[420 Girl]

Marijuana, grass, weed, pot, Mary Jane, dope or wacky tobaccy. No matter what you choose to call it, we all know that these nicknames refer to the plant cannabis sativa.

As opposed to other drugs such as her*oin, morphine, methamp*hetamines, coc*aine and even aspirin or caffeine, marijuana has no reported fatality from overdose ever according to “Controversies in the Practice of Medicine,” by Goldstein, M.C., and Goldstein, M.A.

Marijuana has a bad reputation of killing brain cells, causing mental illness, being highly addictive, being more damaging than tobacco and ultimately is a gateway drug.

None of these common ideas about the drug have yet been proven, and some have even been proven false.

Take the dependency theory, for example. There have been many cases of people who smoked marijuana on a regular basis and stopped completely with no withdrawals or other symptoms of dependency on the drug. Less than one percent of Americans have felt any kind of withdrawals from the drug, and even those were mild, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.

Marijuana has many medical benefits. It has been used since 2737 B.C. by the Chinese and was picked up by other cultures as well for easing pain to helping the appetite.

For cancer patients, it has been highly effective at decreasing the nausea often felt after chemotherapy sessions. AIDS patients have also used the drug to decrease nausea and increase their appetite.

I believe that if marijuana were first discovered in today’s age, it would be praised and used for a variety of medical and non-medical reasons. It is a multi-purpose substance that has fewer negative effects than cigarette or alcohol use.

Take a moment to compare marijuana use with alcohol consumption. Somebody consumes even just one alcoholic beverage per day is highly likely to become an alcoholic and become dependent on the substance. Marijuana, on the other hand, is not an addictive drug. According to Dr. Phillip Leveque, it is “less addicting than a Starbucks espresso.”

Just as cigarettes and alcohol are taxed and restricted to a certain age, marijuana could have similar restrictions to the public; for example, it could only be available to adults over 18 years of age because of brain development and responsibility. And people should not drive under the influence of the drug because it does temporarily affect how you react.

I think that if marijuana was made legal, not only for medical use but also for recreational purposes, and if taxed, it could help our country’s economical situation.

In California alone, the revenue from taxing marijuana was predicted by tax officials to be nearly $1.4 billion. If that is from only one state, think about how much our country could benefit from legalizing and taxing marijuana in half of the states. What about in all of the states? That kind of economic boom could quite possibly end the recession that we are going through.

If more people knew the truth about marijuana and did research for themselves to learn about it, I think it would be more accepted and appreciated.

It helps people with cancer, AIDS and insomnia, it is not addictive, has never caused death and it could help our country financially.

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