The use of marijuana for medical purposes has a history that goes back thousands of years– the herb has been used for all sorts of aliments such as a stress reliever in India, to subsiding child birth pains. Its uses can be traced all throughout Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.
In recent decades, medical researchers have investigated marijuana’s effects on various kinds of pain. These include damaged nerves in people with HIV, diabetes and spinal cord injury; from cancer; and from multiple sclerosis.
Medical marijuana has been theorized to help with nausea related to symptoms induced by chemotherapy, and with severe loss of appetite as with patients with AIDS wasting syndrome.
THC is an ingredient in marijuana that mimics the action of chemicals that naturally occur in the brain. The tetrahydro cannabinol (THC) activates receptors in the body’s nerves that trigger physiological responses in the brain.
A legal prescription form of THC (Marinol) exists, yet researchers say it’s far from a perfect drug. Taken orally, its absorption is highly variable and unpredictable and often delayed, says Dr. Igor Grant, a UC San Diego psychiatrist who directs the university’s Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research. “Smoking is a very efficient way to deliver THC,” he says.
As a result of its federally illegal status, medicinal use of marijuana is restricted to carefully vetted clinical research studies or to patients in states such as California that have passed laws to allow for personal medical use.
Research on the medicinal use of marijuana relies on government-issued marijuana cigarettes, which come in different strengths and are supplied by the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
The University of California Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research in San Diego helps coordinate clinical studies to investigate the safety and effectiveness of marijuana and they’ve discovered in their studies related to neuropathic pain, Multiple sclerosis, and nausea.
