Marijuana Essay

The debate over legalizing marijuana for medicinal purposes is longstanding. Battles have been won and lost in courtrooms both federally and state to state. For years proponents have documented marijuana’s therapeutic value and adamantly defended the credibility of their studies. So strongly in fact, a proposition was voted on and passed in 1996 allowing limited medical use of marijuana in California and eight other states. But for just as long, opponents have refuted claims to the necessity of marijuana as a prescribed drug, warning of its potential dangers both to patients and society proposing instead, synthetic alternatives. The federal government fiercely enforces its zero tolerance drug laws seeing any legalization as a potential floodgate for widely accepted drug use. And so wages on the war against drugs.

Currently, marijuana is a Schedule I narcotic under the classification system set up by our nations Drug Enforcement Agency. This classification places marijuana in the same category with LSD and heroin, stating that it has no known medical value and a very high probability for addiction and abuse. This virtually places it out of reach legally for medicinal use. Historically marijuana has been used to alleviate a variety of problematic symptoms. In more recent years the push to prove its medicinal worth has been at a fevered pitch. Scientific studies have produced many positive results as to the medicinal value and necessity of marijuana as a viable alternative, not replacement, to current available prescription drugs. With the onset of AIDS and the near epidemic proportions of cancer, finding a drug to counter act the side effects of lifesaving treatments that cause severe discomfort has been a huge concern. Recognizing the valuable potential and reclassifying marijuana as a Schedule II drug would allow doctors to prescribe and regulate it for use among cases of severe medical suffering.

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According to Earnest L. Abel’s book Marijuana: The First Twelve Thousand Years, “Marijuana’s use as a medicine dates back to the twenty-eighth century B.C., when Chinese Emperor Shen-Nung prescribed it to treat diseases such as, constipation, gout, malaria, and rheumatism.” Since the substance was banned in the United States in 1937, the topic of legalizing marijuana for medicinal purposes has become a well-developed argument. The Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 effectively curbed the legal use of this drug. Edward Bloomquist, author of Marijuana: The Second Trip states, “It is suggested that the ban of this drug was not entirely set on reducing its use as an abused substance or natural analgesic, but more a scare campaign set forth by the timber and oil industries threatened by the possible commercial potential of hemp.” Just as prohibition gave rise to an underground take over of distribution and production of alcohol, so too has this 1937 ban given the Black Market drug lords control of marijuana.

Many opponents of legalized marijuana suggest that there is no scientific evidence of its medical value. At present, there are more than seventy modern studies published by government agencies and peer reviewed journals verifying that marijuana has medical value. According to the 1974 federal government report Marijuana and Health, “...Cannabis is one of the most ancient healing drugs.” The report further warns...”Marijuana should not be summarily dismissed for the possibility of therapeutic usefulness simply because the plant is the subject of current sociopolitical controversy.” In addition to published research there have been six studies conducted by state health departments. In the studies marijuana was compared to prescription antiemetics including the synthetic THC pill, Marinol. “The study found that more than ninety percent of the patients who received marijuana...reported significant or total relief from nausea and vomiting.”

Marijuana was found to be an effective and safe antiemetic, more effective than other drugs for many patients and having virtually little or no side effects.

Proponents of legalization of marijuana argue that the drug should be readily available to people in serious medical need. Many scientific reports suggest marked improvement in wasting syndrome (causing loss of appetite) associated with AIDS, nausea and vomiting side effects of chemotherapy, and pain and pressure from glaucoma.

The number one killer in our nation is cancer and our best known defense against it is chemotherapy. The very toxic drugs used in chemotherapy attack cancer cells very effectively, but unfortunately kill healthy cells and cause severe side effects, most prevalent, nausea and vomiting. Some patients retch so uncontrollably that they break bones or rupture their esophagus. These symptoms can often be eased by a group of prescription drugs called antiemetics. Unfortunately, unless the drug is administered intravenously which can take hours and cost hundreds of dollars per treatment, for up to 30% to 40% of patients, these drugs just don’t work. Doctor Lester Grinspoon author of Marijuana, The Forbidden Medicine, showed marijuana to be an effective substitute for these people. “ In a study conducted involving 56 patients for whom standard antiemetics were ineffective, 78% became symptom free after smoking marijuana.”

Acquired Immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) is one of the most profound deadly diseases of our time. The virus causes a breakdown of the body’s immune system, allowing otherwise harmless bacteria and parasites to wreak havoc upon afflicted people. One condition associated with AIDS is called Wasting Syndrome, which causes nausea, loss of appetite and in turn drastic loss of total body weight. This condition is often fatal as the patient often starves to death. In the New England Journal of Medicine Doctor D. Abrams reports, “In a study that involved 139 AIDS patients that used marijuana, 78% showed marked weight gain and experienced none of the undesirable side effects associated with the synthetic drug dronabinol.”

Glaucoma affects millions of Americans every year and is the second leading cause of blindness. It is caused by an increase of intra-ocular pressure and can result in damage to the optic nerve. Bill Sebastian 59, of Detroit Michigan openly admits to illegally using marijuana to alleviate the painful symptoms of Glaucoma. Bill is almost totally blind. “A few good tokes of marijuana usually do the trick. My back stops aching, the lump in my throat dissolves and the pressure in my eye goes away.” Quick effective results such as these make marijuana the medicine of choice for thousands of Americans like Sebastian.

In 1996 voters in California overwhelmingly passed proposition 215, the Compassionate Use Act. This proposition was to allow doctors to recommend marijuana to medically needy patients, and patients with the recommendation to use and cultivate small amounts of the drug under medical supervision without being prosecuted.

Unfortunately, federal level government refuses to recognize this proposition. As a result, innocent people are arrested whether they have a valid recommendation from a physician or not. Best selling writer and publisher, Peter McWilliams, a cancer and AIDS suffer since 1996, successfully used medical marijuana to treat the side effects of prescription medications until his arrest in 1998 for medical marijuana charges. Referring to California Attorney General Dan Lungren, McWilliams states, “If I can’t keep down the medications that are keeping me alive I will die. I am a California citizen. Prop. 215 is supposed to protect me. I deserve better than this from California’s Attorney General.”

To say that our current judicial system may be convoluted is a matter of opinion. Yet a recent story told by Paul Biscke, Co-Director of the Drug Policy Reform Group in St. Paul, Minnesota, might make you question whether the federal government always has society’s best interests as a top priority. Bischke tells a story of two strangely different sentences for two very different crimes committed in 1997 in Oklahoma. One, a father convicted of murdering his son was sentenced to four years of incarceration. Another, a 57 year old arthritic man named Will Foster, was sentenced to 93 years in prison for growing medicinal marijuana for his personal use in his basement. Perhaps the war against drugs has taken on too great a significance when it takes precedence over murder?

Medicine exists to heal and relieve pain. Thousands of medications, most modern but some ancient, aid the physician in helping the patient. One is marijuana, which can greatly reduce the suffering of those afflicted with such ailments as glaucoma cancer, and AIDS. The Burden of proof will always fall on the proponents for legalizing marijuana for medicinal purposes. The only way they can prevail in this battle is through continued studies, tests, and research to further prove marijuana’s medicinal qualities. Perhaps the fear of a society overrun by drugs frightens our federal lawmakers into an absolute zero tolerance drug policy. And perhaps the fear of losing a medical license is more than enough to prevent doctors from actually prescribing the drug rather than “recommending” it. Reclassifying marijuana would not allow the average Joe to purchase a joint at the local drug store. But it would allow some people with serious and often terminal illnesses to get relief and possibly have a better quality of life.

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