Ask anyone what the most popular drug of the 21st century is, and he will tell you it is marijuana. And why is this? Well for one, marijuana is a highly accessible drug. Whether at a high school, a town, a college campus, or a gas station, marijuana can be found there. And while it is quite easy to find, it is also not financially straining to purchase either. One can get a various range of amounts inexpensively depending on who is dealing it. And, unlike many other drugs, marijuana is not addictive. Available, cheap, and no strings attached, these words sound like they are describing a new product people can buy at the store, not an illegal drug. But marijuana has been illegal in the United States since 1937, when Congress passed the Marijuana Tax Act. Since then those who sell, grow, buy, and possess marijuana are arrested, fined, and some are even incarcerated. The highest amount of jail time for a marijuana-related crime is forty years and fines have skyrocketed to millions of dollars. Yet, why is there such severity in the penalties associated with the drug? Is marijuana truly that dangerous to the citizens of the United States? And how did it come to be that way? Well, if studied, one can see that marijuana is a great remedy for all sort of medical conditions, and that it is illegal because of a bigotry against Mexican immigrants in the early 1900s. From ancient times to the present, marijuana has been used for a variety of medical purposes. Mechoulam writes that one of the earliest accounts of marijuana being utilized as a remedy was in ancient Egypt. Evidence has been found that the Egyptians used marijuana to reduce the excruciating pain for mothers in labor. Trace amounts of cannabis was found in a grave of a young Roman... ... middle of paper ... ...Marijuana -- Polling Results." The New England journal of medicine 368.22 (2013): e30. ProQuest. Web. Dec. 2013 Kuddus , Mohammed, Ibrahim A. M. Ginawi, and Awdah Al-Hazimi. “Cannabis sativa: An Ancient Wild Edible Plant of India.” Emirates Journal of Food & Agriculture 25.10 (2013) : 736-745. Print. “Marijuana Timeline.” Frontline. Public Broadcasting Service, n.d. Web. December 2013. McIlwaine, H. R., and John P. Kennedy. “1619: Laws enacted by the First General Assembly of Virginia.” The Forum. Library Fund, Inc., n.d. Web. Dec 2013. Mechoulam, Raphael. "A Cannabis Tale." Science Spectra 21 (2000): 44. Academic Search Complete. Web. 10 Dec. 2013. ProCon.org. "Historical Timeline." ProCon.org. 13 Aug. 2013. Web. 9 Dec. 2013. Stack, Patrick, and Claire Suddath. “A Brief History of Medical Marijuana.” Time Health and Family. Time, Inc., 21 Oct. 2009. Web. Dec. 2013.
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In the first few centuries of medicinal cannabis use (between 1600 and 1900) the drug was increasingly being used in a vast array of areas. This era may be considered the time of greatest usage of the substance (Grinspoon, 2005). During these years, marijuana was prescribed for many conditions including depression, skin inflammation, relief for coughing, urinary incontinence (or the involuntary release of urine), rabies, rheumatism, epilepsy, tetanus, painful nerve issues, convulsions, asthma, postpartum psychosis, gonorrhea, chronic b...
Marijuana in America became a popular ingredient in many medicinal products and was openly sold in pharmacies in the late nineteenth century (“Busted-America’s War on Marijuana Timeline”). The National Institute of Drug Abuse defines marijuana as, “The dried leaves, flowers, stems, and seeds from the hemp plant Cannabis sativa, which contains the psychoactive (mind-altering) chemical delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), as well as other related compounds” (“DrugFacts: Marijuana”). It was not until the Food and Drug act of 19...
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Cannabis was used in Ancient China for medical purposes and in Ancient India for pleasure. In the Ancient Indian religion the God Shiva said that the Cannabis plant was placed on earth as a pleasurable pastime for human beings. Soon Cannabis spread to the European region. In Europe, Napoleon Bonaparte introduced Cannabis to his soldiers. He preferred it to alcohol because it did not leave hangovers. Queen Victoria used Cannabis to cure fevers, insomnia, and menstrual cramps.
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