Marijuana Essay
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Marijuana (also spelled marihuana) is a psychoactive drug made from the dried leaves and
flowering parts of the hemp plant. It is one of the most strictly classified illegal drugs in
the United States. Under the 1970 Controlled Substances Act, marijuana is listed as a
Schedule I substance, which defines it as having a high potential for abuse and no
currently accepted medical use. Marijuana is therefore classified more severely than
cocaine and morphine, which as Schedule II drugs are also banned for general use, but can
be prescribed by doctors. It is illegal to buy, sell, grow, or possess marijuana in the United
States. Marijuana prohibition comprises a large part of the federal governments War on
Drugs. Law enforcement officials made 600,000 marijuana-related arrests in 1996, and
800,000 in 1998-four out of five arrests being for possession alone. Under federal and
state laws, many of which were strengthened in the 1980 s, people convicted of marijuana
offenses face penalties ranging from probation to life imprisonment, plus fines and
forfeiture of property. In addition to criminal justice efforts, the federal government, state
government, and local communities spend hundreds of millions of dollars annually on
prevention programs such as Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE), in which local
police officers visit schools to teach young people to refrain from trying marijuana and
other drugs.
However, public controversy has been growing over the two assumptions-high
abuse potential and no legitimate medical use-that underlie marijuana s status as a
Schedule I drug. In turn, disputes over the abuse and medical potential have shaped
differences of opinion over public policy. Many of those who question one or both of
these assumptions about marijuana have advocated a full or partial relaxation of the
governments blanket prohibition of the drug, while those who accept these assumptions
generally are opposed to any full or partial legalization of marijuana. Supporters of
marijuana s continued prohibition argue that the drug is easily abused and can lead to
numerous physical and psychological harms. Short-term health effects-according to the
NIDA (National Institute of Drug Abuse)-of the drug listed in this paper include memory
loss, distorted perception, problems with learning and coordination, an increased heart
rate, and anxiety attacks. Long-term effects according to NIDA-include increased risk of
lung cancer for chronic marijuana smokers and possible damage to the immune and
reproductive systems. In addition, marijuana opponents argue that many users attain a
psychological dependence on the high that marijuana can create. Such dependence can
result in stunned emotional and social maturity as these users lose interest in school, job,
and social activities. About 100,000 people each year resort to drug abuse treatment
programs to end their marijuana addiction.
Marijuana is also viewed by some commentators as a gateway drug that can lead
to the abuse of other dangerous and illegal substances, including cocaine and heroin On
the other hand, critics of U.S marijuana policy argue that the dangers of marijuana have
been exaggerated. They contend that many, not most, users of marijuana suffer no lasting
harm, do not move onto other drugs, ad do not become addicts. Some surveys on
marijuana use in America have shown that nine out of ten people who have tried marijuana
have since quit. Researchers working with rats have found that marijuana is a far less
addictive substance for the animals than cocaine or heroin Pro-Legalization activist R.
Keith Stroup summed up the views of many who oppose marijuana prohibition when he
asserted before a committee that moderate marijuana use is relatively harmless-far less
harmless than that of either tobacco or alcohol. Whether or not marijuana, as a Schedule
I drug, truly has no currently accepted medical use is also a matter of public
controversy.
In November 1996, voters in two states, California and Arizona, passed referenda
that legalized marijuana for medical use (these developments and the actions of other
states have no impact on marijuana s status as an illegal Schedule I drug). Supporters of
the California and Arizona initiatives maintain that marijuana is effective in alleviating the
symptoms of medical conditions such as AIDS, glaucoma, and multiple sclerosis.
Anecdotal evidence of marijuana s efficacy, advocates claim, comes from AIDS patients
who have used marijuana to restore a appetite and cancer patients who have smoked it to
combat nausea caused by chemotherapy treatments-often as a last resort when legally
prescribed medicines failed.
Those who contend that marijuana has useful medical purposes call for the
government to at least reclassify the drug as a Schedule II substance that can be prescribed
by doctors. As stated by Lester Grinspoon, a Harvard University psychiatrist, marijuana s
continued prohibition as a Schedule I substance is medically absurd, legally questionable,
and morally wrong. The California and Arizona referenda legalizing medical marijuana
were strongly opposed by prominent federal government officials, including the director of
the Office of National Drug Control Policy, Barry McCaffrey, who criticized the measures
as being dishonest and asserted that marijuana is neither safe or effective as medicine.
Opponents argue that the very concept of medical marijuana is absurd because it is not,
like most modern medicines, a synthesized chemical whose composition can be precisely
manufactured and controlled. Instead, it is taken from a plant and consists of four hundred
chemicals whose exact composition varies with each dose . Furthermore, they assert,
marijuana s claimed medical effectiveness by clinical trials.
Marijuana s psychoactive properties may make people feel better, contends Robert
L. Peterson, a former Michigan drug enforcement official, but that does not make a drug
a medicine. Marijuana opponents maintain that better legal medical alternatives to
marijuana exist-including Marinol, a pill available by a physicians prescription that contains
THC, the main active ingredient in marijuana. An additional concern voiced by many is
that legalizing marijuana for medical purposes would send the wrong message to
America s youth. At a time when our nation is looking for solutions to the problem of
teenage drug use, asks Thomas A. Constantine, head of the Drug Enforcement
Administration, how can we justify giving a stamp of approval to an illegal substance
which has no legitimate medical use? Whether or not marijuana s possible medical
advantages outweigh its potential harm is a central question in current debates about this
controversial drug.
This paper presents various opinions and viewpoints of marijuana and its uses, as
well as information on its history and genetic make-up. The marijuana, cannabis, or hemp
plant is one of the oldest psychoactive plants known to mankind. There are three
classifications or species of cannabis: Cannabis Sativa, Cannabis Indica, and Cannabis
Ruderalis. The fiber has been used for cloth and paper and was the most important source
of rope until the development of synthetic fibers. The seeds have been used as bird feed
and sometimes as human food. The oil contained in the seeds was once used for lighting
and soap and is now sometimes employed in the manufacture of varnish, linoleum, and
artists paints. The chemical compound responsible for the intoxicating and medicinal
effects are found mainly in a sticky golden resin exuded from the flowers on the female
plants.
The marijuana plant contains more than 460 known compounds of which more
than 60 have the 21-carbon structure typical of cannabinoids. The only cannabinoid that is
both highly psychoactive and present in large amounts, usually 1-5 % in weight, is
(-)3,4-trans-delta-1-tetrahydrocannabinol, also know as delta-1-THC, delta-9-THC or
simply THC. A few other tetrahydrocannabinols are about as potent as delta-9-THC but
are present in only a few varieties of cannabis and in much smaller quantities. A native of
central Asia, cannabis may have been cultivated as much as ten thousand years ago. It was
certainly cultivated in China by 4000 B.C. and in Turkestan by 3000 B.C. It has long since
been used as a medicine in China, Southeast Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and India for
malaria, constipation, rheumatic pins, absent-mindedness , and female problems , to
quicken the mind, to induce sleep, dysentery and fevers. The medical use of cannabis was
already in decline by 1890.
The potency of cannabis preparations was to variant, and individual responses to
orally ingested cannabis seemed erratic and unpredictable. Another reason for the neglect
of research oh the analgesic properties of cannabis was that the greatly increased use of
opiates after the invention of the hypodermic syringe in the 1850 s allowed soluble drugs
to be injected for fast relief of pain; hemp products are insoluble in water and cannot be
administered so easily by injection. Toward the end of the twentieth century, the
development of synthetic drugs such as aspirin, chloral hydrate, and barbiturates, which
are chemically more stable than cannabis indica and therefore more reliable, hastened the
decline of cannabis as a medicine. But the new drugs had severe disadvantages. More than
a thousand people died from aspirin-induced bleeding each year in the United States, and
barbiturates are, of course, more dangerous. One may have expected physicians looking
for a better analgesic to turn to cannabinoid substances, especially after 1940, when it
became possible to study congeners (chemical relatives) of THC that might have more
stable and specific effects. But the Marijuana Tax Law of 1937 undermined any such
experimentation.
This law was the culmination of a campaign organized by the Federal Bureau of
Narcotics under Harry Anslinger in which the public was led to believe that marijuana was
addictive and its use led to violent crimes, psychosis, and mental deterioration. The film
Reefer Madness, made as a part of Anslinger s campaign, may be a joke to the
sophisticated today, but it was once regarded as a serious attempt to address a social
problem, and the atmosphere and attitudes it exemplified and promoted continue to
influence our culture today. Under the Marijuana Tax Law Act, anyone using the hemp
plant for certain defined industrial or medical use was required to register and pay a tax of
a dollar an ounce. A person using marijuana for any other purpose had to pay $100 an
ounce. The law was not directly aimed at medicinal use of marijuana; it was aimed at the
recreational use of marijuana. By the 1960 s, as larger numbers of people began to use
marijuana recreationally, anecdotes about its medical use began to appear, generally not in
medical literature, but in the form of letters to popular magazines like Playboy.
Meanwhile, legislative concern about recreational use increased, and in 1970 Congress
passed the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act (also known as the
Controlled Substances Act), which assigned psychoactive drugs to five Schedules and
placed cannabis in Schedule I, the most restrictive. NORML petitioned this placement in
1972, asking that it be moved to Schedule II, therefore enabling it to be prescribed by
physicians. Congress compromised 13 years later by placing synthetic delta-9-THC
(dronabinol) as a Schedule II drug in 1985, but kept marijuana itself-and the THC derived
from marijuana-in Schedule I. Marijuana can be harmful when abused, and its use by
minors should be discouraged. However, when used in moderation and responsibly,
marijuana is far less harmful than tobacco or alcohol. It s continued criminal prohibition by
the government is a wasteful and destructive social policy that results in the needless
arrests of thousands of otherwise law-abiding citizens. Marijuana should be legalized or
decriminalized. At the very least, it should be made available by medical prescription for
patients who need it to alleviate suffering. -R. Keith Stroup, founder of NORML
(National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws) Since 1970, the National
Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws has been a voice for Americans who
believe it is both counter-productive and unjust to treat marijuana smokers as criminals.
We do not suggest that marijuana is totally harmless or that it cannot be abused. That is
true for all drugs, including those which are legal. We do not believe that moderate
marijuana use is relatively harmless-far less harmful to the user than either tobacco or
alcohol, for example-and that any risk presented by marijuana smoking falls well within the
ambit of choice we permit the individual in a free society. Today, far more harm is caused
by marijuana prohibition than by marihuana itself. It s time we put to rest the myth that
smoking marijuana is a fringe or deviant activity, engaged in only by those on the margins
of American society. In reality, marijuana smoking is extremely common, and marijuana is
the recreational drug of choice for millions of mainstream, middle-class Americans.
According to the NIDA (National Institute on Drug Abuse) data, between 65 and 71
million Americans have smoked marijuana at some point in their lives, and 10 million are
current smokers (have smoked as at least once in the last month.) In fact, NIDA found
that 61% of all illicit drug users report that marijuana is the only drug they have ever tried;
this figure is raised to 80% if hashish is included (a marijuana derivative.) At NORML, we
believe that marijuana smokers, like those who drink alcohol, have a responsibility to
behave appropriately and to assure that their recreational...
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