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Marijuana Legalization Essay

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Pot : In the Spotlight.

To Some people, it's a relaxing herb, something to temporarily pull the mind from reality. The aroma is unmistakable, the potency various, and there are roughly sixty five million people smoking it. I'm talking about Cannabis Sativa, the illegal strain of hemp known as marijuana. This plant provides many medical benefits that far outweigh the side effects. It has yet to be proven to be addictive or deadly. Marijuana as it stands right now is an illegal narcotic, but I think the drug, with it's physical, psychological, spiritual, but most importantly, medical benefits, should be legalized. Marijuana is one of the oldest cultivated plants. (Nahas,1986) The first people to introduce the potential …show more content…

The hemp plant now grows wildly around the world and can be cultivated anywhere with a hot season. There are 421 chemicals in 18 different chemical classes that have been detected in the hemp plant. It synthesizes at least 61 distinct substances called cannaboids that are not found in any other genus of plants. The most significant source of these substances is 1-delta-9-tetrahydrocannibol. This is an oily, water insoluble fluid more often called THC. (Dudley, 1999) There are already some THC counterparts on the market right now.(Baird, 2001) They are dronabinol and marinol. These drugs are the closet it gets to medical marijuana, however they are in no way smoked. Marinol and dronabinol are made into a sesame oil and supplied into gel capsules. These drugs are making huge advancements in the legalization of marijuana and many doctors are accepting them, but are still not the go-to drugs and only used when all else fails. On the opposite side of the spectrum, there are many other doctors argue that marijuana should not be used for any medicinal purposes at all. They argue that the drug has too many short and long-term effects.(Abel, 1993) When you smoke marijuana, it can produce a change in mood, mental abilities, coordination, blood pressure, and pulse. The result is the state most commonly referred to as the "high". Included is an increased state of well-being, relaxation

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