User:Jadewhit/sandbox

How patients differentiate themselves from recreational users
Medical cannabis is only legal in a few countries and many users try very hard to differentiate themselves and the way it is used from those who consume it for recreational purposes. A study in Norway by Pederston and Sandberg identified that users of medical cannabis stressed the unimportance of the cannabis produced euphoric high in order to distance themselves from recreational users. These users of medical cannabis focused on the boundary between ‘pleasure and medicine’ with the main emphasis placed on the medical effects - which are overtly different to the desired recreational effect of being “stoned”. Whilst biomedicine recognises certain properties, only through social science perspectives can the stigma surrounding cannabis use be deconstructed. The Norwegian interviewees expressed the need to alter the current presumed lifestyle of cannabis users and remove the notion of it being ‘centred around parties and nightlife’. Their social perspective emphasised that the motives for smoking are very different and that medical cannabis assists in reducing symptoms of pain, MS, Tourette’s syndrome, rheumatism, ADHD and insomnia . Their aim was to ‘[redefine] cannabis from a recreational drug to a medical one’ by rejecting ‘traditional cannabis culture’ in order to.