...Medical Marijuana Laws and their Effects Keith Reese COM/156 7/23/2014 Jennifer Preus Medical Marijuana Laws and their Effects In 1936, George Herliman produced the propaganda film “Tell Your Children”, later titled “Reefer Madness”(“IMBD”, 1990-2014). This film, financed by a church group to display the exaggerated consequences of marijuana usage, was intended to inspire fear in parents and children alike. Though marijuana legalization has become a front burner topic, one would assume that our technological advances would invoke more rational responses from the general public seeking facts to support claims. However, the same type of fear induced media messages are employed today by anti-marijuana groups and politicians to sway public opinion. Contrary to the seemingly credible publications throughout the media, the legalization of marijuana, medical or recreational, does not increase crime. As the debate regarding the legalization of marijuana, both medicinal and recreational, has heated up, several groups have been formed to speak out about the perceived consequences. Former Congressman Patrick Kennedy has co-founded the anti-marijuana group, Project SAM, with Kevin Sabet who also is the director of the organization. After the Justice Department allowed Colorado and Washington to move forward with their respective marijuana legislation, Kennedy claimed, “we can look forward to more drugged driving accidents,...
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...Marijuana Legalization The legalization of marijuana is something that I have always been interested in. In high school, I heard about people first smoking marijuana, and I thought it was so bad because of everything that I was taught in elementary and middle school. Kids always pledged to stay away from any type of drug. Once I knew friends that were smoking and I talked to them about it, they made it seem so harmless, and that’s when I really got curious about it. Then I started to find out more information about marijuana and its effects, and I started to wonder whether marijuana should be legal for recreational use? After all my research I have come to the conclusion that marijuana should be legal for recreational use in the United States. Lets start by looking at the economical perspective. The United States has a national debt of trillions of dollars, and a huge financial problem is how much our law enforcement and Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) are spending to enforce the prohibition of marijuana. “In America we spend nearly $8 billion trying to enforce the laws prohibiting the use and possession of marijuana” (Cartwright 86). This money could be spent on highways, schools and other government properties but instead it is spent on enforcing laws that are being broken every single day. Another huge part of the DEA is the so-called war on drugs. Mexican drug cartels are a huge supplier of marijuana to the U.S. “In 2009, the U.S. National Drug Intelligence Center estimated...
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...legal in our country and controlled and distributed by our government yet there are more deaths related to tobacco and alcohol compared to marijuana; therefore, the laws against personal marijuana use does not make sense and marijuana should be legalized. • “Marijuana is far less dangerous than alcohol or tobacco. Around 50,000 people die each year from alcohol poisoning. Similarly, more than 400,000 deaths each year are attributed to tobacco smoking. By comparison, marijuana is nontoxic and cannot cause death by overdose.” (5) • “Marijuana is the third most popular recreational drug in America (behind only alcohol and tobacco), and has been used by nearly 100 million Americans. According to government surveys, some 25 million Americans have smoked marijuana in the past year, and more than 14 million do so regularly despite harsh laws against its use.” (5) • “According to the prestigious European medical journal, The Lancet, "The smoking of cannabis, even long-term, is not harmful to health. ... It would be reasonable to judge cannabis as less of a threat ... than alcohol or tobacco."…” (5) If marijuana were to be legal and controlled responsibly, the state and taxpayers would benefit because the cost to enforce the drug is very high and yet marijuana is still very easy to obtain. • “Enforcing marijuana prohibition costs taxpayers an estimated $10 billion annually and results in the arrest of more than 829,000 individuals per year -- far more...
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...Heading Heading Heading Title A lot of people in America perceive marijuana and people who use marijuana as something so horrible because of the way that the government portrays it, but most of those people who think this way fail to know the truth about marijuana. The fact of the matter is that the “dangers” of marijuana are over exaggerated and its classification is way out of proportion. Views about the use of cannabis have evolved over the decades. Cannabis has been around for centuries and legally used and distributed as a natural resource until it began to gain restrictions and regulations in the late 1800s and early 1900s soon leading to the illegalization of it in the 1930s with the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 (Guither). In the eyes of many people, the reasons for the illegalization of growing and distributing the hemp plant are untrue or over exaggerated, and this paper will address why marijuana should be legalized in America. The reasons for why the government should take the action of legalizing the use of marijuana, or cannabis, are endless, but this paper focuses on the facts that cannabis has a multitude of known, positive uses, that legalizing it will take thousands and thousands of good people out of prisons, and that legalizing the use of marijuana could actually have economically positive effects on the country. Marijuana has been around long before it was known as a recreational drug in the early 1900s. The known uses of the hemp plant go back to as early...
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...the legalization of marijuana for medicinal purposes. Central Idea: People should have the option to choose their methods of medication; therefore, marijuana should be legalized for medicinal purposes. Introduction: ATTENTION A. How many of you take Advil for a headache? How many of you use a remedy passed down from your grandparents or parents to alleviate a cold? How many people do you know suffer from migraines or experience back aches and take prescription pain killers to ease their pain? Do you know a cancer patient suffering through the effects of chemotherapy? B. Today I’m going to attempt to persuade you to support, by voting for the measures and propositions that allow the legal access of cannabis or marijuana for medicinal purposes. C. I have done several college assignments as well as become a member of Americans for Safe Access, the largest organization of patients, medical professionals, scientists and concerned citizens promoting safe and legal access to cannabis. I, unfortunately, also know several women who have had breast cancer and suffered through excruciating chemotherapy treatments. D. I’m going to discuss the classification of marijuana and compare it to other drugs in its schedule, let you know what you can do to give people the legal choice of using this method/type of medication, and tell you about some of the benefits of the legalization of cannabis. Transition Statement: So what’s the problem with marijuana? Body: NEED-...
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...Paraphrasing Practice Decriminalization of Marijuana Author: Lucia Pizzo Throughout the early 2000s, many states decriminalized marijuana. Levels of decriminalization varied with regard to the amount of marijuana in possession and whether the drug was for personal use, cultivation, or distribution. By 2010, marijuana had been at least partially decriminalized in Arkansas, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Washington, and Wisconsin. In Alaska and Massachusetts possessing one ounce of marijuana was deemed legal. Various groups supported decriminalization and pushed for state reform. These groups included National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (commonly known as NORML), Americans for Safe Access, and Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. Advocates of the legalization of marijuana argued from the standpoint of freedom of choice, with supporters clamoring against unnecessary government interference. Promoting the therapeutic aspects of cannabis, some groups presented marijuana access as a human-rights issue and proposed that the drug be available for medical purposes. As more states decriminalized marijuana, and as proponents of decriminalization argued widely against prohibition, the argument for protecting “cherished values” began to weaken. “Charles Kelly’s Paraphrase...
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...Employers and Medical Marijuana: How Employers are Coping with Medical Marijuana Legislation Maxwell Schulbaum November 9, 2014 AMBA 600 Introduction Marijuana is perhaps the most widely known, yet misunderstood drugs in our society. While still illegal under the Federal Controlled Substance act signed in 197 classifying it as Schedule 1 narcotic along with cocaine and heroin (Chang, 2013). Despite this, there has been a remarkable shift of public opinion not only supporting the decriminalization of marijuana but even legally selling medical and recreational marijuana. Some supporters of the effort cite reasons such as a general racial bias; blacks and Hispanics are far more likely than whites to be arrested for a marijuana offense (White, 2012). Others believe that it if alcohol and tobacco are legal, than marijuana should be too. Perhaps the most important and widely cited reasons are purely medical. There are countless stories of patients who suffered adverse effects due to their prescription medicine, and have been pointed to medicinal marijuana at the suggestion of their doctors. Whatever the reason, it seems that momentum is shifting toward legalization, whether it’s for recreational marijuana or limited to medicinal. These rapid changes mean that employers in states where marijuana is legal will have to choose between accepting and adapting to the new laws or remaining drug free based on the fact that marijuana remains illegal to this day, according to the federal...
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...Marijuana, also known as cannabis, is a form of the cannabis plant. In 1923, marijuana was added to the Confidential Restricted List as a prohibited drug in Canada. However, many Canadians believe that marijuana should be legalized because it can play a significant role in the medical industry. However, others hold the opposite attitude toward Marijuana legalization. This serious controversy has lasted for many decades. Canada’s neighbor, the U.S. government, has forbidden this drug since the early 1900s. However, this implementation didn’t produce a satisfactory result. (National Prevention Strategy, 2011) Marijuana should be legalized in Canada because its advantages outweigh the disadvantages. These advantages are likely to promote the Canadian economy, eliminate social issues and benefit the health of its residents. In terms of the economy, legalizing marijuana could conduct not only negative effects, but also positive effects. In the past decade, underground trade of marijuana has caused harm to Canada’s income. Werner Antweiler, the UBC professor, believes that the marijuana market is sizable. (2013) In B.C., the estimates show that Canadians consume at least 3 billion dollars in marijuana products annually. (Barmak, 2013) Other data from The International Journal of Drug Policy indicate that the retail value of marijuana consumption in B.C is between $443 million and $564 million. In addition, further estimates point out that marijuana legalization is likely to help the...
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...Legalized Marijuana: Colorado’s Answer? The current presence of Marijuana in the United States is at an all time high. Everywhere you look and read you’re sure to hear or see something that has to do with marijuana. Marijuana has become a huge element within our current culture and it is easily seen. Since marijuana has been on the rise in the United States, there has been a push for legalization of it for both medical and recreational use. With the current movement that is ongoing, we have seen 21 states within the U.S. legalize marijuana for medical use and the states of Washington and Colorado have legalized it for recreational use (ProCon.Org 2014). Colorado has been in the spotlight of the movement ever since the legalization for recreational use of marijuana went into effect. It’s been considered a modern day Amsterdam in the United States with the amount of marijuana that is being consumed and produced there. But, with the legalization of marijuana also comes the negative elements that can and will be produced by the drug. The ongoing debate in the U.S. concerning the legalization of marijuana benefits seems to outweigh the potential of negative consequences it could potentially cause. Those who are in favor of the legalization of marijuana believe it will aid in reducing the populations in jails and prisons, free up law enforcement resources so they can target more serious crime within the U.S., as well as increase states’ revenue through the taxation of sales of legal...
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... Marijuana, formally known as cannabis, is a plant that contains a chemical called THC that produces certain psychological and physiological effects when inhaled or ingested. Although the use and possession of marijuana is considered illegal in most of the country, many people still consume the drug every day. The recent legalization of marijuana for medical and recreational use in some states has caused a nation wide debate. Marijuana users and supporters argue that the drug’s benefits out way the possible risks, while non-supporters argue that the potential addictiveness and health issues associated with the drug are strong enough reasons to keep it illegal. The effects of marijuana are less harmful than most other drugs, including alcohol and tobacco. Yet, marijuana is the most common drug that Americans are arrested for possessing. Our current U.S. drug policies and federal laws on marijuana are inadequate and in need of change. I support the legalization of marijuana throughout the nation because of the drug’s medicinal benefits, and its potential to stimulate the current economic recession by creating new jobs and tax revenues. The Controlled Substance Act (CSA) is a federal U.S. policy that ranks drugs into five categories based off their abuse potential, medical applications, and overall safety. In the United States, the CSA classified marijuana as a schedule I substance claiming the drug offers no medical benefits and has a high potential for abuse (Marijuana). However...
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...Release the Green! Marijuana is a very noticeable and scandalous issue in the world today. Although many malicious entitlements have been said about cannabis in current history, the certainties are slowly starting to reappear. Unluckily, these facts are being very heavily criticized because of the clichéd view of what people see as the classic “weed smoker.” This twisted observation of a lazy and unenthusiastic America is the consequence of over seventy years of information and deception spread by private interests who needed weed illegal for their own particular gains. As just a regular citizen and someone that doesn’t even use marijuana, I think that the drug should be legalized for all uses. Consuming marijuana for pharmaceutical purposes is not a new discovery. Actually, written references to consume medical marijuana go back to almost 5,000 years ago (herer, 167). Western treatment included marijuana’s medical properties in the mid-1800s, and by the start of the 20th century, doctors had issued more than 150 credentials in the Western medical literature recommending its use for a variety of disorders (Miron, 117). These conditions include relief from pain, glaucoma, nausea and movement disorders. It can also be used to help patients that have or had HIV/AIDS or cancer patients that have to go through chemotherapy because it motivates their appetites. In our day, thousands of patients are capable of use marijuana as an effective technique of cure for their illnesses. This...
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...arguments. Proposition 19 was a bill that failed to pass because it was unfavorable. It stated that it would legalize the usage of marijuana along with marijuana related activities, it would allow for the government to regulate the activities and also allow the government to place taxes on it, and it would authorize criminal and civil penalties by the local government. This is an ongoing debate in many states today, and will continue to become more popular because of the uprise in popularity of marijuana. Keywords: Proposition 19, Stainlislaus County, marijuana, legalization An Argument Against Proposition 19 The controversy of the legality of marijuana has been a huge subject for debate for years, even decades. Currently, in modern society, the number of supporters for legal use of marijuana has increased significantly. People often question why this topic is an enormous concern and it is because here in the United States marijuana is the most commonly used illegal drug. It has been recorded by The National Institution on Drug Abuse (2011, p.8), nearly 104 million Americans over the age of 12 have tried marijuana at least once. Many questions have arisen about the positive impact that the legalization might lead to, directly pointing out politicians because they have thoughts about legalizing marijuana to increase revenue by raising taxes. This idea directly pinpoints California, which currently has the largest...
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...Should the U.S. Decriminalize Marijuana? Every year our government spends about nineteen billion dollars to control the usage of marijuana. About seventeen thousand people were arrested last year because of it. The U.S. spends about twenty thousand per year house keep these inmates. (Miles) Who are these dangerous people that we are talking about? These people are considered pot heads. There is a marijuana arrest every forty two seconds in the U.S. In most cases most people who are pulled over don’t have a lot. Yet the government is letting jails get over crowded and using money the government needs. The economy in the U.S. is horrible, but the U.S. could save billions of dollars by decriminalizing marijuana. Marijuana should be decriminalized because it helps people with health issues, it saves the U.S. tons of money, keep jails safer and less congested, and benefit other people that need it. Marijuana should be decriminalized because it acts as a natural pain killer. Studies have shown that marijuana sometimes is the only painkiller that can help a person. For example, it helps people with chronic nerve pain due to injury or surgery feel less pain, relax, and sleep better. (Doheny) This is only one of the pains that marijuana can help, but there are many more. Today, more than 60 U.S. and international organizations support providing marijuana to people that need it. (NORML) Since marijuana is priceless and can assist so many people with medical care for many...
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...Should Marijuana Be Legalized The legalization of marijuana has been a hot topic for several years in the United States. Those opposed to the legalization say that marijuana is addictive, leads to harder drug use and increases criminal behavior. The use of marijuana for medicinal purposes dates back to as early as 2737 B.C., where Chinese Emperor Shen Neng would prescribe marijuana tea for treatment of a variety of ailments (Stack, Suddath, 2009). Research shows that marijuana should be legalized in the United States because of the amount of money we are spending trying to prevent its use and lost income not collecting taxes, it is beneficial for medicinal purposes, and U.S. citizens want it to be legal. Each year in the United States a large amount of resources is spent policing, prosecuting and jailing people for marijuana offenses. In 2010 New York City spent approximately $75 million for the arrest and prosecution of people for small amounts of marijuana (Levine, Siegal, 2011). That is money that could be spent elsewhere on programs that really needed it. The $75 million dollars could have easily been spent to help with the cities homeless problem, or be spent to strengthen the cities schools. Statistics show that from 2009 to 2010 the rate of murder, rape, assault and robbery went up in New York City (city-data, 2014). The man hours used catching and arresting people for marijuana could have been used to help prevent some of these crimes. Jeffrey Miron a economics...
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...Legalization of Marijuana Legalizing marijuana has a lot of positives to it. Some of them are profit, medical purposes, reducing harm, creating jobs,etc.. Four states in the United States have legalized marijuana in all ways, including recreational and medical purposes , and have not had major problems with it (Marijuana Legalization and Regulation). These states include Colorado, Washington, Alaska, and Oregon, also Washington D.C. has legalized it. It has brought great profit to their state economies (Marijuana Legalization and Regulation). A major reason for legalizing marijuana is for the profit it brings. Marijuana is estimated around a fifty million dollar industry(Marijuana Legalization and Regulation). But right now all...
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