Seriously? That seems nonsensical that inhaling smoke could have beneficial effects.

This is merely the delivery method of getting the medicine into your body. They're better and safer delivery methods to injest marijuana including:

1) Vaporizer: used to filter out many of the more harmful chemicals\substances that can grow on marijuana, or are a byproduct of its unregulated/tainted supply chain. It's still smoke but less harmful.

2) Eating/drinking consumption. You can make many food and drinks using marijuana. It is digested like normal food just takes longer to activate than inhaling the smoke. This is the safer method, but still has the problems as above depending on the purity.

3) Pill form. This contains the active ingredient THC, and usually the purest form. You can get the just the plain THC pill, and I believe there is a pharmaceutical brand marketed under "Marinol' using this. I don't know if they're additional chemicals added to this brand, or they just engineered it to mimic the cannabinoids in THC (pot) without actually using the prohibited substance THC.

Keep in mind cannabis was extensively used as a medicine in the late 19th/early 20th century (and likely long before that) before the prohibition era came around in the 30s. I am against using opiate based painkillers except in situations where they really are needed. Cannabis should be used in its rightful place as a safer, non-addictive painkiller for those that can benefit from it.

My pop had cancer. The chemo laid him down bad. His remedy was to basically lie down in the guest bathroom's bathtub. It was cool and quiet there, and conveniently close to the toilet during his frequent vomiting.

He could have likely benefited from medical marijuana. I am sorry this was\is not available to him.