By George Nava True II
 
 

At one time, it was hip to smoke pot. Before marijuana became an illegal drug, it was popular among European writers and intellectuals. Those who used this drug include the likes of French writer Victor Hugo, German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, American actor Errol Flynn, and former US President John F. Kennedy.

Today, marijuana is making a comeback - not as a recreational drug but as a medicine. Many glaucoma and AIDS patients are turning to this cheap weed upon the recommendation of some doctors. Cancer patients are likewise told that marijuana can lessen the side effects of chemotherapy.
 
 

Ancient Remedy

All this is not new. The ancient Egyptians recommended marijuana for sore eyes while various cultures used it to treat coughs, headaches, and menstrual cramps. Chinese Emperor Shen Nung was convinced the plant could cure beriberi, malaria, rheumatism, and constipation.

In ancient India, marijuana was the standard treatment for fever and dysentery while African women smoked it to relieve the pain of childbirth. Other conditions believed to be cured by marijuana were anxiety, asthma, depression, epilepsy, and loss of appetite. Small wonder it has become the most popular illegal drug in the United States and the second most commonly abused drug in the Philippines.
 
 

Fact or Folklore?

However, health authorities, particularly the American Medical Association, insist that the old uses of marijuana are part of medical folklore not fact. Can the same be said about marijuana’s role in glaucoma and cancer?

That notion was proposed by Harvard psychiatrist Dr. Lester Grinspoon and James Bakalar in their book Marijuana: The Forbidden Medicine. The two claim marijuana could ease nausea and vomiting associated with cancer chemotherapy, improve the appetite of AIDS patients, and help those with glaucoma. While editors of The New England Journal of Medicine and The Annals of Medicine dismissed Grinspoon’s book for containing mostly anectodal evidence, it became a ray of hope to many desperate patients.
 
 

No Reason to Work

Scientists say there is no compelling reason to prescribe marijuana for any condition. While marijuana can lower eye pressure due to glaucoma, it also lowers blood pressure. This, in turn, lowers the blood supply to the optic nerve and may cancel the beneficial effects of lowering eye pressure. Because of this, it is not recommended by the US National Eye Institute.

"Today, there’s not enough scientific evidence that marijuana could be safe and effective for anybody to do a controlled trial on marijuana and glaucoma," according to Dr. Richard Brubaker, an ophthalmologist at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. "The preliminary evidence is just not strong enough."
 
 

Pot and Cancer

Smoked marijuana appears to be effective against nausea and vomiting due to chemotherapy. This is due to tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), one of the plant’s main ingredients. But doctors are wary about giving the drug freely since marijuana contains over 400 carcinogens or cancer-causing substances and has been implicated in cancers of the lungs, mouth, lips, and tongue. Besides, advances in chemotherapy have paved the way for the development of effective anti-nausea medications without marijuana’s side effects and high potential for abuse.

"Marijuana is not a pure substance but is an unstable, varying complex mixture of over 400 chemicals, many of which are harmful substances which have not been well-studied either alone or in combination with each other. New harmful chemical components of marijuana are still being discovered. When smoked, marijuana produces over 2,000 chemicals, including hydrogen cyanide, ammonia, carbon monoxide, acetaldehyde, acetone, phenol, cresol, naphtalene, and well-known carcinogens such as benz(a)pyrene, benz(a)anthracene, benzene and nitrosamine. Many of these cancer-causing substances are present in higher concentrations in marijuana smoke than in tobacco smoke," revealed Dr. Janet D. Lapey of the Concerned Citizens for Drug Prevention, Inc.
 
 

Risks of Smoking Pot

Aside from addiction, marijuana can wreak havoc on your immune system, cause respiratory diseases, and mental disorders such as depression, hallucinations, and panic attacks. Pregnant women who smoke marijuana have an increased risk of delivering babies with low birth weight and leukemia.

With these in mind, don’t expect to get a prescription for marijuana from your doctor in the near future. Until the medical benefits of marijuana are proven, smoking pot is defintely out.

"Although marijuana continues to be available for research, over 12,000 scientific studies on marijuana have been published, and the drug has never been shown to be safe or effective for the treatment of any condition. In June 1991, the US Public Health Service ordered a study of this issue by scientists at the National Institutes of Health. The report, issued in March 1992, concluded that scientific studies have never shown marijuana to be safe or effective as medicine and that there are better, safer drugs available for all conditions considered," Lapey concluded.