Ok, I will try to give some light and not much heat.
The designation of marijuana as a schedule one drug makes the possession illegal even by doctors or researchers. With rare exceptions it has been and continues to be illegal to conduct studies using weed especially if any federal dollars are involved in the research facility.
University of Florida says it won't risk federal funding to participate in marijuana research - SaintPetersBlog
The politics of how marijuana became a schedule one drug are another topic for another day.
THC is the prime active ingredient in pot, but it is not the only active ingredient. Cannabinoid comes in different chemical forms, think of it like saying Ford which can be a Mustang, Fiesta.... Some forms of THC differ in their profile from others. Some seem to be less likely to produce euphoria than others. The relative amounts in a plant of THC and the other active ingredients in pot differ from plant to plant. There are cannabinoids which produce extremely little euphoria.
There are NO drugs which mimic marijuana because the natural product has many different chemicals.
"Pharmacologically, the principal psychoactive constituent of cannabis is tetrahydrocannabinol (THC); it is one of 483 known compounds in the plant including at least 84 other cannabinoids, such as cannabidiol (CBD), cannabinol (CBN), tetrahydrocannabivarin (THCV), and cannabigerol (CBG)."
It would be like saying taking a nicotine pill is the same as smoking tobacco, or taking a caffeine pill is the same as drinking coffee. So while there are some approved product which contain cannabinoids none of them provide the wide (alleged) benefits of the real thing.
105 Peer-Reviewed Studies on Marijuana - Medical Marijuana - ProCon.org
has the most complete list of studies I can find. Some involve smoking, many involve extracts and commercial products. The studies are of variable quality and look at different issues. No broad conclusions can be drawn.
There are many anecdotal reports, including some posted here, where patients and families have reported that smoked pot was the best drug for the symptoms needing treatment, most effective with fewest side effects.
Benefits reported include control of nausea, increased appetite, improved sleep, pain control, improved mood, and in patients with spasticity improvement in spasms. And as everyone knows, an anticonvulsive benefit in children with Dravet syndrome from the non-euphoria compounds in pot.
So to summarize.. There are no approved products that are the same as pot. There is extremely limited research which the government would require to reclassify pot off of schedule one because you can't do research on schedule one drugs (see reference above). The answers to :
Why is this not being explored within the medical community and going through the same thing that any new drug needs to go through ? Why is all political and on a ballot ? Why does no one who supports it even admit that there are alternatives that will do the same thing ?
is because none of those things are possible at this time, so it is politics that have marijuana a schedule one drug, and it will be politics that will undo that situation if it is to be undone.