21 Medical Benefits of Marijuana
KEVIN LORIA AND JENNIFER WELSH
APR. 20, 2015, 6:23 PM
Despite the fact that the Drug
Enforcement Agency
categorizes marijuana as a
schedule I drug, one that has
no accepted medical use, a
majority of
Americans have thought
medical pot should be legal
since the late 1990s — and a
majority now support
recreational legalization as
well.
Washington D.C. and 23
states have legalized medical
marijuana (that
number is 35 states if we
count laws with very limited
Facebook.com/SparcSF
Sparc's San Francisco-based retail location access).
Even the NIH's National Institute on
Drug Abuse lists medical uses for
cannabis.
But even though researchers have identified some fascinating potential benefits of medical
marijuana so far, it's something that's still hard to study, making conclusive results tough to
come by. The schedule I classification means it's hard for researchers to get their hands on pot
grown to the exacting standards that are necessary for medical research, even in states where
it's legal. Plus, no researcher can even try to make an FDAapproved cannabis product while it
has that DEA classification, which removes some motivation to study the plant.
More research would identify health benefits more clearly and would also help clarify
potential dangers — like with any psychoactive substance, there are risks associated with
abuse, including dependency and emotional issues. And many doctors want to understand
marijuana's effects better before deciding whether to recommend it or not.
With that caveat about research in mind, here are 21 of the medical benefits — or potential
benefits — of marijuana.
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Weed can be used to treat Glaucoma.
Marijuana use can be used to treat the eye disease glaucoma, which increases pressure in the eyeball,
damaging the optic nerve and causing loss of vision.
Marijuana decreases the pressure inside the
eye, according to the National Eye Institute:
"Studies in the early
1970s showed that marijuana, when smoked,
lowered intraocular pressure (IOP) in people
with normal pressure and
those with glaucoma" — though they still
said that pharmaceutical drugs were
more effective.
thematthewknot via Flickr
These effects of the drug
may slow the progression
of the disease, preventing
blindness.
It may help reverse the carcinogenic effects of tobacco and
improve lung health.
There's a fair amount of evidence that
marijuana does no harm to the lungs,
unless you also smoke tobacco, and one
study published in Journal of the
American Medical Association found
that marijuana not only doesn't impair
lung function, it may even increase lung
capacity.
Researchers looking for risk factors of
heart disease tested the lung function of
5,115 young adults over the course of
20 years. Tobacco smokers lost
Christopher Furlong/Getty Images lung function
over time, but pot users actually showed an increase in lung
capacity.
It's possible that the increased lung capacity may be due to taking a deep breaths while inhaling the
drug and not from a therapeutic chemical in the drug.
Those smokers only toked up a few times a month, but a more recent survey of people who smoked pot
daily for up to 20 years found no evidence that smoking pot harmed their lungs.
It can help control epileptic seizures.
Marijuana use can prevent epileptic
seizures in rats, a 2003 study showed.
Robert J. DeLorenzo, of
Virginia Commonwealth University,
gave marijuana extract and synthetic
marijuana to epileptic rats. The drugs
rid the rats of the seizures for about 10
hours. Cannabinoids like the active
ingredients in marijuana,
tetrahydrocannabinol (also known as
THC), control seizures by binding to
the brain cells responsible for
controlling excitability and regulating
relaxation.
AP/Damian Dovarganes
The findings were published in the
Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics.
It also decreases the symptoms of a severe seizure disorder
known as Dravet's Syndrome.
During the research for his
documentary "Weed," Sanjay
Gupta interviewed the Figi
family, who treats their 5year-old
daughter using a medical
marijuana strain high in
cannabidiol and low in THC.
There are at least two major
active chemicals in marijuana
that researchers think have
medicinal applications (there are
up to 79 known active
compounds). Those two are
cannabidiol (CBD) — which
CNN/WEED
mostly without a
seems to impact the brain Charlotte Figi has Dravet's Syndrome, and her
high— and
parents are giving her marijuana to treat her tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) —
seizures.
which has pain relieving (and
other) properties.
The Figi family's daughter, Charlotte, has Dravet Syndrome, which causes seizures and severe
developmental delays.
According to the film, the drug has decreased her seizures from 300 a week to just one every seven
days. Forty other children in the state are using the same strain of marijuana (which is high in CBD and
low in THC) to treat their seizures — and it seems to be working.
The doctors who recommended this treatment say that the cannabidiol in the plant interacts with the
brain cells to quiet the excessive activity in the brain that causes these seizures.
As Gutpa notes, a Florida hospital that specializes in the disorder, the American Academy of Pediatrics,
and the Drug Enforcement agency don't endorse marijuana as a treatment for Dravet or other seizure
disorders.
A chemical found in marijuana stops cancer cells from
spreading in the lab.
CBD may also help prevent cancer from spreading, researchers at California Pacific Medical Center in
San Francisco reported in 2007.
Cannabidiol stops cancer by turning
off a gene called Id-1, the study,
published in the journal Molecular
Cancer Therapeutics, found. Cancer
cells make more copies of this gene
than non-cancerous cells, and it helps
them spread through the body.
The researchers studied breast
cancer cells in the lab that had
crafty_dame via flickr high expression levels
of Id-1 and treated them with
cannabidiol. After treatment the cells
had decreased Id-1 expression and
were less aggressive spreaders. But
beware: these are studies on cancer
cells in the lab, not on cancer patients.
Other very preliminary studies on aggressive brain tumors in mice or cell cultures have shown that
THC and CBD can slow or shrink tumors at the right dose, which is a great reason to do more research
into figuring out that dose.
One 2014 study found that marijuana can significantly show the growth of the type of brain tumor
associated with 80% of malignant brain cancer in people.
In "WEED," Gupta also mentioned a few studies in the U.S., Spain, and Israel that suggest the
compounds in cannabis could even kill cancer cells.
It may decrease anxiety.
Medical marijuana users claim the drug helps relieve pain and suppress nausea — the two main reasons
it's often used to relieve the side effects of chemotherapy.
In 2010, researchers at Harvard
Medical School suggested that that
some of the drug's benefits may
actually be from reduced anxiety,
which would improve the smoker's
mood and act as a sedative in low
doses.
Beware, though, higher doses can
increase anxiety and make
you paranoid.
Flickr/sergeant killjoy
THC may slow the progression of Alzheimer's disease.
Marijuana may be able to slow the progression of Alzheimer's disease, a study led by Kim Janda of the
Scripps Research Institute suggests.
The 2006 study, published in the
journal Molecular
Pharmaceutics, found that THC, the
active chemical in marijuana, slows
the formation of amyloid plaques by
blocking the enzyme in the brain
that makes them. These plaques
seem to be what kill brain cells
and potentially cause
Alzheimer's.
REUTERS/Brian Snyder
A synthetic mixture of CBD and
THC seem to preserve memory in a
mouse model of Alzheimer's
disease. Another study suggested
that in population-based studies, a
THC-based prescription drug called dronabinol was able to reduce behavioral disturbances in dementia
patients.
The drug eases the pain of multiple sclerosis.
Marijuana may ease painful symptoms of multiple sclerosis, a study published in the Canadian Medical
Association Journal in May suggests.
Jody Corey-Bloom studied 30 multiple
sclerosis patients with painful
contractions in their muscles. These
patients didn't respond to other
treatments, but after smoking marijuana
for a few days they reported that they
were in less pain.
The THC in the pot binds to
AP/Matilde Campodonico receptors in the nerves
and muscles to relieve pain. Other
studies suggest that the chemical also helps control the muscle spasms.
Other types of muscle spasms could be helped too.
Other types of muscle spasms respond to marijuana as well. Gupta also found a teenager named Chaz
who was using medical marijuana to treat diaphragm spasms that were untreatable by other, prescribed
and very strong, medications.
His condition is called myoclonus
diaphragmatic flutter (also known as
Leeuwenhoek's Disease) and causes
non stop spasming in the abdominal
muscles which are not only CNN/WEED
painful, but interfere with breathing and
speaking.
Smoking marijuana was able to calm
the attacks almost immediately, at least
it seemed to in this patient.