Cannabis Has Healing Benefits

Cannabis Sativa, better known as Marijuana. This annual herb is closely related to the ale (fermented alcoholic beverage containing malt, similar but heavier to beer) used in beer brewing.

Cannabis refers to the plant's strains, wherein the leaves and the flowering component contain active concentrations of the herb's sixty-plus unique medicinal and psychoactive compounds, referred to as cannabinoids or delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), which binds specific receptors in the brain to create a euphoric feeling, identified with smoking pot. Marijuana, ganja, or pot – as it is more commonly known.

More than the frowns that you get from most people when they hear this, it has, like any drug, generated something beneficial. Going back in history, Cannabis has been used by people around the world for its recreational, nutritional, spiritual, industrial, and medical purposes. It has been said that Cannabis has been "used since antiquity for both herbal medication and intoxication”.

Accordingly, it is thoroughly proven that it has direct beneficial physiological impact on identified diseases, as migraine, glaucoma, sclerosis, and epilepsy. It has also been reportedly identified to relieve the pain, nausea and vomiting of cancer patients who have undergone chemotherapy. In addition, some patients suffering from HIV/AIDS are said to opt the of marijuana to increase their affected appetites – said to be another oft-noted effect of the said drug.

Undoubtedly, Cannabis has healing benefits. This is with the complete understanding, of course, on the distinction between healing with that of medical cure – as it has been erroneously misused in a lot of cases. Although the concept of healing would include this, it is far broader than cure. Medical cure is an actual physical phenomenon, whereas healing transpires in many levels on a person, as the mind, body and spirit. Healing, then, in a larger picture takes the form of finding peace, be it with oneself, the environment around him, or the people with him.

Painting an appropriate picture for this is the use of marijuana to relieve the pain of a person suffering from a painful migraine, for example. Its healing benefits would encompass the following basic channels :

1. Easing or soothing the pain (Palliative)
2. Changing the the person's state of mind (Psychoactive)
3. Direct interference of the disease on physiological level (Biological)

Ultimately, this does not operate as a cure for any physical condition. However, these positive physiological properties, while less than cure, are distinctively identified as healing benefits.

Accordingly, it is to be noted that through these identified healing benefits, it should be appropriate to look at the distinction between the use of the drug with that of the abuse of this medicinal plant. It should then be important to leverage this medical benefits of Marijuana, and minimizing – if not- eliminating the potential for such abuse.