The Importance of Medicinal Marijuana
The Importance of Medicinal Marijuana
He was my colleague and friend. He was also creative, sensitive, caring and an inspiring teacher of medicine. He was admired, respected and loved by his family, friends, students and patients. In addition to this, he was dying of a cancer which was slowly growing and expanding in his chest despite aggressive chemotherapy treatment.
My colleague and friend knew he was dying and accepted his fate with his usual grace and dignity. What he was not accepting or tolerating well was the terrible side effects his chemotherapy was creating within his body. Unable to tolerate foods because of unrelenting and severe nausea and vomiting, my friend was slowly losing weight and wasting away, his strength taken from him by the very medication he was taking to fight for his life. Nothing seemed to work. Every possible treatment for nausea and vomiting failed to bring him some relief and comfort or his appetite back.
If something did not happen soon, we all knew the chemotherapy would have to be stopped and any chance for an extended period of remission or comfort would end. But something did happen and my friend told me about it one beautiful fall day while I sat with him on his porch overlooking the green hills of Tennessee. He told me how a month earlier, someone had brought him marijuana. Having never smoked and certainly never having used illegal substances, my friend was at first reluctant to try the carefully rolled cigarette handed to him. However, he was desperate and sick of being sick, and so he agreed to give it a try. What he found out amazed him. Marijuana curbed his nausea, stimulated his appetite and generally elevated his mood. In addition, some of the dull pain in his chest was diminished. That afternoon he told he was hoping to be able to continue his new found illegal treatment. He knew it would not be easy.
Today, the controversy of whether to legalize marijuana for certain medical conditions continues to be debated by the medical community and society. While the debate rages on, many sufferers of AIDS and cancer are going to “clubs” where they can buy marijuana in the form of banana bread, magic brownies and “merry pills”. In order to buy these products, an individual must have a note from his or her...