medical field.

I work in the hospitals helping people in mental health crisis. I meet with suicidal, anxious, depressed, psychotic, and drug-addicted people. A good portion (and almost all of the severe cases) smoke pot. Most of them started young with pot and alcohol (not for medical reasons) and also use worse drugs (mainly meth-which is just awful- and opiates-which is just dangerous).

A good majority say that they smoke it to reduce their mental health issues. This, IMO, is ineffective, at worst, and inefficient, at best.

The main issue I see with using marijuana medically is that there simply isn't any real great research out there about what it really is effective for, how much to use, and what ways to use it. So everyone just smokes it when they want/need to instead of with any real purpose behind it. Smoking to reduce anxiety or depression has some positive effects but it's VERY short lived and often they stop trying any other treatments (medical or otherwise) to reduce anxiety.

it really is a "cop out" drug and many that are using it for "medical" reasons aren't doing so thoughtfully or genuinely. And it's not happening to neutral results. There's bad things happening because of it's misuse.

I know there's plenty of people smoking pot with few ill effects. I'm not saying that pot shouldn't be available legally, for sure. I'd just like to see a lot more research so that it can be used effectively, if it's actually helpful, because I'm not seeing that right now.