Colin Lowry

About the author: Colin Lowry writes for 21st Century, a quarterly science journal.

Marijuana is much less effective as a medicine than recent media reports indicate. According to a 1999 study conducted by the Institute of Medicine, marijuana smoke actually harms the lungs, suppresses the immune system, and causes brain damage. While marijuana has often been touted as a helpful remedy for nausea in chemotherapy patients, it is actually less effective than many other legally available antinausea drugs. Furthermore, marijuana is not a useful treatment for glaucoma or pain. The attempt to redefine this damaging and addictive drug as medicine is simply pro-drug propaganda.

In the past few years, ballot initiatives permitting the medical use of marijuana, supposedly to treat chronically ill patients, have been approved in several states. These initiatives have been funded by...