Pot has many effects on the body, including some that are probably worthwhile. For the first time in at least two decades, marijuana the medicine is being put to the test. Scientists say they will try to hold marijuana to the same standards as any other drug, to settle whether its benefits match its mystique. Given marijuana's recreational uses and abuses, people in this new field are understandably eager to come across as serious scientists experimenting with a serious medicine. When the University of California at San Diego started the country's first institute to study the medical uses of marijuana this year, they named it the Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research.
Cannabis is the botanical term for pot.
We don't want this institute to be caught in the cross fire between proponents and antagonists. At least four other studies of the medical effects of marijuana are planned. Three are sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, the other by California's San Mateo County. The medical marijuana movement began in earnest in 1996, when California passed a statewide referendum intended to make it legal. Alaska, Arizona, Hawaii, Maine, Oregon and Washington adopted similar laws, and Colorado and Nevada joined them in the November election.