Harmful Affects of Alcohol, Not Marijuana

“According to the U.S. center for disease control between 33,000 and 35,000 Americans die annually from effects of alcohol. The comparable number for marijuana is zero” (Merino 156-157). Marijuana is also not an additive suspense, alcohol is. Not only do people die each year because of fatal car crashes do to alcohol, many people also die each year from alcohol overdoes. There has never been a report of a death for marijuana overdose. This mean it is almost impossible, if impossible to get additive to the drug. So why would it be outlawed if it is proven to be less harmful than alcohol?

Not only is marijuana proven to be less harmful than alcohol, it is also an amazing resource and many things can be made from it. “Ben Franklin started one of the first paper mills with cannabis hemp thus freeing us from dependence on paper or books from England” (harbay.net 1). The declaration of independence was written on hemp paper. Marijuana or hemp can be used for many other things including fuel, paper, plastic, and plastic paint. In the early 1900’s Ford built a car made from hemp. This car was much strong than steel and cheaper to make. We could use this as a fuel source. It would be much cheaper than the fuel we have today because we could grow it ourselves. We could use it for plastics and paints. This would be much safer because marijuana is an all-natural plant, so the plastics and paints wouldn’t contain all the harmful chemicals that they do today. If the United States government legalized Marijuana, it would benefit the economy.

“Each year in the United States alone, 783,936 people die from legal prescription drugs, medical errors, and other iatrogenic causes. Illegal drugs kill only 250,000 worldwide (less than 1/3 of legal drug...

... middle of paper ...

...is terrible drug. It’s proven to be harmless and even beneficial to our health.

Some researchers try to tell the people that marijuana is a gateway drug to the use of harder drugs. It is proven that most people who are addicted to the harder drugs started with marijuana. It is also proven that most people that use marijuana started with tobacco or alcohol before they used marijuana (stopthedrugwar.org 1). So yes, you could say that marijuana is a gateway to the use of harder drugs, but it’s proven that tobacco and alcohol are a gateway to marijuana use.

The definitive study of the long-term health effects of marijuana to date was done by Kaiser Permanente. They surveyed the health records of 65,000 patients over a long period of time. They found no significant differences in the health records of pot smokers versus people who did not smoke pot (druglibrary.org 1).