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Essays on drug policy
The effects of marijuana thesis essay
Essays on drug policy
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United States Government's False Portrayal of Marijuana Abstract I believe that the government’s handling of marijuana has been unethical because they used propaganda and lies to misinform the American population about marijuana. In my casebook, I address how the government made propaganda films and other media to misinform the American population. Some powerful evidence that I used is from the book, On the Trail of Marijuana, in this book the authors illustrate their eight stages of marijuana intoxication: Stage One: Characteristic euphoria, or feelings of unnatural well-being and lightheadedness. Stage Two: Intellectual excitation, dissociation of ideas, and exaggeration of emotion. Stage Three: Illusion in regard to time and space. Stage Four: Intense auditory sensibility, where every musical sound is distorted. Stage Five: Fixation of ideas, which are derived by the suggestibility of near-by stimuli. Stage Six: Overbalancing emotional disturbances. Stage Seven: Culmination of the sixth stage, where the overexcited and distraught subject may commit violent irresponsible acts due to irresistible impulses of suggestive origin. Stage Eight: Hallucination, varied and often terrifying. The opposing argument is supported not by opinion, but by scientific proof. There have been many studies done on the effects of marijuana, but I chose On Being Stoned because the author realized that the effects are only “potential”. Marijuana is illegal in the United States and in the past, there have been many changes in legislation regarding marijuana possession, production, and use. The knowledge of marijuana usage has been warped and twisted by the American government beginning in the early 1900s. According to the Webster’s Dictionary definitions, ethics are principles of right conduct or a system of moral values, morals are the lesson or principle contained in or taught by a fable, a story, or an event, and government is the act or process of governing, especially the control and administration of public policy in a political unit. It bothers me that neither ethics nor morals were included in the definition of government.
For over seventy years, marijuana has been a growing problem in our society. Due to all of the controversy over this drug, there have been countless battles fought concerning marijuana's capabilities. In the 1930's, a moral panic surfaced with regard to the use of marijuana. The movie Reefer Madness is a perfect example of how the media stereotyped and distorted this new drug in order to construct it as a social problem, convincing society that this narcotic was single handedly destroying humanity.
Of course, there are many people opposed to legalizing marijuana, despite the benefits. Some doctors are against legalizing marijuana because they think that it will cause “emotionally crippled adults”, and they think that people can become addicted to it. Doctor Howard Samuels believes that marijuana is a psychoactive drug which will create problems for adults in the future. I disagree with this. It doesn’t do anything harmful to your brain, so I don’t see how it would cause problems for adults in the future that use marijuana. You can’t become addicted to it, like you can with cigarettes and alcohol. Marijuana doesn’t have nicotine in it, which causes the addiction to cigarettes. Doctors prescribe morphine to patients, and that is very addictive...
The controversy of legalizing marijuana has been raging for quite a while in America. From some people pushing it for medical purposes to potheads just wanting to get high legally. Marijuana has been used for years as a popular drug for people who want to get a high. All this time it has been illegal and now it looks as if the drug may become legal. There has been heated debate by many sides giving there opinion in the issue. These people are not only left wing liberals either. Richard Brookhiser, a National Review Senior editor is openly supportive of medical marijuana yet extremely conservative in his writing for National Review (Brookhiser 27). He is for medical marijuana since he used it in his battle with testicular cancer. He says "I turned to [marijuana] when I got cancer because marijuana gives healthy people an appetite, and prevents people who are nauseated from throwing up. "(Brookhiser 27) Cancer patients are not the only benefactors from the appetite enhancer in marijuana, but so are any other nauseous people. Arizona and California have already passed a law allowing marijuana to be used as a medicinal drug. Fifty Six percent of the California voters voted for this law. "We've sent a message to Washington," says Dennis Peron. "They've had 25 years of this drug was, and they've only made things worse." (Simmons 111) The Arizona proposition garnished an even wider margin of separation between the fore's an against in a sixty five percent support tally. Ethan Nadelmann insists that " these propositions are not about legalization or decriminalization. They're about initiating some non radical, commonsense approaches to drug policy." General Barry McCaffery disagrees saying, "I...
On August 2nd, 1937, United States president Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937. The law was passed only 83 days after being introduced in the House of Representatives as House Resolution 6906. This law sought to place prohibitive regulations requiring medical professionals to obtain a one dollar tax stamp in order to continue prescribing cannabis sativa as medicine. However, physicians who wished purchase the tax stamp were also required to divulge an abnormal amount of detail regarding the patient, the condition being treated, the amount prescribed and the date of the prescription. Failure to follow these strict rules while prescribing marijuana resulted in harsh penalties to both the medical professional and the patient. According to the text of the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937, “Any person who is convicted of a violation of any provision of this Act shall be fined not more than $2,000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both, in the discretion of the court.”
There has always been controversy about marijuana and the affects it has on health and the issue of legalization. Some people believe it is very destructive to one’s health, and yet others feel the complete opposite about it. Is Marijuana truly harmful to one’s health? “Marijuana, the Deceptive Drug”, written by George Bierson, was published in the Massachusetts News. In this article, Bierson determines that marijuana is harmful in many ways. He seems to think that it damages the brain, the reproductive system, and also contributes to the halt of production in the immune system. Bierson also tries to persuade the reader that marijuana is a “gateway drug” that leads to larger drugs in the future. However, by conducting research of my own, I have come to the conclusion that Bierson’s article simply lacks truth.
But one of the arguments is that there are alternatives to using marijuana such as medications that come in pills, solutions, shots, or drops. There is no prescribed drug today that is smoked. Another concern is that marijuana is illegal is the United States. Making it a medicine would require a change in the current law which would have to be voted on by Congress. The biggest and most important argument against marijuana is the negative effects it could have on a person. Marijuana effects coordination and short-term memory which may make it impossible for a person to operate a vehicle or learn anything new. Smoking marijuana could cause lung cancer. Smoking three to five joints a day is equivalent to smoking more than twenty cigarettes a day. But marijuana has many helpful effects also.
Lately it seems that drug policy and the war on drugs has been in the headlines quite a lot. It is becoming increasingly apparent that the policies that the United States government takes against illegal drugs are coming into question. The mainstream media is catching on to the message of organizations and individuals who have long been considered liberal "Counter Culture" supporters. The marijuana question seems to be the most prevalent and pressing of the drugs and issues that are currently being addressed. The messages of these organizations and individuals include everything from legalization of marijuana for medical purposes, to full-unrestricted legalization of the drug.
Ever since marijuana’s introduction to the United States of America in 1611, controversy of the use and legalization of the claimed-to-be Schedule I drug spread around the nation. While few selective states currently allow marijuana’s production and distribution, the remaining states still skepticize the harmlessness and usefulness of this particular drug; therefore, it remains illegal in the majority of the nation. The government officials and citizens of the opposing states believe the drug creates a threat to citizens due to its “overly-harmful” effects mentally and physically and offers no alternate purposes but creating troublesome addicts hazardous to society; however, they are rather misinformed about marijuana’s abilities. While marijuana has a small amount of negligible effects to its users, the herbal drug more importantly has remarkable health benefits, and legalizing one of the oldest and most commonly known drugs would redirect America’s future with the advantages outweighing the disadvantages.
For nearly one hundred and fifty years marijuana has been illegal in the United States of America. Though marijuana naturally grew in all of our fifty states, it was outlawed due the superior strength and durability of hemp rope. This threatened to replace cotton rope, which would cost wealthy cotton owners a lot of money. To this day marijuana is still outlawed in the U.S., however rope has nothing to do with it. Once slavery and the “cotton boom” were over hemp made a little bit of a comeback in a smoking form. Then, in the early 1940’s the government began releasing anti-marijuana propaganda. In the 1960’s when marijuana became popular amongst pop-culture, a movie by the name of “Reefer Madness” was released depicting marijuana users as fiends and criminals who’s normal everyday lives fell apart, and spun out of control due to the addiction to the drug. Even in the present day organizations, as well as the government, continue to try and sway people from using the substance by portraying users as irresponsible idiots. Some examples of behaviors portrayed in the commercials are: accidental shootings, running over a little girl on a bike, molesting a passed out girl, supporting terror, and impregnating/becoming impregnated. I feel that these advertisements are ridiculously tasteless and misleading. Through personal experience, surveys, an interview, and a case study I intend to prove that marijuana users do not behave in the fashion that the anti-marijuana campaign ads would suggest, and furthermore, I expect to find that the ads so grossly misrepresent the common user, even those who do not use disagree with the negative portrayals. I also challenge you to think about the suggested situations and behaviors from the commercials, I feel that you’ll see every situation and behavior in the advertisements is much more feasible to a person under the influence of alcohol than under the influence of marijuana.
In America,—the so called “home of the free” and well-known for being just and right—the federal law states that it is illegal to possess, grow, sell, or anything else related to marijuana—a natural, safe, and beneficial substance. If anyone is found guilty of these actions, they could face a fine anywhere from one thousand dollars to four million dollars and/or serve a prison sentence anywhere from fifteen days to life. However, the sale, use and even abuse of alcohol or tobacco—which is scientifically tested not natural, safe, or beneficial—is not seen to the government as illegal and is only punishable if sold to a minor or if the use of the substances causes a crime to occur. The illegal status of marijuana is an unjust law. The DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) currently lists marijuana as a schedule 1 drug under the Controlled Substance Act (CSA). The CSA states that, “Schedule I drugs are classified as having a high potential for abuse, no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the...
The cannabis plant has been the topic of much debate throughout the history of this country. Many people don't know that it was not the effect of cannabis that originally spurred its banning. It was actually originally the work of the cotton industry who put big money behind illegalization for the plant's mind altering effects. The cotton industry was afraid that hemp, a product of the cannabis plant, would soon overpower the strong hold of cotton since it was a more durable textile that required less work, less ground depletion, and could be grown almost anywhere. Since the time when cannabis first became illegal it has been grouped with other narcotics as a counterpart. The truth is cannabis has many benefits to society and other than the effects of smoke inhalation has very few negatives. Those against legalization try to put cannabis in the same light as other more potent drugs like cocaine and heroin. There are many misconceptions about the substance and it is clear it should be looked at separately.
One of the most controversial topics in the news today is the legalization of marijuana. Supporters believe that the drug is not harmful and can have numerous benefits. However, opponents argue that marijuana can lead to addiction and other more dangerous drugs. In the end, marijuana should be legal based on economic, medicinal, and philosophical factors.
In determining the ethicality of legalizing marijuana, it is necessary to understand the background of the issue, and to identify the most important stakeholders. In the 1930s, many states began outlawing the substance; ironically California was the first of these states (Rendon). In 1937, the federal government outlawed the substance, which pushed the growth and sale underground (Rendon). In 1970, President Nixon declared the substance a Schedule I Substance, which indicates that the substance has “a high potential for abuse” and “no currently accepted medical use” (Controlled Substances Act). The federal government has specified that for marijuana to have an accepted medical use, it must “be subjected to the same rigorous clinical trials and scientific scrutiny that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) applies to all other new medications” ("Answers to Frequently Asked Questions about Marijuana"). There are numerous stakeholders in an ethical dilemma of this magnitude, which...
Marijuana is a plant that has always been deliberated by the United States for centuries. On one side marijuana is a harmless plant that brings peace and love to those who use it and on the other side, marijuana is an evil addictive drug that will ruin the lives of users. Before marijuana was outlawed, “George Washington and Thomas Jefferson recommended that the early colonists grow "the abundant weed" and cultivate it into such products as lamp oil, flour and fabric for uniforms and clothing” (Wilke). Hemp is a very useful plant and the founding fathers of the United States told people to grow it because of its versatility. "For decades, our government has been exaggerating the harms of marijuana in order to keep it illegal, The Institutes of Medicine determined that the addictive properties of marijuana are quite mild compared to those of alcohol," (Weise). Alcohol is a substance that can be physically addictive and was outlawed in 1919 until the end of prohibition in 1920. Nixon also started the War On Drugs in June 1971, and...
Those opposed to the use of medical marijuana contend that there have not been enough studies, it is too dangerous and it is ineffective enough to call for its legalization. They believe that marijuana is addictive, is a gateway drug, can lead to infertility and can injure the brain, lungs and other organs. However, advocates of medical marijuana point out numerous government studies, peer-reviewed clinical trials and the long, proven history of cannabis used medicinally throughout the world as counter-points to the opposition. Advocates also point out the various harmful side effects of prescription drug medication, and hold that if those are approved by the FDA for patient use, than marijuana should be as well.