Leonhart Prohibition Of Marijuana Analysis

First, from 1900 to 1940, marijuana, including opium and cocaine were considered part of everyday drugs. As time went on, the U.S. cracked down on crack and opium, eventually outlawing them, but continued to be very “loose” with the use of marijuana. Hoxter a weed smuggler explains how he began in the 1960’s trying weed and years later saw himself unloading four hundred pounds of pot in Vancouver. The story of this man ends in his isolation and argument of why he couldn’t smoke weed even if he stopped selling? He asked a parole officer and she didn’t know what to respond. It is true what Hoxter states, fifty years ago alcohol was illegal and now it’s not, was it bad then? Will weed be legalized? And will the conflicts have been in vain? (Schou 8). Around the late 90’s and early 2000’s, scientific studies started to produce jaw-dropping results. Scientists started to discover that marijuana can significantly help people who have become ill. Medical Marijuana has been tested to help people with cataracts, cancer and severe depression (Zeese 1999). With this new worldwide discovery, the argument about medical marijuana ignited. States wanted to only make medical marijuana legal so it may help sick people, but the government did not want any form of marijuana legal. The law that was known throughout the United States was any form of marijuana was illegal. But now with this new discovery, doctors in states across the country want the

One ideological issue surrounding the legalization of marijuana even medically is that there are not enough extensive studies done on its benefits, but the reason for this can be seen in, “In the United States, it’s a different matter because on the federal level, cannabis is listed as a schedule 1 drug, like heroin. That means that the medical community is

History has shown us an ineffective way to address addiction. Addiction has always been around a long time. However. people just didn’t always talk about addiction. They just ignored the issue and pretended that everything was alright. When the government first tried to deal with this issue they banned alcohol and made other drugs illegal. This action forced people to secretly use the substances. This only made the problem worse. I think that the government kept in the history of this problem in mind when create the current policy. Let’s dive into the history.

Joycelyn Elders, former Surgeon General, once spoke about the legalization of marijuana for medical use in a press conference. "It's criminal to keep this medicine from patients," she said (Silverman, 1995, pg. 2). She received criticism not only from many citizens of the United States, but also strong criticism from the President who appointed her. The legalization of marijuana for medical use has always been a sharply debated subject, and many of the debaters are uneducated about the effects of using this illegal drug for therapeutic use. Many studies have been done and the results are clear. As a medical drug, marijuana should be available to patients who do not adequately respond to currently available

Drugs and alcohol is a major social issue (J. David Hawkins, Richard F. Catalano, and Janet Y. Miller, 1992). It is not something that can be solved by the law (Lee P. Brown, 2008). Throughout history, many attempts have been made to try and legalize and control alcohol and drug addiction but has failed.

Drug Policy in the United States began under the Presidency of Richard M. Nixon, who launched the “War on Drugs” and oversaw the creation of the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). The sole purpose of both initiatives was to combat the copious amounts of drugs flowing out of our borders. Then First Lady Nancy Reagan, who will go down in history as the greatest First Lady of All Time, launched “Just Say No”. A campaign aimed towards the youth to refuse the vices of drug and alcohol abuse. These policies were perpetuated in the 1990s under the Clinton Administration who passed their own tough on crime initiatives as well. The upside, the implementation of these policies has caused the drug use rates to equal where they were 25 years ago. On the downside, the United States imprisons more people than any other industrialized nation in the world because of the drug offenses.

David Casarett a Physician in California explains how he learned about Medical Marijuana and how he has come to recommend other physicians to research and consider medical marijuana. Casarett asks, “What if mainstream health care operated more like a medical marijuana dispensary?”

Making note that there are consequences for using these substance. In the age of prohibition there were laws that was put in place to making it clear about the consequences but even though these laws were put in place people still found a way to smuggle the alcohol and alcohol consumption continued even though these laws were placed. The problem with legislation is that it is put in place but it is not properly monitored. Now that alcohol is legal it is available at every corner on a street and people have more access. The supply of alcohol is too available making it harder for the supply reduction strategy. Legislative exist only to people that are under age and needs constant enforcement to ensure the supply of the alcohol. The demand and supply strategies are there to cut down the use and abuse of alcohol or substance abuse but yet it is lacking firm ground seeing that individuals’ minds have part to play in the how it demanded and supplied.”The supply and availability of drugs is one of several risk factors surrounding us together with other factors such as social problems, cultural factors, lack of alternative lifestyles etc.” (Supply Reduction , n.d.) A major problem with that demand and supply work with each other so therefore demand reduction strategies will therefore contribute to reducing the supply. So in order for these strategies to be successful and reducing supplies will increase prices and limit the availability and cause reduction in consumption. Instead of seeing it as an isolation it should be seen as a whole and hence the reason it in not

In Carrie Shortsleeve’s article, “The Truth About Medical Marijuana”, she is writing to those who are curious about the use of marijuana for medical purposes. Doctors and Scientists everywhere have been studying the use of marijuana for years and question the medical use of it every day. Some doctors and scientists are ready for it to be legalized in their states so that they can administer the drug as soon as tomorrow. While others are 100 percent against the use of marijuana in the medical environment. In her article, Carrie Shortsleeve interviews different doctors and professors to see what their opinions or thoughts may be on the use of medical marijuana. She goes into great detail using facts and statistics on both the positive and negative uses of the drug. The motivation behind Carrie’s article is to find out answers to the questions that we all ask ourselves every day, “Is marijuana safe to use in medical terms?”, “How do you know how much to administer a patient?”, “Will it be legalized in every state?” etc. There are many ways in which medical marijuana can be used to help you, but there are also many ways where it can do more harm than good.

In the Washington post article, “25 states now call marijuana “medicine.” Why doesn’t the DEA?”, by Christopher Ingraham, the journalist portrays the politically popular question over the legalization of marijuana through the eyes of Ohio’s recent legislation and the Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA) opinion. Ingraham begins by stating that John Kasich recently signed Ohio’s medical marijuana bill into law, while expressing that it is restrictive, in the sense that it does not allow users to smoke it. Therefore leaving them to eat or vaporize it. It also prohibits patients from growing marijuana and only limited conditions are able are to receive this form of treatment. Ingraham later continues to say that medical marijuana activist established

First, the strict policy on substance abuse dates back to the formal declaration of the war on drugs by the president of the united states Richard Nixon. In 1971 Nixon’s formal declaration of war on drugs deliberately linked urban crime control to the suburban marijuana subculture by portraying narcotics pushers and heroin addiction as universal threats (Lassiter, M. D). Nixon and his administrators were trying to cause a pandemic with the America people about substance

When our group first looked at this article we could agree with most of what Kearns was saying, however we were not the target audience for his article. When we tried looking into who exactly Joe Kearns was we had a difficult time finding out anything about him, which changed our view on the paper. While reading his article we had a generally open mind about the topic of decriminalizing marijuana, with some members of our group seeing decriminalization more favourably. I did have the idea that medical use of marijuana was acceptable. The thesis of Kearns’ speech states that “ to improve public health and the criminal justice system, state and federal governments should decriminalize the medical and recreational uses of marijuana.”

Levine H, Reinarman C.??Alcohol prohibition and drug prohibition. Lessons from alcohol policy for drug policy. Amsterdam.?2004; Available at:?http://www.cedro-uva.org/lib/levine.alcohol.html. Accessed 10/22, 2015.

The Drug Enforcement Administration situations on fighting to legalize “medical” marijuana are based on two proposals: the scientific field views marijuana as a treatment while the DEA targets sick and dying people using the drug. Neither suggestion is true, science proved it is not medicine and it is not safe to use. The DEA targets on criminal trafficking and not the sick and dying. In 1970 congress authorized laws against marijuana based on that there is no logically proven medical value. Like the Food and Drug Administration, which is responsible for authorizing drugs safe an effective medicine has declined to approve smoked marijuana for any circumstance or disease.

Drugs are heavily used throughout the entire world. However, it is important to understand and not undermine the variability in which drugs are used. It is clear some are for distinct medical treatment and others are for recreational use. In the United States, marijuana has been and continues to be a very controversial drug. Some states have allowed marijuana consumption for medicinal purposes, while others have completely outlawed the drug. Those who are against the legalization and regulation of marijuana suggest the economical and health risk associated with consumption of the drug are too high. Although there is risk involved with the legalization of the marijuana, our country has already been risking too much banning the drug.