Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Thought, Freedom of Pot

Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Thought, Freedom of Pot!

There is a war going on; it keeps thousands in pain every night, a war that if were to end, could save thousands of people’s lives. This is the war on marijuana. You could say that marijuana has a bad reputation in the eyes of many people, but in reality it is a drug which has the ability of saving lives and curing diseases in which have plagued us for too long. People need to be informed on the good that marijuana can bring not just to this country, but to the whole world.

Marijuana (cannabis sativa) is often referred to as pot, tea, grass, weed, hashish, maryjane, ganja, skunk, and there are many, many more depending on how it is used and/or where it is from. It can be sniffed, chewed, smoked, or added to foods or beverages, but most often is smoked by recreational users. Marijuana contains around sixty compounds called cannabanoids. The most psychoactive being delta-9-tetrahydracannabinol (Dudley 18). When marijuana is used, several things can happen to the user both physically and or mentally. Physical effects include: red eyes, dry mouth or throat, increase in heartbeat, tightness of chest (if smoked), drowsiness, unsteadiness, and muscular in-coordination. THC molecules can also distort part of the brains’ information-processing system, altering perception of time, while amplifying sounds and usual images (Dudley 18). This may not seem like something people would want legalized, but there are far more ways to use marijuana for good than for bad.

There are several interesting reasons why people fight for the legalization of marijuana, some people argue that if it was smoked as early as 2700 B.C. in China and India (Quick Facts 1) that it should be legal in all places. Or that since many of America’s greatest leaders and Founding Fathers (including George Washington) were hemp farmers (Quick Facts 1) that it would make the world a better place. Both of these general types of arguments have some reason in them, but the most valid arguments are probably to be about violence or medical reasons. After some thinking, the conclusion that any sick person who wants to use marijuana to help them self has to break the law (Dudley 39) can be made. This doesn’t seem fair at all, seeing as how people who are ill and whom mi...

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...aws around them, and make everything in society for those people. The lowest incapable part of the species. And what about all the people that can handle all the good things in life without screwing everyone else over? Well they can suffer, they can be held back by our crap, because they’re not important. They can evolve at the same mind-numbing pace as the rest of us. So lets keep drugs illegal, cause some people can’t handle the responsibility. That’s the same principle they enforce in elementary school; one kid messes up and the rest suffer from his ignorance. In case you haven’t noticed, laws and regulations can’t hold back human curiosity. You can’t simply just stamp out those human urges with a law or two. You won’t succeed in preventing humans from being human.

Works Cited

“Cancer Statistics.” American Cancer Society. Online. Internet. 01 February 2001.

Dudley, William, et al., eds. Marijuana. California: Greenhaven Press, 1999.

“Marijuana” Encyclopædia Britannica: Macropædia. 1999 ed.

“Quick Facts About Pot.” Freepot.com. Online. Internet. 28 Jan 2001.

Todd Austin Brenner, “The Legalization of Drugs: Why Prolong the Inevitable?” Vol. 18, 1989.