CALL or TEXT to Place Order! 1-2 Hours Delivery
CALL or TEXT to Place Order! 1-2 Hours Delivery
The rise in popularity of medical marijuana has not gone unnoticed. With the legalization of recreational marijuana in different States, most users are confused as they cannot tell between the two.
Therefore, this article is about medical medical marijuana vs recreational, and it will cover all aspects starting from the component differences, its effects, extraction, and production process to purchases.
A lot of research on Cannabis compounds has been conducted in the recent past, paving the way to the wave of marijuana legalization in many countries including USA and Canada.
Cannabis is made up of many compounds, but the major ones are Cannabidiol (CBD) and Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC).
Components
Medical marijuana is enriched with CBD and other beneficial compounds. The CBD component is non-psychoactive (does not induce highness), unlike its THC counterpart.
CBD lacks a methyl group, replaced by a hydrogen bond, in its chemical structure which is responsible for psychoactive effects. This is the main reason for the contrasting differences between these two compounds.
On the other hand, recreational marijuana is laden with tetrahydrocannabinol which is a psychoactive agent. This compound is responsible for the high feeling among marijuana users.
Another interesting difference is that medical cannabis is usually derived from Cannabis indica plant variety while recreational marijuana is extracted from Cannabis sativa.
Well, there is no discrimination between the medical users and recreational marijuana users. As it is a free country, everyone has a right to access the best facilities and products. However, in the states that have only legalized medical marijuana, users have to show proof that they are using it for medicinal purposes.
States that have legalized both recreational and medical marijuana do not have stringent regulations as long as you meet the set regulations such as age limits and amount of drug you possess.
However, it is good to note that there are a variety of cannabis products in a cannabis medical clinic or a bud store. You will get concentrates, flowers, edibles, and much more.
There are a lot of contradicting misconceptions about this. Different states have different amount limits of marijuana one can have at a particular time. This applies to all types of marijuana available in the market, whether it is oil, wax, flower or shatters there are the same limits in a particular state.
However, one can purchase whichever amount of marijuana from different stores in a single day as there is no tracking system which tracks the amount of marijuana bought in a single day. You can buy an ounce in every single dispensary in your city but beware of the carrying limit.
The services definitely vary from one clinic to the other in different states. Sellers will customize their clinics to be customer friendly and to increase the efficiency of drug dispensing.
However, some clinics only specialize in medical marijuana distribution. In such cases, these clinics are owned and run by licensed medical cannabis doctors and experts who can give prescriptions and medication at the same time. This is also the case with clinics in states that have only legalized medical marijuana.
Nowadays, accessing your prescription is very easy. For instance, Canadians who wish to receive their medical marijuana prescription online can visit the Medscriptter online canna clinic app.
There is no age limit set for people to obtain medical marijuana unless advised by a doctor. Users under the age of 18 as usual need consent from parents or guardians before getting a medical card.
On the other hand, medical marijuana is restricted to adults above the age of 21 years. Users of a lower age are not eligible to purchase the herb from a store, and using it is against the law.
In conclusion, it advisable to understand the marijuana laws and regulations applicable in your state before making any purchase.
There are few subjects that can stir up stronger emotions among doctors, scientists, researchers, policy makers, and the public than medical marijuana. Is it safe? Should it be legal? Decriminalized? Has its effectiveness been proven? What conditions is it useful for? Is it addictive? How do we keep it out of the hands of teenagers? Is it really the “wonder drug” that people claim it is? Is medical marijuana just a ploy to legalize marijuana in general?
These are just a few of the excellent questions around this subject, questions that I am going to studiously avoid so we can focus on two specific areas: why do patients find it useful, and how can they discuss it with their doctor?
Marijuana is currently legal, on the state level, in 29 states, and in Washington, DC. It is still illegal from the federal government’s perspective. The Obama administration did not make prosecuting medical marijuana even a minor priority. President Donald Trump promised not to interfere with people who use medical marijuana, though his administration is currently threatening to reverse this policy. About 85% of Americans support legalizing medical marijuana, and it is estimated that at least several million Americans currently use it.
Least controversial is the extract from the hemp plant known as CBD (which stands for cannabidiol) because this component of marijuana has little, if any, intoxicating properties. Marijuana itself has more than 100 active components. THC (which stands for tetrahydrocannabinol) is the chemical that causes the “high” that goes along with marijuana consumption. CBD-dominant strains have little or no THC, so patients report very little if any alteration in consciousness.
Patients do, however, report many benefits of CBD, from relieving insomnia, anxiety, spasticity, and pain to treating potentially life-threatening conditions such as epilepsy. One particular form of childhood epilepsy called Dravet syndrome is almost impossible to control but responds dramatically to a CBD-dominant strain of marijuana called Charlotte’s Web. The videos of this are dramatic.
The most common use for medical marijuana in the United States is for pain control. While marijuana isn’t strong enough for severe pain (for example, post-surgical pain or a broken bone), it is quite effective for the chronic pain that plagues millions of Americans, especially as they age. Part of its allure is that it is clearly safer than opiates (it is impossible to overdose on and far less addictive) and it can take the place of NSAIDs such as Advil or Aleve, if people can’t take them due to problems with their kidneys or ulcers or GERD.
In particular, marijuana appears to ease the pain of multiple sclerosis, and nerve pain in general. This is an area where few other options exist, and those that do, such as Neurontin, Lyrica, or opiates are highly sedating. Patients claim that marijuana allows them to resume their previous activities without feeling completely out of it and disengaged.
Along these lines, marijuana is said to be a fantastic muscle relaxant, and people swear by its ability to lessen tremors in Parkinson’s disease. I have also heard of its use quite successfully for fibromyalgia, endometriosis, interstitial cystitis, and most other conditions where the final common pathway is chronic pain.
Marijuana is also used to manage nausea and weight loss and can be used to treat glaucoma. A highly promising area of research is its use for PTSD in veterans who are returning from combat zones. Many veterans and their therapists report drastic improvement and clamor for more studies, and for a loosening of governmental restrictions on its study. Medical marijuana is also reported to help patients suffering from pain and wasting syndrome associated with HIV, as well as irritable bowel syndrome and Crohn’s disease.
This is not intended to be an inclusive list, but rather to give a brief survey of the types of conditions for which medical marijuana can provide relief. As with all remedies, claims of effectiveness should be critically evaluated and treated with caution.
Many patients find themselves in the situation of wanting to learn more about medical marijuana, but feel embarrassed to bring this up with their doctor. This is in part because the medical community has been, as a whole, overly dismissive of this issue. Doctors are now playing catch-up and trying to keep ahead of their patients’ knowledge on this issue. Other patients are already using medical marijuana, but don’t know how to tell their doctors about this for fear of being chided or criticized.
My advice for patients is to be entirely open and honest with your physicians and to have high expectations of them. Tell them that you consider this to be part of your care and that you expect them to be educated about it, and to be able to at least point you in the direction of the information you need.
My advice for doctors is that whether you are pro, neutral, or against medical marijuana, patients are embracing it, and although we don’t have rigorous studies and “gold standard” proof of the benefits and risks of medical marijuana, we need to learn about it, be open-minded, and above all, be non-judgmental. Otherwise, our patients will seek out other, less reliable sources of information; they will continue to use it, they just won’t tell us, and there will be that much less trust and strength in our doctor-patient relationship. I often hear complaints from other doctors that there isn’t adequate evidence to recommend medical marijuana, but there is even less scientific evidence for sticking our heads in the sand.