All states should embrace benefits available through medical marijuana

After some states have decriminalized it, marijuana has developed a long list of medical contributions to those in need. It has been used to treat glaucoma, epileptic seizures, anxiety, muscle spasms, inflammatory bowel diseases, lupus, auto immune disorder and veterans with PTSD. It has been used to decrease symptoms of Dravet’s Syndrome.

Marijuana has reduced the nausea and vomiting caused by chemotherapy and has helped cancer patients gain weight by improving their appetites, which is important because some patients undergo unhealthy weight loss. For cancer patients, it has also relieved pain and helped them sleep.

Throughout the past few years, cancer has impacted me and my family’s life tremendously. I have seen first hand how the use of medical marijuana can improve the quality of life to those in immense pain.

Just in the past three months, my aunt (57) and my cousin (42) have died from terminal cancers.

In August, my aunt moved to California to stay with her daughters. In California, medical marijuana has been legalized for a few years.

Marijuana helped my aunt ease the awful pain, anxiety and lack of appetite.

Toward the end, the pain of her cancer was building, and the pain medicine didn’t help as much while also making her unresponsive and out of it. Marijuana allowed her to be able to do things and really live in the time she had left.

The emotional toll cancer had on her was immeasurable, and marijuana helped immensely with her anxiety.

The amount of weight loss she went through was huge, and the appetite it gave her really helped her eat food and try to slow the weight loss.

My cousin lived in northern Florida where he raised his three beautiful kids. There, medical marijuana became legal after the election.

Even though it was not legal, my cousin still used marijuana, but not to the extent my aunt did because he could not come across it that easily.

He would use marijuana for the side effects of chemo, to gain weight and to help him sleep.

He went to a doctor to get approved to use medical marijuana because until the recent election, Florida had laws that could only give terminal patients medical marijuana that was low in THC. He was approved, and the election even ensured he could get what he needed, but sadly he died before he ever got to use it.

So far Iowa only allows patients that have intractable epilepsy with a neurologist recommendation, to obtain 32 ounces of cannabis oil with 3% of THC.

I think that Iowa expand their law to the use of medical marijuana because of of the people that could benefit from it. It would also help keep people’s ill family members from moving away just to obtain medical marijuana.