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The Blunt Truth About Marijuana

Good Essays

Miranna Bass
Simons
Intro to Writing
13 May 2016
The Blunt Truth about Marijuana
Imagine having a son or daughter who has six or more seizures a day. If you could could decrease the number of seizures they had a day by half, wouldn’t you consider medical marijuana? It is well known that medical cannabis has been used to cure many medical conditions for a long period of time already. Among the diseases marijuana can help treat, nausea, glaucoma, anorexia, epilepsy and more. Medical marijuana also helps with the side effects of many treatments, such as cancer chemotherapy. There are many health benefits of marijuana; it may have some negative effects, but the pain and symptom relief of many diseases and disorders makes it well worth it.
Glaucoma is an eye condition in which the optic nerve becomes damaged over time, reducing side vision. One cause of optic nerve damage in glaucoma is higher than normal pressure within the eye (intraocular pressure).Using medical marijuana can help decrease intraocular pressure. The idea of marijuana helping treat glaucoma dates clear back to the 1970s. Studies conducted then showed that smoking marijuana lowered the intraocular pressure of people with glaucoma. However, the pressure is only lowered for a short period of time, approximately three or four hours. This brief period of time could be a major disadvantage for using marijuana as a glaucoma treatment. Glaucoma is a disease that should be treated 24 hours a day to be comfortable.

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