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It can be used to treat Glaucoma.
It can be used to treat Glaucoma.
thematthewknot via Flickr

Marijuana use can be used to treat and prevent the eye disease glaucoma, which increases pressure in the eyeball, damaging the optic nerve and causing loss of vision.

Marijuana decreases the pressure inside the eye, according to the National Eye Institute: "Studies in the early 1970s showed that marijuana, when smoked, lowered intraocular pressure (IOP) in people with normal pressure and those with glaucoma."

These effects of the drug may slow the progression of the disease, preventing blindness.
It may help reverse the carcinogenic effects of tobacco and improve lung health.
It may help reverse the carcinogenic effects of tobacco and improve lung health.
Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

According to a study published in Journal of the American Medical Association in January 2012, marijuana does not impair lung function and can even increase lung capacity.

Researchers looking for risk factors of heart disease tested the lung function of 5,115 young adults over the course of 20 years. Tobacco smokers lost lung function over time, but pot users actually showed an increase in lung capacity.

It's possible that the increased lung capacity maybe due to taking a deep breaths while inhaling the drug and not from a therapeutic chemical in the drug.
It can help control epileptic seizures.
It can help control epileptic seizures.
AP/Damian Dovarganes

Marijuana use can prevent epileptic seizures, a 2003 study showed.

Robert J. DeLorenzo, of Virginia Commonwealth University, gave marijuana extract and synthetic marijuana to epileptic rats. The drugs rid the rats of the seizures for about 10 hours. Cannabinoids like the active ingredients in marijuana, tetrahydrocannabinol (also known as THC), control seizures by binding to the brain cells responsible for controlling excitability and regulating relaxation.

The findings were published in the Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics.

It also decreases the symptoms of a severe seizure disorder known as Dravet's Syndrome.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/health-benefits-of-medical-marijuana-2014-4?op=1#ixzz3HOZN7Tck