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About The Clackamas print. (Oregon City, Oregon) 1989-2019 | View Entire Issue (March 2, 2005)
Q • ^É-JL A CKAM A sPfiflt March 2, 2005 Commentari FACE OFF: S hould M arijuana be legalized for MEDICAL PURPOSES? Marijuana should be legalized for anyone, in limited amounts Mike Guldlce The Clackamas Print irst and foremost, let me make it crystal clear so I can’t be accused of being biased. I am not a pothead or a hippy. I am simply a 19-year-old male college student. My stance on whether marijuana should be legalized is quite simple: why not? In this day and age seemingly everyone smokes weed, sporadically at least, and I can guarantee that is not going to change anytime soon, regardless if it is legal or not. Marijuana is a very popular recre ational drug. It is by far the most com monly used illegal substance. Research indicates that one out of every three individuals has at least tried it, if not used it regularly. I have always believed that most things used in mod eration won’t hurt you, and marijuana is no exception. Occasional use is not linked to any health problems and (despite what some may claim) it is not addictive like other harder drugs. One may become “addicted” to the feeling of euphoria they experience after smok ing or consuming marijuana, but there is nothing that shows that a person can actually become dependent on THC, the effective ingredient in the sub stance that makes a person feel high. Baron Davis of the NBA’s New Orleans Hornets was once quoted as saying that 80 percent of the NBA regu larly smokes marijuana. It’s evident that the substance is widely used and dis tributed in all communities, from lower class to high class wealthy suburbia. Professional athletes are not the only people partaking in the puffing of the magic dragon. People of all ages, from parents to grandparents, smoke, and the majority of kids have smoked by the time they have graduated high school, and if not by then, almost cer tainly will experiment with it in college. There is controversy over whether the drug should be used to combat some med ical conditions. Included are the effects from chemotherapy, predominantly nausea. I believe that if it does help in alleviating pain and other effects’ of serious ailments that people should be allowed to have a prescription for it. I propose this idea, the way marijuana should be handled from now on: It should be legalized in all 50 states, whether for medicinal or recreational purposes. There will be some restrictions how ever, because as I said, I am a firm believer in moderation. There should be a limit of an eighth of an ounc^per person, and all the same rules as alcohol should apply. If marijuana were to be legalized, it would reduce the black market, therebf negating a lot of the violence associated with it. The crime rate most certainly would be lowered in all communities. The govern ment could even tax the sale of marijuana and use the income to lower the national debt! What it comes down to is this. Plain and simply, people are not going to stop smoking ‘dro. The U.S. government can place restric tions on it, but really what are they accom plishing? The war on drugs is a losing battle, and the emphasis really shouldn’t be on outlaw ing marijuana. Other harder drugs such as cocaine and meth are the real killers. Marijuana should definitely be legalized for people who intend on using it for medicinal purposes and have the con sent of their physician. They might as well legalize it completely, though. Looking at the big picture, it really doesn’t matter because Americans are going to continue to light up, whether the government likes it or not. Student Pol Should medicd with aprescript Medical marijuana harmful, slippery slope to legalization r lason Pirtle J I The Clackamas Print sing marijuana damages the brain, heart, lungs, and immune system. It impairs learning and interferes with memory, perception, and judg ment. Smoked marijuana contains cancer-causing compounds and has been implicated in a high percentage of automobile crashes and workplace accidents.” - That quote was from Dr. John Walters, director of the U.S. Office of National Drug Control. Yet here we are saying marijuana is a cure. A cure for what? Pain? Really, medical marijuana creates more pain. If you want a pain killer, there are better medications out there. Besides, there is no proof that smoked marijua na is superior to currently available therapies. Yes, marijuana does help with the "Yes, but it should be difficu obtain a prescription.” pain, but it also is very hazardous to the human body. Mike Miller Marijuana cigarettes carry more cancerous tars than that of tobacco cigarettes, but we consider the drug to be medicine? Give me a break. It would be like Advil giving us a cancer-plagued pill to keep your little toothy from hurting. The pill gives you lung cancer and a month to live. But at least your tooth doesn’t hurt anymore. What we should be doing is concen trating on coming up with a better cure to pain. Medical marijuana simply ‘Yes, It’s a natural alternativi doesn’t get it done. In fact, it would addictive pain relievers,] take eight to 10 marijuana cigarettes a day to keep down the pain to a satis Liz Soots factory level. That’s a lot of pot each day, so who’s paying for it? That would be the taxpayers. Citizens and companies would be taxed to pay for medical marijuana, the unproven medicine. Why be taxed for a drug that we don’t want around our chil dren, when our tax dollars could be going to a better cause, such as our education system? The fact is a person infected with a “No, it makes you stupii] disease needs help, not a joint. In fact, Peter Morrow 77 percent of current illicit drug users use marijuana. Even more troubling, 60 percent of teens who use marijuana at the age of 15 move on to cocaine. So why would we give the sick a drug proven to give people a stepping-stone to more powerful and lethal drugs such as coke, or our featured topic, meth. If anything, medical marijuana is more of a burden than a cure to victims of diseases. One burden is the fact that marijuana is “If it helps them, it’s therij addictive. thing to do.” Patients would grow dependent on the Ryan Hansen drug to the point where their immune system would become ineffective and useless, unable to defend itself against the source of the ill ness, according to the Institute of Medicine. Ultimately, marijuana kills the body as it eases the pain for an ailing person. The Institute of Medicine stated that “the effects of cannabinoids (marijuana) studies are generally modest, and in most cases, there are more effective medications currently available.” IOM also concluded “there is little or no future in.smoked marijuana as a medically approved medication.” “No. They can find other '« So what’s all the hype about if marijuana hasn’t to treat ilhiesses besides ilk been proven to work? I think Dr. William J. Bennett drugs.” says it best. Reggie Stegmeier “Medicalization is a code word for legaliza tion,” he said, “something that Americans for tunately still oppose in large, though slightly This week ’s poll compiled ty decreasing, numbers.” Maybe people aren’t thinking of medical mari Laura Cameron. juana in medical terms.
