National Academy Of Sciences Pushes For Rescheduling Of Marijuana

The National Academy of Sciences is not the first organization to request cannabis be reclassified down from a Schedule 1 drug and they probably wont be the last. Just last week, the academy published a report analyzing 10,000 scientific abstracts on medical marijuana use and came to almost 100 conclusions justifying the medical value of cannabis and cannabis products. The report called The Health Effects of Cannabis and Cannabinoids: The Current State of Evidence and Recommendations for Research finds that “cannabis has both therapeutic value and public health risks.” These papers underline the same theme being preached by marijuana advocates for years, loosen restrictions to allow cannabis research, then educate the public. Even the few available studies for medical marijuana have found great value in the drug as a treatment specifically for chronic pain, multiple sclerosis, and symptoms of chemotherapy. 

The report entitled The Health Effects of Cannabis and Cannabinoids: The Current State of Evidence and Recommendations for Research went on to conclude that “cannabis has both therapeutic value and public health risks.” The report recommends more research and noted that the classification as a Schedule 1 drug impedes research and that researchers can't get the cannabis they need in order to address specific research needs. They suggest “political and non-political strategies to resolve regulatory barriers to cannabis research, an objective and evidence-based analysis of cannabis policy is necessary.”

The committee found evidence to support therapeutic uses of cannabis to treat chronic pain in adults. For adults with multiple sclerosis-related muscle spasms, they said there was substantial evidence that short-term use of certain oral cannabinoids improved symptoms. They also found that cannabinoids helped adults with chemotherapy induced nausea and vomiting.