Question: Marijuana, also known as cannabis, is a drug intended for use as a medicine and as a 'pyschoactive drug.' Despite being a medicine used for treating patients with illnesses such as AIDS, Alzeihmer's disease and Breast Cancer, it is an extremely dangerous drug? Should marijuana be legalized in all countries of the world for its medical uses, or to be illegal for its notorious effects?

Jack Heal answered on 21 Mar 2013:

Cannabis can be used medically to treat things like nausea and headaches and loss of appetite (!) and sickness and so on, some of which are symptoms of the illnesses you’ve mentioned. (It’s not a cure for those illnesses though!)
In terms of its medicinal effects in can be used, but may not always be the best treatment and so more research should be done.
Cannabis frequently comes out in tests as been less harmful that alcohol and tobacco which are legal drugs. People taking alcohol are more likely to cause damage to other people and other people’s property than cannabis users. Making cannabis illegal criminalises a lot of people, which is expensive as punishing people costs money.
Legalising cannabis may well earn the government a lot of tax revenue, but there are lots of people who don’t want it legalised, and not always for the best reasons. Anyone who makes a lot of money selling alcohol and/or cigarettes wouldn’t want cannabis to be legalised – why would they want another competitor? I also think that legalising may change its use now as a “gateway” drug – the start of a slippery slope towards other, more damaging illegal drugs.
Personally, I think cannabis should be legalised, but I think it is very unlikely to happen any time soon. More research needs to be done on its medical uses.
That said, it can have effects which are not nice – demotivation, loss of coordination and memory, long term memory loss with excessive use.
If it was legal, I wouldn’t take it. It doesn’t appeal to me because of the effects it can have, as mentioned above. Hope that answers the question?