The whole concept of pregnant women smoking marijuana is pretty scandalous, to say the least, but that does not really stop a horde of women to turn to a blunt when they are in their painful first trimester. It makes the characteristic nausea better and helps calm the stressed nerves that all the expectant moms suffer from.

Jamaican women use weed in different forms, like tea and tonics, to deal with prenatal depression as well. This particular topic was given as a topic of research to grad student Melanie Dreher.

Dr Dreher is Dean of the University of Iowa’s College of Nursing, and also holds the post of Associate Director for the University’s Department of Nursing and Patient Services. She has a degree in nursing, anthropology and philosophy and she was also awarded  a PhD  in anthropology from prestigious Columbia University in 1977, which only indicates that she is such a great overachiever.

She did a study of the usage and consequences of marijuana in pregnant women. The study was conducted on 44 infants, 24 of them exposed were exposed to marijuana and 20 were not. This study led to the publication of a book by Melanie Dreher herself, titled “Women and Cannabis: Medicine, Science and Sociology.” Studies conducted and presented in North America have shown that the use of marijuana while pregnant have led to the birth of a lot of infants with defects and deformations and it is also important to note that none of these studies have not mentioned marijuana singularly, as other drugs like heroin, tobacco and meth form a significant part of these studies.

Dreher discovered the spiritual connotations that Jamaican women assign to marijuana and how they follow a self control system of consuming the above. To study this further, Dreher employed the Brazelton scale, a renowned scale that is used to assess and study neonatal behavior. The scale helps researchers to build a complete health profile of the child, starting from strengths, weaknesses, possible weaknesses, vulnerabilities and so on. The scale was used from infancy to 5 years old and surprisingly showed no negative effects and moreover had pretty positive influences on the children.

This conclusion was understandably not very well received by the National Institute of Drug Abuse, who had financed the study. They wanted a conclusion of the exact opposite nature, so they held back the study and refused to publicly release and announce the results. Dreher, the dean of Rush University today, with multiple degrees to her credit, says that March of Dimes was pretty supportive of the study but the NIDA gave out clear instructions discouraging Dreher to continue her research as they said that they would not be taking any more submissions from her. She says that she had to let go of the opportunity to carry the study on to adolescence and adulthood.

There are many advocates of marijuana use today and one of the more prominent names in this regard is Rapheal Mechoulam, who says that the first person to have isolated THC should be honored with a Pulitzer Prize. Marijuana does have proven medical benefits but it would be perceived unprofessional for any medical practitioner to actually declare weed as an actual pharmaceutical drug or a solution to a problem especially concerning pregnant women.

Dr. Melanie Dreher was not the first academic to venture into a study based on marijuana, as there is a pretty long and detailed study conducted by Vera Rubins and Lambros Comitas that was published back in 1975 about the use of marijuana in America. The said study concluded that the illegality of marijuana was not an impediment to the consumption and is smoked by a large amount of people who do not face any lasting or damaging effects in any regard of their health.

If you are interested and want to find out more about cannabis and its use after after reading the article, there is an abundance of videos and other helpful articles available online that can also teach you to make your own cannabis oil. Here’s one,

“The illegality of cannabis is outrageous, an impediment to full utilization of a drug which helps produce the serenity and insight, sensitivity and fellowship so desperately needed in this increasingly mad and dangerous world.”  ― Carl Sagan

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