Ask the next medical marijuana scholar you meet how difficult it is to study the Net Positive effects of the plants flower … they will be quick to inform you of the obstacles to researching the medical benefits of its mysterious compounds.
As should be expected, the scientific value of this dank equation is not the issue; it’s the unbending political fractions that inhibit most medicinal applications from being discovered, thanks to the restrictive marijuana research guidelines set forth by our federal government.
Confirming what most already suspect, yesterday a story was published by USA Today that revealed nearly 80% of all marijuana research cash is aimed at marijuana addiction and abuse, not towards researching marijuana’s medical benefits.
According to the article, “Some parents with children suffering from seizures want to try using medical marijuana to treat their children more effectively than current medicine has been able to. But the Food and Drug Administration has not approved any marijuana-based medicines for seizures.”
In drilling down on the perplexing issue, USA Today uncovered some rather startling facts, “$1.1 billion of the $1.4 billion that the National Institutes of Health spent on marijuana research from 2008 to 2014 went to study abuse and addiction. Only $297 million was spent on its effects on the brain and potential medical benefits for those suffering from conditions like chronic pain.”
Over the last seven years, less than 1,000 National Institute of Health (NIH) research projects examined marijuana’s compounds for reasons besides abuse and addiction. Rather than making it easy to search for cures to post traumatic stress disorder, brain cancer and epileptic seizures, the NIH mandates a strict approval process for Universities to follow in order to study marijuana and its valuable cannabinoids.
While there’s always going those individuals who are predisposed to be addicts – regardless of the substance – the propaganda of marijuana use as “evil” and “addictive” helps to sustain the misguided Drug War in the United States, while at the same time detracting from the overall positive research performed on the cannabis plant’s medicinal compounds.
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