Eng 80 3:30 / 5:50 pm
John Robertson
Marijuana: to legalize it or not?
Have you ever heard the word cannabis? What is your immediate reaction when you hear this word? Do you know its different uses? As soon as people hear the word “Marijuana” their first impression is a “stoner drug”. Some people do not agree with the legalization of Cannabis, but it has helped in many troubles before and it can provide more if we know how to use it. Hemp can be used in different fields or domains, such as medicinal or economics. Cannabis is a special plant with a fast and productive growing process. It is one of the faster growing biological materiel ever known nowadays. The hemp cultivation does not hurt our mother nature since it needs only few pesticides during the process of flourishing. Not only it means it is environmentally friendly but also that is cheap to cultivate. The debate on whether Marijuana should be legalized has been raging on for several years now. Those who support the idea have given many reasons as to why the herb should be legalized while those who oppose to the legalization have a number of reasons to support their opinion too. Cannabis users get too addicted to that drug and tend to fail in their professional life due to an overuse of this drug. Legalizing marijuana could have positive impacts on people’s health, on homeland security and economics too but also have negative effects on people’s professional lives. Cannabis has medical benefits that can be useful. Historically, many countries had provided from the medical advantages of cannabis. From 1850 to 1937, American Pharmacopeia used to prescribe cannabis as a medicine for a lot of different diseases and illnesses of adults and children. Recent research stated cannabis to be the medicine of choice for glaucoma, epilepsy, tumor reduction, nausea in cancer chemotherapy and many other deadly diseases. Some doctors also discretely prescribed the use of it to threat some sort of eyes’ problems. It is also two to three times as effective as some legal drugs, without having toxic sides effects present on those drugs, for reducing ocular pressure. Cannabis can also be used as a bronchiole dilator, which means allowing more into blood, and it is believed to be one of the best for this case. Some other researches had found light smoking cannabis to be one of the best medicines for emphysema. Cannabis is also known as the best relaxant medicine. A lot of people believe that the use of cannabis is very dangerous can lead to death. THC (Tetrahydrocannabiol), which is the substance in cannabis that makes people feel relax, is known to have an extremely low toxicity on it and poses no threat of death. In 1988 the United States Department of Justice stated, "In practical terms, marijuana cannot induce a lethal response as a result of drug-related toxicity”. No report of death related to cannabis intoxication has been reported until these days, reasons show that people either pass out or feel unable to take more. Other researches concluded that the amount of cannabis that should be inhaled to be toxically deadly is impossible to reach. Cannabis can therefore be one of the best treatments ever existing, especially knowing its low toxicity compared to some legal drugs and it is natural. Furthermore, the fact that Marijuana is illegal does a lot of harm to the security situation and the United States doesn’t take advantage of the economical benefits of legalizing it. It has led to the emergence of powerful drug lords who have little or no regard for life. By legalizing marijuana and making it readily available just like any other commodity we will have turned drug lords powerless. This will go a long way in reducing drug related crime in the region. The drug world thrives on scarcity and by doing away with scarcity we take the power of drug barons (Grinspoon & Bakalar, 1995). Even