Legalize Marijuana 2 Essay
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For many decades now, the debate as to whether or not marijuana should by legalized, has raged on. The intensity expressed by marijuana s opponents and the harsh punishments given to marijuana offenders cannot be explained by a simple concern for public health. In recent years, paraplegics, cancer patients, epileptics, people with AIDS, and people suffering from multiple sclerosis have been imprisoned for using marijuana as a medicine. The attack on marijuana, has in reality become more of a cultural war than anything; a moral crusade in defense of traditional American Values if you will. The laws that are being used to fight marijuana are now causing far more harm to those values than the drug itself. In order to eliminate marijuana use, state and federal legislators have sanctioned a tremendous increase in prosecutional power, the emergence of a class of professional informers, and the widespread confiscation of private property by the government without trial. The long prison sentences given to growers and dealers have pushed marijuana prices skyward, creating a domestic industry whose annual revenues now rival those of cotton, soybeans, or corn. Some of the opponents to the legalization of marijuana include the DEA, AMA, American Glaucoma Society, American Academy of Opthalmology, and the American Cancer Society. These entities, as well as others against the legalization of marijuana argue that the entire drug problem would become more severe if consumption were legalized. Their reasons for opposition revolve around several key elements adressing the proposed harm that marijuana can impose. Opponents have stated that marijuana: causes brain damage, damages the reproductive system, suppresses the immune system, leads to harder drugs, is much more dangerous than tobacco, flattens human brainwaves, and may lead to death.
Arguing that the entire drug problem would become more severe if marijuana consumption were legalized, opponents to the proposal believe that current attempts to restrict the supply of and demand for marijuana have resulted in a lower level of consumption than would otherwise have existed. Allowing the legal consumption of marijuana would also result in an increase in the consumption of other drugs with more addictive potential. Opponents to this decriminalization also state that the health risks associated with marijuana consumption is not fully understood and is potentially harmful and dangerous to the user.
The most well known study that claims to show brain damage from marijuana use is the rhesus monkey study done in the late 1970 s by Dr. Robert Heath. This study was reviewed by an accomplished panel of scientists from the National Academy of Sciences. Their results were then published under the title, Marijuana and Health in 1982. Heath s work was heavily criticized for its insufficient sample size (only four monkey s), its failure to control experimentat bias, and the misidentification of normal monkey brain structure as damaged . Actual studies of human populations of marijuana users have shown no evidence of brain damage. For example, two studies from 1977, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) showed no evidence of brain damage in heavy users of marijuana. That same year, the American Medical Association (AMA) officially came out in favor of decriminalizing marijuana. That s not the sort of thing you d expect if the AMA thought marijuana damaged the brain.
The claim that marijuana damages the reproductive system and suppresses the immune system is based primarily on the work of Dr. Gabriel Nahas, who experimented with tissue (cells) isolated in petri dishes, and the work of researchers who dosed animals with near-lethal amounts of cannabinoids (the intoxicating part of marijuana). Nahas generalizations from his petri dishes to human beings have been rejected by the scientific community as being invalid. In the case of the animal experiments, the animals that survived their ordeal returned to normal within 30 days of the end of the experiment. Studies of actual human populations have failed to demonstrate that marijuana adversely affects the reproductive system. Like the study claiming to show damage to the reproductive system, the idea that marijuana suppresses the immune system is also based on studies where animals were given extremely high, near-lethal, doses of cannabinoids. These results have never been duplicated in human beings.
One of the most persistant myths about marijuana is the idea that marijuana is a "gateway drug"-leading to harder drugs. A real world example of what happens when marijuana is readily available can...
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