Marijuana
Uploaded by POE1313 on Dec 19, 2001
People have been using Marijuana as a medicine for thousands of years, beginning in China, India, and the Middle East. The plant's therapeutic potential became known in Western countries during the nineteenth century. From 1840 to 1900, more than a hundred articles on cannabis appeared in European and American medical journals, recommending it as an appetite stimulant, muscle relaxant, painkiller, sedative, and anti-convulsions. The use of Marijuana should be legalized for the benefits of individuals suffering from a variety of medical problems. Marijuana as a medicine, however, cannot be established with the Government’s permission to test the drug and legalize it.
Patients should have the right to use any medical means necessary to control our diseases. Patients with cancer find marijuana controls there vomiting, allowing them to continue chemotherapy. Patients find marijuana helps the "wasting syndrome" that often characterizes AIDS. Patients with spinal injuries and multiple sclerosis find relief from severe muscle spasms (plasticity) that complicate nerve damage. Patients with glaucoma have derived benefit from marijuana when conventional treatments have failed. Government experts have indicated that marijuana does relieve pain, and other disorders, but it does not cure them, therefore cannot be legalized as a prescription drug. However, the Government has legalized a drug called Tylenol 3. The two main drugs used in Tylenol 3 are precocity and codeine, both are very addictive and they only relieve the pain. Medicinal marijuana has similar side effects as the often-prescribed stimulants, but it is not as addictive as Tylenol 3.
The Government proclaims there is no therapeutic value in the medicinal use of marijuana, but they do not have hard evidence to prove it. Ira Glasser, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, expressed: “the government has demonized all drug use without differentiation and has systematically and hysterically resisted science.” Doctors have expressed opposite opinions as well, making this issue very controversial. Because not all doctors who research the topic for medicinal purposes feel cannabis should be a “legal” prescribed medicine, smoking marijuana is risky, but also recommended that critically ill patients should be allowed to use it under closely monitored settings.
Marijuana has undergone analysis for its use as a medicine and the results have shown improvements in the patients who were treated with this drug. Research showed that marijuana reduced the interlobular pressure that can lead to blindness in glaucoma patients. Migraine sufferers found relief from their headaches, and victims...