FREE ESSAY ON MEDICAL MARIJUANA

MEDICAL MARIJUANA

On November 5, 1996, Californians voiced their honest opinion. Californians voted yes on a
very controversial proposition - proposition 215. This law allows doctors to prescribe
marijuana to patients with diseases that have severe symptoms. For example, cancer
patients that undergo chemo-therapy and suffer from severe nausea and aching can benefit
from smoking marijuana. Marijuana helps these patients get through these very painful
symptoms by numbing the body and soothing the stomach. It also improves the appetites of
AIDS patients and increases their weight and chance of survival. Marijuana also helps MS
patients with bladder control and tremors.
The use of marijuana for medical purposes is not a new issue. The Marijuana Tax Act made
the cultivation or possession of marijuana illegal in 1937, but it only has been a heated
issue since the 1960's. In 1970, Congress passed the Controlled Substance Act, which
placed all illicit drugs into 5 categories. Marijuana was placed under the category of
Schedule 1, because Congress decided that it has no medical use and a high potential for
abuse of the drug. But in 1970, Congress hardly new the potential benefits of marijuana
for medical purposes because chemo-therapy wasn't even an issue back then, just as NORML
pointed out in their petition to change the scheduling in 1972. NORML (National
Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws) insisted that Congress had made their decision
without accurate information about the plant. In 1975, the IND began a program that would
allow patients to receive marijuana from the government. This program lasted until 1992,
when Congress discontinued it. Not more than a year ago, the same request for the
rescheduling of marijuana was presented to Congress and it was once again, denied. 
In 1990, the Drug Advisory Board stated that personal use and cultivation should be
legalized. The Drug Advisory Board wanted to legalize marijuana for all purposes, not
just for medical use because it would benefit our economy by being a taxable good and it
would decrease crime over obtaining the drug. 
Opponents to the legalization of marijuana are those who consider marijuana a gateway
drug, which lead users to more harmful drugs. These assumptions have no real facts
supporting them because in 1995, a survey was taken by the National Survey on Drug Abuse.
The Survey found that 20% of illicit drug users smoke marijuana and that 57% of illicit
drug users smoke only marijuana.
Proposition 215 would legalize the cultivation, possession, and smoking of marijuana
legal for persons with prescriptions for it. Even though the people of California voted
yes of proposition 215, the United States Supreme Court denied it because it went against
federal drug initiative prohibiting the possession and cultivation of marijuana. This is
ridiculous. Whose to say that the government can let a cancer patient suffer when there
is a medicine that can sooth his or her pain. People who are terminally ill do not
deserve to be put in jail because they are only trying to feel better and relieve some of
the nasty side effects of medicines for their sickness. 
Source: Gooding, Robert. Healthy Marijuana, July 1996,
http://trailerpark.com/phase1/hempman.html