My understanding is that marijuana can reduce the nausea symptoms associated with chemotherapy treatment. I’m not sure what effect it’s supposed to have on glaucoma, but IIRC it’s sometimes used for that as well.
How does marijuana reduce nausea symptoms? Is it a sort of inhaled pepto bismal? Or does it just dampen the perception of nausea? I tend to get motion sickness fairly easily, especially from riding on thrill park rides and on boats. Would marijuana use, at least theoretically, lessen these symptoms? How so? Would it just make the roller coaster ride seem really slow compared with reality?
I don’t have a sure-fire factual answer to give you but I believe weed does something chemically in the brain that “shuts off” the signal that makes you feel nauseous. It also stimulate appetite. As far as glaucoma goes, glaucoma is a disease in which your eyes cannot regulate the pressure within them. This eventually can lead to blindness and will if it is left untreated. Somehow, marijuana lowers the pressure within the eye. I’m sure someone more in the know will be along shortly.
However, you must smoke the marijuana to get the full effects. Taking a pill containing THC does not do the job (at least according to friends of mine who have taken it for both glaucoma and cancer treatment).
THC is not the only chemical, and may not be the only “active ingredient” in marijuana. I’ve taken concentrated THC extract, and it does not give me the munchies smoking pot does. The marinol may not have the right chemical cocktail for maximum effectiveness.
Concentrating and standarizing only one or a few chemicals from an herb often leads to ineffective supplements. It’s taken scientists years to work out several chemicals in Saint John’s Wort that need o be present in specific ratios in order for the SJW pills to be effective the way the plant itself is. The same may be true for marijuanna.
Marijuana is a crappy drug for elevated intraocular pressure (it’s not truly called glaucoma until some vision is lost due to elevated pressure). To reduce pressure in the eyes, marijuana must be smoked every 2 to 3 hours around the clock and it still doesn’t work as effectively as a lot of prescription eye drops.
I’m all for medical marijuana. I think it’s a fine treatment for the nausea of chemotherapy or other extreme wasting syndromes like AIDS. I think it’s a great adjuvant to opiates to help control malignant pain such as that seen in metastatic cancer.
But I think it undermines the argument to push it’s use for elevated intraocular pressure.
Backing up the doc here (like he needs it) - I work in an ophthalmology department at a large hospital. My boss has nothing against the recreational use of marijuana (especially since he sees a lot of patients who have AIDS), but he also tells his patients that it’s a really crummy anti-glaucoma remedy. It’s also (IIRC) not cheaper than the prescription drops, especially when used at recommended dosages as QtM stated and my boss has confirmed.
Also, smoking gets the chemicals into your body faster, and it works even when you can’t keep food down. Pills can’t help much if you throw them up before they’re digested.
I find with using pot for medical reasons you have to ask if it does more harm than good. Cancer and lung disease concerns, addiction risk, not to mention it impares your judgement…is that worth the benefit for most medical users? Personally I think pot is most useful as a recreational drug, not so much for medical reasons but then again I never used it for that purpose.
