Medicative Marijuana: A Wonder Drug Or Danger To Society? Essay, Research Paper

Cannabis sativa, most normally known as marihuana, has been used for recreational and

medical intents for 1000s of old ages. Many have smoked marihuanas to see the

drug & # 8217 ; s psychedelic effects, while others use the drug to handle assorted unwellnesss and hurting.

Within the past century, nevertheless, the drug & # 8217 ; s medicative value has come under much

examination. Those back uping the legalisation of marihuana feel that the authorities has

keep back a soothing drug from those who are enduring from terrible unwellnesss, and as a

consequence, these advocators find the authorities to be uncompassionate to those in hurting.

However, those against the legalisation of this drug competition that marihuana has

considerable side effects and offers no medicative benefits to society. These oppositions

promote the authorities & # 8217 ; s political engagement in the contention because they feel

that, with authorities funded experiments, the drug can be proven uneffective and insecure.

The best option for today & # 8217 ; s society, nevertheless, is to go on the prohibition of medicative

marihuana. The legalisation of this drug for medical intents can merely take to future drug

dependence, negative side effects, and susceptibleness to farther harm through recreational

usage.

Essayist Sally Satel suggests that alternatively of legalising marihuana, or any

other drug, that the best reply is force. She gives a good known illustration of famous persons

and drug usage, most late, the legal jobs of Robert Downey Jr. The justice who

sentenced him to six months in prison stated, & # 8220 ; I & # 8217 ; m traveling to imprison you in a manner you

won & # 8217 ; t like, but it may salvage your life & # 8221 ; ( Satel, & # 8220 ; For Addicts, Force Is the Best Medicine & # 8221 ; ,

101 ) . Satel, a head-shrinker who treats drug nuts, feels that by maintaining them in

intervention, the legal consent & # 8211 ; whether it is forced or non & # 8211 ; may in fact maintain the nuts

alive ( 101 ) . She convinced that the final payment is prodigious. These nuts learn the & # 8220 ; societal

competency, trust in others and optimism about the hereafter that are the requirements for a

life without drugs & # 8221 ; ( 103 ) . Not merely do the patients themselves have a positive consequence from

the intervention, but the community sees consequences as good. & # 8220 ; Numerous large-scale cost-benefit

analyses reveal that every dollar spent on drug intervention saves between $ 2 and $ 7 on jurisprudence

enforcement, corrections, wellness attention, lost productiveness, and public assistance & # 8221 ; ( 103 ) . With this in

head, it is far more imaginable to coerce intervention on drug maltreaters, instead than accepting

to their demands by legalising marihuana, or any other drug.

Many have argued about the physical dependance marihuana may do to those

who use the drug. Advocates of legalized marihuana claim that the drug is non habit-forming,

despite much resistance. Harmonizing to Ron Kadden, & # 8220 ; A batch of people think it & # 8217 ; s non

habit-forming. [ Users ] have been told by intervention professionals and friends that they

couldn & # 8217 ; t truly be addicted to marijuana & # 8221 ; ( Boyce ) . Evidence shows otherwise, nevertheless,

and several surveies have been conducted to turn out that marihuana is, in fact, an habit-forming

drug. Steven Goldberg of the National Institute on Drug Abuse conducted one of these

surveies, in which he found that even lab monkeys would seek out marijuana & # 8217 ; s active

chemical, THC ( THC ) , which causes dependence, and the monkeys learned

to give themselves every bit many as 30 injections within an hr session ; nevertheless, many

remain unconvinced by scientific informations ( Boyce ) . If this is so, can personal experience with

the addictiveness of the drug alteration the head of those who stand house in the thought that

marihuana has no physical dependance? The Director at Haight-Ashbury Detox Center,

Darry Inaba, asserts:

The chief job we & # 8217 ; re covering with today is that today & # 8217 ; s powerful signifier of

marihuana is doing a batch more jobs than we saw in the 1960s & # 8230 ; by the late & # 8216 ; 80s, we

started seeing people coming in, everyone of them on their ain will stating, & # 8216 ; Help

me, I want to halt smoke pot. It is doing me these jobs & # 8230 ; I want to halt and I

can & # 8217 ; t stop. & # 8217 ; At our plan in San Francisco, we now have about one hundred patients

every month who are in intervention specifically for marijuana dependence. So many who

claim that marihuana is harmless have to sit down and listen to those people who are the

wounded, what we call the walking wounded or the casualties from marihuana usage. ( Inaba,

Cohen, and Holstein 247-248 )

Should doctors be able to order a drug that will do the patient non merely

to endure from the disease that needs intervention, but besides from a drug dependence?

Doctors are supposed to help in the intervention of a patient, non discourage their recovery by

doing yet another job!

Although advocators of legalized marihuana argue that marihuana is an effectual

intervention to the ill, many organisations strongly oppose this construct. Both the National

Cancer Institute and the National Institute of Health maintain that there are better, safer

drugs available to handle unwellnesss ( Lapey, & # 8220 ; Marijuana as Medicine & # 8221 ; ) . In over 12

1000 surveies on marihuana, the drug has ne’er been proven to be effectual for

intervention ( Lapey, & # 8220 ; Marijuana is NOT & # 8221 ; ) ; however, this controversial argument over

legalising marihuana for medical usage analogues with another quandary in history. Kevin

Costello, MD, reflects upon a clip when the United States was reasoning over the

legalisation of Laetrile, a drug that was non FDA approved but was believed to be an

effectual malignant neoplastic disease intervention ( McNaughton ) . He states, & # 8220 ; The populace made a great call that

the medical constitution was keep backing a miracle drug. Controlled proving

later proved that Laetrile was useless for malignant neoplastic disease and would even be harmful & # 8221 ;

( McNaughton ) . Merely as Laetrile was proven to be an uneffective agencies of intervention,

surveies have proven marihuanas to be merely every bit unsuccessful. The safety and effectivity

of marihuana, as a curative medical specialty, has systematically been contested. If medical

intervention continues to be based on safe and utile drugs, marihuana will stay illegal.

In decision, province attempts to legalise marihuanas, for any intent, has merely sent

younger coevalss the message that marihuana usage is safe and acceptable. Many are

unable to grok why it is acceptable for marihuana to be legalized for medical

intents but illegal for recreational usage. This confusion is legitimate, because both the

recreational and medical usage of marihuanas pose a menace to the user. Several people are

get downing to recognize that marijuana & # 8211 ; a drug that can non go through federal review quotas to

go a legalized medical specialty & # 8211 ; can merely be a menace to the province of a patient and, hence,

are able to admit that there are safer and more effectual drugs available to handle the

disease at manus.

Bibliography

Boyce, Nell. & # 8220 ; Hooked on Hash. & # 8221 ; New Scientist 2000. 1 November 2000.

Inaba, Darryl, William Cohen, and Michael E. Holstein. Upper berths, Sedatives, All

Arounders. 3rd erectile dysfunction. Ashland: CNS, 1997.

Lapey, Janet. & # 8220 ; Marijuana as Medicine Refuted By NIH Scientists. & # 8221 ; Drug Watch

International 1993. 1 November 2000.

& # 8212 ; . & # 8220 ; Marijuana is NOT a Medicine. & # 8221 ; League Against Intoxicants 1998. 1

November 2000.

& # 8220 ; Medical Marijuana Briefing Paper 2000: The Need to Change State and Federal Law. & # 8221 ;

Marijuana Privacy Project 2000. 1 November 2000.

McNaughton, Marie T. & # 8220 ; Medical Marijuana. & # 8221 ; 1998. 1 November 2000.

Satel, Sally & # 8220 ; For Addicts, Force is the Best Medicine & # 8221 ; Rottenburg, Annette T.

Elementss of Argument. 1994 Bedford/St. Martin & # 8217 ; s, 101-103.