Oxford University Is Launching A New Research Program Into The Benefits Of Marijuana
You’d have to be brainwashed not realize the benefits of marijuana. If you have cancer that limits your appetite, you can smoke some marijuana and regain that need for food to give you energy. If you have pain from an injury, you can smoke marijuana to limit the pain instead of gobbling opioids like candy. Insomnia have you staring at your TV screen at night? Marijuana can give you the sleep you need. The list of things marijuana benefits is long, and Oxford University is launching a new research program to find the benefits.
With a £10m research program, Oxford is looking at the benefits of medical marijuana to help people suffering from Parkinson’s disease and chronic pain. However, marijuana has also been linked to adverse effects, so what they are planning to do is isolate the positive effects of marijuana.
Dr. Zameel Cader, part of the team at Oxford, doesn’t just want people who need the benefits of marijuana to just light up a joint. He instead wants to focus on the cannabinoid compounds that are found naturally in the cannabis plant but also in the human body. The point of the research is to find out if these compounds can indeed help treat diseases that we suffer from.
“The problem with smoking cannabis is that it’s associated with unwanted effects,” Dr Cadeer explains. “So if you take cannabis when you’re young there seems to be an increased risk of developing problems like schizophrenia. What we know though is that there are cannabinoids both from the plant and the body that have beneficial effects. So the aim of the research program is to try and isolate those cannabinoids that are beneficial, but don’t have the risk of psychiatric problems.”
A major story about the medicinal effects of marijuana came from Sir Patrick Stewart who uses marijuana to ease the pain of his arthritis. Since weed is illegal in the UK, Stewart probably sticks to smoking in the United State where many states are legal for both recreational and medicinal use.
“The fact that there are so many people who describe benefits with pain and with anxiety really shows the potential therapeutic value,” Dr. Cadeer explains. “What we really need to do is work out how we can harness that benefit without getting the unwanted side-effects.”
Though the research is still underway, I personally believe that marijuana is a better alternative than shoving opioids into the faces of people with only subtle pain that doesn’t require up to 180 Vicodins a day — that isn’t hyperbole. I hope that this research could isolate certain aspects of marijuana that erases the necessity of having to smoke pot from a joint or a pipe. Though it can help pain and appetite, some people don’t like to smoke — especially if they quit cigarettes.
(Via BBC)
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Jeff Sorensen is an author, writer and occasional comedian living in Detroit, Michigan. You can look for more of his work on The Huffington Post, UPROXX, BGR and by just looking up his name.
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