Psychiatrist checking in. I am a proponent of legalization of all drugs, so marijuana is no different. Professionally, I've seen patients' lives returned to them and been able to get them off legal psychotropics once they discovered the right combination of Sativa and Indica (we're in Florida where it's now medically legal). I've also seen patients who decompensated completely in trying to utilize marijuana instead of medications to treat their illnesses. Like all psychotropics, cannabis is not a panacea. Most proponents of it would have you believe it is, but it is not. Like any other medication, it is not for everyone and not everyone will respond to it positively.
I have this conversation with patients every single day. We simply DO NOT YET have enough reliable medical evidence (meaning double-blind studies which have been repeated time and again by different entities to validate that results are reproducible) to show how, when, and why cannabis should be used and for whom. Each person who is considering the use of it needs to bear this in mind. They also have to understand that just because it worked for their buddy, that doesn't mean it will work for them - just like any other medication. I tell patients every day, "You have to make as well-informed a decision as you can, but you won't have the type of overwhelming medical evidence available to you to help you make the decision that we would like for you to. I can only help you to a certain degree. What I cannot do is help you if you are not being honest with me about what you're using/doing, and I cannot do my job if you are introducing a substance that directly works against what I'm prescribing you, so you've GOT to communicate with me so I can reduce certain meds as you are introducing the marijuana." I've had many, many patients use it. Of those, I'd say 75-80% have had clinically significant success in improving their symptoms to enough degree to reduce or eliminate their psychotropics (and I've been more than happy to do so). The rest have been a mixed bag of falling apart to abusing it to worsening their overall functioning to having to be hospitalized. These numbers are anecdotal to my practice (I currently manage a little over 1,000 patients and I'd guess 10% of them use marijuana regularly, but only about 4-5% of them do so legally), but they are similar to how other psychotropics work for patients.
Anyway, we need legalization at a federal level to ever get enough funds for the type of research that is truly needed. We have enough evidence to support further research. It is such a promising chemical and we have millions of cannabinoid receptors throughout our bodies. We are SUPPOSED to be using it in some way, responsibly, safely, and in the proper situations. Of course, that goes for opioids too. Look where that has gotten us... But I digress.