Friday Faceoff

MARIJUANA HAS USEFUL MEDICAL EFFECTS AND SHOULD BE LEGAL

Marijuana should be legalized for medical use (only). True, it can
have harmful effects. But most medications have harm/benefit ratios
that doctors routinely consider before prescribing.

Legally, marijuana is a "Schedule I" drug, having high addictive
potential and no "approved" medical use. Schedule II includes
addictive drugs that can be prescribed if needed. It includes
cocaine, methamphetamine, methadone and morphine, all of which are
potentially seriously harmful. Why can doctors prescribe them but not
marijuana?

The official reason is that there "already exists" a substitute,
dronabinal, a Schedule III drug (along with anabolic steroids),
marketed commercially as Marinol. Its active ingredient is synthetic
THC and it may be prescribed to combat cases of appetite and weight
loss related to AIDS, as well as the nausea and vomiting often
induced by chemotherapy.

The government insists that THC is the relevant substance in
marijuana, and can be synthesized and prescribed to a precise
formula, enabling dosage control. However, perhaps it is precisely
because dronabinal contains only THC that many patients report
marijuana to be more effective and faster-acting. Marijuana contains
more than 80 other cannaboids in addition to THC. Perhaps one or more
could explain why marijuana seems more effective.

The U.S. Department of Justice's point that "there are no
FDA-approved medications that are smoked" may also explain why
marijuana works much more quickly than the orally ingested
dronabinal. Smoking delivers the effect faster than the digestive system.

Dronabinal is approved as treatment for nausea in patients "who have
failed to respond adequately to conventional treatment." In similar
format, can marijuana not be approved for patients who have failed to
respond to dronabinal? Let's make marijuana a Schedule II drug.