Medicinal Purposes of Marijuana
Marijuana’s history extends back to almost 2700 BC, when a Chinese emperor supposedly introduced the drug as a treatment for gout. ... Marijuana’s medicinal purposes are so controversial due to the lack of high-quality clinical research. ... First, the government may have rejected marijuana studies to avoid any challenge to its view that pot is dangerous and medically useless. ... The publication only dropped marijuana in its 1942 edition, the first published after marijuana was outlawed in 1937. ... In comparison, raw marijuana contains approximately 400 compounds. It wasn’t until the 1970’s that modern methods were implemented to test the medicinal effects of pot. ... However, the Federal government had just passed the Controlled Substances Act of 1970, which designated marijuana a drug without valid medical use. ... However, since it enters the blood through the stomach, it doesn’t work as fast as smoked marijuana. ... These were the precursor studies to current marijuana studies. Marijuana is the dried leaves and flowering tops of the pistillate hemp plant that yield THC and are smoked in cigarettes for their intoxicating effect. Marijuana causes short-term memory loss, learning difficulties, unregulated emotions, impaired judgment, and difficulty distinguishing sights and sounds. ... Marijuana is a hallucinogen, and can remain in the body between 8 and 30 days. Marijuana’s medicinal purposes have long been a controversial topic among the scientific community.