This is probably the most discussed subject in the world of alternative medicine.
There is not a general answer for it. There are some countries that define the Cannabis plant as a medicine for certain health treatments. Other countries define it as an illegal drug that causes damages to the body and mind.
The conjunction with the word cannabis or Marihuana is mostly the drug. The association many people have is the hippy with dreadlocks and colorful clothes sitting high on a couch listening to Bob Marley and smoking a reefer. That might be the case in some places but is not the whole reality.
The drug effects
Cannabis is one of the most commonly consumed drugs in the world. From young to old, people enjoy the trip. The effects of Marihuana are various. People get dizzy and high from the psychoactive ingredient THC, they might have trouble thinking straight. A more serious aspect is the effect on the mental health of people. Consuming Marihuana can cause anxieties, panic attacks, and depressions. It can worsen any mental disorder that a person already had.
In the long term, people using Cannabis have trouble focusing or remembering things.
Medical Marihuana
In many states of the US Cannabis is allowed to use as a medicine. People use it to reduce pain, to relax stiff muscles or muscle spasms caused by multiple sclerosis. Medical Cannabis helps people with sleep problems and anxieties, it is a way to treat a person with seizures from epilepsy and supports people who have problems with their appetite and weight gaining.
Because it is illegal in many countries and just recently started to be accepted as a medicine in some countries, researches are limited. Effects on the long term are not fully proven and information about marihuana as a medicine is not detailed.
Many individual cases claim that Marihuana helped them with a disease, most chronic illnesses. The challenges for those people are huge. If they are lucky, they live in one of the countries where Cannabis is legal for medical reasons. But for people who live in countries where Cannabis is illegal, barely have the chance to purchase it legally.
Some patients have special permissions to use Cannabis for their health, but this is very rare.
It is also a challenge for the Cannabis businesses because they have trouble being in a grey area about medicine and drugs. They are faced with problems like cannabis payment processing because Payment Companies don´t want to work with Shops that sell Marihuana.
The discussions and challenges about Marihuana as medicine are big because it is famous and widely known as a drug. People are scared that it is just a way to legalize a drug. They fear that countless people will get addicted and suffer from the side effects of the drug.
On the other side, people see it as a chance to reduce criminality around the sales and purchase of Cannabis. As there are cases where it helped people with their health issues many doctors and experts see a possibility to heal and improve the lives of many more people.