Photo: danbruell via Flickr
Ever since the passage of the Controlled Substances Act in 1970, federal policy has held that marijuana has no accepted medical use and is a dangerous drug in the category of heroin and LSD. Yet, as 29 states have approved marijuana for medical use and nine passed laws allowing for adult recreational use, modern medical marijuana clinical trials have unfolded in the United States, forging new frontiers in cannabis research.
Today’s research, as well as the thriving legal marijuana economy, is largely the result of a medical cannabis movement born in the AIDS epidemic and the suffering of young gay men, many of whom turned to cannabis to try to curb wrenching symptoms of wasting syndrome starving them to skeletal forms. Continue reading