Pro-

With medical marijuana being such a hot topic nowadays, is it really as bad as most people say it is?

When most people think about medical marijuana, they think about things tied to it, not the actual medicinal perks that it holds. It is not the medical marijuana’s fault that people rob dispensaries, or that crime rates go up in neighborhoods where dispensaries are opened.

Those are the fault of the people that are uncivil enough to use the marijuana incorrectly and shouldn’t be there in the first place.

In 1996, California was the first state to legalize the use of medical marijuana. Since then, 20 other states have legalized it and even more states are looking to have it legalized also.

With almost half of the states legalizing it in less than 10 years, it is only a matter of time before all 50 states legalize its use.

All of Canada and most of South America have medical marijuana as legal or it is decriminalized. The United States should take note of this and follow in line in a timely manner.

The people aren’t the only backers of medical marijuana, even world renowned physician Dr. Sanjay Gupta has shown support and said that the Drug Enforcement Agency lists marijuana as a schedule 1 substance, which puts it on par with drugs like heroin, gamma-hydroxybutyric acid (GHB) and psilocybin mushroom (shrooms), but they have no scientific proof to support their claim to list it as such.

The National Institute of Health holds a U.S. patent for medical marijuana that was issued in 2003. The patent titled, “Cannabinoids as antioxidants and neuroprotectants”

Why would something so dangerous for us, a schedule 1 substance, be patented?

Antioxidants are found in marijuana but they are also found in everyday foods like fruits, vegetables, nuts and meat. Antioxidants are good for your body.

Studies have shown it to help people with a variety of medical systoms like pain, nausea and vomiting that are attached to serious conditions like cancer, arthritis and glaucoma.

With conditions like that those people are not looking for a cure but a way to help with the different levels of pain they are suffering with.

It has also been shown to not be anywhere near addictive or a “gateway” to using harder drugs.

People need to understand that it helps many people and also the patients who need it.

If you can get Vicodin from your doctor for pain, which is highly addictive, then you should also be able to get medical marijuana without being hassled or classified as a drug abuser.

The more you make a deal about marijuana being illegal, the people who truly need it are the ones who suffer.

The only people who benefit from it being illegal are the drug dealers and the people growing it illegally for them.

The problem here is not the medical marijuana and the patients who need it and follow the local laws to use it correctly, but it is the people who abuse the system.

Con-

Although marijuana has its medical benefits, unfortunately, this is overshadowed by the negativity tied to the people who abuse it.

Almost every time a new marijuana dispensary is established in a neighborhood, it automatically becomes an easy target for robberies, therefore affecting the rest of the area.

In Bakersfield alone, four different dispensaries have been robbed at gunpoint fairly recently, and one of these crimes resulted in two deaths. These crimes are in addition to the constant negative behavior that I witness around neighborhoods where the peace has been disturbed after a marijuana dispensary has been established.

The argument that is constantly being brought up is that marijuana can be used for medicinal purposes.

Medical marijuana is prescribed in order to help with headaches, nausea, vomiting, pain, insomnia, and lack of appetite, as well as treat the symptoms of Crohn’s disease, arthritis, and glaucoma.

However, what most people fail to see, or choose to ignore, is that marijuana only alleviates these symptoms; it does not cure the medical conditions.

Also, for most of the things that marijuana is good for, there are other medical treatments and drugs that help alleviate the same symptoms.

Another issue is that the whole argument about medical marijuana is unfortunately an easy excuse for irresponsible people who abuse it without needing it for medicinal purposes.

When compared, there are more people who abuse the drug than those who actually need it as a medical treatment. I have encountered a ridiculous amount of people who smoke marijuana “just to get high,” and I have yet to meet one person who uses it as a prescribed drug for a medical condition.

Furthermore, there is a contradictory issue with the use of marijuana as a medicine. It supposedly helps ease headaches, pain, and other symptoms, but at what cost? Research has shown that the abuse of the drug causes physiological and psychological problems, and although it has not been proven to be an addictive or “gateway” drug, some of the effects are extremely serious.

Some of the mild effects of short-term use include rapid heart rate, increased blood pressure, increased appetite, distorted perception of time, while some of the most serious effects include euphoria, anxiety, paranoia, short-term memory loss, depression, and in some cases, lung cancer.

Moreover, as previously mentioned, marijuana has not officially been proven to be a “gateway” to other “hard” drugs, but what has been observed is that people tend to imitate what they see. The expansion of the legalization of marijuana in more places across the nation is also regrettably causing for the use of it to be more socially acceptable.

Also, another issue that people tend to ignore is that although the physical effects fade after a few hours, marijuana lingers in the consumer’s system, which can possibly affect the person in some cases.

All these effects brought by the use of marijuana only bring a whole new list of problems that undoubtedly outweigh its medicinal perks.