While the drug almost certainly helps ease nausea, there is no research showing how it stacks up against highly effective anti-nausea drugs developed over the past 15 years. Stopping weight loss. Marijuana clearly improves appetite. However, the drug has not been adequately tested in people who are unintentionally losing weight, such as those with AIDS or cancer. Treating muscle spasticity conditions, including multiple sclerosis.
Many victims say it helps, and some animal research backs up the idea.
Researchers especially want to test it on AIDS patients with peripheral neuropathy, numbness and pain in the feet that afflicts between 20 percent and 30 percent with the disease. Animal studies suggest marijuana may be a mild to moderate painkiller, and many with AIDS are already using it, because there is no other good treatment. But even if researchers show that marijuana is a uniquely useful medicine, many doubt that packs of marijuana cigarettes will ever become standard items at the pharmacy. The job of making marijuana an official prescription medicine would be daunting. Because the stuff cannot be patented, no drug company will pay hundreds of millions for the encyclopedic testing necessary to convince regulators.