Cannabis- Friend or Foe?

At first glance, what is your gut reaction? Would you dare say that cannabis is a friend to us or do you consider it the devil’s lettuce? Our current drug policy and the war on drugs would have you believe that cannabis; or should I say marijuana- is a profoundly bad, immoral, and dangerous substance. All the while, we’re being inundated with pharmaceutical advertisements on the television, radio, Instagram, and Facebook. That my friends is called direct-to-consumer advertisement, and the ads are everywhere we look.

The ads in themselves are normalizing the number of prescriptions and over-the-counter (OTC) medications we take on a regular basis. The outrageous amount of drugs advertised to us daily actually have folks walking into their doctor’s offices asking for the drug on a commercial by name. You see, pharmaceuticals are a for-profit business, as is cannabis for that matter- but more on that later.

Let’s take a closer look at the pharmaceutical industry, shall we? Think of the commercials we see, like Nike, Starbucks, or Crypto Coin. What do they all have in common? They want to stir emotion within their audience. They want to instill the desire to have that thing they’re selling. Boy o’ boy, and aren’t they great at doing just that? Hello, how many of us want the new iPhone? Seriously, how have we lived without 3 lenses on our phones? The horror!

All of these advertisements have a narrative they’re trying to sell us. Think about it, the commercials always focus on the happy individual whose life has been completely transformed because of said drug. I often wonder how many people are actually listening to the long list of possible complications that usually end with “and in rare cases death”. At which point I’m always like wait- hold on, what? Even the OTC meds we know so well have their fair share of concerns. Did you know acetaminophen can cause liver problems? And, Ibuprofen can cause stomach bleeding. That’s why you’re always supposed to take it with food. Crazy, right?

The problem is that this industry is shamelessly making addicts and killing many “patients” on a daily basis. Many of these victims obtained the prescription they overdosed on from their local pharmacy, prescribed by their family doctor. For countless others, the booming black market is to blame.

Of course, we can’t discuss drugs and not mention some very popular, very lucrative, very regulated, and very much deadly yet legal drugs: enter tobacco and alcohol. There is no doubt about the impact these two drugs have, and many of us consume them regularly. Yet, many of us have also been affected by the reach and damage these massive drug industries have. I for one am the daughter of an alcoholic and lost my grandfather to lung cancer. Chances are you’ve also been affected in some similar way.

Now let’s talk cannabis, which has historically been used as a medicine by both ancient civilizations and many, many Americans throughout the United States and the world today. In America, we have a high cannabis consumption rate in both legal and black markets for medicinal and recreational purposes.

Cannabis is indeed believed to serve as medicine for many today. In fact, it’s a medicine that has helped me tremendously. So much so that my family and I relocated from a state with existing marijuana prohibition to a state that offers both medicinal marijuana and recreational cannabis- gotta love Colorado!

Each state has its own outline of conditions for which a medical professional will issue a medical marijuana recommendation. Depending on the state, the qualifying conditions may include cancer, glaucoma, epilepsy, chronic pain, seizures, HIV/AIDS, PTSD, anxiety, fibromyalgia, Crohn’s disease, IBS, IBD, anorexia, and Parkinson’s disease to name a few.

Healtheurope.eu posted an article titled 20 Health benefits of cannabis that everyone should know. In the article they include a large range of conditions, some surprising including lung capacity improvement, weight loss aid, regulation and prevention of diabetes, mood-stabilizing (which helps with depression), mending bones, ADHD/ADD, slows the development of Alzheimer’s disease, eases arthritis pain, and cannabis even helps recovering alcoholics.

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