Cannabis can make diseases more bearable. Sometimes, it can even fight them successfully. There are people who claim that cannabis is the best pain relief that they have ever tried, better than, for example, Ibuprofen, and better than paracetamol because it has no side effects. And the best part about it: everybody could easily grow cannabis in the garden. For free.

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In the U.S., some states have gradually legalized cannabis for medicinal purposes. Several painkiller manufacturers oppose the liberalization, however, and are demanding strict rules for private consumption. Officially, they claim that cannabis should not be legalized because it might be dangerous. In reality, they do not want legalization because it would make them poor.

A not quite new but hitherto neglected confidential document of Partnership for Drug-Free Kids showed that several pharmaceutical companies financed anti-legislation campaigns, among them Purdue Pharma and Abbott Laboratories. Accordingly, Purdue is one of the donors to the Community Anti-Drug Coalition of America.

These companies all produce strong painkillers from opium, all of which are addictive (which is at least disputed in the case of cannabis) and have led a number of Americans into addiction. Sixteen thousand a year die from an overdose.