Marajuana Essay

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A major issue in our country today deals with a very controversial drug called marijuana. It s one of the oldest medicines in the world, but are the side effects worth the benefits? The drug itself is comes from the plant cannabis sativa. It is usually a green, brown, or grayish mixture of leaves, stems and buds, commonly taken in its smoked form. Marijuana contains over four hundred chemicals, the major mind altering chemical being THC (delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol). This chemical makes up most of the drug s composition, and is the main ingredient that will make a person stoned. However, it is also the most beneficial part of marijuana in terms of using it as a medicine. So in order to find out if the gateway drug should be used a common medicine in our country, I wrote this report.

First we ll start with all the negative information I was able to find. Marijuana is a very slow acting drug. At the actual time of the high, only a half of one percent of the THC is actually going to the user s brain. This is why it is said to have no withdrawal symptoms. It seems like a good thing on the surface, but the reason for this is because marijuana is fat-soluble. This means it is stored in your fat cells rather than flowing through your bloodstream and being filtered by your liver. Essentially, marijuana could stay in your system for weeks, even months after taking it just once. Every time you use it afterwards, it just adds to the supply stored in your fat cells. Another negative side effect is the damage it causes to the T-lymphocytes. These are tiny white blood cells that aid in the body s immune defense system. Without these, you become very prone to bacterial and fungal infections that you will not be able to fight off without medication. Marijuana can have very harmful effects on the reproductive system as well. Regular use by children who haven t completely matured can permanently retard sexual maturity. Not to mention it could destroy sperm and egg cells causing sterility. This is especially bad for girls because they can not reproduce new egg cells. Babies born to mothers who smoked marijuana during pregnancy were generally smaller, weighed less, had smaller heads, and were more susceptible to developing health or nervous system problems. Prolonged use can lead to decreased coordination even when the user is not high. They also may experience cardiovascular problems if they don t exercise regularly. This is because your blood pressure rises significantly at the time the drug is used. If your body isn t used to this from regular exercise, your heart may palpitate irregularly. In many cases of constant marijuana use, a person may eventually end up experiencing loss of short and long-term memory, mental illness, behavior abnormalities, and many other psychological problems. Marijuana users are at an enhanced risk of getting cancer. Males may experience a decrease in their sperm count and testosterone levels. Controversy, women could experience an increase in testosterone levels. Even though users can not become physically addicted, psychological dependency may occur. When a user begins to seek out and take the drug compulsively, they are said to be dependant, or addicted. An anonymous user was quoted saying, We who are marijuana addicts know that marijuana controls our lives. We loose interest in all else. Our dreams go up in smoke. Ours is a progressive illness often leading to addictions with other drugs. Our lives, thinking, and desires center around marijuana, scoring it, dealing it, and finding ways to stay high. Some effects of lesser concern are comprised of sleepiness, a feeling of hunger or thirst, altered perception, reduced concentration, difficulty keeping track of time, bloodshot eyes, paranoia, a sense of euphoria, and hallucinations may occur with lots of use.

So now that the bad issues have been discussed, lets examine the positive effects. I ll start off with the gateway theory. This is the theory that if a person starts using marijuana, that they will ultimately move on to harder drugs. This however is no more than just a theory. It is an association of the most commonly used illegal drug, (marijuana) to uncommonly used drugs. Chances are that if a person uses cocaine or heroine, that they have also in some point in time tried marijuana. You could make the same comparison to coffee drinkers and sugar users. It s a likely assumption, that if you drink coffee, that you also use sugar. I personally believe that marijuana should be legalized for medical use. There have already been steps taken in the legalization of marijuana. In California, Prop 215 was developed to give patients the right to take the drug marinol if prescribed by a doctor. Marinol is the drug patients are given which contains small amounts of THC. It is orally administered in order to keep tar from building up in the patient s lungs. It does eliminate carcinogens entering the body, but is very hard to regulate the dosage of this synthetic drug. This drug can alleviate nausea and vomiting, and actually induce appetites in AIDS and cancer patients. Many pharmaceutical nausea...

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