Medical Marijuana Should Be Legalied

Medical Marijuana Should Be Legalized: Outweighing the Pros over the Cons

Imagine going about your life normally, doing the things we seem to take for granted like walking, talking, or even living pain free without a second thought. Then one morning you wake up and your sense of balance in off and you fall flat on your face. This becomes more prevalent to the point you call your doctor who in turn admits you into the hospital. After a few tests, the doctor comes into the room with the bad news, you have multiple sclerosis. Your whole world has crashed before your eyes. You can no longer walk, talk, read, write, or see. How do you feel now? This is a true story of a man by the name of Greg Paufler who was diagnosis with multiple sclerosis and found marijuana to be the only drug that could improve his everyday living. Greg Paulfer is not the only patient who has found the effectiveness of marijuana; tens of thousands of patients are using marijuana illegally to treat their suffering. Opponents of medical marijuana believe that the drug has no medical value and no place in the medical field for fear that the steps to legalization would set a standard to legalize all drugs, as well as addiction, violence, and a path to use other more harmful drugs. However, several studies have proven marijuana to be an effective medicine to help alleviate the suffering patients must endure from such aliments as glaucoma, multiple sclerosis, AIDS, cancer, epilepsy, and even chronic pain to name a few. Over the past two decades, hundreds of researched articles on medical marijuana have been published informing the government and the public of the possible greatness this drug could do if only it were made available to the patients who so desperately need it. Nonetheless, medical marijuana is still deemed to have no medical value at all and as a result, millions of individuals who could benefit from this drug are left to either take their chance with the law, or make the best of their illness with medications that are found to be not as effective as marijuana. It should not be this way, we as Americans have the right to proper health care and the right to medications that are proven to be safe and effective. Medical marijuana should be legalized for all patients who prove to need the drug on the basis of its proven effectiveness over other legalized medications and the overabundance of scientific evidence of marijuana's medical value.

As of today, marijuana is placed in Schedule I deeming it abusive with no medical value what so ever. Proponents of medical marijuana were outraged at this decision and as a result, they took action in the courtroom to overturn the scheduling of marijuana to a Schedule II drug. Trials continued until March of 1992 with no success for the reclassification of medical marijuana. However, the Food and Drug Administration had begun a program commonly known as Compassionate IND, in the mid-1970s, which allowed patients to obtain medical marijuana. A breakthrough for the proponents until the program closed in 1989 because of an enormous increase in applicants. Today, only eight people continue to use marijuana legally through the program.

For these eight individuals a victory has been won but what of the many millions of anguished patients who could benefit from this drug? The government has led us to believe that marijuana is a very dangerous substance that causes addiction, violence, and has no medical value at all. However, throughout history in many cultures and civilizations marijuana has been reported to be an effective medicine for many different illnesses. According to Dr. Lester Grinspoon in his book, "Marijuana The Forbidden Medicine", the drug originated in Asia around the time of 8000BC and has long been used as a medicine in India, China, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, South Africa, and South America for aliments such as venereal diseases, headaches, fevers, stimulation of appetite, pain, bronchitis, and asthma. In the late 1800s many different physicians after much study and research believed marijuana to be a drug of medical value that should be recommended to patients.

In more recent years, marijuana has been proven to alleviate such illnesses as nausea, caused by chemotherapy that can become so intense it has been reported that patients may break bones or rupture the esophagus while vomiting, glaucoma, by maintaining what sight is left and by reducing the pressure on the eyeball, and even pain. Hundreds of studies state the many benefits marijuana has to offer with an incredible success for example, according to the American Prospect in 1997, "Results from studies...found that smokable marijuana and THC out preformed the best available prescription drugs, reporting success rates close to ninety percent".

Though proponents of medical marijuana have seen victory for the eight states that have legalized medical marijuana, the laws today still have a long way to go. As of today in Arizona for example, physicians are allowed to recommend marijuana but not able to prescribe it. After evaluation to determine if the patient qualifies for the drug, the patient is given an identification card to protect him or her from prosecution. Laws are being passed to supposedly help patients by legalizing medical marijuana in certain states, yet the physicians are not allowed to prescribe the marijuana which leaves the patient which no other alternative then to venture out into the war zone of drug dealers to obtain their own medical marijuana. Since "marijuana cannot be prescribed because it is a Schedule I drug, a patient may get the recommendation, but procuring the marijuana still requires breaking the law" as quoted by Marcia Tiersky in the Northwestern University Law Review. As the law stands today, a change is desperately needed.

Unlike the prescriptions that fall under the category of Schedule II drugs, marijuana is relatively safe. There has been no record of overdose due solely to marijuana, yet society has deemed it acceptable to prescribe drugs that may cause serious side effects, up to and including death. This makes no sense to jeopardize the health of seriously ill patients by prescribing narcotics that are proven to be highly addictive and cause much more serious side effects then to give in to the safer alternative being marijuana. The government has led the public to believe marijuana is a dangerous drug, however, according to the Washington Post in 2004,