 My name is Amy Olavarez, and I am new to the Psych2Go channel. So before I get started with the real topic of this video, I want to introduce myself. My name is Amy. I'm an electronic media communications major at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas. I'm not majoring in psychology, but I've always been interested in it. And I decided to join the Psych2Go team because I am interested in electronic media, such as the internet, and I'm interested in writing. I was an intern writer with Psych2Go, and now I'm officially part of these staff writers, I believe, which is really exciting. But now I've decided to make a couple YouTube videos to go along with my writings. I do have my own YouTube channel. It is just my name. It's Amy Olavarez. I'll put a caption down below just so you can see what I'm talking about, and I'll also put a link down there too. So you guys can check that out. Without further ado, let's get to the real topic of this video. So as you can see by the title of this video, I will be talking about medical marijuana. I know it's a very controversial issue these days, but it's also very prominent and very current. The reason why I chose the topic of medical marijuana is because I'm taking a writing for media class this summer. And one of our assignments is an informative writing assignment, which includes finding articles about topics that are newsworthy currently. And I was also looking for something to write about for Psych2Go. And one of the first things that popped up that were related to psychology was medical marijuana. So that's why I decided to choose this, and it's also very current and very prominent in our society, in our culture. The way we think about it is changing. So I think it's really important to think about this issue, especially because if there are possible benefits, we should really look into those and also leave risks. Marijuana is illegal, research is very difficult, and it's restricted, which prevents quality evidence of the benefits and risks. So I think that's really important to look into. And this video is going to be completely professional and educational. So just try to keep an open mind and be objective. The first article I saw that was over this issue was Sanjay Gupta's It's Time for a Medical Marijuana Revolution. It's by the CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Sanjay Gupta. At the top of this article, he has a slideshow of all the possible benefits marijuana has. It could possibly benefit pain, nausea, epilepsy, concussions, Alzheimer's disease, and bipolar disorder. So that's mainly what inspired me to write about medical marijuana and to make this video about it. In this video, I'm just going to briefly go over the main points and issues I talked about in my writing, and I will put a link to that down there, of course. According to NPR's correspondent Patty Neyman, our article review raises troubling questions about marijuana's safety effectiveness. Researchers from the University of Bristol and the United Kingdom analyzed 79 different studies looking at the benefits of marijuana ranging from chronic pain to sleep difficulties and mental illness. But the researchers only found moderate or anecdotal evidence. What anecdotal evidence is, it's non-scientific observations or studies which do not provide proof but may assist research efforts, according to the dictionary. So, I mean, if there's not, that kind of makes me question, why would these studies not have official scientific observations? That doesn't make sense to me. I just wonder what made them think that this evidence was anecdotal? That would be my main question about that. Instead of reducing nerve pain and pain from cancer, that's something that's kind of hard to not make a scientific observation, in my opinion. It's like, it's definitely having an effect if you're not in pain as much. In that same article from NPR, Dr. Deepak C. D'Souza, I think that's how you say it, from Yale University's School of Medicine, told his concerns for the possible risks associated with marijuana. Because the big question is how routine daily use, the way one might use marijuana to treat a medical condition, affects the body and the brain over the long term. Concerns have been raised about memory loss, panic, paranoia, and other severe disorders. There is a small risk of schizophrenia or psychotic disorders associated with marijuana use. We fully don't understand why some people appear to be more vulnerable to those effects, but that is a devastating mental disorder for anyone to have. But I have the feeling it's because some of these people have these disorders already, and maybe these of marijuana or any other kind of drug, it can set on these disorders. These are some solid concerns and possible risks, but just like with the benefits, there's not any solid evidence for them. They don't understand why some people appear to be more vulnerable to these effects. So this should definitely be taken into consideration when using marijuana for medicinal purposes. The last article I want to talk about is NPR's When Weed is the Cure, a doctor's case for medical marijuana. It's over Dr. David Cassette. He is the director of the hospice and palliative care program at the University of Pennsylvania. He is a specialist in palliative care patients, and he has found medical marijuana to benefit epilepsy, cancer, post-traumatic stress disorder, neuropathic pain, sleep disorders, mental illness, and other illnesses. He even tried marijuana for himself to treat his back pain. I was really hoping for any form of relief whatsoever, even just a few hours of relief from those muscle spasms, and I found it, says Cassette. I found it, though, at least for me, at the cost of the most common side effects of acute use of medical marijuana. Confusion, hallucinations. I think mostly because the dose I gave myself being relatively unfamiliar with marijuana and very unfamiliar with the strength of what I managed to obtain. He specializes in neuropathic pain, which is pain that's caused by the nerves, and it can be really difficult to treat. This is from his article, and even morphine can be really hard to treat this kind of pain, and he argues that marijuana is one of the only drugs that can treat this type of pain. He tried it himself after listening to his patients, and he noticed that it treated the pain, but with these side effects, like he said, confusion and hallucinations. I can see confusion being one of them for sure. That could definitely be a risk-slash side effect. But as for hallucinations, from what I've heard about people that have tried marijuana, I rarely hear people experiencing hallucinations. But it affects everybody differently, like any kind of drug does. So I think that would be a rare side effect, and it kind of depends on what the person thinks of hallucination is, I guess, like if you're seeing things, hearing things. Still, those are pretty valid concerns and probably side effects that should be looked into. When and if, hopefully, more research is done on medical marijuana. That's basically what my article is about, and I also include some interviews I had with some friends and some quotes from them. I think it's really important to think about this in terms of the research and the evidence that we have about medical marijuana. Because even though doctors such as Desuza and Casoret they disagree on the risks and the benefits, they obviously agree on the need for improved access to marijuana for research and to provide quality evidence. Desuza said marijuana is difficult to study because there are hundreds of different components in different strains. But focused study is exactly what's needed. Federal and state health officials should remove any legal or financial obstacles to get that done. And Casoret says, marijuana in the United States is classified as a schedule one substance and that categorization has really slowed down the process of research. Basically what they're saying is more studies need to be done and more research needs to be done in order to... because it has so many strains, they're different kinds and each one of them could do something different and have different benefits and different risks. And marijuana being in the same categorization as heroin, that just doesn't make sense. I mean, you never hear anyone dying from a marijuana overdose. I think everyone agrees that there should be more access to marijuana just for research and so we can have more evidence to either keep it illegal or to decide if it should make legal. So that's basically all I have to say for this video. If you want to read more about this, please look down in the description below for my article and you can read more about it. Again, my name is Amy Olivares and I will see you guys next time. Bye.