Marijuana Legalization And Harmful Effects

Opponents of making marijuana legal would like society to believe that marijuana shouldn’t be legalized.It is stated that marijuana is terrible for your physical health.A recent Northwestern University studies have founded that marijuana users have abnormal brain structure and poor memory and that chronic marijuana abuse may lead to brain changes resemble into being diagnosed

Marijuana has been deeply studied in the past few decades and has shown scientist many things that weren’t evident before. Marijuana has been linked to many health issues good and bad. It has shown to reduce stress and anxiety, help with headaches, lower blood pressure and one of the most evident and positive health affects is that it has been shown in many studies to stop and even kill cancer cells in the body. There are however negative effects that have been looked into and studied by scientist. These include, blocking memory formation, psychosis, and an increased risk of depression while using marijuana regularly. Not everything revolving around marijuana is a “health issue” though, the biggest reason that people use marijuana today is because it simply makes people feel good. That is a positive effect.

According to, medicalmarijuana.org, a lot of people claim smoking marijuana is to be safe and blindly believe it without any research. Medicinal benefit comes from ingestion and not smoking. Smoking marijuana affects the brain and it alters it. Smoking marijuana also decrease the release of dopamine in your brain in the striatum region which is responsible impulsive behavior, working memory and attention behavior. Lot of other studies also have shown this affects on other recreational drugs of lowering the release of dopamine in the brain. Researches have found people that smoke marijuana on regular basis tends to lose the grey matter in the brain which is a major part of the central nervous system. Which helps in muscle control, memory, sensory, emotion, speech, decision making and self-control. It also is responsible for mental health like depression and anxiety. Smoking marijuana or tobacco harms the lungs. Marijuana is considered as a safe alternative but burning anything alters the plant. Which would change the chemical compound and would be harmful to the body. Smoking recreational drugs produces toxins and carcinogen is released from burning the plant, which is harmful to the body and to the respiratory system.

We all know that marijuana is an addictive substance. Legalizing cannabis use is an easy way for people to use drugs. Using marijuana impacts teenagers’ learning outcomes, ability to work as well as driving, increases car accidents. The consequence of using stimulants at a young age leads to conflicts

The dispute over the legalization of cannabis sativa, more commonly known as marijuana, is one of the most controversial issues ever to take place in the United States. Its use as a medicine has existed for thousands of years in many countries across the globe. Legalization should be considered despite efforts made by groups who say marijuana is a harmful drug that will increase crime rates and lead users to other more dangerous substances. The legalization of marijuana can improve our society by helping with our economy, freeing legal resources, and benefiting the overall health of the nation though medical uses.

The effects of marijuana on the undeveloped minds of teenagers include an impairment in concentration and the ability to retain information. This poses an extreme hindrance to learning and can potentially tarnish the intellectual ability of a promising young man or woman. This has been depicted in studies as students with an average grade of D or below were four times more likely to have used marijuana compared to students with an average grade of A. Another fallacy about marijuana and its perceived “harmlessness” is that it is a non addictive drug. This again, could not be farther from reality. “Of the 7.1 million Americans suffering from illegal drug dependence or abuse, 60 percent abuse or are dependent on marijuana” (The impacts of marijuana use). Although we are led to believe this drug can be used once and forgotten, it is a concrete fact that more than half of all americans addicted to an illegal drug are dependent on marijuana. On top of this “more young people are now in treatment for marijuana dependence than for alcohol or for all other illegal drugs combined” (The impacts of marijuana use). At this point the question shouldn’t be whether or not marijuana is an addictive drug, but rather is there anything more addictive than marijuana. Finally, an old theory that the new pro marijuana culture is trying to dispel is that marijuana is not a gateway drug, or a drug that leads to usage of other drugs. According to a study done by the Journal of the American

They are five times more likely to steal than those who do not use the drug. Some believe marijuana is a gate way drug that can lead users to consume stronger drugs to achieve the same high once marijuana no longer “works.” Cannabis has its effects both short and long term. Short term effects are loss of coordination and distortions in the sense of time, vision and hearing, sleepiness, reddening of the eyes, increase appetite and relaxed muscles. When these areas of the brain are disturbed, the user has a harder time walking and talking correctly, becoming quite clumsy. It also impacts their ability to drive which is why states like Florida, have not made the drug legal due to the fact they fear more automobile accidents. Heart rate can speed up. In fact, in the first four hours of smoking marijuana, a user’s risk of a heart attack could increase by five times. School performance is reduced through impaired memory and lessened ability to solve problems. The active ingredients in marijuana act in the part of the brain called the Hippocampus to alter the way the information is processed and how memories are formed. This blockage of memory formation can cause cognitive impairment in adulthood if use happens during adolescence. When young people start using marijuana regularly, they often lose interest and are not motivated to do their school work. Heavy pot smokers in studies scored lower than non-users on tests of memory, attention, and learning. The more they smoked the worse they did. Brain image scans of heavy marijuana smokers have revealed changes in blood flow to parts of the brain involved in memory or attention. Researches have also noted differences in the size and shape of the Thalamus, the part of the brain that’s

These negative effects of marijuana being illegal at the recreational level can be fixed. There are solutions and benefits to these problems. The first and most important thing the state will have to do in order to legalize recreational cannabis is decriminalize the drug. If marijuana was decriminalized in the state of Minnesota, crime rates and arrest would decrease. According to Christopher Ingraham, a writer for the Washington Post said, “In Colorado, marijuana arrests fell by nearly half from 2012 to 2014. Marijuana possession charges in Washington state fell by a more dramatic 98 percent between 2012 and 2013. Alaska, Oregon, and D.C. show similar declines.” Colorado, Alaska, Oregon, and D.C. saw major benefits when they decided to make marijuana legal for recreational use. If Minnesota decriminalized marijuana, not as many people would be in jail, which would help with the over crowdedness in prisons in the state. Colorado alone has compiled several research studies demonstrating that legalization has not promoted an increase in violent crimes. According to research conducted by the Drug Policy Alliance “During the first year of the implementation of Amendment 64, Denver experienced a 2.2 percent decrease in violent crime rates and an 8.9 percent reduction in property crime offenses” (Heuberger). Decriminalizing cannabis will help our police department focus on more violent and heavy drug-related crimes. This evidence provides proof that legalizing recreational

Smoking marijuana also has implication for others in society. When one thinks of the negative aspects of smoking cigarettes, the effects are similar with marijuana smoke. Smoke, regardless of tobacco or marijuana, causes lung cancer and affects those who involuntary breathe the smoke second-handed. Therefore, the leagalization of marijuana can lead to increased health issues and medical costs for our country. This drug is also known to have negative effects on the brain, including but not limited to reduced brain function, depression, memory loss, diminished reactions, and poor decision-making and problem solving abilities. As a result, there are escalating concerns over the potential of rising traffic accidents and fatalities resulting from recreational marijuana use. There is also concern that such more traffic accidents and fatalities will occur to the combined use of alcohol and marijuana use.

Side effects such as these are can have an impact on learning. Some others claim that marijuana can help people with learning disabilities focus or think more clearly. These kinds of statements have not been found to be true yet, but are interesting claims. The nonpartisan RAND corperation believes that legalization is not the answer because, “This is a problem because the brain is developing until age 25, and recently completed research shows that pot can significantly decrease IQ” (Sabet 1). Education is one of those things that services a wide range of people using a narrow band of methods. This leads to some people not getting the most out of their experience or needing other things or methods to get the same thing other people are getting. Could marijuana be the answer to some of these problems? Maybe for some people but there is where the educational perspective splits off. Some believe that students should all have equal treatment, marijuana is something that only some students may need but it may hurt others. Nurses have been advised on how to handle marijuana incidents in

In the United States today, an approximated 24.5 million people are abusing drugs. The most popularly abused drug out of them all is marijuana, also known as cannabis, weed, etc. Everybody has their own opinion on whether or not marijuana should be legalized, but they do not know enough about the subject matter to make a knowledgeable decision. What many people do not know is that there are a countless amount of health risks that are likely to come from smoking marijuana. Consuming cannabis can have significant effects on both your mental and physical health. Heavy use of the substance has even been proven to lead to reduced brain function, which causes individuals to go through life at a reduced intellectual level. Credible

Reinarman, C. 2011. ‘Cannabis in cultural and legal limbo: Criminalisation, legalisation and the mixed blessing of medicalization in the USA’ in Fraser and Moore (eds), 2011. The Drug Effect: Health, Crime and Society. Melbourne: Cambridge U Press.

Many people believe that marijuana should be legalized because it would be safe and clean marijuana which could save lives, and it would lower crime rate; However others believe marijuana should NOT be legalized because crime rate could increase rather than decrease, and it could negatively affect the human brain or mental health of a human. Let’s first begin with a Pro of Marijuana, marijuana can have positive effects on the body. “‘It can help stop suffering many medical conditions. Marijuana helps increase appetite for cancer patients and could possible help those with eating disorders...’” (Author 1). Cancer is kind of a big deal, people are suffering and dying from all sorts of eating disorders. So if marijuana “weed” is necessary for

Marijuana legalization would cause very little harm to users. Marijuana is one of the safest drugs a person can use, being safer than both tobacco and alcohol. In the mid 1990’s the World Health Organization commissioned a study on marijuana and found that it was unlikely to cause any major health issues and found when compared to tobacco and alcohol, that it was safer to use then both legal drugs. In 2007 a team of experts did research on marijuana for the British medical journal the Lancet, found that it caused far fewer health and safety risks than alcohol. In the same year the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare had come to the same conclusion. In 2005 the University of Oxford found that even long term use does not cause any lasting physical or mental

Some opponents to recreational marijuana legalization point to evidence linking teen marijuana use to memory problems. Researchers have found that “the more weed that teens consume at a