Political Hurdles
Marijuana is on the schedule I list of non medical drugs and it needs to be removed from that list. This is a problem with the "War on Drugs" in that this kind of thinking will not allow the possibility that there is a medical value to marijuana. The DEA and other legal departments are stuck in a prohibition mind set that did not work with alcohol. Congress can rewrite the drug laws to make medical marijuana legal and remove it from schedule I; but this is not even being considered.
Another fact is that hemp (a non psycho active plant) is also banned from being grown in the US. There are a few farmers permitted to grow hemp but no one else is allowed to grow it. Hemp is a good fiber for rope and textiles, hemp can also produce oils that can be used for cosmetics and perhaps even as bio fuel.
I believe that it would be good to study the medical benefits of marijuana to see if there are good extracts like cannabidiol (non psycho active) for use in cancer treatment and other diseases. There is a lot of anecdotal evidence that marijuana has good pain relieving properties, unbiased studies should be able to prove or disprove this.
