Letter: You Don’t Have to Smoke Medicinal Marijuana
Bruce Mirken
January 24, 2009
News & Record (NC)
The News & Record is to be commended for Lex Alexander’s remarkably thorough story, “Should smoking marijuana be a medical option?” (Jan. 18). A couple of clarifications are in order:
First, marijuana need not be smoked to be used as a medicine. Vaporization, which delivers the fast action and easy dose adjustment of smoking without the tars and other harmful components of smoke, is available today and has been proven by published, peer-reviewed research. And even when smoked, the majority of research indicates that marijuana is, in fact, not a risk for lung cancer.
Second, a number of studies have been conducted and published since the 1999 Institute of Medicine report. Several have demonstrated that marijuana safely and effectively treats a type of nerve pain common in multiple sclerosis, diabetes, HIV/AIDS and other illnesses, for which conventional treatments often fail. |
