Marijuana advocate Martin Lee says the argument for legalizing is "very much rooted in science.
"It has had medical uses going back thousands of years in many cultures, including in the US," Lee told Joe Concha, guest host of "The Steve Malzberg Show" on
Newsmax TV.
"It was predominately used in the second half of the 19th century as a medicine."
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Lee — co-founder and director of Project CBD and author of
"Smoke Signals: A Social History of Marijuana — Medical Recreational and Scientific," published by Scribner, added:
"There are many other scientific surveys that show when you compare groups of people who smoke marijuana to those that don't and the group that smokes it has less Alzheimer's, less metabolic syndrome, obesity and less use of pharmaceutical painkillers.
"What the scientists are showing now with animal studies, not with human studies, is that there are certain compounds in marijuana that can shrink tumors."
In 2012 by voters in Colorado and Washington, became the first U.S. states to legalize commercial sales of marijuana to all adults over 21.
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