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Legalizing Marijuana For Recreational Use in US
By Shawn Jande
Detroit, July 20, 2015
NRIpress-Club/Detroit
As you have been growing up, the government, your parents and many others have taught you that Marijuana is terrible to use.
- People have told you that marijuana is a gateway drug that leads to much worse drugs such as: Cocaine, Ecstasy, and Heroin.
- The marijuana is a dangerous and addictive drug that if used will destroy your life.
- It is also believed that everyone who uses marijuana are losers that have thrown their life away.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I am Shawn Jande from Michigan, the second NRI generation school student and son of doctor and mother MBA and CPA, here to persuade you that Marijuana should be legalized for recreational use in USA. The Three Reasons that support my argument include:
- Marijuana is safer than Alcohol
- Marijuana has positive effects with medical value
- The prohibiting of marijuana has been based on lies and disinformation.
Cannabis causes fewer emergency room visits per user than alcohol, pharmaceuticals or other drugs like meth, cocaine, and heroin, the publication Vox reports.
Marijuana causes 27 emergency room visits per 1,000 users in 2010. That’s versus 35 for booze, 111 for pills, 292 for speed, 325 for coke and 940 for heroin.
The first point I will be elaborating on to support my claim is that marijuana is safer than alcohol. On a per-user basis, marijuana causes 27 emergency room visits opposed to alcohol with 35 trips. Now after looking at this statistic we can start to see the truth of marijuana being substantially worse than alcohol. We start to see this through the worse effects of alcohol on its users over marijuana.
 Also, during an interview covering this highly debated topic, President Barack Obama told New Yorker Editor David Remnick "I smoked pot as a kid, and I view it as a bad habit and a vice, not very different from the cigarettes that I smoked as a young person up through a big chunk of my adult life," After this statement he followed up by saying "I don't think it is more dangerous than alcohol." Now I can understand if you don’t believe in one small statistic by the Washington Post, but I don’t know how the words of our nations leader won’t start to change your opinion on marijuana and alcohol.
In another Interview on CNN with the highly respected Dr. Sanjay Gupta who made 2 documenties on marijuana, including his change in opinion of marijuana.
Piers Morgan another man well-rounded on the topic both admitted to trying Marijuana, after admitting this they said that it is not nearly as bad as alcohol or other drugs. They stated in the talk “Right now marijuana is listed in the category of the most dangerous substances in America, which i believe is ridiculous!” They followed up by saying “The addiction rate of Marijuana is 9% compared to cocaine which is 20%, and this drug is considered less dangerous than marijuana. Smoking also has a 30% addiction , and the addiction rate of alcohol is higher than marijuana as well.” This information is astonishing! Not only giving us a statistical standpoint supporting the claim of alcohol being worse than marijuana, but it also gives us 2 examples of personal experiences with marijuana by professionals showing their current stance of alcohol and other drugs being worse than marijuana. Now, if you think this evidence is compelling there is much more to come supporting my claim.
Marijuana has positive effects with medical value:
- The second point I will be backing up with evidence to support my claim is that marijuana has positive effects with medical value. NORML, a website elaborating on marijuana's medicinal value stated “Modern research suggests that cannabis is a valuable aid in the treatment of a wide range of clinical applications. These include pain relief -- particularly of neuropathic pain (pain from nerve damage) -- nausea, spasticity, glaucoma, and movement disorders.” This really starts to shows the crucialness of marijuana as a medicinal value. This drug can really contribute to pain relief of neuropathic pain which can really be helpful and a useful.
- The Article also talks about marijuana’s powerful appetite stimulant, specifically for patients suffering from HIV, AIDS, or dementia. With this we can see marijuana’s positive contributions to not just mental disorders but also physical conditions, diseases, and disorders. Other conditions, diseases, and disorders marijuana can have positive effects on include: Muscle spasms caused by multiple sclerosis, Nausea from cancer, chemotherapy, Seizure disorders, Crohn's disease. All in all, as we take an overall generalization of the evidence we can summarize that Marijuana has many effective medicinal purposes that can be very useful and helpful if this drug is open to the public.
The last point I will be discussing is that the prohibiting of marijuana has been based on lies and disinformation. As I talked about in the introduction the government, family, and many others have taught us that Marijuana is drug that if used will wreck your life leading to addiction, diseases and in the end, death. I will be showing you with evidence reason why these allegations and stereotypes are all lies and disinformation. In Sanjay Gupta’s Documentary: Weed 2 Cannabis Madness, he talks about a 2 year old girl named Vivian. Vivian had a problem. She was having constant seizures. Now at the time this family lived in New Jersey where marijuana was illegal not only for recreational use, but for medicinal purposes. Vivian’s time was running out. Her parents ran out of medicines and treatments and their only hope was marijuana, but if they tried to seek out the drug they would be arrested due to the laws. This is just another example of politicians and the government not knowing the truth of Marijuana’s nature. All the government and politicians like governor Chris Christie (the governor of New Jersey) thought was that Marijuana was a highly addictive drug that gave a Hi and gave negative side effects, and provided no positive ones. Like Cocaine or Ecstasy. Americans need to be taught that Marijuana is not a terrible drug. Yes, it can have negative side effects, but it also has many positive effects, and it is not nearly as bad as cigarettes, and alcohol. We should learn from this point, and this story that Marijuana isn’t really as bad as it is made out to be, and it legalizing this drug for recreational use won't cause as much harm as alcohol, cigarettes, and other drugs, and it will also help girls like Vivian.
Under US federal law, marijuana’s cultivation, transportation, possession, sale and use is illegal, but: the federal government has announced that if a state wants to pass a law to decriminalize cannabis for recreational or medical use they can do so. Now, the use of both recreational and medicinal marijuana has been entirely legalized in the states of Colorado, Washington, Alaska and Oregon. The cities of Portland and South Portland in Maine fully legalized marijuana for both medical and recreational use. The District of Columbia has fully legalized recreational and medical marijuana, but recreational commercial sale is currently blocked by Congress. Twelve states have both medical marijuana and decriminalization laws. Ten states, Guam and Puerto Rico have only legalized medical marijuana. Three states and the U.S. Virgin Islands have only decriminalized possession laws. The remaining twenty-two states and two inhabited territories state that marijuana is illegal, a felony, or a misdemeanor
Throughout my speech we have elaborated on many points to support my claim that Marijuana should be legalized for recreational use in Michigan those points were that marijuana is safer than Alcohol, Marijuana has positive effects with medical value, and lastly, the prohibiting of marijuana has been based on lies and disinformation. With all the detailed and well explained evidence provided i hope that your opinion and stance on Marijuana changes.
Works Cited
- Feature, Anne HardingWebMD. "Medical Marijuana Treatment Uses and How It Works." WebMD. WebMD, n.d. Web. 11 Jan. 2015.
- "The Federal Government's Own Statistics Show That Marijuana Is Safer than Alcohol." Washington Post. The Washington Post, n.d. Web. 12 Jan. 2015.
- "Marijuana vs. Alcohol." SAFER -. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Jan. 2015.
- "NORML.org - Working to Reform Marijuana Laws." Medical Use. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Jan. 2015.
- "Why I Changed My Mind on Weed - CNN.com." CNN. Cable News Network, n.d. Web. 12 Jan. 2015. .
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