Medical cannabis topic's main category Category:Medicinal use of cannabis
Classification
The National Institute on Drug Abuse defines medical cannabis as "using the whole, unprocessed marijuana plant or its basic extracts to treat symptoms of illness and other conditions".A cannabis plant includes more than 400 different chemicals, of which about 70 are cannabinoids. In comparison, typical government-approved medications contain only one or two chemicals. The number of active chemicals in cannabis is one reason why treatment with cannabis is difficult to classify and study.A 2014 review stated that the variations in ratio of CBD-to-THC in botanical and pharmaceutical preparations determines the therapeutic vs psychoactive effects (CBD attenuates THC's psychoactive effects) of cannabis products.