Should Marijuana be Legalized in all States or Not (Essay Sample)

Should Marijuana be legal in every state?
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Introduction
In the past few decades, the shift in cultural attitudes towards Marijuana for recreational and medicinal use has intensified. As of April 2022, medicinal and recreational Marijuana was legal in 20 American states, with the number of states legalizing the substance expected to rise in the near future. An overwhelming majority of adults (91%) in the U.S.A. agree that Marijuana should be legalized for recreational use (60%) and medical uses (31%) (Van Green, 2021). From 2000 to 2020, the number of Americans agreeing with the legalization of Marijuana doubled, with young adults being at the forefront in its call for legalization (Yu et al., 2020). According to Van Green, (2021), older adults above 75 years remain the only group of citizens less likely to favor the legalization of Marijuana for recreational purposes and instead prefer its legalization on medical grounds only. For many proponents and supporters of marijuana legalization, the call for legalization is primarily based on the three grounds: (1) that if alcohol and cigarettes are legal, then Marijuana should also be legal; (2) that Marijuana shows substantial promises for good medicine and should therefore be legalized; and (3) that Marijuana can offer substantial economic value to an economy and should therefore be legalized (Wilkinson, 2013). Despite these grounds, there is substantial evidence indicating that the legalization of Marijuana may bring adverse effects on both individual and public health and, therefore, should not be legalized in any state.
Medicinal use of Marijuana
Medicinal substance refers to any substance that has healing properties. The potential therapeutic properties of Marijuana have been a subject of debate for many decades. While a few medicinal properties have been discovered, several others are still in the trial (Carter et al., 2015). The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (F.D.A.) has already approved two naturally occurring compounds (THC-based medications) found in Cannabis Sativa as medically useful (Wilkinson, 2013). The two cannabinoids, namely dronabinol and nabilone, are pills used to manage nausea among patients undergoing chemotherapy or patients experiencing a decline in health due to immune destroying diseases such as AIDS. Other treatments discovered include Nabiximols mouth sprays used to treat neuropathic pain that accompanies multiple sclerosis (Carter et al., 2015). The F.D.A. further approved a cannabinoids based liquid medication called Epidiolex to treat severe childhood epilepsy, Lennox Gaustaut syndrome, obstructive sleep apnea syndrome, and Dravet syndrome. Overall, Marijuana stands as a critical product in chronic pain management. A study by a group of Oxford researchers concluded that "marijuana does not act like conventional pain medicine. Instead, marijuana, as seen through M.R.I. machines, appears to mainly affect the emotional reaction to pain in a highly variable way” (Stronbeng, 2012).
According to Carter et al. (2015), commercially available drugs in the U.S. and all other countries are always subject to rigorous clinical trials to determine their safety and efficiency. Currently, the data appraising the effectiveness of Marijuana in pain management and in managing conditions such as chemotherapy-associated vomiting, epilepsy syndrome, and AIDS, is limited and anecdotal, creating more questions surrounding its medicinal value. Recent studies find little evidence to support smoked Marijuana in pain management, sclerosis, and other symptoms (Strongberg, 2012). While available evidence does not mean that Marijuana lacks the medicinal value to alleviate symptoms and treat pain, the evidence to justify its legalization is still shallow and unjustifiable. Unless more evidence-based research on Marijuana is done, americans might never understand which cannabinoids are therapeutic and which ones are deleterious. Marijuana potentially has medicinal values but is still misunderstood, raising concerns about its health impacts.
Compared to cigarettes, Marijuana releases three times more tar and four times more carbon monoxide (Hädener et al., 2019), making it much riskier for human health. Current research considers some extracts from Marijuana to be more therapeutically promising than the use of the whole marijuana plant or its crude extracts through smoking. Smoking marijuana does not offer scientifically known medicinal values (Pacula & Smart, 2017). To introduce Marijuana as a legal substance for medicinal purposes, there is a need for rigorous approval processes that other commercially traded drugs pass through. The potential medicinal values of Marijuana should be further investigated and only brought to the public after full ascertaining of their efficacy and acceptable safety standards (Wilkinson, 2013). If the medicinal value is determined and confirmed, Marijuana ought to be administered in ways that pose less risk to humans than through smoking and should be dispersed through approved state-regulated pharmacies to reduce the risk of abuse. The current initiatives to use the popular vote to support a product that offers medicinal values set a dangerous precedent for a nation. Traded drugs such as Dextromethorphan (DXM) follow a set of standards, and Marijuana must be subjected to the same if it has medicinal values.
Recreational Marijuana
The call for the legalization of Marijuana for recreational purposes has become so common in the past decade, with some states, including Colorado and Washington, already permitting its recreational purposes by the general public (Wilkinson, 2013). Many people supporting the debate on recreational Marijuana attribute the substance to a feeling of joy, increased appetite, problem-solving, and increased sense of sight, taste, and hearing. Unfortunately, the negative impacts of Marijuana rarely feature in the debate over the legalization of Marijuana for recreational purposes. However, an extensive look at the adverse health effects of Marijuana presents enough reasons to abort the popular opinion of legalizing Marijuana for recreational reasons. A significant number of proponents of marijuana legalization hold the narrative that Marijuana is not addictive. However, data indicates that 15% of that smoking marijuana become addicts, with over 70% being youths (Bonnet & Preuss, 2017). Also, increased use of Marijuana not only triggers addiction but also increases the risk of developing withdrawal symptoms characterized by insomnia, anxiety, depression, restlessness, and changes in appetite. Bonnet and Preuss (2017) argue that withdrawal syndrome affects about 40% of marijuana users, making it more threatening in the long term than what its recreational values depict to offer.
Additionally, marijuana use increases the risk of developing schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders. According to Wilkinson (2013), the association between Marijuana and psychotic conditions such as Schizophrenia fulfills almost all standard criteria for the epidemiological establishment of causation, including temporal relationship, experimental evidence, biological gradient, and plausibility. Other evidence cites Marijuana as a cause of cognitive decline over time (Hädener, et al., 2019). In a study conducted by Meier et al. (2016), which followed a subject from birth to age 38, evidence indicated that cannabis use, primarily when used from a tender age, impaired cognitive functions in many ways, including decreasing one’s verbal comprehension, processing speed, memory, and perceptual reasoning. In addition to cognitive impairment, Marijuana triggers respiratory diseases over time. Marijuana is attributed to an increased risk of obstructive and inflammatory lung diseases, lung cancer, and reduced pulmonary functioning (Ghasemiesfe et al., 2018).
In addition to health implications, Marijuana has significant social safety implications that should never be ignored. Without full legalization of Marijuana, society is already feeling the safety impacts of Marijuana on the American roads. Marijuana smoking impairs judgment and reduces the overall ability to drive or walk safely (Hansen, Miller, & Weber, 2020). As a result, drug-related fatalities have increased in the past decade with Marijuana related accidents and deaths ranking second after alcohol. In all American road accidents that resulted in the death of drivers, 12% of those who died were marijuana users. The number of crash deaths involving marijuana users doubled from 9% in 2000 to 22% in 2018 (Hansen, Miller, & Weber, 2020).
Conclusion
In conclusion, some existing evidence finds compounds in Marijuana to be therapeutically beneficial. A few cannabinoids are, in that regard, thought to be ideal