Medical Marihuana

By: Beisenbay Mukhanov

Nowadays, even elementary school students know that marihuana might be medicine. However, there are few medical specialists who can explain clearly how the substance in question may help patients. I believe that Lester Grinspoon, MD, Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, is one of them. In October 1st, 1997 he gave a testimony before the Crime Subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives regarding the medical use of marihuana.

According to that speech, Mr. Grinspoon was trying to persuade the members of the aforesaid subcommittee to pass the law which would allow the U.S. states to make own decisions of cannabis legalization for medical use. To emphasize the importance of the urgent marihuana rehabilitation, the speaker introduced a story of penicillin discovery. Although penicillin was opened in 1928 Alexander Fleming, it started to be used only in 1941. During more than ten years, millions of people died just because the medical business disregarded the Fleming’s invention. On the other hand, cannabis has been known for its therapeutic capacities for five thousand years. Moreover, more than one hundred papers about the medical use of the aforementioned stuff have been published in Europe and America during the last forty years of 19^th century. Nevertheless, marihuana treatment became illegal in the U.S. since 1970 after it was legitimately classified as a “Schedule I drug: a high potential for abuse, no accepted medical use, and lack of safety for use under medical supervision”.

Furthermore, Grinspoon claims that cannabis has similar advantages to apply in medication as penicillin has. The aforesaid plant is in-toxic, cheap to produce and versatile. It is less harmless and/or more effective than such actual using medicine with analogical cure effects as metoclopramide, ondansetronaspirin, acetaminophen (Tylenol), ibuprofen, naproxen and so forth. Today, marihuana is expensive only because its sale is prohibited by government. However, if this is legalized, a marihuana cigarette would cost about 30 to 40 cents. To compare, an 8 mg ondansetron pill, effective means from nausea and vomiting, with similar effect to a marihuana cigarette costs $30 to $40.

In addition, the lecture provides information about some particular diseases in which the foregoing matter was used as effective accessory medicine. These illnesses are cancer, glaucoma, seizures, the varieties of pains and AIDS. The therapy experience shows that some cannabis products for oral and smoke usages are efficient anesthetics, and anti- nausea and vomiting means. At the same time, because the use of oral medicine might provoke an increase of vomiting, many patients prefer the marihuana smoking in some cases.

The speaker invokes to legalize the medical use of cannabis based on therapeutic practice and patients’ wants.

http://norml.org/library/item/norml-s-testimony-on-medical-marijuana-before-congress-1997-lester-grinspoon-md