1

Medical Marijuana: The future medicine

Romero

Medical Marijuana: The future medicine

Michelle Romero
Northwest College

Medicinal marijuana is the future medicine that would replace all

stimulants, anti-depressants, and narcotics. Already marijuana can be
transformed into many different uses such as clothing, paper, etc. And now
marijuana is advancing its use medically. With medical marijuana research, we
are able to solve a lot of the questions that weve been asking for years. It could
potentially treat cancer, epilepsy, anxiety, and many more conditions, disorders,
and cancers.
Marijuana has been around since 2900 BC and has made an impact in
our world today (ProCon, 2013, pg. 1). In the 1840s marijuana was the new
medicine in the west; French doctor Jacques Moreau researched and studied

Medical Marijuana: The future medicine

Romero

the effects marijuana had on a human such as surrpressing headaches,

increasing appetites, and also helping people fight insomnia at the time. Later
marijuana made its way to the US pharmacopeia (public standards- setting
authority for all prescription and over- the counter medicines). The
pharmacopeia listed possible treatments through marijuana for rabies,
alcoholism, opiate addiction, insanity, excessive menstrual bleeding, gout, and
etc. (ProCon, 2013, Pg. 1). In 1889 an article from Dr. E. A. Birch in The
Lancet, Birch wrote on how marijuana helps ease off opiate addiction and fights
off the symptoms of a withdrawal. Marijuana did/does so by reducing the
opium craving, by acting like an anti-emetic, which is a drug that helps deal
with vomiting and nausea. Further down the road in 1964 DR. Raphael
Mechoulam was the first to introduce the main psychoactive component as
delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol. THC would be a simpler way to put that.
As you can tell, marijuana has gone through many changes since it was
discovered. The controlled substance act classified marijuana as a drug with
No accepted medical use in 1970. Then in the years of 1990-1999, scientists
discovered more information on cannabinoid receptors and how marijuana has
its effects on the brain and how it could potentially help cancer cells commit
apoptosis (potentially cell suicide). In 1996 California became the first state to
legalize medical marijuana. You had to be recommended by a physician and it
was for disorders or treatment of AIDS, cancers, MS, migraines, etc. Since

Medical Marijuana: The future medicine

Romero

1996, 23 states in the US are legal for medicinal marijuana use, with very few
states allowing recreational use. And as of 2016 the DEA has considered
moving marijuana to a less- restrictive drug schedule than later decides to say
no to the reschedule of marijuana but opens the door to research. (ProCon, Pg.
1).

In order for more research to be done, marijuana needs to be legal, once

it is legal it will be able to help patients whether theyre infants, children,

teenagers, or adults. Imagine a mother dealing with her child who was
diagnosed with epilepsy. The child slowly starts falling to the ground in the
middle of the grocery store and starts shaking uncontrollably bursting out into
a seizure. The parent is unable to help the child, she has to let it go until the
child stops having the seizure. When the seizure is finished, it results in the
child being scared and angry, the child is now acting up and lashing out due to
the misfiring in the brains electrical activity which caused the seizures.
Seizures occur repeatedly in epilepsy patients, and medical marijuana is the
key to lessen the amount of seizures a child will have in a day. These patients
would find infused THC oil helpful in reducing the number of seizures in both
children and adults. This disorder is a neurological condition where you lose
consciousness, and is associated with abnormal electrical activity in the brain
causing uncontrollable seizures and convulsions.

Medical Marijuana: The future medicine

Romero

I believe medical marijuana can decrease seizures, there are multiple

cases on it but my favorite is the 2013 story of Charlotte Figi, who is a child
from Colorado who had seizures daily. She would have seizures lasting on a
range of two to four hours long, and was repeatedly hospitalized because of it.
Charlotte had a different case of epilepsy. She had Davets syndrome, a rare
intractable case of epilepsy. Meaning, this type of epilepsy is not controlled by
medicine very easily.
According to CNN Charlotte was having up to 300 seizures a week and
was in a wheelchair due to losing most of her ability to walk, talk, or eat
(Young, 2013, p.1). She was on 7 different prescription medications that
stopped the seizures from occurring for up to two hours, 2 hours is all. But, as
soon as she was given a small dose of oil, extracted from cannabis, her seizures
stopped for a whole week. After using doses of oil daily over a period of time,
Charlottes abilities came back so she can walk, talk and eat now. Also, her
seizures slowed down to two or three times a month. Thats incredible
improvement compared to prescription seizure medicine whose effects would
only last a few hours. If it wasnt for medical marijuana, Charlotte wouldve
never had a chance to grow up and enjoy her life like every kid deserves. Who
knows if she wouldve ever gotten her abilities back as well, medical marijuana
was truly a blessing in her case.

Medical Marijuana: The future medicine

Romero

Epilepsy was just one instance where medical marijuana would be useful
and improve symptoms in certain conditions, disorders and cancers. What
about the elderly woman with arthritis? Medical marijuana would improve
chronic pain relief of the joints by reducing inflammation and discomfort. Or
the AIDS patient who is unable to eat due to the fact that his Medication that
is going to make him better is also in the mean time making him sick and
nauseous. The student that needs to go up in front of the whole class the next
day to present a project but cant sleep, then also decides to skip class instead
because his anxiety is making him nauseous, dizzy, and is causing him to
panic and have shortness of breath. The same kid is also tired because he had
complications falling asleep the night before. Cancer patients? Who are
nauseous, losing weight, dont have an appetite and are trying to find a way to
get rid of the deadly sickness growing inside his/her body thats slowly killing
them. I think medical marijuana could help all of those patients I named in the
above section. Marijuana is known to alleviate pain, decrease nausea, it
stimulates appetite, and eases your stress level down quite a few notches.
Medical marijuana could potentially treat conditions, disorders, and
cancers. It helps with nausea relief in AIDS patients and chemo-bound cancer
patients. According to the prevention organization, in a study at St. Johns
hospital, researchers found that 38% of AIDS patient taking 5mg of marinol
(THC medication) for six weeks had a better appetite and less nausea compared

Medical Marijuana: The future medicine

Romero

to 8% of patients on the placebo (prevention, Pg.1) It would slow or put a stop

to the growth of cancer cells in different cancer patients. A THC molecule fits
perfectly in the CB1 (cannabinoid receptor site) on the surface of the cancer
cell inside the patients body. It binds to the site while the cell makes ceramide
(lipid molecules) that messes the mitochondrias function up, which in return
closes off energy in the cell. Since energy is not being produced to keep these
cells up and running, the cell will than die. It reduces stress, anxiety and also
regulates chronic pain. It helps womans menstrual cramps, it reduces the
tension from headaches and migraines. It relaxes your body so it helps with
back pain, arthritis, joint aches, etc. If you have a hard time falling asleep due
to sleeping disorders such as insomnia, medical marijuana has proven to help
with that in many studies. It reduces the amount of time it takes an individual
to fall asleep and also helps in not waking up so much during the night.
Every day about 44 individuals die due to overdosing on prescription pills
in the US (ProCon, 2009, pg. 1). That makes about 17,000 deaths a year. In
2010 a study showed that an estimated of 52 million people over the age of 12
use prescription drugs for non-medical purposes. Overdoses caused by
prescription drugs beat the number of overdoses of heroin and cocaine
combined (Duke, pg. 1). Marijuana helps with fighting opiate addiction like I
mentioned above, it works as an anti-emetic. Prescription drugs help for the
mean time, but theyre addictive in the long run, and make you essentially feel

Medical Marijuana: The future medicine

Romero

worse when taking them. I know for a fact they make you feel awful. I had my
wisdom teeth out and I was on a super low dose pain medication, I could not
take my medication because it made me super nauseous and sick. So in the
end, I ended up just suffering through the pain instead of taking the
medication I was prescribed. Plus, it has been proven that there are fewer
deaths because prescription pills in states where medical marijuana is legal. In
the year 2013, the average doctor prescribed 265 fewer doses of
antidepressants each year, 486 fewer doses of seizure medication, 541 fewer
anti-nausea, and 562 fewer doses of anti-anxiety medication (Ingraham, pg.1).
If we replaced prescription pills with this life-changing medicine, I believe we
could discover new doors of science and medicine behind it all. We would learn
to helps different conditions and how to handle them. It would open a whole
new world of science within the cancer studies as well.
If we got it to where marijuana was legal for medical purposes, I think we
could fix a lot of our worlds issues. I also believe Medical marijuana could
potentially treat conditions, disorders, and cancers. People are dying daily
whether its from conditions, disorders, or cancers or if it is from people over
dosing on pain pills, or an ex-addict having withdrawals from his past opiate
addiction. Big city crimes are typically known for suspects being on some form
of harder drugs, people die because of that. We would see a decrease in crime
rates, and new sciences being discovered. We would find new cures and

Medical Marijuana: The future medicine

Romero

treatments; we will gain a better understanding once it is legal. Medical

marijuana is the change that will be made.

Reference page
Christopher Ingraham, 2016 july 13th. One striking chart shows why pharma
companies are fighting legal marijuana. Retrieved from
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/07/13/onestriking-chart-shows-why-pharma-companies-are-fighting-legalmarijuana/
Jason Duke, ND. Marijuana VS Presciption Drugs: What you need to know.
Retrieved from http://medicalmarijuanahelp.com/articledetails/marijuana-vs-prescription-drugs
Saundra Young, 2013 August 7th. Marijuana stops childs sever seizures.
Retrieved from http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/07/health/charlottechild-medical-marijuana/
Karen Cicero, 2015 April 22nd. How effective is medical marijuana? Heres a
closer looks at 14 different uses. Retrieved from
http://www.prevention.com/health/14-uses-medical-marijuana
ProCon, 2009 July 8th. Deaths from Marijuana V. 17 FDA-Approved Drugs
(Jan.1,1997 to June 30,2005). Retrieved from
http://medicalmarijuana.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=000
145
ProCon, 2013 August 13th. Historical Timeline, history of marijuana as
medicine 2900BC to present. Retrieved from

Medical Marijuana: The future medicine

Romero

http://medicalmarijuana.procon.org/view.timeline.php?timelineID=0000
26