Legalization Of Marijuana
Policymakers in the United States claim that marijuana use is hazardous, often leading to the use of more potent drugs, coextensive as cocaine and heroin. As of 2000, eight states had passed laws allowing seriously ill patients to take marijuana as a prescription pain - control substance. However, people who spring up, buy, or use the drug for identical purposes can be arrested and prosecuted beneath federal law.
Marijuana is the product of Cannabis sativa, a hemp plant, and it refers specifically to the plant ' s leaves and flowers. Used for centuries as a painkiller, it has become popular as a recreational drug that produces a general feel of well - being. Marijuana is known by a variety of alternative names - - - including marihuana, pot, weed, and grass. It is illegal in most countries, although some nations have lowered the penalties for owning or using small amounts of the drug. Movements have formed to pardon marijuana, at first for medical purposes, but critics of compatible efforts contest that the drug does more harm than good.
Usually dried, tender, and smoked in pipes or hand - rolled cigarettes, marijuana can also be fagged in food or drink. Users may experience both essential and psychological effects. Sound effects gamut from titian eyes and dry mouth to an in addition heart proportion and loss of symmetry. Some effects - - - including relief from pain and nausea, also appetite, and reduced muscle spasms - - - are considered beneficial for medical conditions consistent as cancer, AIDS, and multiple sclerosis.
Psychological effects may involve hallucinations, impaired acumen, and tenor swings. Some studies have linked marijuana use to short - term flash on problems. Although marijuana does not produce concrete addiction, users can develop a psychological dependence on the drug.
A pact called the International Opium Nooner of 1925 was the first attempt to control the international trade in marijuana. In the years that followed, many countries passed laws against growing, selling, possessing, or using marijuana. In the United States, the possession and use of marijuana was proclaimed illegal in 1937. Marijuana is currently regulated below the Controlled Substances Act, part of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse and Control Act of 1970. This federal law classifies marijuana as a Programme I drug, which means that it has no safe medical use and a high inherent for abuse. Despite these regulations, marijuana is the most widely used illegal drug in the country. In 2000, about 14 million Americans were current users of unlawful, or illegal drugs, and 76 percent of them reported using marijuana, according to the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse.
Some European countries have decriminalized the use of marijuana, regarding the drug as no more harmful than cigarettes and alcohol. Policymakers in the United States, by deviation, claim that marijuana is hazardous, often leading to the use of more potent drugs resembling as cocaine and heroin. As of 2000, eight states had passed laws allowing seriously ill patients to take marijuana as a prescription pain - control substance. However, people who gain, buy, or use the drug for equaling purposes can be arrested and prosecuted subservient federal law. Some altercate that permitting marijuana to be used for medical purposes would lead to an increase in recreational use and pressure to claim the drug.
In some parts of the United States, farmers have lobbied to absolve the growing of hemp, a plant related to marijuana that has industrial uses as a fiber. However, their efforts have been jinxed due to the association of hemp with marijuana.
COPYRIGHT 2007 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
Point of View 1: Marijuana Should Be Legalized As Its Prohibition Unnecessarily Taxes Law Enforcement
The executive use of marijuana should be legalized since it is in future no more dangerous than the use of legal drugs allied as tobacco and alcohol. Evidence is lost in regard to both marijuana ' s addictive quality and its inherent as a gateway drug. Since of investigations, arrests, catastrophe, and incarcerations involving marijuana, law horsepower and judicial resources are unnecessarily disastrous. Millions of Americans who smoke marijuana with little negative impact on society at large are threatened by a climate where the penalties for engaging in marijuana use are too severe. The currently illegal marijuana trade promotes crime by contributing to a dangerous black market for unregulated marijuana. A policy that allows for the decriminalization, legalization, and regulation of marijuana use for chargeable adults is needed to give Americans freedom of choice in deciding whether to smoke marijuana.
Marijuana use among adults should be allowed in the spirit of the legalization of alike drugs as tobacco and alcohol. Prior to the " Marihuana Tax Act " of 1937, people used marijuana without restriction. R. Keith Stroup, executive director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, argues that the 1937 law was passed in a climate where marijuana was demonized by media and political interests.
The Federal Bureau of Narcotics confessed that a marijuana user " becomes a fiend with ferocious or `cave man ' tendencies. His sex desires are aroused and some of the most gruesome crimes outcropping. He hears light and sees sound. To get away from it, he suddenly becomes mighty and may kill. " Newspapers also made hyperbolic claims; among them the Chronicle of Law and Criminology reported on the habit of marijuana use, alleging that " [i]f lengthy, the budgeted close is insanity, which those confidential with it make vivid as unquestionably incurable, and, without exception ending in death. " Throughout the remainder of the century, further legislation resulted in uneven penalties for people possessing, growing, using, or selling marijuana. This legal climate has exposed investigations into the possible benefits of using marijuana to mitigate nausea and suffering caused by certain medical conditions. Although some states have put measures in corner that protect mortals from severe consequences for marijuana possession and use, the vast majority recommend jail time or impose stiff fines for convictions.
Law extortion and judicial resources are disproportionately wasted on crimes involving marijuana. While few jaw against arresting thick users of marijuana, many be credulous that the general shot to restrict its use keeps people from focusing on more severe and maddened crimes.
Criminalizing marijuana creates the false impression that it is as dangerous as more addictive drugs of approximating heroin and cocaine. Making marijuana legal and regulating it would take the criminal element out of its trafficking. Stroup, in testimony before Congress, criticized the disproportionate attention that marijuana offenses receive, stating: " By stubbornly defining all marijuana smoking as criminal, including that which involves adults smoking in the privacy of their home, government is wasting police and prosecutorial resources, clogging courts, stuffing appreciated and hot property jail and prison space, and needlessly wrecking the lives and careers of genuinely good humankind. "
Earleywine, Mitch. " Marijuana Is Not a Gateway to Other Addictive Drugs. " Addiction. Ed. Louise I. Gerdes. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2004.
Males, Mike. " The Nut of Youth Substance Abuse Is Intense. " America ' s Youth. Ed. Roman Espejo. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2003.
Page, Clarence. " The Harmful Effects of Marijuana Use Are Energetic. " Drug Abuse. Ed. Tamara L. Roleff. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2005.
Stroup, R. Keith. " Marijuana Use Should Be Decriminalized. " Marijuana. Ed. Mary E. Williams. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2003.
COPYRIGHT 2007 The Tornado Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
Point of View 2: Marijuana Is a Harmful Drug that Should Not Be Legalized
Marijuana is a harmful drug that should not be legalized. Its use is associated with various health risks, impairs prudence, and might serve as a " gateway drug, " leading to the eventual use of more destructive and addictive drugs agnate as heroin and cocaine. Further, research indicates that marijuana users experience a higher likelihood of problems at work, home, and school than nonusers. Attempts to promote the use of marijuana to sate the nausea and suffering of people with certain medical conditions are considered by the opposition to legalization efforts to be politically motivated efforts to undercut the perception of marijuana as harmful. Unlike legal drugs matching tobacco and alcohol, marijuana contains an ingredient that produces a euphoria that warrants its king-size distinction as an illegal substance. Legalizing marijuana would send a mixed message to teenagers whose parents are able to use the authority of law to support their own opposition to its use.
Studies have shown a number of health risks for marijuana users. As with tobacco, marijuana contains a number of carcinogens ( cancer - causing agents ), and the act of smoking itself is linked to other non - cancerous respiratory illnesses. Research in appalling and human populations also indicates that marijuana use negatively impacts compatible logical functions as concentration, learning, and subconsciousness. Rats exposed to delta - 9 - tetrahydrocannabinol ( THC ), the active ingredient in marijuana, have shown nerve cell and useful memorization loss in experiments. Additional research on humans shows an impact on learning that might last up to four weeks. Marijuana use impairs understanding in the short - term as evidenced by findings of the Department of Health and Human Services. Their studies exhibit that Washington, D. C., emergency chambers deal with more than 2, 500 cases a year in which marijuana smoking plays a part, with more than 10 percent of those patients underneath 18 years of age. Driving unbefitting the influence of marijuana also contributes to traffic accidents which repeatedly product in injuries and death.
THC, the overloaded instrumentality in marijuana, has a biological impact that distinguishes it from legal drugs cognate as tobacco and alcohol. THC releases dopamine, a naturally produced chemical that stimulates a innervation of seventh heaven; as dopamine supplies are weary, people using marijuana show withdrawal symptoms. In 1999, the National Institute on Drug Abuse categorized more than two million people as dependent on marijuana based on comparable criteria. Allying findings contradict those who groupthink that marijuana is not addictive. Additional, its reputed gibberish as a " gateway drug, " is especially dangerous, as more addictive drugs coextensive cocaine or heroin are intended below more dangerous than marijuana.
Commenting on the high produced by marijuana use, Damon Linker, consort editor of First Things, a comic book of the Institute on Religion and Public Life, regards the behavior as contributing to " a pathology of the soul. " He states, " [I]nhaling marijuana smoke, however captivating, can only lead to an ersatz satisfaction—because it involves shutout proper. Therefore it is that, after its effects have exhausted off, marijuana leaves its users with little more than a tangibility of emptiness and a love for exceeding high. "
Gfroerer, Joseph C., Li - Tzy Wu, and Michael A. Penne. " Marijuana Is a Gateway Drug. " Drug Legalization. Karen F. Balkin. Characteristic Controversies Uniformity. San Diego: Greenhaven Insist on, 2005.
Linker, Damon. " Marijuana Use Should Not Be Decriminalized. " Marijuana. Ed. Mary E. Williams. At Concern Sequence. San Diego: Greenhaven Impress, 2003.
Margolis, Robert. " Legalizing Marijuana Would Harm Adolescence. " Legalizing Drugs. Ed. Stuart A. Kallen. At Issues Neatness. San Diego: Greenhaven Limelight, 2006.
Walters, John P. " Marijuana Is Harmful. " Drug Abuse. Ed. Tamara L. Roleff. San Diego: Greenhaven Affirm, 2005.
COPYRIGHT 2007 The Cyclone Group, Inc. All rights withdrawn.
Point of View 3: Marijuana Use Should Be Allowed to Relieve the Nausea and Sore of People with Certain Medical Conditions
Although marijuana use is regarded as illegal by the federal government, an exception should be made for people whose suffering and nausea can be pleased by its use. Legal alternatives to marijuana with the duplicate active ingredient do not work with all patients. Regardless of the negative impact that marijuana can have on a person ' s health, benefits stifle the hazards for some patients. Further research into the positive effects of medicinal marijuana use has been tied by the drug ' s tidiness as an illegal substance. Allowing further scientific investigation into the use of medicinal marijuana would help clarify when its use might be most seemly.
Studies have shown marijuana can benefit people with certain medical conditions and symptoms. Monk to its prohibition in 1937 with the passing of the " Marihuana Tax Act, " some members of the medical community touted marijuana as a drug with the imaginable to allay various adverse health conditions. Regardless of its level as an illegal drug, marijuana has been promoted as a possible treatment when practical unbefitting unbiased supervision; it has been shown to be an effective means of reducing nausea and vomiting experienced by chemotherapy patients. While alternatives according to as Marinol, a legal cut of the active ingredient in marijuana, befall, some patients do not respond as successfully to its administration. Marijuana has also shown some promise in relieving the pain felt by people who suffer from glaucoma, a debilitating eye savor that can lead to blindness, as well as in suppressing appetite gain and understanding muscle relaxation, conditions associated with a number of illnesses.
Even though marijuana use has some irrefutable negative effects on health, for some people its benefits outweigh its drawbacks. Smoking marijuana has been demonstrated to have a negative impact on the lungs over time, while studies also show a link between marijuana and impaired learning and recollection functions. But for some patients—especially those with terminal conditions—the alleviation of suffering in the short - term trumps concerns about marijuana ' s long - term effects on health.
Since marijuana can assuage the pain and suffering of people with certain medical conditions, further research needs to arise. Unfortunately, orate supporters of research, in a climate where marijuana is regarded as felonious by the federal government, researchers might not fondle the freedom to grill its use. In 1997, the Spotless Rack Office of National Drug Control Policy requested that the Institute of Medicine ( IOM ), a division of the National Academy of Scientists, support a report on the benefits and drawbacks of marijuana use. All of the recommendations presented by the IOM called for further research of medicinal marijuana through strictly controlled studies and clinical trouble. Gary Newkirk, a clinical professor and medical editor in Seattle, offered a direct challenged to the government: " Marijuana is currently a Programme 1 drug, considered to be potentially addictive and with no current medical use. Marijuana needs to be reclassified as a Plan 2 drug, `potentially addictive but with some accepted medical use, ' and studied to the hilt by the identical impartial science that has brought this country to the forefront in medicine. "
Colb, Sherry F. " The Federal Government Should Not Override State Medical Marijuana Laws. " Marijuana. Ed. Jamuna Carroll. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2006.
The Institute of Medicine. " Examining the Scientific Research on Medical Marijuana. " Marijuana. Ed. Louise I. Gerdes. Contemporary Issues Companion Series. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2002.
Newkirk, Gary. " The Federal Government Should Not Interfere with State Medical Marijuana Laws. " Marijuana. Ed. Louise I. Gerdes. Contemporary Issues Companion Series. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2002.
Schuckit, Marc A. " More Research on Medical Marijuana Is Warranted. " Marijuana. Ed. William Dudley. At Issues Series. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1999.
COPYRIGHT 2007 The Hurricane Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
