For the past decade or so, there has been a war on legalization of medical marijuana that states that patients would have to be either prescribed by their doctor, or have permission from their doctor to grow marijuana and smoke it for MEDICINAL PURPOSES. In todays world, some parents are even giving their young kids medicinal marijuana to cure there sickness. Such as Kaitlyn Pogson who is a 13 month child who suffers from epilepsy. Barry Pogson (father) decided they were going to move to Colorado because it wouldn't be legalized in Canada in time to save her life. Just after a week, Kaitlyn was more alert, slept better and hasn’t had to return to emergency for seizures. They couldn’t believe it.
In all states with medical marijuana, you have to have either a prescription from your doctor or a note from your doctor giving the okay. The most common things people get prescribed medical marijuana for are, AIDS, Glaucoma , and Cancer. Now by saying that, does not mean that the cannabis is going to cure it, it will just take most of the pain away, and help you cope with the illness. California was the first state to legalize marijuana for medical purposes, which took place in 1996.
Nowadays, some states are focusing more on ,not only legalization for medical use, but too decriminalize marijuana and legalize it for recreational use. Which means whoever you are, you can get marijuana out of the dispensary. One of the reasons the government talks about doing this is because a large amount of American citizens are marijuana smokers, so if they legalize and tax the product the government will be making a lot of money.
When marijuana was first legalized around the world, they thought it was only good for helping patients with pain, ...
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...arijuana: Will Most States Head That Way?" The Christian Science Monitor. The Christian Science Monitor, 17 Sept. 2013. Web. 06 Dec. 2013.
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"Medical Marijuana." Dispensaries, Cannabis Club Directory. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Dec. 2013.
Jonsson, Patrik. "Legal Marijuana: Will Most States Head That Way?" The Christian Science Monitor. The Christian Science Monitor, 17 Sept. 2013. Web. 06 Dec. 2013.
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"Iowa Lawmaker Pushes To Legalize Medical Marijuana - News, Weather and Sports for Sioux City, IA: KCAU-TV.com." Iowa Lawmaker Pushes To Legalize Medical Marijuana - News, Weather and Sports for Sioux City, IA: KCAU-TV.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Dec. 2013.
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In order to lower our incarceration rates and move towards a country that the average American can call free there needs to be a federal change in marijuana laws. Today’s younger (and sometimes older) culture and society uses marijuana. A step in the right direction is decriminalization of marijuana, and possibly legalization.
More and more nurses and doctors are turning their heads when patients are in the hospital and have marijuana tinctures or lotions, because they know that patient needs to have that relief. It is estimated that 2,604,079 people in the United States use a type of medical marijuana. (Number of Legal Medical Marijuana Patients, 2016) If those 2,604,079 people were to be hospitalized, then every single one of them would be losing their ability to use that medical marijuana for an plethora of conditions. Medical marijuana helps HIV patients to help increase their appetite, patients with epilepsy to decrease the neuron signals in the brain, patients with chronic inflammatory issues, cancer patients to help increase their appetite, patients with chronic pain, and even in patients who have
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...
Legalization of marijuana in the United States has received much attention and controversy in recent months. The federal government outlaws the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes, despite proven research studies that have discovered the plant’s potential to treat the lives of many Americans affected by disease and chronic pain. Medicinal use of the marijuana plant dates back to 2700 B.C. in China. Emperor Shen Nung discovered its’ healing properties and recommended marijuana for a variety of ailments (Mack and Joy 14). Today, bias views and laws plague the advancement of marijuana in present day medicine.
Before Americans can make accusations that marijuana can only be used for the sole purpose of euphoric pleasure, they should first become knowledgeable of cannabis’s original and highly valuable uses that gave the plant its primary popularity. The herbal plant was actually a food source around 6000 BC, and it was used as a fiber two thousand years later. Another couple thousand years later was when cannabis obtained its first medical record in China and soon traveled to India and North Africa where cannabis began its use as a “recreational hallucinogen.” When Europe greeted marijuana at about 500 BC, users began classifying in what methods the plant can treat various medical conditions. The Americas were first introduced t...
Simoni-Wastila, Linda, and Francis B. Palumbo. "Medical Marijuana Legislation: What We Know-- And Don't." Journal Of Health Care Law & Policy 16.1 (2013): 59-75. Academic Search Complete. Web. 20 Apr. 2014.
So far, twenty-three states have legalized cannabis for medical uses. Originally, medical marijuana was use for lesser ailment like pain or insomnia due to the lack or research. Then as people started to do more research they realized marijuana could actually help patient with more serious conditions like glaucoma, or to help those who suffer form seizures, or even to fight cancer. Marijuana helps people with cancer a great deal. For starters, the chemicals in marijuana make patients hungry and help to keep patients strong. Second, research has shown promising evidence that the chemicals in cannabis fight the spreading of cancer cells and even help to kill cancer cells. Medical marijuana also helps to prevent users from obtaining other serious afflictions. Currently, researchers are studying the way the chemicals in marijuana effect amyloid plaques. Amyloid plaques, are the number one cause of Alzheimer’s disease, and researchers now believe marijuana use can help fight and help prevent this horrible disease. All of these studies could help to one day make incredible break throughs in modern medicine, and possibly find cures for Cancer and Alzheimer’s disease. Medicinal marijuana is just one reason for the legalization of
Legalization of marijuana has become an increasingly popular topic for debate in society with “sentiment in favor of legalization [increasing] by 20 [percentage] points in just over a decade,” bringing support for legalization to 52% (Dionne and Galston). The most common arguments for reforming current legislation are the following: enforcement wastes public resources, taxation can provide a new source of revenue, and enforcement of current laws is discriminatory (Dionne and Galston). It is necessary to look at the impact on the primary stakeholders by analyzing the various harms and benefits through application of the ethical theories of utilitarianism and deontology, in order to determine the solution that will result in the best possible outcome.
There are reasons for people want marijuana to be legal so it can benefit that person. The state governments are liars and robbers; you should not believe what they are telling you. The government is just telling you that it is fine to smoke some because at the end it will benefit them. By the money it is making for selling marijuana the government will see is that it is boosting the economy. Making business from the marijuana, the government will save on prohibition cos...
Walsh, John. "Q&A: Legal Marijuana in Colorado and Washington." The Brookings Institution. Washington Office on Latin America, 21 May 2013. Web. 26 Feb. 2014.
Despite the 1976 ruling by the federal government that marijuana has “no acceptable medical use”, sixteen states have passed medical marijuana laws that allow for patient use o...
Marijuana is the third most common leisure drug in the United States after alcohol and tobacco. Millions of Americans smoke marijuana despite the strict laws against its use. Marijuana is less dangerous compared to tobacco or alcohol. Smoking marijuana can cause breathing problems and coughing just like cigarettes and some people get addicted after using for a while. Regulating and legalizing marijuana will bring Americas greatest cash crop under law, create economic opportunities and jobs in the formal economy as opposed to the underground market. Adopting a legally controlled market for marijuana will ensure that consumers buy the products from a safe and legal source. Marijuana has been approved in some states for medical uses to ease the effects of different health challenges. Colorado and Washington legalized m...
"Legalization of Marijuana." Student Resource Center. Detroit: Gale, 2012. Discovering Collection. Gale. MINITEX. 20 Mar. 2014
The topic of legalizing recreational marijuana in the United States has been a very controversial one. States such as Colorado and Washington have gone on the offensive and have legalized recreational marijuana and have enjoyed the high revenues brought in from cannabis sale. On the other hand other states have kept low profiles because they are wary of the possible negative outcomes of legalizing recreational marijuana and are using the states of Colorado and Washington as guinea pigs to see what their next course of action on this controversial topic should be. This is not only a highly debated topic among politicians, but also by the people. According to a poll conducted by the Pew Research Center 52% of Americans support the legalization of marijuana and 72% of Americans believe anti-marijuana laws have more cost than benefit. Recreational marijuana will sooner or later be legalized in the United States on a nationwide level because of its popularity and its many benefits. It will be legalized because the consumption of alcohol, cigarettes, prescription drugs, and other illicit drugs by teenagers has gone down drastically as they have switched to marijuana which doesn’t carry as many dangers as these other drugs. Legalizing marijuana would hurt drug cartels profits and also help the U.S. economy in a couple of different ways; we could tax it , we would make revenue from marijuana, and the amount of money we would put on anti drug efforts and locking up prisoners on marijuana possession would drastically reduce. Finally, legalizing marijuana would allow us to use it for its many commercial and industrial purposes.
Right now in this country (and many other countries for that matter) we are experiencing a transitional period that is dependent on legislation, legislation that is bound to reinforce or oppress marijuana legalization. It’s not every day that states have policy that conflicts with federal laws and everyone seems to have an opinion. There are many options on the table for law makers. We could see the federal government enforce their current marijuana laws by cracking down and increase their raids on dispensaries, or they could make marijuana a higher priority with agencies from the DEA to local law enforcement. Another option is to loosen up on what some would deem a “futile” war on drugs; the end result would be each individual state deciding if medicinal marijuana would be ideal for their state. Last but not least there is the route that the states Colorado and Washington took which is to legalize marijuana for recreational use. Every option has their pros and cons. However I believe the option where the pros most heavily outweigh the cons is legalizing recreational use.