Marijuana, Necessary Or Not Essay Example For Students

Marijuana, Necessary Or Not? Essay S/AIts shocking to some, but not to others! Marijuana is a substance that hasbecome very much a part of American culture, nearly 65 million Americans haveeither used it occasionally or regularly. The use of marijuana hit mainstreamAmerica about thirty years ago and it has been accepted by a large segment ofsociety ever since. The debate on whether this substance should be legalizedor not remains a very hot topic today. Despite government efforts to isolateand eliminate its use, it is clear that the use of marijuana is still verypopular. There is an obvious problem concerning marijuana today. Governments on allthree levels: local, state, and federal are trying desperately to find anappropriate policy involving marijuana. National polls show that more than70% of the American people, from both ends of the political spectrum, supportcontrolled access to marijuana for medicinal purposes. Despite fierceopposition from the federal government, voters in California and Arizonapassed ballot in itiatives in the fall of 1996 favoring the legalization ofmedicinal marijuana. If support for marijuana at least as a medicinal remedyis so high, then why have only a few states taken steps to change theirpolicy? There are several reasons why marijuana remains illegal. Mainly, itis a political issue kicked around by certain special interest groups. Someof these groups perceive marijuana as a threat to the home, tearing familiesapart and causing them to abandon traditional values. However these groupsusually are not legitimate areas of legislation. The more powerful groupshave other, more practical reasons for keeping marijuana illegal. Among themost powerful of these groups are the combined lawenforcement-judiciary-penal systems. This group sees the elimination ofmarijuana laws as a threat to their jobs. Add to this group defense lawyers,who stand to make millions of dollars defending marijuana offenders. Consciously or not, they support anti-marijuana laws. Another interest groupincludes the scientists whose marijuana research is funded by the government. If marijuana were legalized, they would lose millions of dollars in researchgrants intended to prove the detrimental effects of the substance. Two otherunrelated but very influential groups are the liquor lobby and pharmaceuticalcompanies. Their spending is usually very secretive and not publicized verymuch. Legalization of a competing product that can be produced with relativeease by anyone with access to a plot of land would cut deeply into theirprofits. And the drug companies want control, rather than just a ban, forthey know the medicinal benefits of marijuana . Therefore the major reasonmarijuana continues to remain illegal, is that special interest groups areblocking legislation by extensive lobbying. Clearly it is seen that manypeople support its use, at least for medical reasons. It is obvious that the current policy for marijuana is not working veryefficiently. The government spends billions of dollars every year to stop itsuse. This leads to the opening of a very extensive black market formarijuana, because the drug is still in high demand. With the black marketcomes all the crime and violent acts that create a new problem ofovercrowding prison populations. In effect, the government does not reallysolve the marijuana problem; instead it just creates a new one in its place. The present policy on marijuana is that it is classified as a Schedule I drugin the Controlled Substances Act. This law established criteria fordetermining which substances should be controlled, mechanisms for reducingthe availability of controlled drugs, and a structure of penalties forillegal distribution and possession of controlled drugs. The criteria forSchedule I substances are: The drug or other substance has a high potentialfor abuse, is not currently accepted for use in medical treatment in theUnited States, has not been proven safe for use under medical supervision. Along with marijuana, hashish, and THC, drugs listed in Schedule 1 areheroin, LSD, mescaline, peyote, and many other hallucinogens. This makes itillegal for anyone to buy, sell, grow, or possess any amount of marijuanaanywhere in the United States. State laws vary in terms of penalties issued. Greek Mythology EssayThinking becomes confused and disorganized. Because the onset of the drugeffect is rapid when marijuana is smoked, most users learn to avoid overdoseby taking only as many inhalations as are required to produce the desiredhigh. Smoking high doses of marijuana or hashish over long periods of timeproduces severe bronchitis, and the tar produced when marijuana is smokedis more potent than the tar from tobacco in causing cancer in animals. Medical Uses The pharmacological effects of the hemp plant have been knownsince ancient times. A Chinese pharmacopoeia compiled nearly 2,000 years agorecommended it for treating a number of disorders, and it was used in Indiabefore the 10th century AD. There are no currently approved uses formarijuana in the United States, except for two states California and Arizona,which have legalized marijuana for medicinal purposes. Clinical research hasshown that THC is effective in reducing the nausea that cancer patientsexperience when they are treated with chemotherapy. Marijuana is alsobelieved to stimulate appetite. In asthma patients, several studies haveshown that THC acts as a bronchodilator and reserves bronchial constriction. In treating epilepsy, marijuana is used to prevent both grande mal and otherepileptic seizures in some patients. Marijuana also limits the muscle painand spastically caused by multiple sclerosis and it relieves tremor andunsteady gait. Lastly, marijuana has been clinically shown to be effective inrelieving muscle spasm and spasticity. History of Marijuana Laws The hemp plant was once a widely cultivated plant in the New World bysettlers. It has been known for centuries that the fiber from the hemp plantis very useful in making ropes. Therefore the cultivation of the hemp plantwas encouraged and much needed. The Virginia Assembly, urging farmers to growthe crop for its fiber passed the first law concerning the hemp plant in1619. There was virtually no significant legislation passed concerning thehemp plant until the 1900s. It was at this time when American attitudestowards Mexicans became hostile. Marijuana obtained a foul reputation whenMexican peasants crossed the border into Texas. It was widely used by Mexicanpeasants as an intoxicant. The Texas police claimed that marijuana causedthese Mexican settlers to commit violent crimes. Therefore in 1914, the firstban on possession of marijuana was passed in El Paso, Texas. Many otherstates followed Texas, and in 1937, Congress passed the Marijuana Tax Act. This law made the possession of marijuana illegal anywhere in the UnitedStates. During the McCarthy era, the Boggs Acts were passed to definemandatory minimums for the possession of marijuana. Congress moved to an evenstronger position in 1956 by lengthening these mandatory minimum sentences. Anti-marijuana feelings continued to grow, and state laws often imposedstricter penalties than the federal penalties. In the 1960s, however, astrange phenomenon began to occur. For the first time in history, marijuanause began to rise amongst the white middle class. Many mandatory sentenceswere repealed. This was seen in the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention andControl Act of 1970. Most of the states followed the federal government, andthe possession of marijuana was decriminalized. However in the 1980s thegovernment once again changed its mind, with the passage of the Anti-AbuseAct of 1986, which once again imposed mandatory minimum sentences for a widerange of drug offenses. The last major piece of legislation passed by thefederal government (not state governments) was in 1996, which stated that anyAmerican convicted of a marijuana felony may no longer receive federalwelfare or food stamps. 1988 WordsBIBLIOGRAPHYCohen, Susan and Daniel. What You Can Believe About Drugs. New York: M Evansand Company, 1987. Hawley, Richard A. Drugs and Society. New York: walker and Company, 1992. Kusinitz, Marc. Drug Use Around the World. New York: Chelsea HousePublishers, 1988. Meehan, Bob. Beyond The Yellow Brick Road: Our Children and drugs. Colorado:Meek Publishing Company, 1996. Ryan, Elizabeth A. Straight Talk About Drugs and alcohol. New York: Factson File, Inc, 1995. Schleichert, Elizabeth. Marijuana. New Jersey: Enslow Publishers, 1996. Zeller, Paula Klevan. Focus on Marijuana. Maryland: Twenty-First CenturyBooks, 1990.