Legalize Marijuana Legalizing Marijuana in This Era Essay

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Legalize Marijuana

Legalizing marijuana

In this era of spiraling medical costs, if there is a product that has never caused any deaths, has proven benefits, and is inexpensive, it should not only be legal, but should be aggressively pursued by governmental agencies to aid in the health care crisis. Would you be interested in a substance that could alleviate nausea and vomiting for most cancer and chemotherapy patients? How about a way to stimulate hunger so that AIDS and other immune-suppressed individuals can eat again? How about this same substance that could lower pressure on the eye and treat glaucoma? How about chronic migraines, back pain, or even nausea and vomiting cased with hepatitis? And, would you be excited if you knew that preliminary studies show that this same substance, widely available, prevents the formation of plaque deposits in the brain of Alzheimer's victims? What if you also knew this same substance had been used as far back as 10,000 years in Ancient China and was one of the 50 fundamental herbs in Chinese medicine? In fact, this same substance was used in Egypt, India, Greece, and the Medieval Islamic world with great success (Iverson).
Now, what if we told you this substance is hundreds of times less expensive than modern synthetic drugs, easy to process, easy to tolerate, with almost no side-effects, grew in almost every temperate climate in the world, but, since the mid-20th century, has been illegal in most of the developed world, and is still considered to be high on the list of illicit substances by the Federal Drug Enforcement Administration? Yes, that substance is marijuana, or cannabis sativa, a simple member of the hemp family (Guither).

One of the major criticisms of cannabis as a….....

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