with diseases (Stuttaford), but
he still does not discard the problems that inhaling smoke can create in the lungs or other
parts of the body. This article he writes for doctors and patients that use cannabis, he
poses the question to the patients to ask if they believe that cannabis is the best option for
treatment for their particular problem.
On the opposite end of cannabis being bad we have people that believe cannabis
is not harmful, but instead it is a medicine. Lindsay Stafford, a member of the American
Botanical Council, wrote an article to the general public that talks about how the
National Cancer Institute recognized cannabis as being helpful for cancer patients
(Stafford), and how this was done publicly on the NCI website. She calls for this plant to
be moved from a Schedule I drug, meaning it has no medicinal value and a high risk of
abuse, to a Schedule II where it would have somewhat of a medical value so more tests
could be made and come up with the solution to whether cannabis may actually be bad or
if it really may be a benefactor.
To agree with Stafford that cannabis should be moved to a Schedule II, Dr. Adler
Graschinsky, from the Institute of Pharmacist Investigations in Argentina, talks about his
research pointing that cannabinoids have been associated with beneficial effects on

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cardiovascular abnormalities that come with cirrhosis, as well as having a role in
Arthrosclerosis progression (also know as hardening of the arteries), and in cerebral and
Myocarcial Ischemia. Dr. Graschisky explains, how the pharmaceutical companies have
already released many pills to mimic the exact same things that cannabis would do,
increase appetite, relax muscles and others. He explains, Canada standardized the
abstract Sativex, as well as the Marinol pill and Cesament in the U.S. (Graschinsky)
There are many points of view on whether cannabis is good or bad for someones
health, but like Dr. Graschinsky explains, the world may never know if this drug is not
moved to a Schedule II. Most doctors agree with that since they can only have a certain
amount of time to study the effects it has on patients, and with it being highly illegal there
is no way that they can come up with any research.
From my point of view, cannabinoids should be explored at their fullest. There are
over 200 cannabinoids in marijuana, yet we only know about THC, CBN (a decayed form
of THC) and CBD that has already been proven to have therapeutic effects to it, helping
patients with body pain. So that would mean that we do not know what the other 197 or
so cannabinoids do, they could even be harmful, or they could be good, we could even
deliver more medicines for the world.
My call to action is that every citizen of the U.S. should ask for the cannabis plant
to be moved to a Schedule II drug where more studies can be done and so that we could
find out in how many ways it can help or destroy us. This plant should be a medicine
used only by patients with terminal diseases, not for recreational purposes. It should be
that way at least until we have more information about the cannabinoids.

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Bibliography
Bottel, J. Implications for the concept of cannabis psychosis. Schizophrenia
Research. Vol. 94 (1-3), Jul 2007. P.203-210. Print. Switzerland.
Graschinsky, Adler. Cannabinoids as therapeutic agents in cardiovascular disease, a
Tale of passions and illusions. British Journal of Pharmacology; Jun 2007
Vol. 151 Issue 4, P. 427-440. Print. Argentina.
Schmid, Kaiser. The effects of cannabis on heart rate variability and wellBeing in young men. Germany: Georg Thieme Verlag KG.
Pharmacopsychiatry, Vol. 4, Jun 2010. P 147-150. Print. Germany.
Stafford, Lindsay. US Government Institution Acknowledges Medicinal Uses of
Cannabis Herbal Gram. Aug 2011, Issue 91. P.20-23. Print. U.S.
Stuttaford, Thomas. Cannabis: good for pain but bad for your health?
Time magazine. Oct 24 2005. P.13. Print.