Well, it doesn’t get much more despicable than this. Yesterday, a registered medical marijuana patient with terminal cancer was forced to leave UCSF Medical Center in San Francisco because she was using a vaporizer to ingest her medicine. A spokesperson for the hospital claimed that use of the vaporizer violated their non-smoking policy. First of all, vaporizing is NOT smoking! Then, the hospital claimed that even marijuana in vapor form can damage the lungs of other patients. I challenge the hospital…

One of the most oft-discussed benefits of marijuana is its use in the treatment of cancer and cancer symptoms or side effects. While most of the reports are anecdotal, more and more research is coming out showing that Cannabis sativa may be the most exciting compound in cancer medicine today. Certainly more study is needed, but the results so far are very promising. This week, for example, NORML’s Paul Armentano wrote about a study that will be released shortly that showed marijuana inhalation could…

A study just published online by the journal Neurotoxicology and Teratology suggests that marijuana may protect the brain from some of the damage caused by binge drinking. The study, by researchers at the University of California San Diego, used a type of high-tech scan called diffusion tensor imaging to compare microscopic changes in brain white matter. The subjects were students aged 16-to-19, divided into three groups: binge drinkers (defined as having five or more drinks at one sitting for boys…