When it comes to the issue of marijuana's positive and negative effects on health it can be hard to tell fact from fiction. Even though in Sterling the sale of marijuana is banned it can still be legally possessed and consumed. Because drug dealers don't check ID's underage teens can still get ahold of it and there have been instances where kids and teens have gotten into parents' stashes.

Because of this it is important, even in Sterling where it is not readily available, to understand the positive and negative effects of the drug.

Dr. Jessica Paisley, an emergency room physician at Sterling Regional MedCenter, explained that while the ER doesn't keep track of patients who are admitted due to marijuana related issues, the most common problems are usually anxiety-related or children admitted with overdose symptoms after ingesting edibles.

She also talked about an ailment reported by heavy or chronic users of the drug. The ailment is called Cannabinoid hypermesis syndrome and is characterized by chronic vomiting as well as chest and abdominal pains.

"This syndrome is odd because marijuana is regularly used to alleviate those symptoms in cancer patients," Dr. Paisley said.

There are many studies on marijuana out there and most of them are biased in one way or another. Studies have shown negative effects on mental growth in teens but there are also studies that show medical marijuana has a positive effect on a number of afflictions. Other studies done as far back as the 1980s which found negative effects have since been proven incorrect by more recent studies.

Studies on marijuana are relatively rare. This is because prohibitions were set in place that made illegal the recreational, industrial, and therapeutic use of the drug. These prohibitions were later used to justify the federal decision to classify marijuana as a schedule 1 substance under the Controlled Substances Act of 1970.

Today there are many claims of positive health benefits of marijuana and more than 40 states have laws in place legalizing medical marijuana. Most studies on the drug, however, are solely interested in finding negative effects. Getting any studies authorized is extremely difficult. Being classified as a schedule 1 substance means that as far as the DEA is concerned marijuana has no medical benefit and it is illegal to do any medical studies on it without authorization from both the DEA and the FDA which rarely ever happens.

Marijuana has been found to have several health benefits. A 2003 study by the Virginia Commonwealth University's Department of Neurology found that marijuana, when given to epileptic rats, actually prevented the rats from having seizures for almost 10 hours.

A case in 2014 made national news when a family was interviewed by CNN Chief Medical Consultant Dr. Sanjay Gupta. The Colorado family has a little girl who has a severe seizure disorder called Dravet's Syndrome. This syndrome causes severe seizures up to 300 times a week leading to developmental disorders. Her parents are treating her with a strain of marijuana that is low in THC. The pediatricians who recommended the treatment say that the plant interacts with the brain cells and quiets the brain activity that causes these seizures, reducing them from 300 a week to just one every seven days.

Another chemical found in marijuana called cannabidiol was the subject of studies done by the California Pacific Medical Center. These studies found that cannabidiol can actually stop cancer cells from spreading. A 2006 study by the Scripps Research Institute also found that the THC in marijuana can actually slow the progression of Alzheimer's disease.

Medical marijuana is legal in Israel and a lot of medical research on the drug is done there. Such research has shown that smoking marijuana reduces the pain and muscle tremors in Parkinson's disease sufferers.

Marijuana has been shown to help those going through chemotherapy by reducing the pain associated with the treatment and increasing appetite.

While there are no conclusive studies on whether or not there is a prolonged negative effect on the cognitive abilities of users who started after age 21, all the researchers agreed that it does have negative effects on the brains of kids and teens while their brains are still developing and that no one under 21 should be using it for non-medical reasons.