Legalize Marijuana

“Why is marijuana against the law? It grows naturally upon our planet. Doesn’t the idea of making nature against the law seem to you a bit . . . unnatural?” -Bill Hicks. Marijuana is created from the dried leaves and female flowers of the hemp plant. The most active ingredient in marijuana is tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). Marijuana is also known as pot, mary jane ,grass, loud, and weed, the drug has long been used as a sedative or analgesic; it was in use in China by the 3rd millennium BC and had reached Europe by AD 500. Today it is used worldwide, though it is generally illegal. Before making the decision to legalize marijuana one needs to consider both the pros and cons of the situation. Marijuana is a drug that should be legal , and available for sale in every state of the United States. Should the U.S. Government legalize marijuana or not? To begin, there are many types of drugs in the world that set risk to one’s life, among them marijuana has proven to aid many diseases and has no deaths reported. There is overwhelming evidence from experiments that show marijuana can relieve certain types of pain, nausea, vomiting and other symptoms caused by such illnesses as multiple sclerosis, cancer and AIDS or by the harsh drugs sometimes used to treat them. Indeed, marijuana is less toxic than many of the drugs that physicians prescribe every day. In contrast, many people take caution in using marijuana due to the lack of consistent repeatable scientific data available to prove marijuana's medical benefits. Second, there is very little evidence that show smoking marijuana represents a significant health risk. Cannabis has been smoked widely in Western countries for more than four decades; there have been no reported cases of lung cancer or emphysema attributed to marijuana. On the other hand, cannabis smoking is likely to weaken the