Legalization Of Marijuana For Medical Treatment Initiative example essay topic

... ch" (149). The third argument is that instead of setting a bad example for children targeted by drug pushers, they are shown an image of a drug user as a bald, cancer patient stuck on Intravenous drugs. This can show children drugs are not glamorous and fun. Basic human compassion and common sense dictate that ill citizens should be allowed to use whatever medication proves most effective for them, subject to supervision of a physician. Many groups and states have already taken strides to decriminalize medical marijuana. Keith Stroup, founder of the National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), expresses a belief that the government's opposition to doctors prescribing marijuana for pain relief and nausea had helped legalization efforts.

"The longer they fight this battle, the more progress we make" Stroup says "Americans rethink their position on marijuana when they see a government disinterest in helping dying patients". Robert Hussey agrees that medical marijuana had given momentum to advocates of legalization (Cauchon 1). The "Legalization of Marijuana for Medical Treatment Initiative", if passed, allows, licensed physicians to prescribe marijuana for medical treatment of seriously ill individuals. It would allow marijuana to aid in the treatment if HIV / AIDS, glaucoma, muscle spasms, cancer therapy, and other serious illnesses.

It would legalize marijuana possession, use, cultivation, and distribution for those illnesses which marijuana medically benefits. The initiative would also require the Director of Public Health to propose the D.C. council a plan providing for distribution of marijuana to qualify patients enrolled in approved programs. Using marijuana without a recommendation from a physician would be strictly prohibited. Eleven states, led by Oregon, adopted modified versions of decriminalization in 1973.

Each state retained only a small civil fine of minor marijuana offenses and eliminated arrest and jailing; a small citation similar to a traffic ticket was substituted. To the marijuana smoker the advantage of this approach is obvious. The individual is spared the indignity of an arrest and jailing, and avoids a criminal record. The approach also benefits law enforcement by freeing up officers to focus on actual serious crimes.

Nearly one-third of Americans live in places which have now had a 15-20 year real world experience with marijuana decriminalization, and their experience had been overwhelmingly favorable (Stroup 12-13). Contrary to fears that have been expressed, marijuana usage rates are the same if decriminalized states as well as states where smokers are still arrested. Attitudes towards marijuana use among young people in decriminalized states have also stayed the same. The evidence shows that the government can stop arresting marijuana smokers without harmful consequences. In February of 1996 the NORML Board of Directors issued a statement entitled "Principles of Responsible Cannabis Use", which defines the conduct a responsible marijuana smoker should follow. Marijuana should be for adult use only.

No one should drive while under the influence of marijuana. The marijuana user should take into consideration his set and setting and know when not to smoke. The smoker should resist abuse, only use responsibly, and not become a junkie. The marijuana smokers should also respect the rights of others and not smoke around those who do not approve. Within the five guidelines there are more stipulations (Stoup 11-12). In November of 1996 California and Arizona had the opportunity to debate medical marijuana's merits when the issue was presented in statewide ballot propositions.

In both states, voters agreed marijuana should be allowed for medical purposes. In California the proposition was entitled Prop. 215, and in Arizona it was named Prop. 205. As of 1998, Arizona's legislature had effectively rescinded the proposition, while law enforcement officials in California adopted a range of innovative strategies to deal with the new law. The ramifications of the law have not yet become clear, but credit is given for its merit, and other states watch California's experiment carefully (The War on Drugs 142).

As Lester Grispoon and James B. Baka lar wrote in a 1995 editorial in the Journal of the American Medical Association, "One of marijuana's greatest advantages as a medicine is its remarkable safety. The drug has little effect on major psychological functions. There is no known case of lethal overdose in humans; on the basis of animal models, the ratio of an effective to lethal dose is estimated as 40,000 to 1" (Postrel 175). Society heard in the 1970's that marijuana destroyed brain cells, caused psychosis, lowered testosterone levels and sperm count, led to breast development in adolescent males, damaged memory and intellectual functions, compromised the immune system, and caused chromosome breakage, genetic damage, and birth defects. The publications of these findings followed a typical pattern. The findings became a front-page report with alarmist commentary; then when investigators would report the findings could not be replicated; the report then appeared as a short story in the back pages.

The public often kept the idea that the existence of the latest hazard had been scientifically proven. So far, not a single case of emphysema, lung cancer, or any other significant pulmonary pathology has been found attributable to cannabis (Grispoon 139). Research funded by the American government in Jamaica and Greece found no physical or mental problems among men who had used marijuana, even heavily for many years. Many studies showed no physical dependence or withdrawal had been induced by even high dose, long-term marijuana use.

Over the past 25 years, the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) has funded research into nearly every anti-marijuana claim established during the Eastland hearings of 1974. Researchers compared sex hormone levels and brain-wave patterns in marijuana users verses nonusers. Scientists have looked for abnormalities in sperm of men who smoke marijuana and have looked for damage in children of women who used marijuana during pregnancy. Medical scientists have examined lung cells taken from long-term marijuana smokers, and have given the repeated tests of pulmonary functions.

Social scientists have administered personality, social adjustments, and intelligence tests to both marijuana users and nonusers. The scientists have compared grades of students who smoke marijuana to those who do not, as well as wages of marijuana users and nonusers. Researchers examined data on driving fatalities to determine relationships between marijuana use and highway accidents. Epidemiologists have looked for a link between marijuana use and hard-core, illegal drugs. In laboratory research, marijuana has been given to people to evaluate the drugs effect on memory, motivation, psychomotor skills, and social interaction. Other scientists have given large doses of THC to people and animals every day for months to discover any physical dependence.

Researchers have exposed human cells to THC as well as marijuana smoke in the laboratory. Then, scientists searched for cellular abnormalities under a microscope. In 1982, committees on the Institute of Medicine (IOM) and the World Health Organization (WHO) reviewed the research on marijuana, including 10 years of investigation subsequent to the Shafer Commission's review in 1972. Neither committee found any convincing evidence of biological harm, psychological impairment, or social dysfunction among marijuana users (Morgan and Zimmer 8, 11-12). The evidence does not suggest that marijuana is totally harmless or that the drug cannot be abused. All drugs, including legalized ones, may be abused and are dangerous.

However, evidence does show moderate marijuana use to be relatively harmless. Marijuana is far less harmful to the user than either tobacco or alcohol. Any risk smoking marijuana that presents falls within the ambit of choice permitted to the individual in a free society. The only clear risk of marijuana use is respiratory damage caused by smoking. This risk is confined to long-term, heavy smokers. Claims of other biological harms, such as brain damage, infertility, and immune-system impairment are based on studies done on animals and cells, using doses of marijuana up to 1,000 times the psychoactive dose in humans.

People who use marijuana have produced no harmful side effects. Unlike most other drugs humans consume, no dose of marijuana is fatal. After its debut in 1914, penicillin rapidly earned a reputation as "the wonder drug of the 40's. This came with 3 major reasons. Penicillin was remarkably non-toxic, even at high doses, inexpensive to produce on a large-scale, and extremely versatile. Marijuana parallels all 3 respects.

Although not harmless, it is surely less toxic than most conventional medicines it could replace if legal. Medical cannabis would also be extremely inexpensive. Street marijuana costs $200 to $400 an ounce, while a reasonable estimate of cost, if marijuana were legal, is $20 to$30 an ounce. That equals out to about 30 cents to 40 cents per marijuana cigarette. Both the marijuana cigarette and an 8 mg pill, $30 to $40 each, are effective in treating nausea and vomiting, induced by chemotherapy, in most cases (Grispoon 142-1213).

However, cannabis would be 100 times less expensive. Marijuana is also extremely versatile; cannabis is useful in treatment of various illnesses, as well as in enhancing moods, and relieving tension. "The undeniable fact remains that hemp is probably the single most versatile and benefic agricultural product known to man (after the soybean). Its direct applications and by- product effects on the environment are well documented (web 2-3).

Marijuana can produce rope, twine, fabric, parchment, a cleaner burning and more efficient fuel. If marijuana was legalized, instead of focusing money on prohibition, society would have more money to clean up the towns and spend on spend on schools. Schools could have more classrooms, buy enough books, computers, and essential needs, and do away with the Robin Hood program. Legalizing cannabis would also cut back on overcrowded prisons. If marijuana was legal, the government could tax it, which would create more revenue for the government; it could turn around the economy. Whether the drug is called weed, grass, cannabis, bud, smoke, hash, Mary Jane, kill, blow, do, herb, 420, killer, Mary-j, sticky-icky, wacky-, hydro, toke, lid, fire bud, maui-wow ie, purple haze, purple sticky pung e, Columbian gold, Acapulco gold, Californian sooth, or hydroponic, marijuana should be legalized, at least for medicinal use.

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