Study Takes Deeper Look At Health Effects Of Medical Marijuana Use
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MIAMI (CBSMiami) – With more and more states legalizing pot, a new report took an in depth look at the health effects.
Cancer survivor Derek Beres says medical marijuana helped him get through chemotherapy.
"If anything, marijuana helps ease that process of intake food, digest and not have pain," Beres said.
A new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine looked at the most recent research on the health effects.
The review looked at more than 10,000 studies and reports about 100 findings. It also highlighted the need for more research involving certain medical conditions.
Researchers found that patients treated with cannabis for chronic pain were likely to have a reduction in symptoms.
For adults with multiple sclerosis-related muscle spasms, cannabis taken orally was found to improve symptoms.
For Beres, he now relies on cannabis products to help ease his chronic pain and anxiety.
Another finding showed states with legalized medical marijuana have higher numbers of kids accidentally ingesting the drug.
Researchers found more than 22 million Americans, ages 12 and over, have used marijuana in the past 30 days. Of those users, 10 percent were for medical purposes only and just over a third for a combination of medical and recreational purposes.
The academy also says there is evidence of an increased risk of mental illnesses like schizophrenia and anxiety disorders for marijuana users.
Heavy marijuana users are more likely that non-users to have suicidal thoughts, according to the results.
Researchers also found "moderate" evidence on marijuana dependency, and concluded smoking marijuana during pregnancy is linked to low birth weight babies.
About 20 million people Americans use cannabis every month.
