Essay/Term paper: Marijuana laws

Essay, term paper, research paper:  Alcohol and Drugs

The Question we must ask ourselves is Why is a drug that has so many beneficial
uses illegal?
Is it because it leads to Harder drugs, the health problems, the
addictiveness, the
short-term memory impairment, the auto accents or is it simply because politicians. We
have grown up learning that marijuana is a terrible drug, and that using it gives us brain damage, kill all of our brain cells, and makes us lose our memory.
The fact is though, that marijuana does not effect us in any of the ways listed above. The idea that marijuana impairs short-term memory impairment vanish once the user is no longer intoxicated. Mainly the reason we think marijuana is bad is because that is what the partnership for a drug-free America wants us to believe. They
tell us that marijuana will cause brain damage and memory impairment, it will kill brain cells, and lead to more crime. But what they forget to mention is all the benefits we can
receive from legalizing marijuana. For example, the medical uses, and the textile and
construction uses.
It is very likely that legalizing marijuana would decrease the crime rate, and by legalizing
marijuana we will save a lot of money because we won"t have to spend it on
fighting marijuana as part of the war on drugs.
There are many habits much worse than marijuana, one example being
cigarette smoking. Tobacco smoking is the number one cause of preventable death in the us.
Tobacco smokers have 10 times the lung cancer of nonsmokers, twice the heart disease, and are three times more likely to die of heart disease if they develop it.
Does it make
sense that tobacco is legal and marijuana is not, when so many people die from tobacco
smoking each year and there is not one reported case of anyone ever dying from marijuana use in its 10,000 years of consumption? Although marijuana
contains the same
amount of carcinogens as an equal amount of tobacco and more tar, Tobacco is
still worse.
Every year 350,000 Americans die from tobacco-related disease according to the American lung association. A tobacco smoker consumes much more tobacco than a
marijuana
smoker consumes marijuana. This is probably because tobacco has a 90%
addiction rate
while marijuana is less addictive than caffeine. Smoking is much more
dangerous than
marijuana smoking.
Another bad habit is alcohol, which in my opinion is the worst of all.
8,000 American teenagers are killed each year and 40,000 maimed from driving under the influence. The mortality figures for alcohol use are 100,000 annually,
compared to the
zero marijuana deaths. Not only do many people die each year from alcohol
poisoning,
but alcohol has caused thousands of fatal car accidents. Although,
marijuana, when used to the point of intoxication. impairs judgment and reaction time, actual studies suggest that the effect alcohol has on one"s driving ability is much greater than
that of marijuana.
In fact, it is found that 85% of marijuana related car accents also involved alcohol. It is sad to think that a legal drug like alcohol, the drug of choice for most
teens, causes so many fatalities on our highways each year, yet marijuana is the drug that is
illegal.
Marijuana has no side effects, where as drugs like Demerol and morphine have both short-term and long-term effects on the patient. The short-term effects are dizziness,
sedation, itching and rash, respiratory depression, delirium, decreased
heartbeat, vomiting, disorientation, and hallucinations just to name a few. The long-term effects
can actually be more serious than some of the illnesses, one example is liver damage.
Marijuana, however, has no side affects, except sometimes euphoria, which is minor compared to the serious effects of narcotics. Glaucoma and multiple sclerosis are also illness in which marijuana is sometimes used.
Glaucoma, the second leading cause of blindness, is caused by
uncontrollable eye
pressure. Marijuana helps control the eye pressure and keeps glaucoma from
leading to blindness. Another illness that marijuana"s used for is multiple sclerosis.
Multiple sclerosis
is the disease in which the body"s immune system attacks the nerve cells.
Marijuana can stop the spasms from occurring and can prevent the diease from getting worse.
Marijuana should be legalized in the US because it has medical and textile purposes
which can benefit everyone
Marijuana must not be ignored or destroyed. Marijuana"s many uses are not and cannot currently be used to its fullest potential because of the drug laws.
Among the most important uses of marijuana are for medical and health reasons, and textile and construction materials. The undeniable truth is that the benefits that can come from legalizing Marijuana greatly out weight the weak and unsupportive myths that keep this
great resource from being utilized. The solution to this problem is to
legalize marijuana
and its many uses today. By legalizing marijuana, many problems would be
solved. The
only way for marijuana to be legalized though, is with the support and help of everyone. Now that you have a good understanding of what some of the many uses of
marijuana has, you"ll help to decide. The most important step to making marijuana legal is
educating the public. One of the biggest problems is that the people who know about marijuana and agree that it should be legalized are too busy and too paranoid to help.
I think that the best way in spreading the word about marijuana is by talking about
it. Go to the rallies with some friends that are unsure about the idea, and
they can find out for themselves