With the use of overly harsh rhetoric, many countries have come in the open to rebuke the use of marijuana within their borders. Marijuana is perhaps the most commonly abused illegal drug in the world with over sixty million Americans reportedly using the drug even in states where the drug has not yet been legalized. The use of cannabis can be traced back to several thousand years back and with every passing decade, as Thornton asserts, people have always identified new uses of different parts of the drug (65). By a careful consideration of the benefits and effects of marijuana as well the benefits and effects of other equally harmful but legalized drugs falling in the same or almost the same category with marijuana, it can be argued that marijuana should be legalized.
The most formidable arguments siding with the legalization of marijuana are always based on the plethora of medicinal values of this presumably harmful drug. Several medicinal values of marijuana have been documented and have been since proven by empirical research with new uses being discovered by the day (Gieringer, Rosenthal and Carter 39). One such proven medicinal use of marijuana is remedial use in the amelioration of the lose of appetite or nausea resulting from cancer chemotherapy, HIV/AIDS or sclerosis (Gieringer, Rosenthal and Carter 39). Additionally, besides being used for relieving internal eye pressure in Glaucoma patients, marijuana can be used to prevent epilepsy related seizures in victims of epilepsy. Most importantly, for several thousand years, marijuana has found wide usage in relieving chronic pains as a result of injuries and various painful ailments.
On the contrary, alcohols usage is legalized with several deceiving adverts about the “greatness” that comes with taking alcohol allowed in the media. Notably, medicinal values of alcohol are far much inferior compared to the medicinal values of marijuana. One of the most common medicinal usages of alcohol is disinfection, and this is sadly not applicable to all brands of alcohol; this is perhaps the only proven scientific usage of alcohol- a use, though equally important, that is far much incomparable to the several pertinent medicinal usages of marijuana. From a personal stand point, it is indubitable that other illegal drugs like cocaine also have medicinal usages, but according to me, marijuana still finds wide medicinal usage.
It can also be pointed out that the illegalization of marijuana was unwarranted. As Thornton asserts, by the time of illegalization of marijuana, the usage of the drug was not yet widespread hence there was no possibility that its negative effects were already intrusively noticeable (65). Ideally, continued illegalization of marijuana does not conform to the historical expressly stated and inferable cultural significance of marihuana (another name for marijuana).
Concisely, with in mind that marijuana has numerous and utile medicinal values compare to other drugs in the same category, the drug should be legalized. Assertively the illegalization of marijuana was unfounded because by the time of its illegalization, marijuana use was not yet widespread hence there was limited chances that its negative effects were already known.
Works Cited
Gieringer, Dale H, Ed Rosenthal, and Gregory T. Carter. Marijuana Medical Handbook: Practical Guide to the Therapeutic Uses of Marijuana. Oakland, Calif: Quick American, 2008. Print.
Thornton, Mark. The Economics of Prohibition. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1991. Print.
