A commentary on the medicinal use of marijuana

Gehad Mohamed Tawfik†View ORCID ID profile,
Mohammad Rashidul Hashan†View ORCID ID profile,
Abdelaziz Abdelaal†View ORCID ID profile,
Thuan Minh Tieu†View ORCID ID profile and
Nguyen Tien HuyEmail author View ORCID ID profile

†Contributed equally

Tropical Medicine and Health201947:35

https://doi.org/10.1186/s41182-019-0161-x

Received: 28 February 2019
Accepted: 1 May 2019
Published: 24 May 2019

Abstract

Background

Lately, the number of people using marijuana in the USA has dramatically increased. In 2018, many states have legalized marijuana use for both medical and recreational purposes, thus exploring the evidence behind medical marijuana use became essential. Muslim majority countries enforce rigorous rules as marijuana has been a long-debated issue due to the stigma associated with its use as a treatment. Marijuana has a high beneficial effect in managing chronic pain in adults and relieving spasticity symptoms in multiple sclerosis, obstructive sleep apnea syndrome, and fibromyalgia. As well as, used as pain management, and as anti-emetic in treatment of chemotherapy-induced vomiting and nausea. Marijuana is requested from more than one-third of posttraumatic stress disorder patients due to its significant clinical improvement in nightmares and subsidence disorder symptoms.

Marijuana adversely affects the body’s resistance to many infections, compromising their immune response. Its recreational use has led to an increasing trend in the occurrence of major acute cardiovascular events as stroke, epilepsy, acute myocardial infarction, congestive heart failure, and arrhythmia.

Conclusion

Many countries started to allow medicinal use of marijuana due to its beneficial effect in managing chronic pain, spasticity symptoms in multiple sclerosis, obstructive sleep apnea syndrome, fibromyalgia, and posttraumatic stress disorder. But literature lacks benefit-harm analysis for marijuana usage in medicine. Therefore, evidence-based report of short- and long-term health effects of marijuana use—both harmful and beneficial effects—is crucial for further marijuana prescription in healthcare settings.