Legalization of Marijuana

1. Legalization of Marijuana By: Nickie Pedigo

2. Three reasons why marijuana should be legalized: Not so many crimes, medical purposes, and tax it for profit.

3. Prevention of Crimes • The recreational use of marijuana would not stimulate crime like some would argue. The crime rate in Amsterdam, where marijuana is legal, is lower than many major US cities.

4. Continued • Any in the justice system want to see people arrested for possession of marijuana. It’s also clear to us that the tide is turning as to the legalization or decriminalization of marijuana. Legislation for pot as a medical intervention is popping up around the country. We within the justice system have serious issues to tackle. Arrests for issues like possession of marijuana just seem to get in the way. We have bigger fish to fry.  

5. Continued • We do not want to return to the bad old days of locking people up for smoking pot. It’s a medical issue, not a criminal justice issue. We just want an honest discussion as to the public health consequences and what legalization or decriminalization of marijuana really means. And it probably means much more than you realize. But we do not seem capable of a rational discussion.

6. Medical Purposes • The medical uses for marijuana have been know for some time now. Some estimate that marijuana has been used for medicinal purposes for 12,000 years now. In February of 1997, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) released a report detailing the possible medical uses for marijuana and most productive avenues for research. The report highlighted five areas of medical care that they felt were most appropriate. • 1.      Stimulate appetite and alleviate cachexia. • 2.      Control nausea and vomiting associated with cancer chemotherapy. • 3.      Decrease intraocular pressure. • 4.      Analgesia. • 5.      Neurological and movement disorders

7. Continued • Other issues have arisen regarding marijuana’s effectiveness in the medical field. There is significant controversy the utility of plant derived THC when there is an approved synthetic form on the market. Marinol (dronabinol), made by Unimed Pharmaceuticals, is the synthetic form of THC. Another issue is that since the vast majority of marijuana in the U.S. comes from the black market, agricultural standards are not applied to the farming and harvesting procedures. The amount of THC in smoked marijuana is variable so that accurate dosing is difficult. Also exogenous foreign materials like microorganisms, fungi, and pesticides have been implicated in marijuana use.

8. Continued • Marijuana has been shown to increase appetite and food intake after smoking. Surveys in the 1970’s showed that 93 percent of marijuana users reported enjoying food more after they smoked and subsequently ate more (Tart 1970). Foltin et al (1988) report an increase in food intake after smoking marijuana versus placebo This information is useful particularly for HIV infected patients who are at risk for opportunistic infections, enteric infections leading to malabsorption, and decreased caloric intake. These risk factors can lead to decrease in appetite, cachexia, and weight loss. Kotler et al. (1989) showed an increase morbidity in HIV infected patients with a weight 20 percent or more below ideal body weight.

9. Continued • The American Medical Association tried to argue for the medical benefits of hemp. Marijuana is actually less dangerous than alcohol, cigarettes, and even most over-the-counter medicines or prescriptions. Marijuana, in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man. By any measure of rational analysis marijuana can be safely used within a supervised routine of medical care. For marijuana to be illegal in the United States when alcohol poisoning is a major cause of death in this country and approximately 400,000 premature deaths are attributed to cigarettes annually. A Person that drinks an extreme amount of alcohol will experience and inability to stand or walk without help and may result in unconsciousness or death.

10. Continued • Even though these effects occur only under an extreme amount of alcohol consumption, the fact is smoking extreme amounts of marijuana will do nothing more than put someone to sleep, while drinking excessive amounts of alcohol will kill someone. The most profound activist for marijuana's use as a medicine is Dr. Lester Grinspoon, author of Marijuana: The Forbidden Medicine. According to Grinspoon, "The only well confirmed negative effect of marijuana is caused by the smoke, which contains three times more tars and five times more carbon monoxide than tobacco.

11. Continued • But even the heaviest marijuana smokers rarely use as much as an average tobacco smoker." Marijuana also relieves nausea suffered by cancer patients undergoing powerful chemotherapy. It is also used by patients who have multiple sclerosis and AIDS. Marijuana also proved to be effective in the treatment of glaucoma because its use lowers pressure on the eye.

12. Tax It For Profit • Legalizing marijuana would benefit States by providing much needed tax revenue. Take the profit from the underground and untaxed and place it in the hand of government to support libraries, schools, roads, police, firefighters, etc. An immense amount of money and resources would be saved. Prison would be reserved for serious offenders and probation officers could devote more time to serious probation and parole violations.

13. Continued • The Tax Cannabis Initiative would generate billions of tax revenue by legalizing marijuana. The Initiative could go on the California's ballot if enough voter signatures are collected. It proposes to tax and regulate marijuana similar to how alcohol is regulated and taxed. The Initiative would "allow people 21 years old or older to possess, cultivate, and/or transport marijuana for personal use.

14. Continued • If passed, the Tax Cannabis Initiative would create contractor jobs as regulated stores open to market marijuana products. Regulation would make marijuana safer. To avoid the negative effects of smoking, marijuana can be ingested by drinking, eating or taking a pill! Vaporizers could be sold as a safer alternative to smoking. It eliminates tar and other harmful chemicals and emits very little second-hand smoke.

15. Continued • Marijuana supports can expect strong opposition from companies like DuPont and paper manufacturers but the selfishness of these corporations should not prevent its use in society like it did in the 1930's. Regardless of what these organizations will say about marijuana, the fact is it has the potential to become one of the most useful substances in the entire world. If people took action and the government legalized it today, we will immediately see benefits from this decision. People suffering from illnesses ranging from manic depression to Multiple Sclerosis would be able to experience relief. The government could make billions of dollars off of the taxes it could impose on its sale, and its implementation into the industrial world would create thousands of new jobs for the economy. Also, because of its role in paper making, the rain forests of South America can be saved from their current fate of extinction. No recorded deaths have ever occurred as a result of marijuana use, it is not physically addictive like alcohol or tobacco, and most doctors will agree it is safer to use than those substances . Marijuana being illegal has no validity at all. Due to all the positive aspects of marijuana it should be legalized in the United States.

16. Continued • As we start the new century, people should be concentrating on the serious drugs like heroin and amphetamines. In the UK in 1991, 42,209 people were convicted of marijuana charges, clogging courts and overcrowding prisons, and almost 90 percent of drug offenses involve cannabis. The British government spends 500 million pounds a year on "overall responses to drugs" but receives no taxes from the estimated 1.8 billion pound illegal drug market. Figures like this can be seen in the United States as well. The United States spends billions of dollars annually on the war on drugs. If the government were to legalize marijuana, it could reasonably place high taxes on it because people are used to buying marijuana at high prices created by the risks of selling marijuana illegally.

17. Sources • http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=5&hid=123&sid=8e5c28c5-6490-4d80-9608-ff137e30a038%40sessionmgr12 • http://altmed.creighton.edu/medicalmarijuana/Clinical%20Use.htm • http://crimeinamerica.net/2010/01/27/crime-news-time-to-legalize-marijuana/ • http://voices.yahoo.com/legalizing-marijuana-tax-cannabis-2010-tax-revenue-4705339.html • http://www.uri.edu/personal/atro6990/ • http://www.godandscience.org/doctrine/medical_marijuana_review.html

18. The End.!!!!