Medical marijuana legalization: benefits and opposition arguments

¶ … legalizing marijuana for medical use. The writer discusses both sides of the issue and argues that the medicinal used of marijuana should be legalized.

Before one can begin to understand the logic in legalizing marijuana for medicinal use it is important to understand the history of the argument both for and against it as well as the importance that it be legalized for future use. Each year, thousands of people are diagnosed with various medical conditions in which marijuana is believed to make a difference. Cancer patients who are deathly ill with cancer claim that marijuana eases the side effects of chemotherapy. Patients with glaucoma have been shown to benefit from the use of marijuana as have patients with AIDS and other medical conditions. While the medicinal use of marijuana has been proven through studies to be beneficial to certain medical patients, the political, social and moral frowning has kept it from being legalized. The war on drugs needs to continue but the wide brush it uses is keeping patients from gaining seriously needed benefits from the medicinal use of marijuana. The time has come to legalize its use for patients who have a verifiable and valid need for it.

OPPOSITION

While there are many people who believe it is time to legalize the medicinal use of marijuana there are also groups who are against any such action.

One of the most often used reasons for smoking marijuana for medicinal use is that it helps alleviate nausea that is caused from the effects of chemotherapy or other treatments for serious medical conditions. Those who are against the legalization of marijuana believe that the recently approved and manufactured synthetic version called Marinol (Forbes, 1997). The second reason that those who are against its legalization are fighting the passage of law, is because the law asks that the doctor only have to recommend its use. There will be no prescription needed. Those who do not want it legalized believe this will open the door to lax doctors allowing anyone who wants to smoke pot to be able to do so. Detractors of the movement to legalize marijuana for medical use point out its dangers. The plant itself provides chemicals that are not safe for the lungs and have often been compared to smoking cigarettes or cigars (McDonough, 2000).

CONCLUSION

Programs have been started and then shut down at various times in history (Green, 2003). As medical evidence continues to show that medicinal marijuana can ease the symptoms of chemo, AIDS and other medical conditions movements continue to work toward the legalization of its use. Medicinal use of marijuana can provide relief to patients who suffer significant side affects from their disorders or the treatment of those disorders. It is time to legalize its use for those conditions and allow the patients to obtain relief from their suffering without worry that they will be arrested and prosecuted. In addition the legalization will allow it to be grown and delivered in safe settings, instead of having to depend on street vendors to obtain it.