A “High” Stakes Debate Proposition 215 in California creates a defense to criminal charges if a doctor recommends medical use of marijuana to a patient as well as a “high” stakes debate. The legalization of marijuana (or often referred to as cannabis) has been debated for centuries. A great number of people, including the United States government, are against the recreational practice of smoking marijuana. The government has led its citizens to believe that the act of smoking marijuana is a dangerous and unhealthy practice, which it is not. Despite the laws that are currently in place, there are many in support of the legal practice of using marijuana. Whether the use of marijuana is truly right or wrong, the use of this substance is growing in popularity and becoming a modern trend throughout the world despite the laws that are in use. The possession, use, or sale of marijuana became illegal in most all of the world by the early 20th century. Since then, many countries have intensified their laws against cannabis and strengthened their enforcements, while other countries have reduced or simply done away with the laws completely. Many people in support of the legalization of marijuana state that everyone should look back in history and use it as science: prohibiting alcohol did not work when attempted to do so, leaving no logical reason to believe that marijuana prohibition is any better of an idea. Those opposing, argue there is logical reason to prohibit the possession, use, or sale of marijuana. The most common reason used is that marijuana is a gateway drug, meaning marijuana acts as a stepping stone, or a gateway, that leads people to harder drugs such as heroin, cocaine, LSD, amphetamines, and ecstasy. Whether this is true or not, it is unknown. The ones in favor of legalizing marijuana claim it is a coincidence that many users of hard drugs have used or use marijuana themselves. On the opposing side, they fight that it’s the use of marijuana that introduced them to harder drugs getting them into the situation they are in now.
Many researchers have found marijuana is no more of a threat than alcohol or tobacco. Marijuana, like tobacco and alcohol, can be abused. “Cannabinoid hyperemesis has recently been described as a syndrome characterized by severe nausea and hyperemesis in the setting of chronic marijuana abuse and, to date, has been described only in adults.” (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/gquery/?term=medical+marijuana) “It is an undeniable fact that thousands of diagnose and undiagnosed ADHD people all over the world. Independently of local national laws these people use cannabis and cannabinoids as an alternative medication to standard medications like methylphenidate, anxiolytics, antidepressant and benzodiazepines to reduce their symptoms.” (http://www.cannabismed.org/english/bulletin/ww_en_db_cannabis_artikel.php?id=335) Now that the popularity of medical marijuana has peaked, so has the means in which patients ingest the drug. “Scientists at the National Institute on Drug Abuse in Baltimore, USA, investigated the pharmacokinetics of synthetic oral dronabinol (Marinol) in comparison with dronabinol in Sativex, a cannabis extract administered as an oromucosal spray into the mouth..” (Karschner EL, Darwin WD, Goodwin RS, Wright S, Huestis MA. Plasma Cannabinoid Pharmacokinetics following Controlled Oral Delta9-Tetrahydrocannabinol and Oromucosal Cannabis Extract Administration. Clin Chem. 2010 Nov 15. [in press])
“Opponents of medical marijuana argue that it is too dangerous to use, lacks FDA-approval, and that various legal drugs make marijuana use unnecessary. They say marijuana is addictive, leads to harder drug use, Interferes with fertility, impairs driving ability, and injures the lungs, immune system, and brain. They say that medical marijuana is a front for drug legalization and recreational use.”( http://medicalmarijuana.procon.org/) Doctors who are in favor of cannabis