I know I shouldn't copy and paste, however, this file is too large.
I am having issue with the way my paper flows.
Marijuana
Marijuana is a potent mind altering drug which has a chemical base known as THC (tetrahydrocannabidinol) which delivers psychoactive effects. Some twenty five million Americans have smoked or ingested this drug within the past year, as over fourteen million do on a regular basis, and over two million of them being under the age of eighteen. This is something that plays a huge role in our culture and has influence on younger generations. With dispensaries popping up all over the cities, it is very easy to get this potent drug. A lot of people ingest this drug but rarely know the effect it has on the human body. We see it everywhere we go; it is promoted in videos all over the web, but most do not really know the side effects from it and where it can lead you down the road.
Marijuana has been around for years once was said to be used by our forefathers as well as our settlers when first coming into this country. However, the cannabis was mainly used for its hemp. Hemp is a fiber in the marijuana plant that is used for clothing, rope, paper, shampoo as well as medical purposes. For instance many of our documents were written on hemp, as well as the King James Bible in the seventeenth century. Hemp is said to be very useful and instead of chopping down all of our trees hemp was a very productive and suitable alternative. There have been some reports that people have ingested marijuana back when our forefathers were established. Thomas Jefferson was actually apart of those people that had smoke this plant as well. However, it was banned a dangerous drug and condemned illegal along the way after more extensive research was done.
Now millions of people all over the U.S have or do smoke marijuana illegally as well as legally but how does this affect our culture and our society that we live in today? This plant has been a part of our culture for a long time and is continuously becoming more and more accepted by all ages. With the acceptance becoming more tolerable more people are becoming less hesitant to try and use the drug for recreational and spiritual proposes. The drug gives people who smoke it a sign of relief as well as a relaxing and therapeutic outcome. Some people use the drug as a stress reliever; others use it as a spiritual tool to become one with themselves and their higher power.
I however, started smoking marijuana when I was fourteen years old and I smoked almost every day for almost eight years. It wasn't until I did extensive research as well as becoming more involved with my church that I decided it was time to quit. God wants us to be of sober mind and body, now I see why. Over the course of eight years I have felt the repercussions of my decision of smoking marijuana, as well as seeing the effects on all of my friends. The best way I could describe my situation is that when I started to smoke marijuana, I took myself out of an environment and placed myself into the mind set of this drug. After I stopped using it I felt like a fish out of water, best way to describe it. I was placed back into an environment that my body was not use to anymore. By my personal experience, it made me want to write my research paper on this specific topic to do some more extensive research. I am not saying that smoking weed is bad every once in a while, however, I want to target those people that are long time users as well as people that are starting to use this potent drug and point out the side effects that they might cross.
Whether you use cannabis for religious purposes or recreational purposes this potent drug is easy to find. Dispensaries are popping up everywhere around the United States and are able to "sell" marijuana to their customers as long as their customers have a marijuana card, which just about anyone can get as long as you know where to go. State law allows these dispensaries to medicate these people, however, federal law states that it is a crime. Some dispensaries are contributing millions of dollars in taxes for the government in states that are deemed legal to use marijuana, so why does federal law state that this is a crime? Is it because that they are not able to properly monitor this product? Once the government overcomes their barriers will they make it legal and tax it all while monitoring it. When this drug is available to all of these people, will they have done their research before using the drug or just dive right into it?
I have spent the last couple of days going over people's personal blogs, as well as reading articles and statistics. What I found in my research through the internet became very sensitive due to the high impact that marijuana has in our every day culture and society. In one article that I researched (How Marijuana Works) the author shows in a non biased way how marijuana affects our coordination, problems with learning and memory, panic attacks, increased heart rate, and anxiety. He also shows us the positives in some people who experience diseases because it's known to suppress nausea, relieve eye pressure, decrease muscle spasms, stimulate appetite, stop convulsions and eliminate menstrual pain, all of which is prescribed by a doctor. Each article or personal blog that I researched shared a similar opinion on the drug and the effects that it has on people outside of medical use.
Now a lot of people may argue (me included in the past) that marijuana smoke is harmless to the body and in your lungs compared to cigarette smoke due to having less toxins than that in a cigarette. However, I came across an article (Marijuana in the body- A fact sheet on the effects) that shows the difference between the two substances involved with risk for lung cancer and other lung diseases. This article also includes other valuable information that researchers have studied and posted which talks about the side effects from head to toe. This gives people a source that they can go to and read multiple case studies to become more informed on the dangers of marijuana.
I have always heard people telling me that "marijuana is a gateway drug" leading you into heavier and more potent and dangerous drugs. I disbelieved this theory; maybe it was because I was naïve. I used marijuana as an escape from reality and abused this drug to help me through certain phases of my life. I suffered from depression growing up due to some traumatic instances in my adolescent years that left me with nowhere to go. Feeling entrapped I followed my friends and started using this drug. When my body became immune to this drug and I did not feel the high that I once did when starting out with marijuana. I started to use other drugs that were introduced to me by the crowd that I was hanging out with. I started doing pills here and there; perkiest, valium, xannax, morphine. Which lead into heavier drugs such as ecstasy and cocaine. I was not dependant on any of these drugs until I was prescribed promethazine and codeine from my doctor. Which got me hooked onto this very powerful couch medicine, and was being prescribed a bottle every twelve days.
Over the years I have watched almost every one of my friends start off with marijuana and eventually get hooked onto another more potent and addicting drug. I have watched my friends die from overdosing on opiates, once a best childhood friend that was like a brother to me, steal my things and sell them for heroin. I have seen them get into car accidents, near death experiences. I have seen them behind bars for robbing people and breaking into people's homes. I have seen them do the most unspeakable things because they were high on something. I am not trying to persuade you that everyone moves up to these drugs, what I will say is that all of these people I use to smoke marijuana with no longer smoke the substance, yet they all use extremely heavy drugs to this day. My point is that drugs are all around us and it is up to ourselves to do our own research and find out the risks that are involved. Whether you are getting drugs off the street or your doctor is prescribing them to you, you must learn the affects of each one and what other alternatives that you have to fulfill your needs. However, marijuana can be used as a good alternate to other drugs that doctors prescribe such as opiates. It is all a matter of using these products in moderation.
There are a lot of people who are in need of this drug, so what medical value does it hold to patients? It has been known to help with the symptoms of the following diseases; Aids, Alzheimer's disease, Arthritis, Asthma, Crohn's, Epilepsy, Glaucoma, Hepatitis C, Migraines, Multiple Sclerosis, Nausea, Pain, Psychological conditions, Tourette syndrome as well as the terminal ill. So if it helps the pain and common symptoms of all of these, then how can we label it as harmful? This may be true, however, most of these patients will be injected with a low TCH level or none at all which is the main compound found in marijuana. It is the high content of CBD (Cannabidiol) that helps a lot of these patients cope with a lot of their symptoms. I have seen firsthand people that are in such pain and agony that have uncontrollable spasms that are unable to eat ingest cannabis and immediately treat their issues, which is truly remarkable and a lot less dangerous than using other medical drugs. Some is used with the THC and most is used without it. This highly differs from the stuff that you get from you drug dealer friend down the street which contains a high dosage of THC.
I conducted multiple interviews with different generations on their outtake on this drug over the years and asking them for their firsthand experiences as well. I conducted interviews on two different people from different generations. One was with a fifty-eight year old retired police officer. I asked him a series of questions pertaining to marijuana such as "What are your experiences with this drug over the years?" Seeing how he has been a police officer over the past thirty-five years he had a lot to say about the drug. He has never ingested the drug so he had no side effects but what he did have were the experiences with dealing with people who were on the drug that you do not see in most statistics that you can get from the web. He had this to say, "I have never smoked weed, however, I have seen what marijuana does to people and what it leads to. I have seen people DUI and kill children. I have seen gang violence that comes along with the territory of selling this drug. I have been to crime scenes where someone broke into another drug dealer's house to rob him of his dope and ended up killing the guy's whole family." He gave me a lot of information on his encounters that are not appropriate for this curriculum; he did however emphasize the violence that follows this drug when dealing with gang violence. When people become addicted to any type of drug, that person will go great lengths to get it even if it is marijuana.
I then interview a co-worker who is a heavy user; I asked him the same question and got a completely different response. My co-worker glorified the drug and emphasized the importance of it and why it should be legal. A person that has done his research front to back and will not be sway on his decision. While in the middle of the interview I paused and walked away for ten minutes to tend to work, I then came back to pick back up on the interview. His response, "What were we talking about?" After hearing this I felt like I had got enough research of his affects of his long term use.
Based off of my personal experiences and seeing the effects first hand and once being a firm believer that marijuana should be legal, I now change my vote that marijuana should remain illegal, until there is more research done on the body's reaction to the drug, short-term and long-term effects caused, and more clinical trials are successful. There is no way to monitor this drug and no way that we can deem this product as safe for use, it serves little purpose to the public and if anything this drug opens the door to Pandora's Box and I am not looking forward to seeing how our community and society will react when it becomes legal.
I am not here to persuade my argument into making you feel that marijuana should be illegal, I want you to take a look at my sources and conduct your own research of the pros and cons and the long term side effects. I was very excited and edger so share my opposition on this topic and I try not to be bias in my argument. I have experienced the transitions in believing that marijuana was good for you and seeing the affects that come with the long term use and what it can lead to. Once my objective was to convince people and argue my point as to why marijuana is good for you and how it should be legal, now with the research I have done and the experiences that I have been through my decision opposition has changed.
There is a lot of good in utilizing this plant in a moderate way. It acts as medicine for the ill, it can serve an alternative to rope, paper, shampoo from the hemp that can extracted saving us millions of dollars and saving our trees from being cut down. It can be sold and taxed, profiting millions of dollars in taxes that can be put back into our communities. However, there is always a price to pay, more like a cause and effect. We do not know what will happen if this becomes legal, but what we do have is what has happened leading up to this. We have sources all over that we are able to utilize to come up with valuable information to keep ourselves informed. Take action and do what you think is best. Keep yourself informed at all times and be aware of the effects it has on your body and our community. I will end with this question, what is marijuana to you?
I am having issue with the way my paper flows.
Marijuana
Marijuana is a potent mind altering drug which has a chemical base known as THC (tetrahydrocannabidinol) which delivers psychoactive effects. Some twenty five million Americans have smoked or ingested this drug within the past year, as over fourteen million do on a regular basis, and over two million of them being under the age of eighteen. This is something that plays a huge role in our culture and has influence on younger generations. With dispensaries popping up all over the cities, it is very easy to get this potent drug. A lot of people ingest this drug but rarely know the effect it has on the human body. We see it everywhere we go; it is promoted in videos all over the web, but most do not really know the side effects from it and where it can lead you down the road.
Marijuana has been around for years once was said to be used by our forefathers as well as our settlers when first coming into this country. However, the cannabis was mainly used for its hemp. Hemp is a fiber in the marijuana plant that is used for clothing, rope, paper, shampoo as well as medical purposes. For instance many of our documents were written on hemp, as well as the King James Bible in the seventeenth century. Hemp is said to be very useful and instead of chopping down all of our trees hemp was a very productive and suitable alternative. There have been some reports that people have ingested marijuana back when our forefathers were established. Thomas Jefferson was actually apart of those people that had smoke this plant as well. However, it was banned a dangerous drug and condemned illegal along the way after more extensive research was done.
Now millions of people all over the U.S have or do smoke marijuana illegally as well as legally but how does this affect our culture and our society that we live in today? This plant has been a part of our culture for a long time and is continuously becoming more and more accepted by all ages. With the acceptance becoming more tolerable more people are becoming less hesitant to try and use the drug for recreational and spiritual proposes. The drug gives people who smoke it a sign of relief as well as a relaxing and therapeutic outcome. Some people use the drug as a stress reliever; others use it as a spiritual tool to become one with themselves and their higher power.
I however, started smoking marijuana when I was fourteen years old and I smoked almost every day for almost eight years. It wasn't until I did extensive research as well as becoming more involved with my church that I decided it was time to quit. God wants us to be of sober mind and body, now I see why. Over the course of eight years I have felt the repercussions of my decision of smoking marijuana, as well as seeing the effects on all of my friends. The best way I could describe my situation is that when I started to smoke marijuana, I took myself out of an environment and placed myself into the mind set of this drug. After I stopped using it I felt like a fish out of water, best way to describe it. I was placed back into an environment that my body was not use to anymore. By my personal experience, it made me want to write my research paper on this specific topic to do some more extensive research. I am not saying that smoking weed is bad every once in a while, however, I want to target those people that are long time users as well as people that are starting to use this potent drug and point out the side effects that they might cross.
Whether you use cannabis for religious purposes or recreational purposes this potent drug is easy to find. Dispensaries are popping up everywhere around the United States and are able to "sell" marijuana to their customers as long as their customers have a marijuana card, which just about anyone can get as long as you know where to go. State law allows these dispensaries to medicate these people, however, federal law states that it is a crime. Some dispensaries are contributing millions of dollars in taxes for the government in states that are deemed legal to use marijuana, so why does federal law state that this is a crime? Is it because that they are not able to properly monitor this product? Once the government overcomes their barriers will they make it legal and tax it all while monitoring it. When this drug is available to all of these people, will they have done their research before using the drug or just dive right into it?
I have spent the last couple of days going over people's personal blogs, as well as reading articles and statistics. What I found in my research through the internet became very sensitive due to the high impact that marijuana has in our every day culture and society. In one article that I researched (How Marijuana Works) the author shows in a non biased way how marijuana affects our coordination, problems with learning and memory, panic attacks, increased heart rate, and anxiety. He also shows us the positives in some people who experience diseases because it's known to suppress nausea, relieve eye pressure, decrease muscle spasms, stimulate appetite, stop convulsions and eliminate menstrual pain, all of which is prescribed by a doctor. Each article or personal blog that I researched shared a similar opinion on the drug and the effects that it has on people outside of medical use.
Now a lot of people may argue (me included in the past) that marijuana smoke is harmless to the body and in your lungs compared to cigarette smoke due to having less toxins than that in a cigarette. However, I came across an article (Marijuana in the body- A fact sheet on the effects) that shows the difference between the two substances involved with risk for lung cancer and other lung diseases. This article also includes other valuable information that researchers have studied and posted which talks about the side effects from head to toe. This gives people a source that they can go to and read multiple case studies to become more informed on the dangers of marijuana.
I have always heard people telling me that "marijuana is a gateway drug" leading you into heavier and more potent and dangerous drugs. I disbelieved this theory; maybe it was because I was naïve. I used marijuana as an escape from reality and abused this drug to help me through certain phases of my life. I suffered from depression growing up due to some traumatic instances in my adolescent years that left me with nowhere to go. Feeling entrapped I followed my friends and started using this drug. When my body became immune to this drug and I did not feel the high that I once did when starting out with marijuana. I started to use other drugs that were introduced to me by the crowd that I was hanging out with. I started doing pills here and there; perkiest, valium, xannax, morphine. Which lead into heavier drugs such as ecstasy and cocaine. I was not dependant on any of these drugs until I was prescribed promethazine and codeine from my doctor. Which got me hooked onto this very powerful couch medicine, and was being prescribed a bottle every twelve days.
Over the years I have watched almost every one of my friends start off with marijuana and eventually get hooked onto another more potent and addicting drug. I have watched my friends die from overdosing on opiates, once a best childhood friend that was like a brother to me, steal my things and sell them for heroin. I have seen them get into car accidents, near death experiences. I have seen them behind bars for robbing people and breaking into people's homes. I have seen them do the most unspeakable things because they were high on something. I am not trying to persuade you that everyone moves up to these drugs, what I will say is that all of these people I use to smoke marijuana with no longer smoke the substance, yet they all use extremely heavy drugs to this day. My point is that drugs are all around us and it is up to ourselves to do our own research and find out the risks that are involved. Whether you are getting drugs off the street or your doctor is prescribing them to you, you must learn the affects of each one and what other alternatives that you have to fulfill your needs. However, marijuana can be used as a good alternate to other drugs that doctors prescribe such as opiates. It is all a matter of using these products in moderation.
There are a lot of people who are in need of this drug, so what medical value does it hold to patients? It has been known to help with the symptoms of the following diseases; Aids, Alzheimer's disease, Arthritis, Asthma, Crohn's, Epilepsy, Glaucoma, Hepatitis C, Migraines, Multiple Sclerosis, Nausea, Pain, Psychological conditions, Tourette syndrome as well as the terminal ill. So if it helps the pain and common symptoms of all of these, then how can we label it as harmful? This may be true, however, most of these patients will be injected with a low TCH level or none at all which is the main compound found in marijuana. It is the high content of CBD (Cannabidiol) that helps a lot of these patients cope with a lot of their symptoms. I have seen firsthand people that are in such pain and agony that have uncontrollable spasms that are unable to eat ingest cannabis and immediately treat their issues, which is truly remarkable and a lot less dangerous than using other medical drugs. Some is used with the THC and most is used without it. This highly differs from the stuff that you get from you drug dealer friend down the street which contains a high dosage of THC.
I conducted multiple interviews with different generations on their outtake on this drug over the years and asking them for their firsthand experiences as well. I conducted interviews on two different people from different generations. One was with a fifty-eight year old retired police officer. I asked him a series of questions pertaining to marijuana such as "What are your experiences with this drug over the years?" Seeing how he has been a police officer over the past thirty-five years he had a lot to say about the drug. He has never ingested the drug so he had no side effects but what he did have were the experiences with dealing with people who were on the drug that you do not see in most statistics that you can get from the web. He had this to say, "I have never smoked weed, however, I have seen what marijuana does to people and what it leads to. I have seen people DUI and kill children. I have seen gang violence that comes along with the territory of selling this drug. I have been to crime scenes where someone broke into another drug dealer's house to rob him of his dope and ended up killing the guy's whole family." He gave me a lot of information on his encounters that are not appropriate for this curriculum; he did however emphasize the violence that follows this drug when dealing with gang violence. When people become addicted to any type of drug, that person will go great lengths to get it even if it is marijuana.
I then interview a co-worker who is a heavy user; I asked him the same question and got a completely different response. My co-worker glorified the drug and emphasized the importance of it and why it should be legal. A person that has done his research front to back and will not be sway on his decision. While in the middle of the interview I paused and walked away for ten minutes to tend to work, I then came back to pick back up on the interview. His response, "What were we talking about?" After hearing this I felt like I had got enough research of his affects of his long term use.
Based off of my personal experiences and seeing the effects first hand and once being a firm believer that marijuana should be legal, I now change my vote that marijuana should remain illegal, until there is more research done on the body's reaction to the drug, short-term and long-term effects caused, and more clinical trials are successful. There is no way to monitor this drug and no way that we can deem this product as safe for use, it serves little purpose to the public and if anything this drug opens the door to Pandora's Box and I am not looking forward to seeing how our community and society will react when it becomes legal.
I am not here to persuade my argument into making you feel that marijuana should be illegal, I want you to take a look at my sources and conduct your own research of the pros and cons and the long term side effects. I was very excited and edger so share my opposition on this topic and I try not to be bias in my argument. I have experienced the transitions in believing that marijuana was good for you and seeing the affects that come with the long term use and what it can lead to. Once my objective was to convince people and argue my point as to why marijuana is good for you and how it should be legal, now with the research I have done and the experiences that I have been through my decision opposition has changed.
There is a lot of good in utilizing this plant in a moderate way. It acts as medicine for the ill, it can serve an alternative to rope, paper, shampoo from the hemp that can extracted saving us millions of dollars and saving our trees from being cut down. It can be sold and taxed, profiting millions of dollars in taxes that can be put back into our communities. However, there is always a price to pay, more like a cause and effect. We do not know what will happen if this becomes legal, but what we do have is what has happened leading up to this. We have sources all over that we are able to utilize to come up with valuable information to keep ourselves informed. Take action and do what you think is best. Keep yourself informed at all times and be aware of the effects it has on your body and our community. I will end with this question, what is marijuana to you?