Medical Uses Of Marijuana Essay, Research Paper

Medical Uses of Marijuana-Good or Bad?

There are two sides of marihuana being used for medical intents. Many people think it is great and say it will assist the hurting travel off. Other people believe it is a bad thought and go linear over clip. Many propositions and tribunal instances have contributed to marijuana usage. A popular one is Proposition 215. This is a medical marihuana enterprise. The biggest statement is that there is no existent grounds that smoked marihuana is more effectual than any other available intervention ( McCaffery ) . It has been said that marihuana is a impermanent alleviation medical specialty for diseases such as AIDS, Cancer, Strokes, and so on. The chief ground why it is said to assist these patients that have acquired these illnesss is because the intervention called Chemotherapy. Chemotherapy is a long boring procedure and it truly takes a toll on the receiver of this intervention. There is a opportunity that this procedure can bring around or protract the patients life. But there is a monetary value to pay for holding to hold this done to their organic structures. The chemotherapy has side effects and the 1 that the marihuana helps is the emesis. It helps the patient to maintain their nutrient down and it gives them a hungriness so they don & # 8217 ; t blow off to nil.

Marijuana has been around for over 5,000 old ages and has been used in many different ways ( Zeller 20 ) . Greeks and Romans made medical specialties from this. Americans did non get down to & # 8220 ; acquire high & # 8221 ; until the 1900s, and so it was legal. Marijuana became illegal in 1937, under the Marijuana Tax Act. This restricted marihuana usage everyplace in the United States. Strict ordinances regulating cultivation of the works made its production impractical. New man-made drugs caught the illusion of doctors and marihuana was used less often. In 1942, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics convinced the U.S. Pharmacopedia to take the drug from its listing.

During the 1960s & # 8220 ; flower peoples & # 8221 ; and & # 8220 ; flower kids & # 8221 ; used this drug to demo how mature and independent they were, even though it was illegal ( Zeller 24 ) . Not all physicians and scientists thought marihuana was harmful either. Now, the facts about pot is acquiring out to more and more people.

Marijuana has a chemical called THC, which is really harmful to your organic structure. THC affects your senses, motion, ideas, and feelings. Tetrahydrocannabinol remains in our organic structure for a long clip. It may take up to one month if you smoke several times a hebdomad. It is stored in fatty tissues of the organic structure.

Proposition 215 is the medical marihuana enterprise. This is portion of California & # 8217 ; s medical rights. Most people have heard that marihuana is sometimes used as a medical specialty. Patients with malignant neoplastic disease, glaucoma, and AIDS are among those who find that marihuana reduces their hurting associated with chemotherapy and powerful drugs like AZT. By cut downing sickness and exciting appetency in badly and terminally sick patients, marihuanas can assist lengthen life span and better quality of life. Many physicians have been convinced that marihuana plants in some instances, and many physicians now softly urge it. Unfortunately, because marihuana is illegal, patients must interrupt the jurisprudence to acquire it. Patients utilizing marijuana today must put on the line apprehension. These earnestly sick people have been put in an impossible place by the current marihuana Torahs. The Torahs do non separate between legitimate medical demand and illegal drug ABUSE.

Proposition 215 is a little measure that gives immediate alleviation to patients. Until there is federal action, we can protect the rights of patients who use marihuanas in legitimate medical intervention.

A new authorities study carefully endorses Pot as a analgesic and it non merely embarrasses drug tsar Barry McCaffery but besides may assist to sabotage the 17 billion war on drugs ( Dreyfuss, 32 ) . Possibly they didn & # 8217 ; t inhale, but many Americans were surprised when a scientific survey funded by the White House & # 8217 ; s drug tsar studies in March that marijuana & # 8217 ; s active ingredients seem to hold medical value, & # 8220 ; peculiarly for hurting alleviation, control of sickness and emesis, and appetite stimulation. & # 8221 ; Equally much as the contents of the study, its sarcasm & # 8211 ; as if the 1950s House Un-american Activities Committee had paid for a study happening that Communists were good cats after all & # 8211 ; attracted a bombardment of media attending ( Dreyfuss 32 ) . Gen. Barry McCaffery, manager of the office of national Control Policy, was forced to set on a courageous face.

McCaffery has been in office since 1996 and has called medical marihuana a & # 8220 ; cruel fraud & # 8221 ; and & # 8220 ; Cheech and Chong & # 8221 ; medical specialty. California and Arizona became the first two provinces to back the usage of marihuana for medicative intents. The survey, & # 8220 ; Marijuana and Medicine: Measuring the Science Base, & # 8221 ; was conducted by the National Academy of Sciences & # 8217 ; Institute if medical specialty, which in August 1997 assembled an eleven-person panel to carry on an eighteen-month probe of marijuana & # 8217 ; s benefits and hazards through a series of public hearings and thorough survey of current research.

Cancer chemotherapy can frequently protract the patient & # 8217 ; s life by several old ages. In some cases, a complete & # 8220 ; remedy & # 8221 ; can be

obtained. Unfortunately, these drugs besides have terrible side effects, most notably sickness and emesis. Patients sometimes find these effects so straitening they abandon chemotherapy wholly.

Peoples with AIDS besides experience these jobs. Powerful anti-viral drugs such as AZT and the new peptidase inhibitors can bring on terrible sickness, emesis, and other GI effects. In September 1998 the main administrative jurisprudence justice of the Drug Enforcement Administration ruled that marihuana has medical value in the intervention of side effects caused by malignant neoplastic disease chemotherapy. His determination was over-ruled by the decision maker of the DEA and marihuana remains illegal for medical intents.

Glaucoma is an oculus disease, which afflicts more than four million Americans and is the taking cause of sightlessness in the United States. Harmonizing to the National Society for Prevention of Blindness, there are 178,000 new instances of glaucoma diagnosed each twelvemonth. Treatment of narrow-angle glaucoma is chiefly surgical. In about 90 % of the open-angle and secondary glaucoma topical ( eye-drop ) readyings along with some unwritten medicines can efficaciously command the disease, but at least 10 % of all instances fail to be wholly controlled by available normative drugs. In some cases available glaucomic medicines can do side effects such as concerns, kidney rocks, combustion of the eyes, blurred vision, insomnia, and nervous anxiousness. These side effects become so terrible that the patient must stop usage.

Marijuana has shown promise as a possible glaucoma intervention. In controlled surveies at UCLA, it was discovered that patients smoking marihuana experienced, on norm, a 30 % bead in oculus force per unit area. The decrease was dose related and lasted 4 to 5 hours. Tolerance to conventional medicines is a common job in glaucoma control. The usage of marihuana for extra IOP decrease could extinguish the demand for surgical intercession. Glaucoma surgery costs Americans an estimated $ 8.8 million per twelvemonth ( www.marijuana-as-medicine.org ) .

Scientists have been working to develop a marihuana eye-drop for several old ages. Until late, they concentrated on delta-9-THC, marijuana & # 8217 ; s psychotropic ingredient. Some research workers, nevertheless, have begun to inquire if other components in the marihuana works might be more effectual in cut downing IOP. The few glaucoma patients who have continued legal entree to marijuana reinforce this theory. In these instances, man-made THC is merely effectual for a short period of clip. Natural marihuana, nevertheless, systematically lowers IOP.

Decisions

Marijuana has many of import and practical utilizations. If given in moderateness and under a controlled environment people should be able to utilize marihuana for unwellnesss such as glaucoma, AIDS, and malignant neoplastic disease. Marijuana helps help chemotherapy patients that have advanced side effects. These side effects include insomnia, purging, nervous anxiousness, and cardiac arrhythmia. Spasticity patients besides need this drug to experience better. Many of them use Valium but this makes them really sedated, they besides build a tolerance to this, and they are more disposed to go linear.

Marijuana besides can go linear but physicians give many of their patients a governable dose. Today, you can non obtain this drug unless prescribed by a physician, nevertheless the possible amendss to the human organic structure far outweigh the known benefits.

Plants Cited

Dreyfuss, Robert. & # 8220 ; Another Victory for Medical Marijuana. & # 8221 ; Rolling Stone 13 May 1999: 32-33, 105.

Provided many authorities differences and certain instances that were held in the past 10 old ages.

Facklemann, Kathleen. & # 8220 ; Marijuana: utile medical specialty or unsafe drug? & # 8221 ; Consumers & # 8217 ; Research Magazine, May 1997: v80 n5 p15. [ Infotrac ] . Available hypertext transfer protocol: //web5.searchbank.com/itw/session/822/131/28856999w3/3! xrn_6_0_A19482646.

Was non a really enlightening article.

Hager, Mary, Adam Rogers, Claudia Kalb, and Patricia King. & # 8220 ; Can marijuana be medicine? & # 8221 ; Newsweek. February 3, 1997: p22. [ Infotrac ] . Available: hypertext transfer protocol: //web6.searchbank.com/itw/session/216/489/8247655/42! nxt_7. [ March 11, 1999 ]

Detailed accounts of glaucoma, chemo, AIDS, and epilepsy patients. Talked about 26 provinces being for marihuana.

& # 8220 ; Marijuana: The Forbidden Medicine, rev.ed. & # 8221 ; JAMA, The Journal of the American Medical Association. March 25, 1998: v279 n12 p963. [ Infotrac ] . Available: hypertext transfer protocol: //web6.searchbank.com/itw/session/216/489/8247655 w5/36! xrn_3_0_A20443702.

Merely talked about AIDS patients and research. NDA besides provided some of import information.

McCaffrey. & # 8220 ; Woman battles for legalising marihuana as medicine. & # 8221 ; Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service. May 26, 1998: p526 K/626. [ Infotrac ] . Available: hypertext transfer protocol: //web5.searchbank.com/itw/session/822/131/2885699w3/3! xrn_2_0_A20629748.

Zeller, Paula. Focus on Marijuana. Fredrick, Maryland. Twenty-fist Century Books, 1900.

This book was designed for kids. Their facts were really apparent but enlightening. Give me a batch about the history and utilizations of marihuana.

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