Marijuana
By: Janna • Essay • 958 Words • January 14, 2010 • 722 Views
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Marijuana is the most commonly used illicit drug in the United States today. A combination of green and brown flower, stems, seeds, and leaves shredded into a dry mix. It is mostly smoked in cigarette, join, nail, pipe, or out of a bong. Its
also smoked in blunts, sounds harmless, so what is so incredibly bad about marijuana? Why do so many people have a problem with the legalization of it? Whether people believe it or not, it has some positive benefits, but I am hear to educate and inform you on the dangers of legalizing marijuana, and hopefully you grasp a better understanding of the drug itself and its negative effects.
Marijuana has many street names such as pot, weed, herb, grass, green, ganja, and hash are just a few of the many names given. The main active chemical in marijuana is THC (delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol.) The membranes of certain nerve cells in the brain contain protein receptors that bind to THC, which causes short-term memory loss. Marijuana also interferes with the male and female sex hormones; it produces feminine characteristics in males and masculine characteristics in females. Scientists say that “about 40% of the THC is stored in the body fat and is then slowly released into the blood and then stays in the body for over a month. THC is extremely potent. Most of the doctors say is it one million times more potent than alcohol. So if this drug causes so much harm to no only society but to your health as well, why do so many people want it to be legalized?
After taking my survey, 35 out of 50 people said they wanted the drug to be legalized. When asked if the drug would have a dramatic impact on our society, peoples mostly responded with the answer as being yes. This might come to surprise to some but most of the yes’s weren’t negative. Most people think that legalizing Marijuana could possibly increase our economy, because it would be taxed. The attempts to legalize it for medical purposes are an indirect means of achieving the total legalization of the drug. Although some answers were positive, the rest of the surveyors had given me the answer that “everyone would be smoking, no matter the age, and if that were to happen, our society would not only be affected, but the United States would be in a world of trouble.” There is probably enough common sense in our country to keep us form falling to the phony plea to legalize it for medical purposes.
These few point’s don’t even compare to the truth about marijuana, yes it probably would increase our economy due to tax, but we cannot
get greedy now because this drug is by far one of the worst out there. It is said to be the Gateway drug to the other harmful drugs such as Cocaine, Heroin, Acid, and many more drugs that are out there. Dr Robert Health of Tulane Medical School did some extensive studied on the effect of marijuana on Monkeys. What he came up with was “the cells in the brain, which were examined under an electron microscope, showed to have serious damage done to it, particularly in a deep part of the brain called the limbic system which is the center