Legalization Of Marijuana

Legalization Of Marijuana

Policymakers in the United States claim that marijuana use is hazardous, often leading to the use of more potent drugs, according to 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 turn, buy, or use the drug for selfsame purposes can be arrested and prosecuted underneath 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 validate marijuana, at pioneer for medical purposes, but critics of same efforts altercate that the drug does more harm than good.
Usually dried, rueful, and smoked in pipes or hand - rolled cigarettes, marijuana can also be burned out in food or drink. Users may experience both material and psychological effects. Honest effects scale from salmon eyes and dry mouth to an greater heart standard and loss of planning. Some effects - - - including relief from pain and nausea, another appetite, and reduced muscle spasms - - - are considered beneficial for medical conditions agnate as cancer, AIDS, and multiple sclerosis.
Psychological effects may involve hallucinations, impaired savvy, and spirit swings. Some studies have linked marijuana use to short - term recollection problems. Although marijuana does not produce perceptible addiction, users can develop a psychological dependence on the drug.
A protocol called the International Opium Encounter of 1925 was the first one's darnedest 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 known illegal in 1937. Marijuana is currently regulated beneath the Controlled Substances Act, part of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse and Control Act of 1970. This federal law classifies marijuana as a Scheme I drug, which means that it has no safe medical use and a high possible 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 criminal, 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 discrepancy, claim that marijuana is hazardous, often leading to the use of more potent drugs consistent 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 age, buy, or use the drug for consonant purposes can be arrested and prosecuted subservient federal law. Some dissertate that permitting marijuana to be used for medical purposes would lead to an increase in recreational use and pressure to validate the drug.
In some parts of the United States, farmers have lobbied to acquit 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.
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Point of View 1: Marijuana Should Be Legalized Considering Its Prohibition Unnecessarily Taxes Law Enforcement
The answerable use of marijuana should be legalized since it is yet no more dangerous than the use of legal drugs not unlike as tobacco and alcohol. Evidence is irrecoverable in regard to both marijuana ' s addictive quality and its inherent as a gateway drug. Due to of investigations, arrests, blow, and incarcerations involving marijuana, law momentum and judicial resources are unnecessarily unsuccessful. Millions of Americans who smoke marijuana with little negative impact on society at vast 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 under contract 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 jibing 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 recognized that a marijuana user " becomes a fiend with savage or `cave man ' tendencies. His sex desires are aroused and some of the most obnoxious crimes settlement. He hears light and sees sound. To get away from it, he suddenly becomes rough and may kill. " Newspapers also made hyperbolic claims; among them the Magazine of Law and Criminology reported on the habit of marijuana use, alleging that " [i]f stringy, the unborn result is insanity, which those close with it delineate as unquestionably incurable, and, without exception ending in death. " Throughout the remainder of the century, further legislation resulted in cacophonous penalties for people possessing, growing, using, or selling marijuana. This legal climate has engaged investigations into the possible benefits of using marijuana to quench nausea and suffering caused by certain medical conditions. Although some states have put measures in region that protect populace from severe consequences for marijuana possession and use, the vast majority recommend jail time or impose stiff fines for convictions.
Law force and judicial resources are disproportionately wasted on crimes involving marijuana. While few get together against arresting rash users of marijuana, many have that the general achievement to restrict its use keeps people from focusing on more severe and rough crimes.
Criminalizing marijuana creates the false impression that it is as dangerous as more addictive drugs of congenerous 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, lining expensive and appreciated jail and prison space, and needlessly wrecking the lives and careers of genuinely good human race. "
Earleywine, Mitch. " Marijuana Is Not a Gateway to Other Addictive Drugs. " Addiction. Ed. Louise I. Gerdes. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2004.
Males, Mike. " The Scrape of Youth Substance Abuse Is Vivid. " America ' s Youth. Ed. Roman Espejo. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2003.
Page, Clarence. " The Harmful Effects of Marijuana Use Are Hard. " 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.
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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 astuteness, and might serve as a " gateway drug, " leading to the eventual use of more destructive and addictive drugs selfsame 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 satiate 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 analogous 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 loathsome and human populations also indicates that marijuana use negatively impacts agnate thinking functions as concentration, learning, and subconsciousness. Rats exposed to delta - 9 - tetrahydrocannabinol ( THC ), the active ingredient in marijuana, have shown nerve cell and efficacious camera-eye loss in experiments. More research on humans shows an impact on learning that might last up to four weeks. Marijuana use impairs reason in the short - term as evidenced by findings of the Department of Health and Human Services. Their studies test that Washington, D. C., emergency cantonment deal with more than 2, 500 cases a year in which marijuana smoking plays a part, with more than 10 percent of those patients under 18 years of age. Driving beneath the influence of marijuana also contributes to traffic accidents which recurrently eventuality in injuries and death.
THC, the unavailable instrumentality in marijuana, has a biological impact that distinguishes it from legal drugs consistent as tobacco and alcohol. THC releases dopamine, a naturally produced chemical that stimulates a sensibility of contentment; as dopamine supplies are fatigued, people using marijuana show slump symptoms. In 1999, the National Institute on Drug Abuse categorized more than two million people as dependent on marijuana based on jibing criteria. Matching findings rebut those who consult with that marijuana is not addictive. Additional, its reputed cant as a " gateway drug, " is especially dangerous, as more addictive drugs jibing cocaine or heroin are voiced subterranean more dangerous than marijuana.
Commenting on the high produced by marijuana use, Damon Linker, familiar editor of First Things, a ledger 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 exceptional, can only lead to an ersatz satisfaction—because it involves goose egg saintly. So it is that, after its effects have spent off, marijuana leaves its users with little more than a reaction of emptiness and a salacity for massed high. "
Gfroerer, Joseph C., Li - Tzy Wu, and Michael A. Penne. " Marijuana Is a Gateway Drug. " Drug Legalization. Karen F. Balkin. Undistinguished Controversies Sequence. San Diego: Greenhaven Hit, 2005.
Linker, Damon. " Marijuana Use Should Not Be Decriminalized. " Marijuana. Ed. Mary E. Williams. At Subject Harmony. San Diego: Greenhaven Emphasize, 2003.
Margolis, Robert. " Legalizing Marijuana Would Injure Youth. " Legalizing Drugs. Ed. Stuart A. Kallen. At Issues Standardization. San Diego: Greenhaven Spotlight, 2006.
Walters, John P. " Marijuana Is Harmful. " Drug Abuse. Ed. Tamara L. Roleff. San Diego: Greenhaven Underscore, 2005.
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Point of View 3: Marijuana Use Should Be Allowed to Quench the Nausea and Impaired 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 twin active ingredient do not work with all patients. Regardless of the negative impact that marijuana can have on a person ' s health, benefits veil the hazards for some patients. Further research into the positive effects of medicinal marijuana use has been obliged by the drug ' s neatness 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. Religious 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 quiescent to satiate various adverse health conditions. Regardless of its position as an illegal drug, marijuana has been promoted as a possible treatment when commodious below upright supervision; it has been shown to be an effective means of reducing nausea and vomiting experienced by chemotherapy patients. While alternatives commensurate as Marinol, a legal structure of the active ingredient in marijuana, develop, 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 endowment that can lead to blindness, as well as in suppressing appetite gain and considering 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 recognition 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 slake the pain and suffering of people with certain medical conditions, further research needs to transpire. Unfortunately, announce supporters of research, in a climate where marijuana is regarded as felonious by the federal government, researchers might not stroke the freedom to ask its use. In 1997, the Bleached Flophouse Office of National Drug Control Policy requested that the Institute of Medicine ( IOM ), a division of the National Academy of Scientists, replenish 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 Calendar 2 drug, `potentially addictive but with some accepted medical use, ' and studied to the hilt by the alike 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. " Supplementary Research on Medical Marijuana Is Warranted. " Marijuana. Ed. William Dudley. At Issues Series. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1999.
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