The fight for or against Medical and Recreational Marijuana 

Welcome to a world of controversy; a world torn by Mary Jane, Pot, Marijuana, Weed, Hemp, Dope, Ganja or Cannabis. Oddly enough these all happen to be the same thing, they are the drug that has taken over the government. The legal issue of marijuana has racked America for ages, and there has yet to be an answer found that satisfies everyone.

“Medical marijuana should be legal because people with cancer or other sicknesses lose hope, and medical marijuana helps to make them more upbeat and going,” senior Regina Moslener said.

California started the great debate by allowing the use of Medical Marijuana Nov. 6, 1996. Proposition 215 allowed, with the recommendation and prescription of a doctor, the patient and the caregiver to possess and cultivate marijuana for medical purposes. Medical marijuana was allowed to help cure/alleviate the pains of cancer, AIDS, multiple sclerosis, arthritis, glaucoma and migraines. This began the long string of 20 states and the District of Colombia allowing medical marijuana.

“Medical Marijuana does not have any bad side effects the way cocaine or meth does, so it should become legal,” junior Daija Eggins said.

The states that allow medical marijuana do have a few restrictions on the use. Most of the states have a fee for the patient to pay, ranging from $0 to $200. They have a possession limit that the patient must follow, ranging from one to 24 ounces. The amount of plants allowed is also kept under control. It is sometimes required that the patient and/or the caregiver have an ID to prove that they are able to use the medical marijuana.

The National Coalition for the Homeless states that substance abuse is one of the leading causes of homelessness, not that the homeless will become substance abusers. This is usually why teenagers end up homeless.

Regina Moslener has a friend who had become homeless due to drugs.

“One of my friends was addicted to weed and alcohol,” Moslener said, “and he became a slave to it. He had to constantly have it or be a part of it. It was an especially rough time in his life, so the fact that he was addicted to this was not helping. He has eventually gotten off of it and turned his life around.”

Texas is known to have very strict laws on drugs, and is not one of the 20 states that allows the use of medical marijuana. Any possession of it will land users at least six months in jail with at least a $2,000 fine. On occasion though, if there are no prior felonies or convictions, a judge may give probation with a type of drug rehabilitation. This is only if the charged person has less than a pound of marijuana, once the person reaches a possession of over a pound of marijuana the law becomes much more intense.

“People can get addicted to the high of weed, that is what is addicting not actual marijuana,” Eggins said.

According to the National Institute of Drug Abuse, about nine percent of chronic users of marijuana will become dependent upon it. If a drug is easily abused should it be legal? This leads to the conversation of alcohol and cigarettes. Those two things are legal, at a certain age, and are easily abused and highly addictive. According to the NCADD approximately one in every 12 adult Americans is addicted to alcohol, and the NIH says that around one in every five is addicted to cigarettes. Both have the capability to kill the user, or someone around the user.

When asking one sophomore her opinion of the effects of weed and driving or alcohol and driving, she asked for her name to stay under wraps for her obscurity.

“When driving high, it is a lot easier to pay attention and concentrate than it is when drunk. A person is dizzy when they are drunk and they do not really know what they are doing. When a person is high they become hyper sensitive to their surroundings,” the sophomore shared.

THC, the chemical within marijuana, would have to be over 20,000 to 40,000 times more prevalent in one ‘joint’ or ‘bowl’ to overdose a single person, and the ‘joint’ or ‘bowl’ would have to be consumed rather quickly. This is not the issue that is on everyone’s mind though. Like alcohol, weed can affect a person’s driving skills and ability to perceive situations. According to USA Today, a Canadian study went underway to see the effects of weed and driving, and those under the influence of weed are twice as likely to crash than those not under the influence. This is not a fully proven study yet. There are still many other studies going on to see the true effects of weed and driving.

“What a lot of the teens do not realize,” Nurse Jenny Knowles-said “is that marijuana makes their body work a lot harder. They think that they are relaxing when in reality their heart is pumping faster, their blood pressure is raising and their body temperature is rising. If over used it can eventually lead to heart failure.”