[420 Girl]

Getting the facts about marijuana without positive or negative spin is a lot like trying to find an unbiased opinion about the health effects of abortion or a brief history of George W. Bush’s presidency without the words “fool” or “catastrophe” in it. I suppose the fervor stems from the countless after-school specials we watched as kids, the anti-marijuana propaganda films your grandparents saw (search “Reefer Madness” on google.com sometime) and the simple fact that people just like to rally against the law every now and then. As popular a topic of debate as it is, I hardly expected to see a legitimate yet poorly named piece of legislation — The Compassionate Care Act — vying to legalize the use of medical marijuana here in our fine, Southern, morally upstanding little state.

Opponents of any form of marijuana legalization usually present a few stock arguments — particularly, marijuana promotes sloth and turns otherwise productive Americans in to couch potatoes who would rather listen to Pink Floyd all day than go to work. However, to assume that a man who sits in his recliner and smokes a joint/doobie/blunt/so on to relax (or in this case, treat a chronic medical illness) must soon become a stoner mooching off society and eating Fritos while contributing nothing is, in a word, ignorant. By that logic, we should assume any man who likes to have a beer after work will very soon decide he should pound down 15 more and go home to beat his family.

Of course, marijuana, like most things in life, does have some drawbacks, though the people at NORML would never admit it (keep in mind, NORML is to marijuana what Fox News is to news). It has many of the same lung-based drawbacks as tobacco, though the relative severity is a hotly debated topic. As the famous girl-on-a-bike-at-a-drive-through commercial taught us, it also slows your reactions, though not as severely as alcohol does, supposedly. As for long-term effects, a Canadian medical journal reported “marijuana does not have a long-term negative impact on global intelligence,” though heavy-users showed lower IQ scores in the short-run. However, there is a vast array of medical articles both confirming and denying that result, so a definitive answer is still unattainable. Really, as far as side-effects go, marijuana should follow the same rule as alcohol, food and over-the-counter medications: use in moderation. Too much of just about any good thing is bad for you, be it smoked, drank or deep-fried.

On the topic of medication, you should also keep in mind the purpose of this bill — not a sweeping legalization of the drug, but provisions for its distribution to patients with debilitating illnesses. The act lists some of the conditions for which marijuana should be recommended by a doctor, including cancer, chronic pain and AIDS, according to legislature.state.al.us. So this isn’t a fancy way for people to sell dope to your kids and avoid Johnny Law, but is rather a means to ease the suffering of patients with incurable or debilitating illnesses via a small, doctor-approved dosage of a prescription drug. For that matter, even with its side effects, marijuana may yet be safer than many prescription drugs.

Watch some late-night lawyer ads on TV if you don’t know what I’m talking about. And if you’re worried about your kids getting any ideas from some pot-smoking, hippie cancer patient at the park, don’t be — the act forbids the use of medical marijuana on most public grounds.

All in all, this bill contains very little to get worked up about, though I foresee a wave of controversy and outrage swelling up anyway. There are far more dangerous prescription drugs out there that people have a much easier time finding, especially on a college campus. How often do you hear of people overdosing on marijuana as opposed to overdosing on prescription pain killers or on our favorite legal drug, alcohol? So let the guy next door suffering from chronic back pain light up and listen to Traffic for a while; it won’t hurt you a bit and you might actually enjoy the music.


http://www.420magazine.com/forums/in...gislation.html