Should you smoke marijuana to treat glaucoma? The answer is no. There are many safe effective treatments that are easily available with very little side effects. Marijuana on the other hand is not very effective and has side effects that make it a dangerous way of treating glaucoma.
It is true that marijuana does lower the eye pressure which is what other treatments do as well, but it only lasts for about 3-4 hours at maximum. Glaucoma needs treatment for 24 hours to be effective in stopping vision loss. All the medical treatments that are available are designed to maintain a low pressure for 24 hours. In order for you to get any therapeutic effect from marijuana, you would have to keep the dose high enough in your entire body to get enough of it into the eyes for 24 hours. This would require smoking it every few hours all day and all through the night. You would not be able to live safely in this type of drug-induced 24 hour daily state.
So, it is true that it can lower eye pressure and this finding has been used as a way to manipulate information and sell the idea of legalizing and using marijuana, but the real truth is that it is not a treatment for glaucoma.
