Recreational marijuana is becoming legal, popular and accessible. However, medical marijuana still has a negative reputation across the nation.

Although medical marijuana has proven to be helpful in some cases, there isn’t a ton of research and statistics to show its effectiveness. There is no funding and too many rules surrounding the studying and testing of the effects of medical marijuana.

How are people supposed to be accustomed to something if they have no idea why they should accept it? We need to inform our nation if we ever expect them to be open minded. Without information, there is no changing minds.

When I was 12 years old, my dad was diagnosed with cancer. He now has neuropathy in his feet, leading to severe pain and desperation to find a medicine to help him.

When the doctor suggested medical marijuana, none of us knew what to think. We tried researching the products to find studies to show the effectiveness of the drug, but were not able to find many case studies or databases based on it. This lead to frustration as well as a curiosity about the lack of knowledge surrounding this drug.

More research nationally would benefit millions of Americans trying to find a solution that marijuana claims to cure.

With a new administration in the White House, many wondered how President Trump would handle the increase of legalized marijuana. During his campaign, Trump stated he was in favor of medical marijuana. Hopefully, that will lead to some money being put aside to be used for researching the effects of medical marijuana so that we, as a nation, can change and adapt to this newly popularized drug. Hopefully, Trump will push for more funding and fewer regulations so the National Institute on Drug Abuse can begin more research to gain knowledge.

Without research and facts, we as a country are guessing about the effectiveness of medical marijuana. People are against using it for medical conditions, but I believe if we had cases and data to back up the claim that medical marijuana works, people would be much more open to it. People can’t deny facts.

In addition, before we make up our minds on this drug, let’s try and research it as best as we can so we are an educated group of people making decisions based on intellectual reasoning.