19 March 2018
Medical Marijuana (THC and CBD) In Modern Medical Facilities
It is generally common knowledge that as technologies advance so does scientific studies. Allowing for medical breakthroughs to advance proclaiming cures and treatments for patients with aliments. It is often said that naturalistic health views and treatments have no place in modern medicine facilities like hospitals, nursing homes and rehabilitation centers. The bias ideas of naturalistic health treatments being hippie and going against all norms of societies common medical practices could be potentially overshadowing the benefits presented. I believe America is not far off from discussions of implementing medical marijuana compounds Cannabinoid and Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC and CBD) as open options for treatment within modern medical facilities. On the one hand there has been a mass shift in the view point in the last thirty years to the positives of THC and CBD. This is corroborated by the constant conversations of medical marijuana being decriminalized in each state and on a federal level. Within states like California and Colorado for example marijuana can be used as medically prescribed treatments and for recreational personal use. On the other hand many refute the idea that marijuana has any actual benefits besides making people high. Their beliefs proclaim a fight to keep their states from legalizing any use and still consider use of marijuana a major criminal offense.
The recent years, breakthroughs in treatments with marijuana are still thought as inferior to modern medical interventions. No hospital doctor would prescribe or recommend a THC or CBD products before the introduction of modern medications like pain relievers and muscle relaxers. You wouldn’t find a nurse applying CBD lotion for pain on a patient in hospital care, or a arthris stricken elder in a nursing home. Heard on every cop show ever when the deivant is caught for running from police “All that for a little weed”. Now the possibility that little weed plant could be the key to unlocking many more treatments, or help the all too common fatal addiction crisis is a amazing thought.
Medical marijuana is not the same as the hippie marijuana during the 1960-1970’s. Author of Understanding Medical Marijuana and Cannabis Anatomy 101, Gooey Rabinski educates his readers on the difference between plant types and how science of breeding plants strengthens the THC and CBD components within each Marijuana plant. He states “sativas are better for treating depression and PTSD, while indicas are good for arthritis and cancer and are better at pain management. Sativas tend to deliver a more energetic, cerebral high, while indicas are more sedating, delivering the infamous “couchlock” and appetite stimulation” (Rabinski). Chemical compounds like THC and CBD can be extracted for different treatments. Ethan Russo and Geoffrey W. Guy wrote a Medical Hypotheses journal examination of THC and CBD and they emphasize the benefit potential to many ailments.
“Cannabinoid and vanilloid receptor effects as well as non-receptor mechanisms are explored, such as the capability of THC and CBD to act as anti-inflammatory substances independent of cyclo-oxygenase (COX) inhibition. CBD is demonstrated to antagonise some undesirable effects of THC including intoxication, sedation and tachycardia, while contributing analgesic, anti-emetic, and anti-carcinogenic properties in its own right. In modern clinical trials, this has permitted the administration of higher doses of THC, providing evidence for clinical efficacy and safety for cannabis based extracts in treatment of spasticity, central pain and lower urinary tract symptoms in multiple sclerosis, as well as sleep disturbances, peripheral neuropathic pain, brachial plexus avulsion symptoms, rheumatoid arthritis and intractable cancer pain. Prospects for future application of whole cannabis extracts in neuroprotection, drug dependency, and neoplastic disorders are further examined” (Russo,Guy).
If all the positives of CBD and medical cannabis are proven to be a long term solution, modern medicines facilities should approve the use and suggestions by doctors and nurses to use natural ways in handling physical discomforts as well as mental discomforts before the modern medicines or with those medications. In a situation where a person needs chemotherapy for a cancer diagnosis it is their overall choice if they want THC and CBD support in the states allowing use. Yet that support is still not within the facilities like hospitals and take a primary physician prescription for “home use”. Author and advocate for use of marijuana in modern medical facilities, Jessica Assaf wrote of her father in laws struggles. Stories like hers invoke great emotional response when you know there are different ways that are legal but the only thing holding him back from more comfort was hospital policies.
“Two weeks ago, I spent the night in the Intensive Care Unit at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City watching my partner’s father die of colon cancer. After two years of failed chemotherapy and radiation, this prominent New York City lawyer weighed 130 pounds and could no longer talk nor move. He was admitted to the hospital for the twentieth time, confined to his hospital bed for days until doctors released him. Though this patient had a medical recommendation for cannabis use in New York and vaporized THC and CBD daily to manage his pain, he could not use his medicine while he was stuck in the hospital. Instead, he was administered Fentanyl” (Assaf,Jessica).
This switch would start to tie into America’s health and the reliance on over the counter and prescription drugs. When most people have body aches, headaches they reach for a over the counter pain reliever like ibuprofen or acetaminophen. Those medicines can cause stomach bleeding and liver damage as stated on their warning labels yet some eat them like candy just for a little relief of daily pain. According to many articles and like that of Vera Tweed even the use of only CBD could help. “CBD oil is anti-inflammatory, acts as an antioxidant, and has a therapeutic effect on the brain and central nervous system, which influences many processes, including the sensation of pain, mood, memory, and appetite. Epilepsy, anxiety, ADHD, Alzheimer’s disease, arthritis, and fibromyalgia are among the conditions that CBD may help (TWEED, VERA).” CBD comes in many forms for different ways of application and ingestion, pill form, oils, lotions, gummy bear and chocolate edibles.
The suggestion that CBD and Medical THC could be a help to those suffering from addictions is not far off either. People on the hardest of drugs suffer harsh withdraws when they do not keep using and using, which is why most keep going with their use. I believe if CBD and THC could help them through the “sickness” of withdraws from the poisonous drugs, more people would be using medical marijuana and not shooting up heroin. It’s probably as probable as everyone in America eating healthy, which would be the best american life insurance policy. The point is, it is a way to try and break the dependencies. The saying trading a drug for a drug is still just as bad that would not be true in the case of cannabis. The lesser of two evils pleases the mass population, most are not Heroin addicts but drink every weekend just the same. Asking ourselves of all the drugs in this world perceived and taught to be bad, which would benefit more if legalized? Noticing that answer would be medical marijuana extracts THC and CBD is exactly why the call for legalization and acceptance has been a advocated heavily in recent years. Policies and Politics are at war with science and the patient validations corroborating the significant benefits that marijuana’s chemical compound present. Even the eco
nomy can benefit from
marijuana reform because it is a taxed product like most things in America. “In its first fiscal year, the state fell short of estimates and only collected $65 million in marijuana excise tax revenues. By the second year, revenues exceed estimates with $185 million collected in the second fiscal year and $315 million in the third fiscal year” (From Prohibition to Progress: A Status Report on Marijuana Legalization).
Many more years of research into the medical marijuana benefits as well as studying the effects of open use on society as a whole will be the only way to know the long term outcome. I believe in a few more decades the deviance associated with medical marijuana drop to near extinction. With the treatment potential to lower the pharmaceutical reliance and statistical numbers, across the board the numbers will need to start to show the power this plant has on health. In the states that have legalized marijuana, every patient in a medical facility should have the open choice of treatment plans with medical marijuana.
Work cited
Assaf, Jessica. “A Plea for Cannabis in Hospitals – Healthcare in America.” Healthcare in America, Healthcare in America, 5 Jan. 2018, healthcareinamerica.us/a-plea-for-cannabis-in-hospitals-4497c1048a5a.
BRUENIG, ELIZABETH. “The Wonder Drug.” New Republic, vol. 246, no. 12, Nov. 2015, p. 18. EBSCOhost, library.icc.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f5h&AN=109984488&scope=site.
“From Prohibition to Progress: A Status Report on Marijuana Legalization.” Drug Policy Alliance, Jan. 2018, www.drugpolicy.org/legalization-status-report.
Vargo Cavalet, Jill. “The Highs and Lows of Medical Marijuana.” Clinician Reviews, vol. 26, no. 10, Oct. 2016, pp. 40-53. EBSCOhost, library.icc.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=119006956&scope=site.
Laura. “Working to Reform Marijuana Laws.” The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, norml.org/marijuana/fact-sheets/item/marijuana-regulation-and-crime-rates.
Rabinski, Gooey. “Cannabis Anatomy 101.” MassRoots, Gooey Rabinski , 4 Sept. 2015, www.massroots.com/learn/cannabis-plant-anatomy/
Russo, Ethan, and Geoffrey W. Guy. “A Tale of Two Cannabinoids: The Therapeutic Rationale for Combining Tetrahydrocannabinol and Cannabidiol.” Medical Hypotheses, vol. 66, no. 2, 2006, pp. 234–246., doi:10.1016/j.mehy.2005.08.026.
TWEED, VERA. “Best Way to Use Hemp CBD Oil.” Better Nutrition, vol. 80, no. 2, Feb. 2018, p. 10. EBSCOhost, library.icc.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=rzh&AN=127148126&scope=site.
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