Question

I really don't understand what the following question is trying to ask. In regards to medical marijuana was there a trade-off between science and politics?

Answer 1

Marijuana also known as cannabis among other names, is a psychoactive drug from the Cannabis plant intended for medical or recreational use

There’s a big difference between anecdotal evidence and scientific proof, and the field of medical marijuana research is be filled with more of the former than the latter in part because marijuana is notoriously difficult to study because it’s classified as a schedule-1 drug.

The studies evaluated marijuana’s ability to relieve a range of symptoms including nausea from chemotherapy, loss of appetite among HIV positive patients, multiple sclerosis spasms, depression, anxiety, sleep disorders, psychosis and Tourette syndrome. Most of the studies showed improvements among the participants taking the cannabinoid products over those using placebo, but in many, the scientists admitted that they could not be sure that the effect wasn’t simply due to chance since the association was not statistically significant. Only few countries have legislated such medicinal marijuana into legality, which means that legislation, and not scientific criteria, have “approved” these compounds for medical use.

Instead, medical marijuana laws may have reduced hospitalizations related to opioid pain relievers but there is still much we need to understand about the mechanisms through which marijuana policy may affect opioid use and harms.

We don’t know who it works best for, at what dosage, for how long.