Medical cannabis? What is medical, though? I know more about analgesia, anxiolysis, sedation, hypnosis, nervous excitation via drugs like amphetamine, and quite a bit more than any doctor I have ever met. It may sound arrogant or cocksure, but I have studied all of it since I was 12 - my mother died of cancer after seven years of opioid addiction and transient use of other psychoactive agents; my father, even very divorced from her, developed the same issue of opioid addiction when I was 10. My mother was about 25 when it began; my father about 29 or 30 when it began. I have lived this life. My great uncles are chronic alcoholics, as well as another uncle. My grandmother, though not addicted as I once thought, has had a long history with using barbiturates and then benzodiazepines along side. Now, my grandmother does suffer great head pain and frighteningly alarming symptoms with certain headaches; she also suffers a ton of anxiety and is plagued with musculoskeletal tension of the upper back and through the neck - she has tension and migraine headaches. So, yes, she has been a user, but not a true addict, at all. And, both of my biological grandfathers had serious problems with alcoholism, though I never lived that - only heard about it, like my four to five, maybe more, biological great-grandparents were rather serious alcoholics, yet at least one managed to sober up for good.
I apologize for the rant, but cannabis is not a big deal, whether you get it from your guy, your buddy, your own plant, a legal dispensary (recreational and medical, included), whether you have an MMJ card - it doesn't fucking matter. If you can and are open to replace, in whole or in part, your use of drugs to use more cannabis and less addictive agents (e.g. opioids, benzodiazepines, barbiturates, alcohol, other sedative-hypnotics, amphetamines, methylphenidates, cocaine, other stimulants of the like nature, etc.), then smoke up! I mean, when I was fifteen, I first saw a psychiatrist for anxiety and nervous discomfort and general neurotic features - the first visit I was given clonazepam to be taken daily, alprazolam to be taken PRN, and an SSRI, to be taken chronically. That is, really and truly FUCKED UP! I have to speak out, for if I'd had a supply of cannabis products to use ad lib, I would have likely felt 10 x better with 30 % or so of the previous anxiety compared to the ~ 70 % + that remained. I would not have acted so erratically due to sudden and marked disinhibition which led me to become labile, histrionic, and unpredictable, really. I ended up with a protracted nervous exhaustion due to so much anxiety, pressure, discomfort in the extreme, pain, self-injury, self-destruction, etc. It was, truly, a fucked up couple years thereafter, all the while my dose of benzo's was steadily increasing, leading to, what is NOW, a VERY strong hold that benzo's lord over me every fucking day. Do I like them? Yes. I wish I could taper, not too fast but not too slow, become abstinent completely from benzo's for a minimum of a couple months - maybe a year or two? But, then they do work great for certain things. For example, a panic attack, which is hell on earth, can be squashed by 0.5 mg alprazolam in a benzo-naïve person and on a fairly empty stomach, you will feel some calm within 15 minutes, and may reach total recovery to no anxiety in 45 minutes. I want the option to take any drug, but I will tell you that addiction to these types of drugs (not cannabis, of course) can and will rip you a new one; it ripped me several, in fact. To conclude this paragraph, if that psychiatrist were to give me 1/4 oz. of a more indica-based strain and 1/4 oz. of a more sativa-based strain, and ask to follow up in a week, continuing such a therapy, I honestly feel that I could have UNDERSTOOD others and myself better to get to the base of all my neuroses by actual introspective self-therapy MUCH enhanced by the cannabis. I could have made it through, not just surviving, but thriving, even! How society has oppressed me, and if you think about it, the oppression is fairly direct as in 'no, you may not, at all, so throw money at Big Pharma, and take a bunch of uppers, downers, analgesics, etc.' It infuriates me, to the fucking core - I made myself into a wreck as more pills were tried, many retained, and now I have a dependence issue, maybe even with some addictive features, to substances at-large.
So, who really cares where your weed comes from or by what criteria you judge it medicinal in its use? It is a helpful, mind-expanding and mind-opening drug (yes, it is, still a drug IMO), and some strains can make you super-productive, while others tend to sedate, while others tend to produce a dreamier and more thought-provoking high. I used to see it as a shitty drug, way back when, but I am totally on the other end of the spectrum, now - smoke as you please; it will be therapeutic, even if you are physically well and mentally well, it will cause betterment.
BUT, getting down to it, the survey, itself, was seemingly flawed - very specific and excluding other pertinent information regarding the topic advertised. I mean, what the hell is 'medical' - do you even know what the difference between medical, clinical, therapeutic, medicinal, recreational, social, and all the other terms we so assign the way we use it. Guess what? Anyone who uses weed, and I fully encourage it, uses weed - the effects do not vary all that much, whether pain is present or not, and pain is so subjective! No one knows your pain but you. Self-medicating with weed can be a great help to you and your contributions to society; just don't let it suck you into the couch for months on end. It is an imperfect, but perfectly gorgeous drug, in all respects. Again, it is a drug! There is nothing wrong with that; there are different types of drugs. I don't think caffeine and MDMA are exactly the same, nor should be treated as the same, for there is an inherent difference in their essences - just an example.
But, yes, frankly, a horrible survey, I am sorry to report - not thorough, not involved, not simple either, just shitty - sorry, but I am not; it is the truth.