Every so often an opponent of medical marijuana will try to score points in a debate by noting that the Food & Drug Administration has not approved cannabis as a medicine.

So, it isn’t one, I guess?

People have used marijuana as medicine for over four millennia. The fact that it works is what makes it so, not the declaration of some government bureaucracy.

Marijuana can’t be approved by the FDA, because its protocols are designed to work with a single replicable compound that is consistent in content and dosage.

Marijuana is a variable plant material that varies not only between strains, but can even produce wildly different results on the same plant.

Asking the FDA to approve marijuana is like trying to force a leaf-shaped drug through a pill-shaped hole.

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But the FDA has approved as medicine all manner of complex compounds that are consistent in content and dosage.

Take Jardiance. It is a medication for diabetes and heart disease…

…that can cause FATAL TAINT ROT!

Opponents of medical marijuana will trot out all sorts of frightening outcomes — it’s a gateway drug that leads to addiction; it reduces IQ scores; it reduces productivity and motivation — all without any basis in science.

But when science proves a medication to occasionally cause fatal taint rot, why, that’s just a side effect we mention in a calm, quick voice while we distract you with pretty pictures. After all, it’s FDA approved!

That’s not to say Jardiance can’t be an effective treatment for some people.

It is to say that if we can accept fatal taint rot as a side effect of effective medication, then dry mouth, red eyes, and forgetting where you left your keys should be within the acceptable level of risk, too.

Ah, but marijuana use can change behavior, opponents say. Whether someone’s taint rots off from Jardiance doesn’t harm anyone else. Marijuana, on the other hand, could make high people drive recklessly, risking the safety of others.

You mean like Lunesta? The FDA-approved drug that explains how one side effect is sleep-driving?

That’s right, we deem acceptable the risk that someone who wants to get a good night sleep might just get behind the wheel while they are asleep and not remember it the next day.

I’ve always found a joint before bed helps me relax. Not once has it ever made me take a blacked-out midnight drive.

For some opponents of medical marijuana, it’s just the fact that it is a mind-altering drug that makes it too risky. It changes one’s mood, they’ll argue. Some will even produce flawed pseudoscience to claim that marijuana can cause people to become psychotically violent.

You mean like Chantix, the FDA-approved drug to for tobacco smoking cessation?

That’s right, we deem acceptable the risk that someone who wants to stop smoking might become aggressive, belligerent, and/or suicidal.

Numerous anti-depressant medications as well also come with the warning it can cause thoughts of suicide.

Anti-depressants. That make you want to kill yourself.

Again, all these medications can be used to successfully treat the conditions they’re advertised for. The risks I’m mentioning in this post are small.

But if we as a nation can accept fatal taint rot, sleep-driving, and suicidal non-smoking berserkers as medicinal side effects, nobody has any right to say marijuana isn’t medicine.