Are Medical Marijuana Regulations Really Needed?

To this day, the United States has mixed feelings about the distribution and sale of marijuana for medical purposes. While 23 states and the District of Columbia currently allow the use of legal medical marijuana, the federal government frowns upon such an idea and maintains that the drug should still be classified as a Schedule I substance (i.e. a drug with no accepted medical use and with a high potential for addiction).

In the eyes of the law, marijuana is still an illegal drug. That being said, the federal government has not done anything other than defer to each state’s discretion to form their own marijuana laws—at least until the Justice Department deems it necessary to intervene. The need for regulation is quite justified, though, the political side of things notwithstanding.

One particular matter marijuana regulations deal with is the storage of the drug, given that marijuana’s most active ingredient, THC, is quite sensitive to changes in the environment. Marijuana plants are also quite susceptible to mold and mildew, which means they have to be stored somewhere with less than 50 percent humidity and a temperature range between 76 and 80 °F.

There is also the fact that many doctors are as yet unsure how much of the drug they should prescribe in the first place. Yet with marijuana laws in place, they can rest easy knowing that the amount they recommend to their patients entail no risk of toxicity or overdose.