There is an ongoing debate on whether to legalize the use of medicinal marijuana or ban it altogether. Several states in the US have decided to allow its use as a medicinal drug while others are still adamant at banning it. One of the mainly egregious outcomes of marijuana ban is that a lot of sick citizens cannot lawfully access the medication that functions most excellent for them. For lots of gravely ill people, medicinal marijuana is the only drug that relieves their ache and anguish, or treats symptoms of their health state, with no debilitating side effect. Marijuana has been exposed to lessen symptoms of an enormous assortment of serious medicinal circumstances including cancer, AIDS, and glaucoma, and is frequently an effectual option to synthetic painkillers (Friese & Grube, 2013). Therefore, we see that its legalization should be done. There are various opposing sides to this stance as seen below.
Medicinal cannabis Access and Research
The District of Columbia and other twenty-three states and have accepted medicinal cannabis legislation allowing its use and manufacture of medicinal cannabis for patients who qualify under state legislation. Nevertheless, the medicinal use of bhang remains unlawful under national law, and patients in the residual states are with no any lawful admission at all. Even in states where medicinal marijuana legislation exists, patients and suppliers are susceptible to arrest and intrusion from national law enforcement (BARRY, HIILAMO & GLANTZ, 2014).
Marijuana ban also has disenchanted investigation in the United States to expose the best and most effectual uses for marijuana as a drug, making labors to change medicinal cannabis legislation mainly difficult.
There is no query that if marijuana were any other medicine, decisions about its medicinal use would be up to physicians and patients. In its place, nowadays, the political affairs of the drug war interfere. Patients and physicians who get concerned with medicinal cannabis face potentially grave risks. Moreover, administration seems dedicated to maximizing the terror and indecision faced by those who may benefit consuming it (Cerdá, Wall, Keyes, Galea & Hasin, 2012).
It necessitates not be this way. Scientific and medicinal books going back thousands of years point to therapeutic properties for marijuana. Modern systematic studies, counting six sponsored by U.S. states in the 70s and 80s, show that smoked cannabis reduces nausea and decrease pain for many sick people, particularly those in front of cancer chemotherapy and glaucoma.
More to the point, a lot of patients and their families and physicians have seen and witnessed the medicinal benefits of marijuana, thus telling others. They have testified at civic hearings and made appearances in the mass media (Cohen, 2010). They have added their knowledge to books and study studies on the drug. The observable fact is real.
Those who say the proof is not yet high quality and sufficient miss the peak. The proof is clearly excellent enough to make two declarations now:
1) Decisions about cannabis for medicinal use fit in in the hands of physicians and patients, and 2) there is no motive at all to focus medicinal patients who use marijuana for lawful medicinal uses to the risk of taken into custody, prison, fines, and public humiliation.
Since current legislations deprive physicians and patients of this freedom and classify patients as criminals, all such legislations should be altered. Science should be free of charge to follow perfect data on marijuana. Physicians and patients can be benefited from such new-fangled information.
However, the biased argument that trails marijuana should not widen all the way into physicians' places of work and into patients' infirmary rooms and homes. The drug war's dons should announce a quick draw back from this front.
At the national level, marijuana is still stated as a Schedule I material under the Controlled Substances Act, where Schedule I drugs are measured to have a high latency for dependence and no conventional therapeutic use, making sharing of marijuana a state crime (Hart et al., 2010). In October of 2009, the Obama government sent a memorandum to national prosecutors heartening them not to put on trial people who deal out marijuana for medical purposes in agreement with state law.
In late August 2013, the U.S. Department of Justice talked of a revised version to their marijuana enforcement rule. The declaration reads that while marijuana is still illegal nationally, the USDOJ has expectations of states like Colorado and Washington to make "tough, state-based enforcement labors on its management and will postpone the exact right to confront their validation legislations at this occasion." The subdivision also reserves the right to confront the state at any time they feel it is essential (Abadinsky, 2014).
Arizona and the District of Columbia electorate passed initiatives to permit for medicinal use, only to have them reversed. In 1998, electorate in the District of Columbia approved Initiative 59. On the other hand, Congress blocked the proposal from becoming a law. In 2009, Congress upturned its preceding choice, permitting the proposal to become law. The D.C. committee then put Initiative 59 on hold for the time being and generally accepted modifications to the law.
Before transiting Proposition 203 in 2010, Arizona electorate at first had approved a ballot proposal in 1996. However, the plan stated that doctors would be permissible to write a "recommendation" for marijuana. Since cannabis is still a Schedule I material, national law prohibits its recommendation, making the plan worthless. Medical marijuana " prescriptions" are further often known as "recommendations" or "referrals" due to the national prescription ban.
Places with medical cannabis laws usually have some manner of patient registry, which may provide some protection against arrest for possession up to a certain amount of marijuana for personal medicinal use (Friese & Grube, 2013).
Some of the most common policy questions regarding medical cannabis comprise how to control its recommendation, supply, and registration of accepted patients. Some places and localities with no dispensary directives are experiencing an explosion in new businesses, in hopes of being accepted previous to presumably strict regulations are made. Medicinal marijuana farmers or dispensaries are often called "caregivers" and may be limited to a certain figure of plants or products per patient. This subject may also be kept in pace on a limited level, in totaling to any state regulation (Cohen, 2010).
There are various issues regarding the use of marijuana, especially the abuse by adolescents. Juvenile use of cannabis has been connected to a variety of developmental and communal problems. Studies show that the use of marijuana by youths has various effects on their development now and in the future. Early use of marijuana use is considered to have an impact on the following:
Memory, Attention and Learning
Untimely and continual use of marijuana can have an effect on memory, concentration and capability to reason unmistakably. This makes it very hard for a teenager who is abusing marijuana to concentrate, gain knowledge of new things, and create sound decisions. Marijuana may also have effect on their movement and equilibrium while inebriated. Marijuana has also been associated with a fair decrease in IQ in intense present marijuana users (Cerdá, Wall, Keyes, Galea & Hasin, 2012).
It is also associated with poor school performance. While it is tricky to differentiate whether this is because of education difficulties, lack of inspiration or since marijuana abusers mix with friends who may be caught up in a series of risk taking activities. Using cannabis at a premature age is autonomously associated with:
- inferior school performance;
- amplified absences from school;
- growing the risk of dropping out without graduation.
This may be alleviated by various legislations that will set the legal age limit for buying of marijuana. If states set a law that forbids the sale of marijuana to minors, without affecting the sale of medicinal marijuana, many people will thus benefit from the therapeutic uses of this drug.
It is also worthy to note that many other legal drugs like cigarettes are more lethal that the illegal marijuana. Cigarettes cause millions of deaths worldwide. Alcohol is another legal drug that has adverse effects that are more than those associated with marijuana. Thus legalizing the use of medical marijuana should not be such a hard task (BARRY, HIILAMO & GLANTZ, 2014).
In conclusion, we see that legalizing the use of medicinal marijuana is called for. The negative effects of marijuana can be controlled by various measures like licenses that will ensure that all people are satisfied. This comes about when there is no sale of weed to young people and issuing it to those who will have recommendations. States should play a crucial role in recognizing the potential uses of marijuana to the health of the people.
References
Friese, B., & Grube, J. (2013). Legalization of medical marijuana and marijuana use among youths. Drugs: Education, Prevention, And Policy, 20(1), 33-39. doi:10.3109/09687637.2012.713408
Hart, C., Ilan, A., Gevins, A., Gunderson, E., Role, K., Colley, J., & Foltin, R. (2010). Neurophysiological and cognitive effects of smoked marijuana in frequent users. Pharmacology Biochemistry And Behavior, 96(3), 333-341. doi:10.1016/j.pbb.2010.06.003
Cohen, P. (2010). Medical Marijuana 2010: It's Time to Fix the Regulatory Vacuum. The Journal Of Law, Medicine & Ethics, 38(3), 654-666. doi:10.1111/j.1748-720x.2010.00519.x
Cerdá, M., Wall, M., Keyes, K., Galea, S., & Hasin, D. (2012). Medical marijuana laws in 50 states: Investigating the relationship between state legalization of medical marijuana and marijuana use, abuse and dependence. Drug And Alcohol Dependence, 120(1-3), 22-27. doi:10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2011.06.011
BARRY, R., HIILAMO, H., & GLANTZ, S. (2014). Waiting for the Opportune Moment: The Tobacco Industry and Marijuana Legalization. Milbank Quarterly, 92(2), 207-242. doi:10.1111/1468-0009.12055
Abadinsky, H. (2014). Drug use and abuse: A comprehensive introduction.
Bock, A. W. (2000). Waiting to inhale: The politics of medical marijuana. Santa Ana, CA: Seven Locks Press.
