I for one take some of these so-called scientific studies on cannabis with a grain of salt. I am very much pro-medical marijuana. It is a shame that someone who is in an extreme amount of pain is kept "doped up" with nasty prescription drugs with terrible side affects when marijuana has proven time and time again to be of equal or greater relief with less harm to the body and enables a person to function much better. I have personally seen or read medical documentation of the dramatic positive affects of medical marijuana vs. prescribed drugs; including chemotherapy vs. marijuana...doctors were amazed that cancer cells were eradicated and prevented from metastasizing...a person in a wheelchair unable to walk because of debilitating pain walk...reduction or elimination of seizures of people with epilepsy...reduction or elimination of tremors in someone with Multiple Sclerosis, etc.
I personally feel that big government and big pharmaceutical companies have censored the huge benefits of medical marijuana; they stand to lose too much money.
You can say exactly the same thing about those awful horrible big pharma drugs vs. witch doctors, booga-booga herbal BS, homeopathic medicine, and faith healing. Or about any one of them versus any of the others.
Marijuana may well have positive health effects, even if the real quantitative proof of it is about as sound as that for anthropogenic global climate change. But, 98% of 'Medical' marijuana is just waste-oids getting high and giggling about it. Of course there's no reason it necessarily has to be smoked to achieve any such supposed benefits, the active ingredients providing the benefit could just as easily be in capsule or liquid form.
