Essay about Marijuana: Cannabis and Medical Marijuana Point

Submitted By Gabriella-Trujillo
Words: 1169
Pages: 5

Marijuana Legalization
“Why is marijuana against the law? It grows naturally upon our planet. Doesn’t the idea of making nature against the law seem to you a bit . . . unnatural?”
― Bill Hicks

In my opinion I think that marijuana should be legal for medical and recreational use.

THC and CBD a chemical that enhances marijuana's effects , marijuana's primary cannabinoids, are both cancer killers.
No, I'm not talking about using marijuana to help manage cancer's effects. It's actually anti-cancer.
Dr. Johanna Budwig’s research out of Spain analyzed the statistical trend of suicide after introduction of medical marijuana.suggests that THC, marijuana's psychoactive ingredient, kills brain cancer cells. Study co-author Guillermo Velasco claims that when THC was applied to cancerous brain tissue, the cancer cells were killed while healthy cells were left alone.
CBD apparently does the same; a pair of scientists from California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco demonstrated the cannabinoid ability to stop metastasis in many kinds of aggressive cancer.

Marijuana may reduce suicide rates, traffic fatalities
Contrary to the claims of outdated anti-marijuana Public Service Announcement, a new study published in the the American Public Journal of Health claims that legalizing medical marijuana can reduce suicide rates by five percent among the general population and by as much as 10 percent among young male population.
The study, co-written by professors from Montana State, San Diego State, and the University of Colorado at Denver, analyzed 17 years worth of statistics in search of shifts in suicide rates per 10,000 people in states where medical marijuana was legal from 1990 to 2007. Using the statistics of states in which marijuana is still illegal as the control group, the study’s authors concluded that in states with legal medical marijuana, the suicide rate for males aged 20-29 decreased 10.9 percent, and for men aged 30-39 they saw a decrease of 9.4 percent.
The study stated that estimates for females were less precise and thus required further study.
The researchers explained that, “opponents of legalizing medical marijuana point to the large number of studies showing that marijuana use is positively associated with depression, the onset of panic attacks, psychosis, schizophrenia, and suicidal ideation.”
“However,” they continued, “the association between marijuana use and outcomes such as these could be attributable to difficult-to-measure (extraneous variables,) such as personality.”
While the conclusion stated, “The negative relationship between legalization and suicides among young men is consistent with the hypothesis that marijuana can be used to cope with stressful life events,” the researchers noted that some men in stressful situations may also use alcohol as a coping mechanism and that the topic should be further studied.
The study is particularly interesting when looked at in conjunction with author Dr. Daniel I. Rees’ May 2013 study, published by the University of Chicago Press, which concluded that traffic fatalities decrease between eight and 11 percent in states where marijuana is legal, the first year after legalization.” It also stated that total beer consumption dropped five percent post-legalization and that traffic fatalities in which at least one driver had a positive blood alcohol content level lessened by 13.2 percent.

There is zero evidence that marijuana causes significant lung damage.
While vaporization is always touted as the safest method of marijuana ingestion, the largest study of its kind suggested marijuana-only smoking is harmless as well:
"We hypothesized that there would be a positive association between marijuana use and lung cancer, and that the association would be more positive with heavier use. What we found instead was no association at all, and even some suggestion of a protective effect."
The above words come from UCLA Medical Doctor