Marijuana plant[/caption]New York is another state where medical marijuana has been authorized, albeit with more restrictions than other states that allow its use. Indeed attorneys are considering this to be a defined move to clarify the medical issues involved and to put those issues in the hands of the medical community.
Indeed just 20 hospitals will be allowed to prescribe medical marijuana for very carefully defined conditions such as cancer and glaucoma. In other states, back problems will allow a user to get a supply and a medical prescription for the drug quite easily. Many shops in Oregon have young people who have the stereotypical look of the marijuana user, hanging around the corners smoking and laughing like the old days when it was done more surreptitiously.
At the same time the media is reinforcing popular use of marijuana, showing the paraphernalia of glass tubes and marijuana cigarettes predominating in their articles.
Yet the truth is many marijuana users are responsible people with pain, disabilities, and conditions that positively affect one's ability to manage pain and function. While the recreational use is being touted as a good idea in states like Colorado and Washington, two states where anyone can buy marijuana without a prescription, others maintain that if it is used, it should be carefully regulated, like alcohol is for recreational use or like prescription medications in other cases.
Whatever happens, the direction of the country continues to be for legalization of marijuana, but each state has yet to define its rules and methods of delivery. Many options come in the form of edible products, something the press might likely consider as it continues to print stories about a drug that is made even more criticized when it is handled as consisting predominantly of young folks slouched in jeans, smoking a joint with a sneer and a laugh, that offers a negative image of a medication that can benefit people who benefit medically from use of the drug.