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Physical and psychological effects of marijuana illegal and medical use
Key features of conflict theory
Analysis of sociological imagination
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Throughout history people have used marijuana for its dried leaves, flowers, stems, and seeds to relieve pain, stress, and other medical issues from one’s life. Within the recent years it has become one of the most debated issues in the United States. In the 1930s, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Narcotics (now the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs) claimed that marijuana was a “gateway” drug and was a powerful, addicting substance. During the sixties marijuana became a symbol for rebellion against authority so it became very popular by college students and “hippies”. So in 1982, Drug Enforcement Administration increased pressure on drug farms and houses which decreased the use of marijuana. In the past twenty years marijuana has become a …show more content…
Wright Mills coined the idea of a sociological imagination. A sociological imagination is “the ability to connect the most basic, intimate aspects of an individual’s life to seemingly impersonal and remote historical forces” (Conley, 2013, p. 4). Four main parts of a sociological imagination are health, structure, culture, and critique. From the issue of legalizing marijuana it has both negatives and positives. The positives are that it could help people with diseases and illnesses and the negatives are that people might take advantage of this drug. This drug could also have physical and mental health issues if people take massive amounts of marijuana. Another issue is that using cannabis for religious beliefs could be denied due to the fact that we are worried about people abusing it. Conflict Theory is “the idea that conflict between competing interests is the basic, animating force of social change and society in general” (Conley, 2013, p. 30). This relates to the legalization of marijuana due to the fact that in one instance legalizing this for medical purposes could help a massive amount of people but, this could allow people who don’t need it to abuse the drug. This controversy is the reason why choosing a side has been tough for
Lately it seems that drug policy and the war on drugs has been in the headlines quite a lot. It is becoming increasingly apparent that the policies that the United States government takes against illegal drugs are coming into question. The mainstream media is catching on to the message of organizations and individuals who have long been considered liberal "Counter Culture" supporters. The marijuana question seems to be the most prevalent and pressed of the drugs and issues that are currently being addressed. The messages of these organizations and individuals include everything from legalization of marijuana for medical purposes, to full-unrestricted legalization of the drug. Of course, the status quo of vote seeking politicians and conservative policy makers has put up a strong resistance to this "new" reform lobby. The reasons for the resistance to the changes in drug policies are multiple and complex. The issues of marijuana’s possible negative effects, its use as a medical remedy, the criminality of distribution and usage, and the disparity in the enforcement of current drug laws have all been brought to a head and must be addressed in the near future. It is apparent that it would be irresponsible and wrong for the government to not evaluate it’s current general drug policies and perhaps most important, their marijuana policy. With the facts of racial disparity in punishment, detrimental effects, fiscal strain and most importantly, the history of the drug, the government most certainly must come to the conclusion that they must, at the very least, decriminalize marijuana use and quite probably fully legalize it.
Marijuana in America became a popular ingredient in many medicinal products and was openly sold in pharmacies in the late nineteenth century (“Busted-America’s War on Marijuana Timeline”). The National Institute of Drug Abuse defines marijuana as, “The dried leaves, flowers, stems, and seeds from the hemp plant Cannabis sativa, which contains the psychoactive (mind-altering) chemical delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), as well as other related compounds” (“DrugFacts: Marijuana”). It was not until the Food and Drug act of 19...
Today in society, people follow these “cultural myths”, which tells us what is and what is not acceptable in life because these morals have been instilled in us since childhood. People created cultural myths as a set of social norms they expected people to follow. In Kenneth A. Gould’s and Tammy L. Lewis’s article, The Sociological Imagination, they talk about society and the way or how it affects us. It examines the relationship between an individual and society. Everything we do and how we do it is affected by society and others around us. Everything that happens with society in turn affects us and those around us. The way we live and we respond to society can have a major impact on the rest of the world.
It was 1920 when smoking began to catch on in the United States. Its recreational use was restricted to jazz musicians and people in show business. “Reefer songs” became the rage of the jazz world. Marijuana clubs, called tea pads, appeared in every major city across the country. Authorities tolerated these establishments because it was not illegal or considered a social threat. In the early 1930’s marijuana became stereotyped as a violent drug, and by 1936 was illegal in all states. Marijuana research was at a stand still and the thought of it being a violent drug faded and the idea that it was a gateway drug emerged in the late 1940’s early 1950’s. In the 1960’s marijuana became very popular among the young college crowd. This was looked at as a challenge to authority and the government.
Ever since marijuana’s introduction to the United States of America in 1611, controversy of the use and legalization of the claimed-to-be Schedule I drug spread around the nation. While few selective states currently allow marijuana’s production and distribution, the remaining states still skepticize the harmlessness and usefulness of this particular drug; therefore, it remains illegal in the majority of the nation. The government officials and citizens of the opposing states believe the drug creates a threat to citizens due to its “overly-harmful” effects mentally and physically and offers no alternate purposes but creating troublesome addicts hazardous to society; however, they are rather misinformed about marijuana’s abilities. While marijuana has a small amount of negligible effects to its users, the herbal drug more importantly has remarkable health benefits, and legalizing one of the oldest and most commonly known drugs would redirect America’s future with the advantages outweighing the disadvantages.
The legalization of marijuana has been a highly debated topic for many of years. Since the first president to the most recent, our nation’s leaders have consumed the plant known as weed. With such influential figures openly using this drug why is it so frowned upon? Marijuana is considered a gateway drug, a menace to society, and mentally harmful to its consumers. For some people weed brings a sense of anxiety, dizziness, or unsettling feeling. Like alcohol, tobacco or any other drug, those chemicals may not respond well with their body. For other people marijuana brings joy, a sense of relief, and takes the edge off of every day stress. For those who are associated with cannabis, purposes usually range from a relaxant, or cash crop, to more permissible uses such as medicine, and ingredient to make so many other materials. We now need to look at what would change if marijuana were legal. Benefits to the economy and agriculture, health issues, and crime rates are three areas worth looking at. Deliberating on the pros and cons of this plant we can get a better understanding for marijuana. From there it will be easier to make a clear consensus on what is best for the nation.
The effect of Marijuana on American Society has been a highly popularized point of concern and discussion for many years. This topic has become more frequent in the past months as two states voters have allowed its widespread recreational and medicinal use. This research paper will focus on some of the history of marijuana, details of this drug, and conclude with my findings of why this drug has become increasingly popular which may surprise the reader.
Sociological imagination is the understanding of relationships between self and society. Anything that happens in a person’s life is an effect of something that has happened in society. Understanding sociological imagination will allow people to see how society can shape a person’s life. People feel that their failures are their own fault when in reality it is caused by what happens in society. If Americans understood sociological imagination they would have a better understanding as to why something happens to them, and how to fix that problem. If they understood why things were happening, from a societal viewpoint, there would look at situations in a different light and then they would hopefully be able
The term Sociological Imagination was coined by C. Wright Mills and refers to seeing sociological situations from a broad point of view, going beyond one’s thoughts and feelings, and by seeing it how others would see it. In the textbook Introduction to Sociology by Giddens, et. al Mills argued that we needed to “overcome our limited perspective…[and have] a certain quality of mind that makes it possible to understand the larger meaning of our experiences” (4). Therefore one should look at the overall social problems and not at a specific individual’s situation. With this concept in mind I am going to analyze the Guardian online 2012 article “Why our food is making us fat,” by Jacques Peretti. The article mainly speaks about the rapid rise in obesity and the main contributor to it, High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS). The article also points out some of the economic and political influences behind HFCS.
Marijuana has been a frequently abused drug for quite some time, but is just now receiving national attention on the controversial issue of the question if it should become legalized, and what effects this will have on Americans and their communities. Recently there have been many arguments made about how marijuana should be legalized for medical reasons since, for example, it is a great option for people attempting to manage their chronic pain. By legalizing the drug, many people will begin to accept the fact that it is okay and will result in an extreme increase in drug use throughout the United States. Marijuana is known to be a gateway drug in the sense that it leads to a person using narcotics that have even worse physical and mental effects
The Sociological Imagination The human attitudes have always been a curiosity that captivated most of the great social theorists like Karl Marx, Engels and Durkheim. One of the most unhumble attitude of the humanity was Racism and stereotyping. The racial issue even in the 21st century continue to be a subject that still is present and significant even though we tend to say that racism and other forms of discrimination are prohibited by law and illegal still even in the US the country of all freedoms people face everyday racism, discrimination and humiliation The Sociological imagination, a concept brought by C. Wright Mills basically states that a person lives out a biography and lives it out with some historical sequence. That means that everyone lives his personal life and personal experience but at the same time he contributes to change the history or to affect the society and that creates the historical sequence.
Social theories provide us with a new perspective in the social world. With new perspectives, new opinions can be made. also, they can provide answers or explain a specific social spectacle. Social theories can help clarify and predict the way the social world works. The three major sociological perspectives are functionalism, the conflict theory, and the symbolic interaction theory. Each theory is different and can help answer many questions about human behavior in a social world.
C. Wright Mills describes the sociological imagination as a way of recognizing the pervasiveness of social influences when understanding human behaviours and social patterns. It helps people understand personal problems by understanding them in a broader context (class lecture, September 22, 2015). The sociological imagination is the key to understanding how societies control and change their members, and how societies are changed by the actions of their members (Curtis & Tepperman, 2006). Some of these sociological concepts that have influence on a person’s life include: gender, class, race/ethnicity, education, inequality, technology, and many more. In this essay I am going to use the sociological imagination to analyze how my personal life has been influenced by these larger social forces particular to the time and place in which I have grown up. More specifically, I am going to look at social forces such as class, gender,
Marijuana has been a problem since the early 1900s and continues to create problems. The Federal Bureau of Narcotics created a law which prohibited marijuana use in 1937 (Reinarman 128). Twenty years later, THC was discovered to be the main psychoactive component in marijuana causing its negative side effects (Reinarman 129). Almost seventy-five years later, the United States is still battling the problem with illegal marijuana use. Although scientists discovered the negative effects fifty years ago, the information has gone practically unnoticed and the amount of users continues to increase. Approximately half of the United States population has used marijuana at one point (Reinarman 129). Instead of outlawing marijuan...
Everybody; old and young have active an imagination, but we all express it differently than others. For me I express my imagination with my artwork. For example; when I was younger I watched a lot of cartoons just like any other kid. My favorite cartoon at the time was He-Man. I loved the show so much that I frequently dreamt and imagined of being strong like him, but I knew it could not be possible so instead of dreaming, I drew up an entire comic book of myself being a super strong super hero just like He-Man all thanks to my vivid imagination and artistic ability. I’m sure I’m not the only one who has done something similar.