Marijuana extracts are already FDA approved for treating nausea and poor appetite in seriously ill patients, so I don’t know where anyone gets the idea that there’s no money in it.

I’ve worked intensively with cancer patients and read reams of international research on marijuana and other non-traditional treatments. There’s evidence that marijuana can affect the brain and nervous system, but not in ways that will cure cancer. Because of its effects, I’d expect it might help some people with specific mental health conditions, but again, not curatively.

Incidentally, just because research here has been obstructed by the US government deeming marijuana as a Schedule I drug (a shortsighted and unhelpful move) doesn’t mean it’s not researched in other countries. We all have free access to much of that research thanks to the NIH. If those studies showed any hint it might cure cancer, don’t you think that even our generally unhelpful Congress would get on board with it?

While I think it would make more sense to legalize marijuana and strongly encourage research on its uses in medical treatment here in the US, there are apparently political points to be made by keeping it Schedule I. Until that and some other conditions change, researchers will keep having to jump through extra hoops to study it here.

I keep hoping that someday we’ll have a government that actually believes in and supports science. It’s not looking good for us right now.