Marijuana Essay, Research Paper

For many years the legalization of marijuana has been debated all over the world. The use of marijuana has been used for recreation and medicinal purposes for thousands of years. The hemp plant, the source of the drug hashish, is one of the commonest weeds in the world. There is little danger that it will seriously promote the drug habit. Fear of its abuse has been expressed in various localities where the plant has been discovered growing. Hemp has been in this country for many years, having been introduced as a plant grown for fiber or oil and afterward having escaped and become thoroughly naturalized.

What one must understand first about marijuana is that it is not a drug. Marijuana is an herb that has drug like capabilities. It is a plant that grows naturally. Native Americans used marijuana in many different ways in their ordinary day of life. They used marijuana (hemp) for clothes, paper, rope, food, and oils. Our money that we use now is printed on hemp. Marijuana is also grown in abundance as a novelty. Marijuana can be used functionally as paper. Many industrial companies go into rain forest and cut down tries, which effect our environment for paper. This has taken a toll on society and the lack of natural resources. Because of the abundance of marijuana we could use it to make paper instead of cutting down the millions of trees a year that we do. Many of our famous documents have been written on hemp; The Declaration of Independence, and The Constitution of the United States of America.

Marijuana’s use as an herbal remedy before the 20th century is well documented. However, modern medicine believers have a different standard from those used in the past. The question is not whether marijuana can be used as an herbal remedy but rather how well this remedy meets today’s standards of efficacy and safety. This is one of the main reasons why marijuana is not legal in the U.S. People understand much more than previous generations about medical risks and dangers of smoking in general. Smoking is hazardous to our bodies and our health, which has been established. But the use of marijuana in other ways such as eating it is not. Our society generally expects its licensed medications to be safe, reliable, and of proven efficacy while this is not the case with most drugs. Although few herbal medicines meet today’s standards, they have provided the foundation for modern Western pharmaceuticals. People no longer have the choice in what type of medicines they prefer to use. Most insurance companies do not allow marijuana to be used as a medicine or remedy to illness. Most current prescriptions have their roots either directly or indirectly in plant remedies. At the same time, most current prescriptions are synthetic compounds that are only distantly related to the natural compounds that led to their development. Although plants continue to be valuable resources for medical advances, drug development is likely to be less and less reliant on plants and more reliant on the tools of modern science. Several people in support of the medical use of marijuana generally preferred herbal medicines to standard pharmaceuticals, which is a natural right, which is not respected by the government and doctors.

Marijuana is not only used for medicinal purposes it is also used with religious beliefs. My father and a few other of my family members are Rastafarians. They refer to marijuana as the ?holy herb?, and ganja. They use ganja as a natural mind altering substance. They believe that when they smoke or eat ganja it changes their thinking pattern. Subsequently they believe with the high that they are achieving, it brings them closer to Jah (God). Ganja is used for religious purposes for Rastafarians. Its use is written in the Bible in Psalms 104:14, “He causeth the grass for the cattle, and herb for the service of man”. The use of this herb is very extensive among the Rasta’s not only for spiritual purposes as in their Nyabingi (Rastafarian social event) celebration, but also for medicinal purposes for colds and such. The following are a few of the many Biblical texts that Rasta’s embrace as reasons Jah, gave for the use of the herb: ” . . . thou shalt eat the herb of the field ” (Genesis 3:18), ” . . . eat every herb of the land ” (Exodus 10:12), and also ?Better is a dinner of herb where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith” (Proverbs 15:17)