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About Medical Marijuana

About Medical Marijuana


Marijuana is medicine. It has been used for thousands of years to treat a
wide variety of ailments. Marijuana (Cannabis sativa L.) was legal in the
United States for all purposes - industrial and recreational, as well as
medicinal until 1937.

Today, only eight Americans are legally allowed to use marijuana as medicine.
NORML is working to restore marijuana's availability as medicine. Medicinal
Value Marijuana, in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically
active substances known. No one has ever died from an overdose. It is also
extremely versatile.

Four of its general therapeutic applications include: relief from nausea and
increase of appetite; reduction of intraocular ("within the eye") pressure;
reduction of muscle spasms; relief from mild to moderate chronic pain.

Marijuana is often useful in the treatment of the following conditions:
Cancer: Marijuana alleviates the nausea, vomiting, and loss of appetite caused
by chemotherapy treatment. AIDS: Marijuana alleviates the nausea, vomiting,
and loss of appetite caused by the disease itself and by treatment with AZT and
other drugs.

Glaucoma: Marijuana, by reducing intraocular pressure, alleviates the pain and
slows or halts the progress of the disease. Glaucoma, which damages vision by
gradually increasing eye pressure over time, is the leading cause of blindness
in the United States.

Multiple Sclerosis: Marijuana reduces the muscle pain and spasticity caused by
the disease. It may also relieve tremor and unsteadiness of gait, and it helps
some patients with bladder control. Multiple sclerosis is the leading cause of
neurological disability among young and middle-aged adults in the United States.

Epilepsy: Marijuana prevents epileptic seizures in some patients.

Chronic Pain: Marijuana reduces the chronic, often debilitating pain caused by
a variety of injuries and disorders.

Each of these uses has been recognized as legitimate at least once by...