Weed. Blunt. Cannabis. Dew. Gash. Marijuana. No matter what you call it, cannabis and its variants are arguably some of the most popular recreational drugs today. As with the people who use this drug, marijuana comes in all shapes and sizes. From the old-style blunt-rolling to the oh-so-deceiving cookies, marijuana can be found in just about any alleyway. While many think that no-good dirt-bags use this drug, when used for medicinal purposes, marijuana has many positive effects. The awareness of medical benefits of marijuana are growing in areas such as universal pain reduction and the reduction of muscle spasms.

Even with all of these benefits, parents still tremor with fear at the idea of their innocent child “rolling a blunt.” The recreational misuse of this drug has caused paranoia among parents nationwide for decades, and in many states recreational use is still illegal. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, marijuana is known to impair brain and body function in the short term as well as completely change how the brain is developed in the long-run. While the euphoric feeling caused by marijuana is attractive to people of all ages, the negative impacts of this drug area well-documented. Yet, as the recreational use of marijuana continues to be scorned, the nation has embraced the medical use of marijuana.

As parents continue to tremble, for those people whose clocks are constantly set on 4:20, you can now rejoice. In recent studies conducted by the American Cancer Society and the U.S. Department of Health, it has been concluded that, “Laboratory and animal studies have shown that [marijuana] may be able to kill cancer cells while protecting normal cells.”

Cancer is a condition when body cells cannot control their own duplication. This uncontrolled duplication creates huge masses of cancerous cells, called tumors, which kill normal body cells and take all the resources these normal body cells need. To date, there are over 100 known types of cancer, each attacking the body differently. Treatments such as chemotherapy, radiation, proton therapy and the “Cyber Knife” have been used to treat cancer with varying results. Unfortunately, the first two treatments kill normal cells along wit hthe cancerous ones, and while proton therapy and the “Cyber Knife” treatments only kill cancerous cells, they are expensive and hard to obtain.

It was already known that when medically prescribed, doses of marijuana can help cancer victims cope with the nausea and reduce vomiting from chemotherapy. Due to the calming effect of cannabis, patients who use medical marijuana also require less pain medication. Marijuana is also an appetite stimulant for those whose bodies have been ravaged by anti-cancer treatments and glaucoma.

Along with that, scientists have recently found that certain strains of cannabis can slow the growth of some cancer cells and sometimes destroy them completely. This works through a process called autophagy, which is a normal process of cell death in the body where the cells begin to “feed upon themselves,” according to studies done at Complutense University in Spain. Special strands of marijuana that fall under the cannabidiol strand (CBD), the most common of these being tetrahydrocannbinol (THC), are effective in starting the autophagy and apoptosis (programmed cell suicide) processes in cancer cells. This is done as cannabinoids downregulate the overgrowth of cells by initiating ER-stress, a healthy and protective form of stress. This stress turns on the carcinogenic cell’s apoptotic signals, which triggers cell death.

The American Cancer Society has acknowledged the benefit of marijuana therapy, but still stresses the need for further tests and research on the effects of marijuana on cancer cells. However, the continued study of marijuana has been difficult for scientists, as the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration still classifies marijuana as a Class I drug, which severely limits the study of the drug and ultimately deters many scientists from studying it.

While Dr. John Yu, co-director of the Comprehensive Brain Tumor Program at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, says that marijuana as a means to fight cancer is a, “novel discovery,” he warns that people should, “not start smoking pot right away as a means of curing their own cancer.” Also, he carefully pointed out that unless you are a laboratory petri dish or test animal, this treatment has not been done on your kind.