Legalization of Marijuana for Medical Use Only

The history of U.S. policy toward mind-altering substances has followed cycles of tolerance and intolerance ever since the mid-19th century. The medical use of the cannabis plant goes back at least 5,000 years to ancient China. It has been used by most of the world’s cultures for its healing properties (Medical Marijuana Cases 1). Today such conditions as Migraine headaches, Glaucoma, Cancer, Epilepsy, Asthma AIDS/HIV, Spinal injury, Muscle spasms, Insomnia etc., could be treated for symptomatic relief with cannabis or cannabis extract. However, marijuana is still considered an illegal drug in most states in the United States.

Marijuana usage may have been common 20-30 years ago, but it really isn’t any longer. Judy Foreman states that a hardy band of activists seeking legislative approval of perennial bill that would bring Massachusetts in line with 34 other states in letting patients with certain conditions smoke marijuana (1). 2 What was known, as the “wicked weed” of the sixties can be good medicine . Marijuana certainly seems safer than may other drugs, even aspirin that causes gastrointestinal bleeding, killing hundreds of people every year (Grinspoon/Bakalar 4).3 There are lots of drugs American society does not let people use except under doctor’s care, for instance, cocaine, Demerol, est. No one

thinks we have legalized cocaine because we let surgeon or anesthesiologists use it. Therefore, the notion that there is a link between medical use and whether people

should to be able to legally get stoned is nonsense. One situation does not necessarily include the other. Nevertheless, there has not been a single death by overdose (Foreman 4).2 As an enlightened society, we must reconsider the legalization of marijuana for medical use only as it eases pain and suffering of many illnesses.

To effect changing the attitudes within our society about marijuana, one must be realistic about the legislation of our own bodies. Right now cocaine and morphine are prescribed legally as medicines, and those legal uses are not adding in any significant way to the country drug problem. While experts debate the medical use of marijuana, patients in Santa Cruz, San Francisco and Alameda County are lining up at Cannabis Buyers’ Club to receive the drug. Despite the coffee house atmosphere at the Cannabis Buyers’ Club marijuana remains illegal. Although some ch...

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...ting a combined total of almost 10,000 physicians statewide endorse the proposition (Don’t Jail Med 5).9 What can we do to help? We must stop building prisons instead we must rebuild our lives.

Works Cited

1. Mikki, Norris, and Chris Conrad. Medical Marijuana Cases. N.p.: Inernet mario lap, 1996.

2. Foreman, Judy. “Medical Marijuana (Acure or Curse).” Boston Globe [Boston, Mass.] 7 Oct. 1991: 25-26

3. Grinspoon, Lester, and James B. Bakalar. “Marihuana as Medicine A Plea for Reconsideration.” American Medical Association.” 273 (June 1995): 1875-1876.

4. Donnelly, Kathleen. “The Cannabis Prescription.” San Joes Mercury News, 6 Feb

5. Schlosser, Eric. “More Reefer Madness.” Atlantic Apr. 1997: 90-102

6. “Deglamorising Cannabis.” Editorial Lancet 11 Nov. 1995: 1241.

7. “Marijuana as Medicine.” Editorial San Francisco Chronicle 31 Jan. 1997: A24.

8. Morganthau, Tom. “The War Over Weed.” Newsweek 3 Feb. 1997: 20+.

9. “Don’t Jail Medicinal Marijuana Patients”. Online NORML Internet. 21 Nov. 1996.

10. Mikuriya, Tod. Marijuana Medical Handbook. N.p.: Internet.

11. Postrel, Virginia I. “Reefer Madness.” Washington Post 3 Mar. 1997: 4.