What is medical marijuana used for?
Studies report that medical cannabis might help some conditions. Which conditions medical marijuana can treat varies by state. If you’re thinking of marijuana for medical use, check your state’s laws.
Whether you can get medical marijuana to treat a condition you have depends on the state. Conditions some states cover include:
· Alzheimer’s disease.
· Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
· HIV/AIDS.
· Crohn’s disease.
· Epilepsy and seizures.
· Glaucoma.
· Multiple sclerosis and muscle spasms.
· Posttraumatic stress disorder.
· Serious and ongoing pain.
· Serious nausea or vomiting caused by cancer treatment.
Is medical marijuana safe?
More study is needed to answer this question. But side effects of medical marijuana may include:
· Increased heart rate.
· Dizziness.
· Problems with thinking and memory.
· Slower reaction times.
· Interactions with other medicines. (However, you may be able to lower your dose of blood pressure and glaucoma medications)
· Increased risk of heart attack and stroke.
· Panic attacks.
· Getting addicted.
· Seeing or hearing things that aren’t there, called hallucinations, or mental illness.
· Withdrawal symptoms.
· Early labor and other complications in people who are pregnant.
Is medical marijuana available as a prescription medicine?
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has not approved the use of cannabis as a treatment for any medical condition. But the FDA has approved the cannabinoids cannabidiol (Epidiolex), which comes from the cannabis plant, and dronabinol (Marinol, Syndros), which is human made, called synthetic.
Cannabidiol can be used for certain forms of epilepsy. Dronabinol can be used for nausea and vomiting caused by cancer treatment and for not wanting to eat, called anorexia, linked to weight loss in people with AIDS.
What you can expect
Forms of taking medical marijuana include:
· Inhaled. This involves dried cannabis flower in a cigarette, pipe or vape device. The fastest onset (within 15 min) and good for Panic attacks and need for immediate pain relief.
· Eaten. This comes in capsules, chewable candies called gummies and baked goods. Slower onset (1-2 hrs) but lasts much longer than inhaled.
· Put under the tongue or on the mucus membranes of the mouth. This is a liquid or spray.
· Rectally. This comes in the form of a suppository that’s put into the rectum.
· Topical. This goes on the skin in the form of a lotion or gel. Great for specific areas of pain, such as your back, a hip, shoulder, knee, etc.
What to know about cannabis
There’s a lot of science behind understanding cannabis, but we’ll do our best to simplify it: Cannabis is made up of more than 120 components, which are known as cannabinoids. Cannabidiol (CBD)?and tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), are the two most well-known and researched cannabinoids. THC is responsible for the “high” that many people associate with cannabis, while CBD is a non-intoxicating, non-euphoric component, which you may have seen in the form of oils, gummies, drinks and other products for medical purposes.
How can CBD be used to benefit health?
There’s no doubt that CBD has become quite popular and has generated a new industry — you can even earn a degree in Cannabis Entrepreneurship* here at JWU. While researchers are still working to understand how effectively CBD can be used for medical purposes, there have already been a lot of promising results. Here are seven ways that CBD has been proven to benefit health.
1. Lowering blood pressure
A study conducted by JCI Insight in 2017 found that CBD lowered the blood pressure of human participants. It reduced their resting blood pressure as well as their blood pressure after stress tests including mental arithmetic, isometric exercise, and the cold pressor test.
2. Reducing inflammation
CBD has been proven to help reduce inflammation and the neuropathic pain it can cause, according to a study by the Rockefeller Institute of Medical Research.
3. Preventing relapse in drug and alcohol addiction
A 2018 study discovered that CBD can be useful in helping people who suffer from drug and alcohol addiction. A preclinical trial with lab rats determined that CBD reduced the stress-induced cravings, anxiety and lack of impulse control that often cause people to relapse.
4. Treating anxiety disorders
Anxiety is perhaps the most common affliction that people have used CBD for, and a preclinical study found that CBD could be effective in treating generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, social anxiety disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder.
5. Treating gastrointestinal (GI) disorders
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7246936/ found that CBD and other non-psychoactive cannabinoids can effectively be used to prevent and treat GI disorders such as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), Crohn’s, ulcerative colitis and more. CBD’s anti-inflammatory properties are key to reducing and preventing symptoms.
6. Preventing seizures
Decades of research have gone into using CBD to treat epilepsy and other seizure syndromes, https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7012327/ showed it can have positive effects in reducing symptoms and seizure frequency.
7. Fighting cancer
Not only has CBD been used to help cancer treatment symptoms https://cfah.org/cbd-oil-for-cancer/ but studies have also found it can prevent cell growth and induce cell death in cervical cancer cell lines and it has numerous anti-cancer effects that can help prevent a variety of cancers, treat tumors, and benefit the immune system.