THE PROMISE OF THE FIRST MARIJUANA PRESCRIPTION!

Everything in this small global village seems to be a product for trade, we have observed of let that priests are not very different from thieves, politician have also taken the face of crooks and our sisters have taken their bodies as a product of trade or tool for promotion with prostitution being legalized as normal formal business. As if this is not enough, it is increasingly becoming difficulty to know the motive behind certain human rights movements because innocent unborn children are been aborted mainly for social reasons than medical ones hence the feeling of every child being a blessing is constantly fading away. The core moral values of our society are simultaneously being poisoned by policies that fail to contain glorification of non-sustainable concepts like full integration of marijuana as a medicinal drug. Like the dry rot that eats away the wooden beams of a house, drugs can corrode the whole structure of society. For human society to function properly, it must have stable families, healthy workers, trustworthy governments, honest police, and law-abiding citizens. Drugs corrupt every one of these fundamental elements and marijuana is one of such drugs with a similar impact. The world at the moment waits with its hands akimbo for a first legitimate prescription of marijuana on a large scale…! Is this definitely in the near future? Many researches have been done on this topic and scant literature is available for review hence the urge for us to come up with this article.

It is worth noting here that there is actually nothing we have read that has convinced us to believe that it is absolutely necessary that marijuana be indiscriminately legalized as a medical solution in place of other options despite acknowledging the fact that it possesses some medicinal value. This is because we believe that one should not believe everything s/he reads. There is actually a proverb that says: “Anyone inexperienced puts faith in every word.” “But,” it goes on to state, “the shrewd one considers his steps.” Or as another Bible verse puts it: “Everyone shrewd will act with knowledge.” (Proverbs 14:15; 13:16) You therefore owe it to yourself to learn the facts about marijuana so that you can make an intelligent decision regarding its use. Let's begin, then, by trying to understand why there is so much disagreement on this subject.

The basic problem is that marijuana is extremely tough to study. Basically, marijuana is a common name for a drug made from the dried leaves and flowering tops of the Indian hemp plant Cannabis sativa . People smoke, chew, or eat marijuana for its hallucinogenic and intoxicating effects. It is known by a number of slang names, including “pot,” infyamba “grass,” ganja “reefer,” dagga” dobo” bhang “weed,” and “Mary Jane.” The flowering tops of the Cannabis plant secrete a sticky resin that contains the active ingredient of marijuana, known as delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) which is responsible for the drug's intoxicating effect. The plant has both male and female forms, and the sticky flowers of the female plant are the most potent. It is a veritable chemical warehouse containing over 400 chemical compounds in its smoke. Of these chemicals, over 50, called cannabinoids, are found only in marijuana. But since marijuana is grown under varying conditions, marijuana varies greatly in potency from batch to batch. This can wreak havoc with test results. Further complicating matters is the fact that marijuana is generally inhaled, not injected. It is therefore very difficult to give test subjects a controlled dose, short of injecting them with delta-9-THC. Doing that, though, does not tell scientists how that chemical affect humans when it is inhaled along with over 400 companion chemicals.

While common sense might indicate that breathing noxious fumes is unhealthy, proving that charge is not easy. Cancer-causing chemicals work insidiously slowly. That is why it took doctors over 60 years to realize that cigarette smoke is a predisposing factor to cancer. So the fact that marijuana smokers do not seem to be dropping dead now does not mean that the drug is harmless. However, no one can say with certainty that marijuana smokers will one day come down with lung cancer. It may take decades before anyone really knows what marijuana's 400 chemicals do to the human body. Hashish is a similar drug prepared from the same plant. It differs from marijuana in that it is comprised of only the resin from the plant, whereas marijuana is made up of flowering tops and leaves.

Many users describe two phases of marijuana intoxication: initial stimulation, which includes giddiness and euphoria, followed by sedation and pleasant tranquility. Mood changes are often accompanied by altered perceptions of time and space. Thinking processes become disrupted by fragmentary ideas and memories. Many users report increased appetite, heightened sensory awareness, and general feelings of pleasure.

Negative effects of marijuana use can include confusion, acute panic reactions, anxiety attacks, fear, a sense of helplessness, and loss of self-control. Chronic marijuana users may develop a motivational syndrome characterized by passivity, decreased motivation, and preoccupation with taking drugs. Like alcohol intoxication, marijuana intoxication impairs judgment, comprehension, memory, speech, problem-solving ability, reaction time, and driving skills.

The effects of long-term marijuana use on the intellect have not been established, and there is no evidence that marijuana causes brain damage. Smoking marijuana can damage the lungs and long-term use may increase the risk of lung cancer. Although marijuana is not physically addicting and no physical withdrawal symptoms occur when use is discontinued, psychological dependence develops in some 10 to 20 percent of long-term regular users.

Consequently, one reason governments have been skeptical to legalize use of marijuana for medical reasons are the short and long term damage that it does to the health of its citizens which may be biological or psychological. Most countries consider marijuana an illegal substance, but individual countries vary on how they prosecute the use and possession of marijuana. Some countries only impose small fines, while others impose harsher punishment, including imprisonment. Every year thousands of drug addicts die of an overdose. Many more die of AIDS. But more than the health of the user is affected as Marijuana may also cross the maternal placenta barrier and affect the wellbeing of the fetus. According to some research data, 10 percent of all babies born in the United States are exposed to an illicit drug in most cases cocaine while in the womb. Painful withdrawal symptoms are not the only problem they face for drug exposure in the womb but suffer other damaging effects both mental and physical.

Nevertheless, marijuana has long been considered valuable as an analgesic, an anesthetic, an antidepressant, an antibiotic, and a sedative. Although it was usually used externally (e.g., as a balm or smoked), in the 19th century its tips were sometimes administered internally to treat gonorrhea and angina pectoris. Marijuana's effects vary, depending upon the strength and amount consumed, the setting in which it is taken, and the experience of the user. Psychological effects tend to predominate, with the user commonly experiencing a mild euphoria. Alterations in vision and judgment result in distortions of time and space. Acute intoxication may occasionally induce visual hallucinations, anxiety, and depression, extreme variability of mood, paranoid reactions, and psychoses lasting from four to six hours. Marijuana's physical effects include reddening of the eyes, dryness of the mouth and throat, moderate increase in the rapidity of the heartbeat, tightness of the chest (if the drug is smoked), drowsiness, unsteadiness, and muscular incoordination. Chronic use does not establish physical dependence, nor does the regular user suffer extreme physical discomfort after withdrawal. However, the use of marijuana may be psychologically habituating.

What is actually fascinating is that much ado has been made over claims that marijuana may have therapeutic value in treating glaucoma, asthma, and in easing the nausea that cancer patients experience during chemotherapy. An Institute of Medicine report acknowledges that there is some truth to these claims. In the late 20th century, medical research revealed various therapeutic effects of marijuana and THC. They were found to be useful in lowering internal eye pressure in persons suffering from glaucoma . Marijuana also has been found to reduce the muscle pain associated with multiple sclerosis and to prevent epileptic seizures in some patients. In the late 1980s researchers discovered a receptor for THC and THC-related chemicals in the brains of certain mammals, including humans. This finding indicated that the brain naturally produces a THC-like substance that may perform some of the same functions that THC does. Such a substance subsequently was found and named anandamide, from the Sanskrit anada (“bliss”).

Furthermore, some people find that marijuana combats the unpleasant symptoms associated with medical conditions. But the potential medical uses of marijuana are hard to assess, as there have been few clinical trials. Pure THC has been shown to improve appetite and prevent the severe weight loss associated with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), and it also reduces the nausea caused by cancer chemotherapy and radiation treatments. A synthetic version of THC sold under the brand name Marinol is available in capsule form as a prescription medicine in the United States for these uses. Compared to smoked marijuana, however, this drug is slower to provide symptom relief due to the time required for the drug to be absorbed into the bloodstream. Marijuana is also reported to have beneficial effects in treating pain and muscle spasms in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS). Many people who suffer from MS and other chronic diseases report that marijuana provides symptom relief when all other medications fail.

In the United States, the potential medical benefits of marijuana have sparked a debate about the legalization of marijuana for medical purposes. Federal laws prohibit the use, possession, growth, or distribution of marijuana for any purpose. Marijuana is classified in the United States as a Schedule I substance, defined as having a high potential for abuse, no accepted medical use, and no accepted safety for use in medically supervised treatment. However, since 1996 voters in 11 states; Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington have approved so-called medical marijuana laws. Except in Arizona, these laws allow patients with certain diseases, such as cancer and AIDS, to grow and use marijuana with a physician's approval for medical purposes, mainly to alleviate extreme pain, nausea, lack of appetite, and other chronic symptoms when other drugs are ineffective. Under most of these laws, qualifying patients must carry special identification cards.

But does this mean that in the near future doctors will be prescribing joints (marijuana cigarettes)? Not likely. For a while some of marijuana's over 400 chemical compounds may prove useful, smoking marijuana would hardly be the logical way to take such medicines. “Using marijuana,” says noted authority Dr. Carlton Turner, “would be like giving people molded bread to eat to get penicillin.” So if any marijuana compounds ever become bona fide medicines, it will be marijuana “derivatives or analogues,” chemical compounds similar thereto, that doctors will prescribe. No wonder, then, that the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services wrote: “It should be emphasized that possible therapeutic benefits in no way modify the significance of the negative health effects of marijuana.” In the past, family planning hormones or insulin where extracted from an organ of a pig but it has not necessitated the eating of the whole pig monthly as a family planning method neither have people being encouraged to drink their urine because family planning hormones have been extracted from it in the past. A lot more medicines have been extracted and refined from sources or resources that people would find it difficult to drink from but have widely benefited them on a large scale. Primitive science made us believe that the 'whole' was more beneficial than the 'part' hence people died from taking poisonous roots believed to possess some medicinal value. Nonetheless, modernity and improved technological talents have helped extract active therapeutic elements from complex materials. But why the fuss about raw marijuana ? For now it is difficult to know the intentions or motive by the men and women behind this movement but let's watch them with our eyes and listen from them with our brains.

At this point the evidence about marijuana's damaging effects is not complete but a thousand alternatives to its medicinal value are very much available in our health facilities. Much more research remains to be done. Yet, from the results that some have obtained, it is evident that there are at least possible serious threats to health. It doesn't take rocket science or you don't need to be a medical genius to note psychological impact of deviant behaviour exhibited by people so much exposed to abuse of marijuana. These people are also known to have unorthodox solutions to some of life's problems that affect the environment around them negatively. The sale of alcohol to teenagers under eighteen (18) years is prohibited in most countries but people abusing this soft drug are mostly below this age. Therefore, legalizing marijuana for any strange purpose will increase a future society of psychos that will waste our resources in drug rehab centres. Marijuana intoxication .has the potential of negatively influencing the state of future leadership of our families, communities or governments if consumption is legalized in it.s raw form .For those smoking marijuana because they have cancer, AIDS, Asthma or any medical condition, they are doing this out of ignorance of effects of other 400 elements in this weed. The possibility that marihuana use may be hazardous producing a remarkable polarization among scientists should not make us naive in seeking guidance of whom to believe. Amigos, our contacts are given below for consultation on this topic and any other of your interest as we move together towards good health. We are likely to give you a prescription for marijuana 400 years from now if these 400 elements prove to be therapeutically beneficial but less harmful to your wellbeing.

JONES H. MUNANG'ANDU (author)

Motivational speaker, health commentator &
Health practitioner
Email; [email protected]
Skype id; jones .muna

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