Marijuana is gaining a lot of legal ground in the United States as more and more states pass laws legalizing it—either medicinally, or even recreationally.
With that being said, it’s also true that more and more people are figuring out that there are legitimate medical benefits to marijuana. (It has, after all, been used medicinally for centuries, if not for millennia.)
Did you know that there are actually quite a few medical conditions that can be helped with the proper use of medical marijuana? Nowadays, modern science is helping to pull back the veil on this amazing plant.
As it turns out, it may have more medicinal uses than most people ever give it credit for.
So in this blog post, we’re going to break down 5 medical conditions that you may be able to use medical marijuana to treat.
You’ve probably heard of 1 or 2 of these. But some of them are likely to surprise you!
Let’s dive in and talk about it.
1. Chronic Pain
One of the most common uses for medical marijuana is to treat chronic pain.
There are admittedly a lot of benefits to treating pain with marijuana as opposed to treating it with what you might consider typical pharmaceutical drugs.
This has even led to a reduction in pharmaceutical opioid prescriptions, which is certainly good news—considering that we literally have an opioid addiction epidemic happening in the western world.
Veriheal talks about this on their blog as well:
“As for the people aspect, many patients are doing away with pharmaceuticals and are choosing cannabis instead. Legal medical cannabis has been associated with reductions in pharmaceutical prescriptions, especially for opioids.”
2. Depression
Unfortunately, depression is a common mental disorder.
According to the World Health Organization, it’s estimated that 5% of adults (on a global scale) suffer from it.
While there’s been some debate as to whether or not medical marijuana is a beneficial tool for helping to treat depression, it’s also true that researchers have begun to understand that the research suggests that marijuana actually helps to treat depression symptoms.
(But then again, people who regularly use cannabis probably already know this.)
They’re also saying that this may account for why people who are depressed are actually twice as likely to use cannabis.
3. Anxiety
It’s no secret that marijuana can help you to chill out when you’re feeling anxious.
However, a lot of people don’t realize that there’s actually a medicinal element to this.
A lot of people report using marijuana to cope with their anxiety symptoms, especially when it comes to social anxiety.
However, it also seems that THC actually helps to ease anxiety at lower doses.
Just be careful.
Research has also shown that consuming too much THC can actually increase anxiety symptoms.
4. Insomnia
You may not realize this, but sleep disorders and insomnia are some of the most common medical issues that people report using cannabis for.
But this isn’t that surprising.
Current research actually demonstrates that cannabis probably has beneficial effects on sleep disorder symptoms.
(In other words—it’s highly likely to make you sleep better.)
It’s also true that people who smoke marijuana may experience an overall improvement in their sleep scores.
That’s pretty amazing, especially in a world where a quality night’s rest often seems really out of reach.
5. Multiple Sclerosis
Lately, there’s been a lot of talk about whether or not marijuana is actually useful for medical conditions like multiple sclerosis.
Well, according to recent research, THC is likely to be effective for reducing symptoms of spasticity and pain that often occur as multiple sclerosis symptoms.
This doesn’t necessarily mean that smoking marijuana will help you with tremors.
However, when it comes to pain and spasticity, it’s true that consuming THC, either by smoking marijuana or by consuming edibles, is likely to help reduce your symptoms and make you feel at least a little bit better.
Conclusion
Now you know about 5 of the most likely medical conditions that marijuana may be able to help treat.
This is great news—for everyone’s favorite green herb.
And thankfully, with legalization happening at a rapid rate, it’s now getting easier to access it than ever before.
If you’re suffering from one of these medical conditions, consider talking to your doctor about whether or not marijuana may be a good option for you.
