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Marijuana or cannabis was at one time legal in our country but is now illegal and can cause many problems in people’s lives. This is because a majority of the people in the United States and the world smoke marijuana. The new generations of children are being told that smoking marijuana is bad for you and can cause your body multiple problems, and that this is the reason that is illegal. Now let me ask you a question if it is so bad for you, why do so many people smoke it, or why can it be used for medicinal purposes? The controversy of marijuana becoming a legal drug is going to go on until the people get what they want, and that is for marijuana to become legal.

The possession and use of marijuana needs to become legal once more for a multiple of reasons. Smoking marijuana can severely help those that are sick with terminal diseases. Also by making marijuana legal the jails throughout the United States would be less cramped and there would be more room for the criminals that actually commit crimes. Marijuana doesn’t cause problems or diseases, unlike other drugs such as alcohol, tobacco, or heroin, if anything is makes people more relaxed, and in today’s world a lot of people don’t relax and can become sick because of that. The only side effect of marijuana is the munchies and everyone likes to eat food, so there is no life or death situation in eating some food when you feel hungry.

Medicinal marijuana can be very helpful to patients that have terminal illnesses such as cancer or patients of the eye disease glaucoma. Medicinal marijuana has become legal in many states throughout the United States for the fact it helps people deal with the pain, or nausea of certain diseases. It has been proven that when someone has cancer and is going through chemotherapy that the smoking of marijuana can help decrease the nausea feeling that you may have. Multiple Sclerosis is a disease that affects the nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord, even though smoking marijuana cannot cure Multiple Sclerosis it can bring relief to those you have it. Through extensive studies it has been proven that the smoking of marijuana “can relieve muscle pain and spasticity in patients suffering from multiple sclerosis and can control tremors.” (godandscience.org) Those with Multiple Sclerosis suffer extreme amount of discomfort and pain, and if smoking marijuana can help relieve these patients some of their symptoms then they should be able to get it throughout all of the United States. The eye disease glaucoma is another disease that has benefits from the use of marijuana. Glaucoma is a disease where pressure builds up behind the eyes and if medicine is not taken, the person with this disease will go blind. Though smoking marijuana is a last resort if the medicine for this disease does not help, through countless studies it has been proven that the use of marijuana can “reduce the intraocular pressure” as long as the use of marijuana is long term and not short term.” (godandscience.org) By having marijuana illegal it taking away from many people pain relief and an easier life because many of these diseases are terminal. Wouldn’t the best idea be to make them as comfortable as possible?

On the news and in the newspaper you always hear about how so many of the jails for criminals are packed and there is no room for new prisoners. That makes you believe that there are a lot of people that commit murder or rob from others, but in reality a lot of these people are involved with selling, and possession of marijuana. According to a reporter “1 in 6 inmates are in federal prison for marijuana.” (pbs.org) That is a lot of people in jail for a drug that does not cause deaths. Once the jails get full, which they will soon, what will these jails do with the new inmates that are coming into federal prison. They might decide to let them go or the government might use more tax payer money to build more federal prisons, but the smartest idea is to make the use, possession and growing of marijuana to be legal. Besides the crime rate going down the government could benefit from this. In our current economy we are increasing our debts to other countries by the day. Now the real crime here is not the use of marijuana, but that the government is too high and mighty to make the right decision and make marijuana legal. It is a crime to ruin some child’s life because he decided to buy some marijuana. Instead of increasing everyone’s taxes to bring in more money, make marijuana legal and tax that. By doing this the crime rate will go down, and people’s lives will not be ruined by the government.

In our society you hear of people dying from overdosing on drugs, or being hit by a drunk driving, but when have you heard of someone dying of smoking to much marijuana. Through scientific research it has been discovered that the lethal dose of marijuana is “40 to 80” pounds of marijuana, because of this fact there is currently “no deaths from cannabis overdose.” (1 Carter) Compared to marijuana there is someone in the hospital for alcohol poisoning quite often. For what reason is alcohol legal, when it causes death and accidents, but marijuana illegal yet there has been no death’s recorded. When talking describing the uses of marijuana, you hear the words, helps relieve pain, makes you hungry, and even makes you happy, But when you describe alcohol you hear the words, what happened last night, or I regret everything I did. If something that can ruin someone’s life is legal, why isn’t the drug that can help you in a multitude of ways, legal?

In our current society we are currently at a cross road between what we have learned and what is right. We all have learned that marijuana is a bad drug and it hurts your body in so many different ways and that it is a gateway drug to a horrible life. What if we were told this so we would never try smoking marijuana, since there are already enough drugs at hand for us like alcohol or tobacco. What is right is that marijuana is better for us then smoking cigarettes or drinking alcohol. For our future we should tell them that these drugs can cause serious damage to our bodies and they should be illegal, while marijuana is the legal drug since it will not kill you in the end. 

 

Work Cited

Schlosser, Eric. "Busted America's war on marijuana." Frontline. Dec. 1997: n. page. Print.

            <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/dope/interviews/schlosser.html>.

Deem, Rick. "The Medical "Benefits" of Smoking Marijuana (Cannabis): a Review of the

Current Scientific Literature." godandscience.org. N.p., July 13,2011. Web. 12 Apr 2012.

<http://www.godandscience.org/doctrine/medical_marijuana_review.html>.

Ed, Dale, Gregory Carter, and Dale Gieringer. Medical Handbook: Practical Guide To The

Therapuetic Uses Of Marijuana. Berkley, CA: Quick Trading Company, 2008. 226.