Essay/Term paper: Marijuana

Essay, term paper, research paper:  Alcohol and Drugs

Marijuana


Marijuana is a big topic these days. Many people want to make sure that
marijuana stays illegal. Yet they do not know all the facts about marijuana.
They just think that marijuana is bad. I believe that marijuana should be made
legal.
First of all, marijuana refers to the dried leaves and flowers of the
cannabis plant, which contain the narcotic chemical THC at various potencies.
It is smoked or eaten to produce the feeling of being "high". Marijuana has
been used for thousands of years for medical, social, relaxation, and religious
reasons. Several of our presidents are believed to have smoked it. Those
presidents include Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and many others. John F. Kennedy
smoked it to relieve his back pain. Also, many of America's great leaders were
hemp farmers. This includes good ol' George Washington. Archeologists believe
that cannabis was possibly the first plant farmed by humans.
Many people think that marijuana is addictive, but this is false.
Marijuana is less habit forming than either sugar or chocolate. When users take
marijuana, it doesn't lead to violence-related crimes. Most users commit crime
because they want to get marijuana, but this problem can be easily solved if the
government would legalize marijuana again. When you take marijuana, it doesn't
make you violent, in fact it leads to non-violence.
There has never been a case that a person died from smoking marijuana.
THC is one of the few chemicals that has no known toxic amount. This is amazing,
since tobacco(which is legal) has 340,000 plus deaths in a typical year,
compared to marijuana, which has 0 deaths.
The government states that over 20 million Americans still smoke
marijuana. You can say that marijuana affects your health, but marijuana is
less dangerous than tobacco and people smoke less of it at a time. Or you can
eat the plant instead of smoking it, which can lower health risks by a lot.
Another way to reduce health risks is by reducing smoking amounts. There is no
proof that marijuana causes health problems that can lead to death or sexual
programs, but like alcohol, it is not recommended for children or teenagers to
use. This is simply because children and teenagers are in the process of
growing up, and it would not be a good idea to smoke anything or drink alcohol.
Cannabis is a medical herb that has literally hundreds of proven,
valuable therapeutic uses. For example, you can use marijuana for stress
reduction, asthma, cancer therapy, and much more. Marijuana is not just for
getting "high", but a valuable medical medicine.
Dr. Gabriel Nahas, who made totally false statistics and studies, was
very biased and unscientific. He was even fired by the National Institute of
Health and the NIH told the public his studies were meaningless. For one
experiment, he suffocated a monkey for 5 minutes at a time, using way more smoke
than the average marijuana user inhales in an entire lifetime. The other
studies were lacking controls and produced results which cannot be replicated or
independently verified.
The same plant, known as hemp, has about 50,000 non-drug commercial uses.
This includes paper, textiles, fuels, food, and sealants; but these uses were
also banned by laws.
Government should re-legalize marijuana and tax it. People are going to
smuggle it anyway, so why not make a lot of money to try to repay the United
States' debt by taxing marijuana? The re-legalizing of marijuana might even be
a way to lower crime and violence in America.