Will Smoking Marijuana Actually Treat Your Glaucoma?
If you’re old enough to remember the late nineteen-seventies and early nineteen-eighties, then you probably remember the announcement that marijuana could be used to treat glaucoma. In the years since, marijuana has been decriminalized, recriminalized, legalized for medical use in many states throughout the country, and even legalized for recreational use in a handful of places.
And, while marijuana’s ability to treat a variety of conditions and positive health effects has been well documented, there persists some misunderstanding (some cloudiness, if you’ll allow an uncomfortable pun), about whether smoking marijuana will effectively treat the very first condition it was claimed that it could: Glaucoma. Is smoking marijuana an effective glaucoma treatment?
The Therapeutic Effects of Smoking Marijuana
At one point, it seemed like the only condition or disease that was treatable with marijuana or cannabis was glaucoma. In the past couple of decades, however, along with the push to legalize cannabis for medical purposes, we have been told that there are many, many illnesses both of the body and mind that Marijuana, with its 200+ active compounds, will treat.
Everything from inhibiting the growth of tumors to chronic anxiety has been shown to benefit from the consumption of cannabis in one form or another.
Marijuana’s Effects on Eye Pressure
So, is using cannabis effective in treating the eye pressure caused by glaucoma that can lead to blindness if left untreated? In a word, yes. Marijuana has been shown to be effective in reducing the eye pressure associated with glaucoma.
Is marijuana a recommended treatment for glaucoma? No. Marijuana, while effective at high doses for short periods of time, is generally frowned upon by the medical establishment as a treatment for glaucoma.
The reasons for this are generally chalked up to the amount of marijuana you have to ingest to see a therapeutically viable result, and the long-term effects of smoking marijuana. Most conventional practitioners will point to more effective drugs for treating eye pressure that don’t involve inhaling smoke, or come with any of the psychotropic effects of marijuana ingestion.
It Won’t Hurt, But Its Side Effects Might
Most medical professionals are of the opinion that although ingesting marijuana or cannabis as directed by a physician may provide some temporary, minor relief for the blindness-causing eye pressure associated with glaucoma, its negative side effects aren’t worth it.
They point to the many other available treatments that they claim are more beneficial without having the negative effects associated with inhaling smoke. However, there are many alternative medical practitioners and medical marijuana advocates, including glaucoma patients, who continue to champion marijuana’s therapeutic effects.
Many even say that they’ll take the side effects associated with marijuana over the side effects from their conventional medicines any day.
[Photo via: Jetmag]