Legalization of Marijuana Essay

Abstract

Throughout this paper the issue of the legalization of medical marijuana was discussed. Though the current standing of marijuana is not positive, due to its illicit label in the United States, there has been a lot of research performed in order to change the drug’s standing. Scientists have determined that marijuana has an active ingredient, tetrahydracannabinol (THC), which has been tested and confirmed to increase appetite and suppress nausea in cancer and AIDS patients. Another aspect that THC can help its ability to decrease pressure in the eyes of glaucoma patients. Many believe that the only way to get THC in the bloodstream is to smoke cannabis, largely known as marijuana with slang terms such as: weed, pot, green, blaze, and herb; but a patient can get THC in the bloodstream by ingesting pure THC, through a pill, oil, or baked into foods. Presently, the Food and Drug Association (FDA) lets doctors prescribe factory-produced THC to cancer and AIDS patients to induce appetite and suppress the feeling of nausea. As of right now, medical marijuana is legal in 12 states: Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington. These 12 states all have different laws for what is and is not legal, but obviously if twenty-four percent of the United States thinks that there is significant credibility in the medicinal value of THC in marijuana to be able to pass laws to legalize it, then I believe that the nation should go ahead and legalize medical marijuana as a whole with certain pretenses, of course. Even though science has proven that marijuana is a usable medicine for patients with chronic illness, a lot of people believe that legalizing marijuana is against moral ethics. It is true that THC is a toxic substance at the levels that patients are taking it, and Cannabis is labeled as an illicit drug in the United States and most of the prisons are full with people who have been caught...