Marijuana: Is it beneficial or harmful?

 

Health and Medicine 

Marijuana: Is it beneficial or harmful?
People have been using marijuana, or cannabis, to treat their illnesses for at least 3,000 years, according to the National Institutes of Health. The Food and Drug Administration, on the other hand, has not deemed marijuana safe or successful in the treatment of any medical condition, despite the fact that cannabidiol, a component of marijuana, was approved as a treatment for certain forms of epilepsy in June 2018.
Marijuana is becoming more widely legal in the United States, but is it safe?

This conflict, which exists between the popular perception that marijuana is an effective cure for a variety of ailments and a lack of scientific evidence about its effects, has recently been amplified by a push for legalization.

Marijuana is now legal for medicinal — and, in some jurisdictions, recreational — use in twenty-nine states plus the District of Columbia.
According to a new report published in the journal Addiction, drug use is on the rise across the United States, though this rise may not be related to the legalization of marijuana in participating states. Nonetheless, the increased usage is raising serious public health issues.

In this article, we examine the scientific evidence comparing marijuana’s medicinal benefits to its related health risks in an effort to address the basic question: is marijuana good or bad?

What are marijuana’s medicinal advantages?
Over the years, the study has shown findings that indicate marijuana may be beneficial in the treatment of some conditions. The following is a list of them.
Pain that lasts a long time.

Last year, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine published a large study that looked at over 10,000 research reports on marijuana’s medicinal benefits and drawbacks.

The use of medical marijuana to relieve chronic pain was one of the topics covered in depth in the study. Chronic pain affects more than 25 million people and is the leading cause of disability. In the United States, a Reliable Source.

The study discovered that marijuana, or products containing cannabinoids — the active ingredients in marijuana — or other compounds that work on the same brain receptors as marijuana, was useful in the treatment of chronic pain.

Addiction to alcohol and other drugs
Another systematic analysis of the evidence, published last year in the journal Clinical Psychology Review, found that marijuana may help people who are addicted to alcohol or opioids overcome their addictions.

However, this result may be debatable; according to the National Academies of Sciences, marijuana use increases the likelihood of abusing and being dependent on other drugs.
Furthermore, the more marijuana an individual uses, the more likely they are to develop a marijuana addiction. Individuals who started using marijuana at a young age are often considered to be at a higher risk of developing a marijuana addiction.

Depression, PTSD, and social anxiety are all symptoms of depression.
The study, which was written in Clinical Psychology Review, looked at all of the published research literature on the use of marijuana to relieve mental illness symptoms.

To date, evidence shows that marijuana can be useful in the treatment of certain mental illnesses.
Its authors discovered some evidence that marijuana can help people with depression and post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms.
They do warn, however, that marijuana is not an effective cure for certain mental illnesses, such as bipolar disorder and psychosis.
The review suggests that there is some evidence that marijuana may help with social anxiety symptoms, but this is contradicted by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine review, which found that frequent marijuana users may be at an elevated risk of social anxiety.

Cancer is a disease that affects people
Oral cannabinoids have been shown to help with chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting, and several small studies have shown that smoked marijuana can also help with these symptoms.

Some cancer cell studies indicate that cannabinoids can either delay or stop the growth of some cancers. Early human research, on the other hand, showed that while cannabinoids are a safe medication, they are ineffective at controlling or curing cancer.

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a disease that affects people
Short-term application of oral cannabinoids has been shown to reduce spasticity symptoms in people with multiple sclerosis, although the benefits are modest.
Epilepsy is a neurological condition that affects people.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the use of cannabidiol (CBD)-containing medicine to treat two unusual, serious, and specific forms of epilepsy — Lennox-Gastaut syndrome and Dravet syndrome — that are difficult to manage with other types of medication in June 2018. Epidiolex is a CBD-based medication.

CBD is one of the compounds found in cannabis. It has no psychoactive properties. A distilled form of CBD is used in the treatment of these conditions. The approval was focused on analysis and clinical trial results.

In a 2017 review, CBD was found to cause significantly fewer seizures in children with Dravet syndrome as compared to a placebo.
Seizures associated with Dravet syndrome are long, repetitive, and potentially fatal. In reality, one in every five children with Dravet syndrome does not live to be 20 years old.
For 14 weeks, 120 children and adolescents with Dravet syndrome, ranging in age from 2 to 18, were randomly allocated to receive either an oral CBD solution or a placebo, along with their normal medication.

According to research, marijuana can be useful in the treatment of epilepsy.
The children who got the CBD solution went from having about 12 seizures per month to having an average of six seizures per month, according to the researchers. Three of the children who received CBD had no seizures at all.

Children who got the placebo had fewer seizures, but only slightly fewer — their total number of seizures per month decreased from 15 before the study to 14 during the study.
The researchers claim that the compound’s 39 percent reduction in seizure activity is clear evidence that it can benefit people with Dravet syndrome, and that their paper contains the first comprehensive scientific data to support this claim.

However, the study discovered a high rate of CBD-related side effects. More than 9 out of 10 children who were given CBD had side effects, the most common of which were vomiting, fatigue, and fever.

Epidiolex’s patient information leaflet warns of side effects including liver damage, sedation, and suicidal thoughts.

What are the dangers of marijuana to one’s health?
The plethora of research that has found negative associations between marijuana usage and wellbeing is on the other end of the spectrum. The following is a list of them.
Problems of mental wellbeing

Marijuana use on a daily basis is thought to worsen the effects of bipolar disorder in people who already have it. However, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine study claim that there is only insufficient evidence of a correlation between marijuana use and the development of the bipolar disorder in people who have never had the disorder.

Regular marijuana users are more likely to have suicidal thoughts, and there is a slightly increased risk of depression among marijuana users, according to moderate evidence.
Marijuana use has been linked to an increased risk of psychosis, such as schizophrenia. However, in people with schizophrenia and other psychoses, a history of marijuana use has been related to increased results on learning and memory tests.

Testicular cancer is a cancer of the testicles.
While there is no evidence linking marijuana use to an increased risk of most cancers, the National Academies of Sciences did find evidence linking marijuana use to a higher risk of the slow-growing seminoma subtype of testicular cancer.

Illness of the lungs
Daily marijuana use has been related to an increased risk of chronic cough, but it’s “unclear” whether smoking marijuana worsens lung function or raises the risk of COPD or asthma.

Although it has been difficult to conclusively connect the two, a 2014 studyTrusted Source that looked into the relationship between marijuana use and lung disease indicated that smoking marijuana could lead to lung cancer.

“There is unequivocal proof that habitual or routine marijuana smoking is not harmless,” the authors of that report, which was published in the journal Current Opinion in Pulmonary Medicine, conclude. It is prudent to avoid heavy marijuana use on a daily basis.”

“Medical marijuana is unlikely to damage lungs in low cumulative doses,” they add, “but a dose cap must be established.” Recreational use differs from medical use and should be avoided.”

Is marijuana safe for your health or bad for your health?
There is research that shows both the negative effects and the positive effects of marijuana on one’s health. Despite the publication of very detailed, up-to-date reviews of clinical studies assessing the drug’s benefits and harms in the last couple of years, it’s clear that further research is required to fully evaluate the public health consequences of rising marijuana usage.

To confirm the risks and benefits of marijuana use, further research is required.
Many scientists and health organizations, including the American Cancer Society (ACS), believe that further research into the use of marijuana and cannabinoids to treat medical conditions is essential.

However, there is a roadblock: marijuana is classified as a Schedule I controlled substance by the Drug Enforcement Administration, which discourages researchers from studying marijuana and cannabinoids by imposing stringent conditions on them.

If you live in a state where medicinal marijuana is legal, you and your doctor should carefully consider these factors and how they contribute to your condition and medical history before deciding to use this medicine.

Although there is some evidence to support the use of marijuana for pain relief, if you have a history of mental health issues, you should definitely avoid it.
Always consult your doctor before starting a new medication.

Source: Medical News Today