Hypocrisy on the part of the FDA regarding the effectiveness of marijuana as medicine has once again been clearly documented as the agency - after insisting publicly for years that 'cannabis has no medicinal value' - is now ready to grant a license to GW Pharmaceuticals to begin marketing a cannabinoid-based drug which will be used to treat multiple sclerosis.

The truth is that the government has known for decades that marijuana does indeed have medicinal value. In fact, it has issued many patents for cannabinoid-based drugs.

From BlacklistedNews.com:
 

Similar cannabis-based formulations created by GW Pharmaceuticals and other drug companies are expected to treat autism, muscular dystrophy, glioma, ovarian and pancreatic cancer and schizophrenia, as well as epileptics. Orders for this product are expected to grow 40 times over in the coming years.

For well over half a century, the medicinal and recreational use of marijuana has been criminalized by the United States government, despite centuries of use worldwide for treating a wide range of ailments. That's slowly beginning to change, but the fact is that on the federal level marijuana is still officially classified as a Schedule I drug, which means that it is considered as harmful as heroin but less harmful than either cocaine or methamphetamine.
 

Prohibition for profit

The government continues treating users of marijuana – for both recreational and medicinal purposes – as criminals, while it quietly grants patents to Big Pharma so that synthetic versions of cannabis can be developed for profit.

This practice continues, despite evidence that "raw" cannabis can be just as effective as the synthetic versions – if not more so – without the harmful side effects associated with the latter.