How Medical Marijuana Works and Its Complicated Legal Status

When used correctly, marijuana offers some beneficial medical benefits, but due to its current (and unusual) legal status, it is difficult to obtain and use effectively. However, by learning the basics, you should be able to overcome these obstacles. Let’s take a look at how medical marijuana works and what laws surround it.

What you need to know about the legal status of marijuana

The current state of marijuana legality is a bigger problem than you might think. By itself, you have a potent drug that offers several medical benefits with many side effects, most of which many people get for recreational purposes and others like me find unpleasant. Whether you like the high or not, or support the human right to recreational drugs, marijuana has medical value, but not without significant drawbacks. For example, marijuana can reduce the frequency of seizures in children with epilepsy. Several marijuana products (mostly tinctures, which we will discuss later), such as Charlotte’s Web and Jayden Juice , focus on one component of the versatile plant (cannabidiol, also known as CBD) to provide seizure prevention without the side effects associated with getting high. “It also helps a subset of people with chronic pain to live with little or no pain.

But Jaden Juice and the Charlotte Network were not found in a traditional laboratory, and they are not pharmaceutical products. In a way, this is an exciting form of progress because we are all familiar with some of the unethical practices of pharmaceutical companies , and it’s nice when outsiders do the research that matters. However, marijuana has tremendous healing power that we cannot tap into without adequate financial resources, which means the labs and talent that these companies possess on a massive scale. With their help, we could discover new drugs that treat a large number of conditions with fewer side effects than existing drugs on the market.

Consider pain relief as a prime example. With a few exceptions (most notably inflammatory pain), narcotic drugs known as opioids make up the majority of the pain reliever market. You probably know them as oxycodone (oxycontin, percocet), hydrocodone (norko, vicodin), tramadol (ultram), and codeine . (Tylenol 3) These are drugs that pop up in dialogue when addiction is discussed in TV shows and films. Opioids help you to ignore pain and feel euphoric, but you can only take them for a short period of time before your body develops tolerance and you need more and more to feel “normal.” Ask any recovered addict and they will tell you how dire withdrawal symptoms become and how quickly they occur after stopping use. Many people are unaware of the risks of taking opioids and quickly develop physical dependence without even knowing it. On the other hand, marijuana is not associated with such a high level of risk and addiction . While you can develop tolerance, you risk far fewer side effects and deal with that tolerance more easily.

Despite the potential benefits of marijuana over the often more dangerous legal drugs, the US government still lists it as a controlled substance . Opioids such as hydrocodone and oxycodone fall into a Schedule II category, which means that only a limited amount can be prescribed in a country per year. It also makes them difficult to obtain for those in need of these drugs. Despite the dangers posed by opioids, they are still considered beneficial to health, whereas marijuana – despite factual evidence to the contrary, which the government actually admits – is not, and keeping it on Schedule I does not mean that it is illegal to own it. buy or sell, but makes it almost impossible to study or research in legal, medical institutions.

As a result of the federal government’s stance, states passed medical marijuana laws allowing people to grow a limited number of marijuana plants for personal use. If you get a prescription for medical marijuana, you can join the collective and “donate” money to get some of their “work products,” which simply means you can buy marijuana using silly terminology to pretend it isn’t. … Some states, such as Colorado and Oregon, have completely legalized the drug. However, the federal government still considers it illegal, which means that you are taking on many risks if you choose to use it for medical purposes. For example, a prescription in one state is not usually transferable to another , so you cannot travel and receive a prescription while away from home. In addition, if you are traveling by air, you will have to deal with the Transportation Security Agency or TSA – the federal agency – and you are not subject to state laws, even if you are traveling within the state in which you received your prescription. The chances of prosecution are slim, but these examples demonstrate the inconsistency between state legalization and federal illegality.

Obviously, this process needs to be changed. It is also probably obvious that I believe that the government should not oppose the use of marijuana for medical purposes. We need to continue to research marijuana and learn how to create more effective drugs with fewer side effects that can help people manage pain without getting high. We need doctors to learn how to use marijuana as a treatment, and patients do not need to rely on dispensary staff, who often know more about recreational purposes than medical ones , to advise on hard drugs. At the very least, we need to eliminate the risk of fines and jail time for people who currently use marijuana for medical purposes. Many people believe that imminent change is around the corner and hope that this prediction will come true. In the meantime, before you go buy yourself a prescription for medical marijuana, be aware of these risks and limitations. Although small, these are just legal issues. A lot of knowledge is required to use medical marijuana safely and effectively. My goal here is to help you with this, so that you do not have to go through the troubles that I have done.

How does medical marijuana work?

Before you do anything else, you must understand how medical marijuana works, how it can help you, and what other fun things to expect. First, let’s look at the main types of plants:

• Sativa : Known as “head up sativa,” sativa tends to have more psychoactive and euphoric properties. Most recreational marijuana users prefer sativa because it doesn’t sleep as quickly as its indica cousin (discussed below). While I have personally found sativa to have less medicinal benefits, some people have the opposite experience.
• Indica : Known as the body high, indica tends to relax and soothe you. Some people report feeling chained to a couch or bed. Indica is often the best option for people with health problems because it works well as a sedative. However, this may offer the opposite of what you are after. If you don’t want to sleep, don’t use indica.
• Hybrid: Not surprisingly, hybrid marijuana varieties contain both sativa and indica. You may find it more effective for medical purposes because it provides the best of both worlds.
• Ruderalis : You almost certainly won’t come across cannabis ruderalis by name. This is an unusual species, originally from Russia. It has a higher concentration of cannabidiol (also known as CBD – more on that later) than indica or sativa. If you end up purchasing a high CBD product, it may have been sourced from ruderalis cannabis. You don’t need to worry about this type, however, as you never have to ask for it by name.

The first time you use any marijuana you will have a very different experience from later times. Some people do not get high at all, while others get so high, even from a small amount, that they never want to touch this substance again – it was me! You, too, may be somewhere in between. But you don’t have to get high to get the medical benefits of marijuana. Marijuana contains a large number of compounds called cannabinoids , most of which fall under two headings: tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD) . While there are at least 85 types of cannabinoids , for the sake of this explanation, we’re going to take a simplistic approach and just categorize them all into THC and CBD categories.

• THC : If your goal is to get high, THC will do it. The psychoactive properties of marijuana are found in THC. But beyond that, THC can relieve stress, pain, nausea, glaucoma symptoms, and insomnia. It can also stimulate your appetite (you know, feed you) and soothe asthma and panic attacks. Some people who use medical marijuana need THC and will have to deal (or enjoy, if you fall into that category) side effect of, well, well, getting high. Depending on the tension and your reaction to it, it can be paranoia or relaxation, falling asleep, giggling, overeating, and anything else that is usually associated with recreational marijuana use. You will have to use medical marijuana products that contain THC several times to get a good idea of ​​what will happen to you in the long term.
• CBD : If you don’t want to get high at all, you need CBD. Most medical marijuana products for children contain either only CBD (Charlotte’s Network) or a very high ratio of CBD to THC (Jayden Juice) so that no psychoactive symptoms appear. CBD can help prevent seizures, but it also helps with nausea, some chronic pain, inflammatory pain (like rheumatoid arthritis), schizophrenia, psychosis, anxiety, and more.

If you want to try medical marijuana even though you know you want the benefits of THC, you should start with CBD products first. This way you can find out if CBD is helping you at all, and then you can enable THC based on what you have learned. You will not receive any judgment from us for wanting to enjoy medicinal marijuana if you put your medical needs first. Understand what you are doing to act responsibly.

Now let’s discuss what happens to your brain when you use medical marijuana. Here’s an example of a meal schedule, my preferred treatment:

1. You eat and wait up to two hours for something to happen.
2. Let’s say you ingest marijuana containing THC and it starts working in your brain. As mentioned earlier, this may take a while, but when the process begins, you will be very aware of this. Compounds like THC do their job by forcing neurons to send neurotransmitters down pathways in the brain called synapses to do their job. Most neurotransmitters are made in your body, but compounds like THC mimic these neurotransmitters for different effects. THC, for example, mimics anandamide .
3. As soon as THC starts binding, you will begin to feel this high, but you will also feel its medical benefits – calmness, pain relief, relaxed anxiety. THC, mimicking anandamide, begins to bind to cannabinoid receptors in your brain, which blocks some of the normal brain activity. Because anandamide and dopamine work together, THC causes significant disruption. Your otherwise adequate memory, coordination, and learning abilities suddenly seem inadequate and are replaced by hunger, euphoria, painlessness and, in many people, cognitive impairment. For most people, it increases over the course of two hours, with the second hour being the most significant. This first time can seem intense, especially with an edible one. You will most likely fall asleep, especially if you start with an indica or hybrid. If you start with a sativa, this can happen too, but not before you (potentially) experience strange hallucinations.
4. Depending on your tolerance, you will recover in 4-16 hours. Plan ahead and don’t try it (especially the edible ones) the first time if you need to be somewhere during this time, especially if it involves driving.

But what about smoking and fuming? What about sprays and tinctures? We’ll come back to this later in this series, but if you want to understand how this all changes when smoking or vaping, it happens in a much shorter period of time (5-30 minutes), and the effects will be significantly weaker because you will Swallow less drug in a puff of smoke or in a stream of smoke than with food.

Of course, this is exactly what you can feel. It also helps you learn how marijuana is scientifically affecting your brain and body . You will also want to be more responsible when using the drug for medical purposes. As Green Week continues, we will discuss this and more. Be aware of!

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