Use is different from abuse. Get your terminology straight.
It's often called 'the gateway drug'. Which means there's a chance to go on to worse drugs. But it also means there's a chance to turn back. It's definitely not the worst drug out there (but that's an opinion), and in the business world, legal world, etc, it is a world of policy and it's actually a schedule I substance (completely banned) by DEA. (And perhaps ironically, cocaine- in medicinal form of course- is schedule II). That's just the way the world works and a pharmacist has to stay away from all of that without rationalization or mitigation.
Pharmacist should work towards successful patient outcomes, even if it means advising patients that medical marijuana may be the best drug to alleviate nausea and invigorate the appetite after hard rounds of chemo, regardless of what outdated Federal Laws say. Medical practitioner would tell the Feds to take a chill pill and recommend it themselves if it weren't any draconian punishments. Even in states where Medical MJ is legalized, some Doctors are still afraid of the repercussions so won't even talk to their patients about it when it's brought up.
BTW, MJ is only called the gateway drug because proponents of the hypothesis say it is. That's right, it's only a hypothesis. The gateway drug hypothesis lacks the evidence needed to be called a theory. I don't need to lecture anyone what the difference between a hypothesis and a theory is. So to clarify marijuana is not a gateway drug. Anyone who calls it that is a tool.
