Directed by Ben Daitz, Ned Judge
What we know, and what we don't know, about the most popular new medicine in the U.S.
This year, 55 million Americans will spend about 55 billion dollars on the medicine in marijuana. In 32 states and the District of Columbia, they will use it for a myriad of medical conditions, depending on anecdotal advice about the frequency and dosage of cannabis, a plant with over 400 different chemical molecules. It's a messy mix of medicine, policy and politics--while cannabis is still federally classified as a Schedule 1 drug.
Based on the 2017 National Academy of Sciences report about the effectiveness of cannabis for treating the side-effects of chemotherapy, chronic pain, epilepsy, and PTSD, The Medicine in Marijuana tells patients' stories, and those of the practitioners and researchers involved in their care: an infant with unremitting seizures; a man with an inoperable cancer; a woman with chronic pain; a veteran of 5 tours of duty with PTSD.
Across centuries and cultures, people have told stories about the healing powers of cannabis, but the plural of anecdote is not evidence. Now, the science is catching up with the stories, and The Medicine in Marijuana tells it like it is.
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