Download Medical Marijuana

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Kayla Asche
Community Health
December 6, 2012
Medical Marijuana
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Marijuana is a dry shredded green and brown mix of flowers, stems, seeds, and leaves
that come from the hemp plant called Cannabis sativa. The main active chemical in marijuana is
delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol or THC for short (NIDA, 2010). Marijuana is the most commonly
abused illicit drug in the United States and has many affects on the brain and other parts of the
body. According to NIDA, “THC rapidly passes from the lungs into the bloodstream, which
carries the chemical to the brain and other organs throughout the body,” (2010). Once you get the
‘high’ from marijuana use, you will most likely experience distorted perceptions, impaired
coordination, difficulty with thinking and problem solving, and problems with learning and
memory. For those that are chronic smokers, problems with learning and memory can last for
days or weeks, they will function at a suboptimal intellectual level all of the time, have an
increased rate of anxiety, depression, and schizophrenia, and addiction, (NIDA, 2010).
Marijuana also effects the heart and lungs. This drug increases heart rate by 20-100
percent after smoking and can last up to 3 hours and there’s a risk of heart attack in the first hour
after smoking (NIDA). Marijuana smoke contains 50-70 percent more carcinogenic
hydrocarbons than tobacco smoke. Users of this drug usually inhale more deeply and hold their
breath longer than tobacco smokers and this has negative effects on the lungs in multiple ways
because it increases the lungs exposure to carcinogenic smoke (NIDA, 2010). Not only does this
drug effect the brain and body, it can negatively effect your daily life by causing problems in
daily life or make a person;s existing problems worse (NIDA, 2010).
In addition to all these negative effects, there is a potential for addiction. According to
NIDA, “long-term marijuana abuse can lead to addiction; that is, compulsive drug seeking and
abuse despite the known harmful effects upon functioning in the context of family, school, work,
and recreational activities. Estimates from research suggest that about 9 percent of users become
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addicted to marijuana; this number increases among those who start young (to about 17 percent)
and among daily users (25-50 percent),” (2010). Knowing that marijuana has all these negative
effects and the user may have the risk of addiction, why is it used as medicine?
According to Bostwick, physicians and the general public alike are in broad agreement
that Cannabis sativa shows promise in combating diverse medical illnesses. “Marijuana has
become ‘medicine by popular vote’ in states that formulate medical marijuana statutes based not
on scientific evidence but on political ideology and gamesmanship,” (Bostwick, 2012). Medical
marijuana has become an option for those whose available pharmaceuticals have proven
ineffective, including individuals with nausea and vomiting from cancer chemotherapy, by
decreasing nausea, or anorexia in HIV, by helping increase appetite (Bostwick, 2012). In
Bostwick’s article, he mentions that in a recent report by the Institute of Medicine, a 1999 study
found that smoked marijuana stimulates appetite, particularly in AIDs patients, and also combats
chemotherapy induced nausea and vomiting, severe pain, and some forms of spasticity. This is
also stated in the NIDA article that the potential medicinal properties of marijuana have been the
subject of substantive research and heated debate. Scientists have confirmed that the cannabis
plant contains active ingredients with therapeutic potential for relieving pain, controlling nausea,
stimulating appetite, and decreasing ocular pressure (2012).
More than a dozen states and the District of Columbia have legalized the use of
marijuana for medicine, but under the federal law, marijuana remains illegal. According to the
article “The myth of ‘medical marijuana’”, marijuana is not medicine, but some of the chemicals
found in marijuana have been developed into medication, (2012). This article also discusses that
marijuana is not an FDA-approved medication. “The FDA is the government agency that is
responsible for making sure that medications are safe and effective and that their likely benefits
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are greater than any possible harmful effects,” but marijuana has not gone through the FDA
approval process to show that its benefits outweigh its risks (The myth of “medical marijuana”,
2012).
An interesting quote from Dokoupil states, “The number of regular pot users is up by 3
million in the past five years, and the rate of high-school experimentation is at a 30-year high.
When a kid first lights up at about age 16, it's usually not with a cigarette. Twelve states now
treat a personal stash like a minor traffic offense, 17 allow medical marijuana, and this Election
Day, if current polls hold, voters in Washington State and Colorado will vote to legalize
marijuana-not for medical purposes but, as Rolling Stone recently enthused, ‘for getting-high
purposes,’” which has happened (2012). So is marijuana truly a medicine?
References
Bostwick, J. (2012). Blurred Boundaries: The Therapeutics and Politics of Medical Marijuana.
Mayo Clinic Proceedings, 87(2), 172-186. doi:10.1016/j.mayocp.2011.10.003
Dokoupil, T. (2012). High times in america. (Cover story). Newsweek, 160(18), 26-31.
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National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). (2012, November). Drugfacts: marijuana. Retrieved
from http://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/marijuana
The myth of “medical marijuana”. (2012). Scholastic Choices, 27(6), 22-23.
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