Medical use of cannabis

Cannabis is used by millions of people to help with the symptoms and pain caused by various medical conditions. We recommend that medical cannabis users discuss cannabis with medical professionals who are increasingly aware of the medical benefits. Growing your own medical cannabis is the best way to get maximum quality for minimum cost.

Reasons to believe that medical cannabis can help in cases of:

• pain and muscle spasms or cramps associated with multiple sclerosis or spinal cord damage
• nausea, loss of appetite, weight loss and debilitation due to cancer or AIDS
• nausea and vomiting associated with chemotherapy or radiotherapy used in the treatment of cancer, hepatitis C or HIV infection and AIDS
• chronic pain (mainly pain associated with the nervous system, for example that caused by a damaged nerve, phantom pain, facial neuralgia or chronic pain which remains after the recovery from shingles)
• Gilles de la Tourette syndrome
• therapy-resistant glaucoma

Patients and doctors have also reported positive effects on a range of other conditions, including Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis, epilepsy, itching, migraine, rheumatism, rheumatoid arthritis, ADD and brain trauma. These positive effects still need to be confirmed by scientific research. (for more information, go to www.cannabis-med.org)

At present, medical cannabis does not cure the disorders mentioned above, but it can relieve the symptoms associated with them. It may also enable other medication to be given at a lower dosage, and reduce their side effects. It is up to doctors to determine whether treatment with medicinal cannabis would benefit a patient, gvien this or her diagnosis and circumstances. In doing so, they are not limited to the list of conditions given above. A doctor will only prescribe medicinal cannabis if the standard treatments and registered medicines are not having the desired effect or are causing too many side effects.

This information has been literally taken from the website of the Office of Medicinal Cannabis, part of the Dutch Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport: www.cannabisbureau.nl/english

Cannabinoids

The most well known cannabinoids are THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) and CBD (cannabidiol). THC is known for getting consumers high or stoned. CBD does not have a psychoactive effect, but it does influence the effect of THC. Cannabis is CBD-rich when it has a CBD percentage of at least 4% in the dried flowers. Most varieties have a THC percentage between 7% and 20%. CBD-rich cannabis is less psychoatvie and more physical than traditional cannabis. The CBD reduces the intensity of the THC effect, but also makes it last longer. Consumers of CBD-rich varieties have reported experiences such as an overwhelming feeling of well-being, improved communication skills, a clear mind and a calm feeling. CBD-rich cannabis is also used to alleviate symptoms of a variety of medical conditions, often it's an alternative to synthetic painkillers. It can be misleading to guess the quality of a variety by simply looking at the THC and/or CBD levels. Many factors and the combined influence of all the various cannabinoids are responsible for the effects of a particular cannabis variety in a process known as "the entourage effect". There has never been as much medical research into the properties of cannabinoids as there is today.

Sources:

jellinek.nl/onderwerp/cannabis

wikipedia.org/wiki/cannabidiol