By Matthew D. Bull and Heather Wilson Special to The Sun

Florida has recently joined the discussion already started in 34 other states, What is marijuana?

Currently there are 20 states that have legalized medicinal marijuana, and 14, including Florida, that have pending legislation.

Most of the arguments are directed at the cultural ramifications of letting the drug get a foothold in the state. The alarming thing is no one seems to be asking the question, What makes marijuana a medicine, anyway?

In general terms, a medicine is any substance that someone takes to treat an illness, but this isn't the definition that exists in the cultural consciousness, nor the one intended when invoking the term medicinal marijuana. The more common expectation is that something referred to as a medicine has a degree of official status and more importantly accountability for the consequences of the agent.

The most obvious example is that one wouldn't refer to medicinal alcohol, even though there are certainly some people who may use it to self-medicate. This is largely due to the fact that the general public puts a lot of trust in the opinion of medical professionals, and it might be difficult to find one who would recommend alcohol for a medical condition.

In fact, the term medicine is ubiquitously used as a synonym for the word drug as defined by the FDA. The biggest difference for our purposes is that a drug is officially recognized for its safety and efficacy, and in this regard, medicinal marijuana simply doesn't stack up.

There is an in-depth process by which a substance can become a drug (or medicine), and it has been refined over many years.

This process ensures that anything offered up to citizens as medicine has been proven through clinical trials to consistently provide the purported effect without causing harmful side effects.

Anything that succeeds is medicine, and anything that doesn't is not. Medicinal marijuana has no such evidence behind it.

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Matthew D. Bull and Heather Wilson: Confusing marijuana with medicine