If your every waking moment was consumed by pain and nausea, you would ask for medication. What if the only medication legally available would leave you unconscious or do nothing at all? If you were the one suffering, would you resort to the only treatment that allowed you to live normally even though it was illegal? Thousands of people across the country are forced to break the law to ease their pain. They have chosen marijuana over anything legally available because it has various medicinal properties that cannot be found anywhere else. Due to these many unique medicinal uses, marijuana should be reclassified as a valid, legal form of treatment.
Marijuana has many unique uses as a form of treatment. It has been used effectively to combat the nausea caused by chemotherapy, to reduce the internal pressure of the eyes of glaucoma patients, and to prevent the “wasting syndrome” In AIDS and cancer patients. As an alternative to using actual marijuana, modern science has developed a synthetic form of THC, the active chemical in marijuana. However, this synthetic drug, called Marinol, is useless for most everyday treatment because it has the unpleasant side effect of being a powerful sedative In addition to that; Marinol only comes in pill form, which makes it useless for patients taking it for nausea. Marijuana has neitherof those drawbacks. Because it is usually smoked, even the most nauseous patient can use it as well as easily regulate their intake No prescription drug offers the benefits and potential of marijuana.
Many people have testified to marijuana’s validity as a unique form of treatment. Marijuana as a form of treatment has gained support from the medical community. Such prestigious medical publications as the New England Medical Journal have come out in support of medicinal uses for marijuana (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel 1/30/97). In addition to that, a Harvard study showed that nearly 44% of doctors who treat cancer patients in the American Medical Association, a group officially opposed to marijuana, have actually recommended marijuana to ease the pain of their patients Even with this support, the federal government has refused any sort of clinical testing or reclassifying. Because of its medicinal value and the lack of an effective substitute, marijuana should be reclassified as a Schedule II drug instead of a Schedule I drug, which would allow it for certain medical uses. Other illegal drugs such as cocaine and heroin are classified as Schedule II, even though they are considered habit forming and dangerous, where marijuana, classified as a Schedule I, has never caused a death or overdose and is not considered addictive.
The federal government refuses to reclassify marijuana because there “is no proof that smoked marijuana is the most effective available treatment for anything. There can be no proof until marijuana has been tested in a series of clinical trials. There can be no clinical testing of marijuana because the federal government will not allow them. Anyone who has read the book Catch-22 will find this situation familiar. Unfortunately, people whose morality and patriotism prevent them from using marijuana to treat their cancer, AIDS, glaucoma, or other illness pay the price.
The other opponents of marijuana as a form of medical treatment have presented several illogical arguments against it. Many opponents argue that marijuana is a “gateway drug” that often leads to harder drugs. This argument is easily disproved by the fact that use of “hard” drugs in the Netherlands has decreased significantly since marijuana was legalized.
Parents are often worried that prescription marijuana will mean that more of it will get into the hands of kids. Some of these parents have prescriptions for Morphine, Prozac, Zoloft, Dexedrine, or countless other mood-altering drugs which they successfully keep out of their children’s hands.
Marijuana should be reclassified so its unique medicinal value can be legally utilized to treat patients. How long would the loudest opponent of medicinal marijuana live incapacitated by nausea or Marinol before he would turn to marijuana? Maybe opponents should spend a month or two in chemotherapy before they deny patients the most effective means of relief.
Not only should it be legalized for medical use but for all uses. Socially marijuana is better from the stand point of addiction. Marijuana is less addictive than tobacco. Marijuana is not physically or mentally as addicting as nicotine. Another social benefit of marijuana is its not cancer causing when compared to legal drugs as caffeine or cigarettes.
The legalization of marijuana would create an infinite number of jobs. These jobs would drastically improve the unemployment that is in America now. The economy would also benefit from the legalization of marijuana. If the government sets the taxes high they can insure themselves a large profit from the sales of marijuana. The money could be used in the same way as the money they make off cigarette sales now. This would cause a great boost in the economy. The legalization of marijuana would also help the environment. People could stop cutting down trees for paper and rope because hemp, the stems or trunk of a marijuana plant is the best maker of paper in the world. In fact hemp rope is close to the strongest natural rope in the world this would allow the paper and rope companies to invest in marijuana growth for industrial use.
When anti-marijuana activists reported on the damage high drivers would have on the highway, they failed to point out that “85% of the people in a marijuana related accident were legally drunk” the counter argument for marijuana activist does not say that when you are high you are able to drive. The argument simply states that you are 85% more likely to get in an accident when you are drunk and high than you are just high.
The government says that marijuana harms you when you smoke it. The government refers to thousands of chemicals in marijuana that you inhale when you smoke it. The government also fails to tell you that Every cup of coffee you drink has eight hundred volatile chemicals”, after testing only 21 chemicals in coffee studies found that 16 of them were cancerous. However coffee is considered fairly safe and legal. America needs to get rid of the old stereotypes of marijuana and formulate their opinion on the facts not the myths. From everything that I have researched, marijuana is no worse for you to use than smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol or even taking some prescribed drugs . so now is the time we need to change legislation and actually put a drug out their that can help people when they have some serious diseases .
