Study: Medical Marijuana Not As Effective As Previously Thought
BOSTON (CBS) - A review published in this week's Journal of the American Medical Association, looked at dozens of previous studies on marijuana and found very little evidence to support the use of the drug for medicinal purposes.
For certain types of chronic pain and spasticity, they found there was moderate-quality evidence supporting it, at best, but for other conditions like nausea from chemotherapy, weight gain in people with HIV, sleep disorders, the data was of poor quality and not compelling.
Potential side effects were also concerning including dizziness, confusion, and even serious kidney, liver, and psychiatric disorders.
Experts at Yale University, in a separate letter, suggested that marijuana should be subjected to the same strict standards as other drugs when trying to win FDA approval and that for most conditions, marijuana just fails to meet those FDA standards.
They say if states want to legalize marijuana, they should leave the medical community out of it and instead focus on decriminalizing it.