f patients in the United States, however limits its wide scale use for a number of political, economic, and sociological reasons.
             As a medicine cannabis is extremely safe. There has never been a known lethal overdose and, according to Grinspoon and Bakalar the ratio of lethal to effective dose is 40,000 to 1 (1875). Compare this to between 10 to 1 for legal ethanol and 50 to 1 for secobarbital ( sedative/hypnotic barbiturate). The most harmful effect of medical marijuana is it's illegality. Persons wishing to use the drug face fines, imprisonment, loss of professional license, and asset seizure. This is compassionate medical treatment held hostage to politics.
             Some doubt the efficacy of medical marijuana but numerous studies show it's usefulness. According to the Council on Scientific Affairs, "the most promising potential clinical use of marijuana and THC is in the treatment of extreme nausea for patients who undergo cancer chemotherapy" (1824). In several large studies the medicinal usefulness of THC has been confirmed. One of these studies demonstrated that a majority of patients, who had previously been refractory to traditional pharmacological treatments for nausea and vomiting, were showing improvement when given THC. In another study 40 of 55 refractory patients experienced no nausea and vomiting at all with THC (Orr, McKernan, et al. 1432). This type of nausea and vomiting is not that associated with a stomach flu, which readily resolves. This is nausea and vomiting on a horrific scale. Patients can spend hours and days retching and heaving, never having the ability to be far from a toilet or receptacle. Fluid and electrolyte imbalances, severe weight loss, and depression often occur. Dr. Vincent Vinciguerra in his 1988 study found that greater than 75% of patients who had received no benefit with standard antiemetic therapy found relief with the use of marijuana and 29% of those patients who di...