My persuasive essay

Jessica Mancini
Per ¾
1-3-11

Marijuana Legalization

Violence, insanity, common sense destroyed entirely. Are those the things that you want to be the characteristics of the majority of the world’s population? Doing drugs such, as marijuana will destroy your brain cells and your physical appearance as well. This extremely dangerous drug is actually in consideration of becoming legalized. Do we really need another legal drug like alcohol or tobacco for people to become addicted to and kill themselves with? The result of legalizing marijuana would be chaos. People need to know the truth of the dangers. If marijuana becomes legal, the next generation will grow up thinking that there is nothing wrong with doing and abusing drugs. People against this lunacy must do something to prevent it! Inform the government that this is not what we want; create a petition that says NO to the legalization of marijuana. Encourage others to make a point of being sure that Big Brother knows that this one legalization could immensely damage everyone.

Marijuana is a very harmful drug and is on the edge of being legalized. Marijuana can cause people to temporarily or permanently damage their nervous system and the rest of their body as well. Smoking marijuana causes distortions of perceptions, reality, and thinking, poor concentration, loss of motivation, confusion, mood swings, depression, anxiety, and paranoia. Basically, marijuana makes you stupid and scared. It also causes physical damage to other parts of your body, like your lungs. It can cause Emphysema, lung cancer, and Chronic Bronchitis. “Marijuana smoke has twice as much "tar" as cigarette smoke and significantly increases chance of lung cancer, inflammation, and infection.” (http://www.usnodrugs.com/marijuana-harmful.htm) Although experiments have shown that marijuana does not cause lung cancer, it has also been proven that it does. How could inhaling smoke not hurt your lungs? Lynne Eldrige MD says,” Many of us in medicine were shocked when a review of research to date did not show an increase in lung cancer related to marijuana use. There was even a suggestion that marijuana had a protective effect against lung cancer. Recent studies, in contrast, do appear to link smoking marijuana with lung cancer. “(http://lungcancer.about.com/od/causesoflungcance1/f/marijuana.htm) I know that marijuana affects your health in great deals because I have seen it in action. Many people that I have known that smoked pot when they were young, or still do, have serious health issues today because of it. A thirty-year –old woman that smokes marijuana has chronic bronchitis, and has no life because the drug has executed all of her common sense and motivation to succeed. It kills you I have never known or heard of a person that chronically smokes marijuana that has succeeded in life. Although marijuana is a horrible, life-threatening drug, it does have some medical benefits.

People need to be aware that marijuana is being mainstreamed into our society and not fall prey to the propaganda. They need to fight it with true facts, and enforce stronger restrictions to pro-marijuana laws that have already been passed. Asa Hutchinson of the DEA contended that, "California's medical marijuana law is being 'abused to facilitate traditional illegal marijuana trafficking and associated crime.'"(http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle-old/257/calmedmj.shtml) Medical marijuana is used for chronic pain relief such as horrible migraines or nerve pain in HIV patients. It helps because when you smoke pot you loose feeling and sense of reality, which, of course, will relieve pain. Dr. Donald Abrams, a cancer specialist at San Francisco General Hospital states, “I can recommend [this] one drug for all those [pains], instead of writing five different prescriptions.” (http://www.potlegalization.com/legalize-medical-marijuana-the-phoenix/) Sure, it helps in small proportions, but once someone starts, they get addicted and can’t stop. Many people that are fighting for the legalization of marijuana do not know the difference between supporting legal medical marijuana and supporting the legalization of marijuana just to get high. But medical marijuana has become a farce. Look in the back pages of the San Diego Reader, for example, and you will find ad after ad stating same-day prescriptions guaranteed, basically to anyone who is willing to pay. All that someone would have to do is pretend that the have some sort of pain and they can get a prescription. Ads for this are everywhere. This is just the beginning of the extreme infiltration of our society that would occur with legalization. Clean, medical marijuana can help if you use only a little bit for a short amount of time. However, many people don’t just use a little for short periods of time.

Some research has shown that marijuana is not a gateway drug, “The gateway theory has been proven wrong in several scientific journals and papers and yet, because of skilled management of the media, the theory persists, at least in the minds of the public.” (http://www.helium.com/items/389813-the-debate-over-legalizing-marijuana?page=3), but, in reality, they are ignoring the extraneous facts. Frequently, people who casually smoke marijuana, or begin as medical marijuana users escalate use until it becomes a habitual way of life. In addition, people that are addicted to pot almost never just smoke plain marijuana. It is commonly laced with many, even more dangerous drugs. Often times, they are chemicals that are fatal when mixed. They lace it with other drugs, or move onto different kinds because they get bored with the same old thing, and want ‘some new kind of kick’. There are certain personality types that are more vulnerable when it comes to this. According to the Psychology Encyclopedia, regarding the relation to drug abuse in addictive personalities, "Positive experiences with one drug may lead to experimentation with another, the "stepping stone" theory of drug use— for example, using marijuana leads to the use of hard drugs." (http://psychology.jrank.org/pages/11/Addiction-Addictive-Personality.html) With all of the incomplete misinformation supporting legalization, it can lead to nothing but disaster.

Legalization of marijuana is pending, and the people must be aware of the scheme that is going on around us and fight it however possible; protest, petition! This legalization could ruin the lives of so many young people. They think that it won’t really make a big difference in the ‘stoner’ population because the people that already do it will keep doing it and the people that don’t won’t. But that is not true. The more accessible it is, the more people will do it; it will consume everyone. Ignorance on the dangers of drugs leads to a world in the dumps. We do not want our next generation, our children, to grow up thinking that it is okay to do drugs. And may I recap on who actually began the anti-drug campaigns. The Regan administration started the “Just Say No to Drugs” campaign in 1986. Our politicians, it seems, need to be reminded of this policy and keep them on a straight path toward the goal of having a drug-free America!