Berman, Douglas A. “How medical marijuana could literally save lives” Lawprofessors.typepad.com, 14 July 2015 Web. 15 July 2015.
http://lawprofessors.typepad.com
Douglas B, who is a professor at the Moritz college of law and is an editor for the website lawprofessors.typepad.com. For his college experience he attended Princeton University as well as Harvard Law School, while in law school he was editor of the Harvard Law Review. In this article he talks about how the use of medicinal marijuana can save lives from illnesses. He also gives us insight on the other side of the perspective from medical marijuana opponents and their views.
To start the author begins the post with views from medical marijuana opponents jumping on an analysis by the Journal of American Medical Association(JAMA) displaying that there isn’t enough solid evidence that marijuana is helping the conditions of glaucoma, anxiety or parkinson disease which it is usually prescribed for. He then states that “the study did not say that pot wasn’t helpful for people suffering from those ailments; it said there was no evidence to that effect” meaning that medical marijuana is still helping the cases just in a different way. It also means that you can’t mark out the use of medical marijuana just yet.
He then goes on to say “Importantly, however, the JAMA study found solid evidence that marijuana is effective at treating one big condition: chronic pain. The JAMA review found “30 % or greater improvement in pain with camabinoid compared with placebo,” across the 79 studies it surveyed. Proving that with the use of pot patients can lose the feeling of chronic pain. Which also can increase the health and happiness of the patient. This is very effective because the use of alternative medicines like pain killers are a high risk factor for overdosing. Douglas B, then says “Prescription painkillers are highly addictive and deadly — they killed more than 16,000 people in 2013, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s’s latest numbers. In the U.S., drug overdoses kill more people than suicide, guns or car crashes. The CDC now calls prescription painkiller abuse an “epidemic.”” Which reinstates the opinion of pot being the more healthier choice medicine to take when patients are having chronic pain conditions.
In the end, Douglas wraps it up with evidence that shows “that access to state-sanctioned medical marijuana dispensaries is linked to a significant decrease in both prescription painkiller abuse, and in overdose deaths from prescription painkillers.” This part of the article really helps with the legalization of marijuana because it shows that with marijuana being a healthier alternate drug to pain killers. More than 10,000 of patients lives are being saved from pain killer abuse and overdose.
This source is treasured to my research because I believe in the medicinal and recreational use of marijuana. I learned a few things from stake holders from both sides because of the insight Douglas B had on this controversy. This post really helps me believe that marijuana can help many types of conditions as long as we as a country try to pass the legalization of weed. My fellow students can find this article helpful if they have any doubts of the use of medicinal marijuana or if they just want to learn more about the subject.