The recent legalization of marijuana in different states across the United States has had defiant claims to the benefits of the drug. Many of the claimed benefits are not even backed scientifically which leads to a lot of promiscuities and beliefs that aren’t worth believing. The most concerning is that most of the American public think that marijuana prevents health problems. Yes, studies have illuminated the fact that cannabis can aid in quieting seizures in epileptic children, subdue the vomiting and nausea that comes with chemotherapy and even sooth nerve pain, but for the vast of other medical conditions people believe the drug cures, there’s no evidence to any one of them.
Dr. Salomeh Keyhani from the University of California, and his team conducted an online survey on 16,280 US adults and the end results were really concerning. While 76 percent believed marijuana to assert addictive qualities, 22.4 percent thought it couldn’t be addictive. Real studies show that 9 percent of people using cannabis become addictive. More saddening is that one-third of their respondents believed edible marijuana prevented health problems, and a quarter plus of them thought to vape and smoke marijuana was protective. Others even thought that marijuana intake was safe during pregnancy, which is quite disheartening. Respondents from the same study also thought driving while high on cannabis was safer than drunk driving! Dr. Keyhani blames this on little, or none, cannabis advertising regulation.
Marijuana should be classified as a Schedule I drug, the same category as heroin, ecstasy, LSD, but being a billion dollar industry, it has been politicized and lightly informed on. If one is to google the benefits of marijuana, a hit article from popular websites draws up with shouting headlines of the misguiding benefits of the substance, which people fall for. The society we live in today gets their data on cannabis from celebrities, television shows, social media and social conventions which are all basically sponsored to promote the sale of cannabis other than conveniently informing of the drug.
For scientists to research on a Schedule I substance, they have to go through a lot of hoops that the federal government throws at them. This is quite daunting, as they are merely trying to enlighten the public of the real benefits and risks of cannabis. The main reason that people think cannabis is safe is that there aren’t that many deaths, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t people dying from it. Without research, laws are driven by politics. Science-Based legislation should be adopted on this matter.
