This is a little essay i wrote for eng class, perfect score
most of the info was used from
http://erowid.com/plants/cannabis/cannabis_faq1.shtml
“Marihuana is that drug - a violent narcotic - an unspeakable scourge - The Real Public Enemy Number One!” But is Marijuana really a narcotic that terrorizes the youth and leads to violence? That was suggested during the 1930’s in such movies such as Reefer Madness where the quote comes from. Many people are brainwashed through propaganda and lies that marijuana or “weed, cannabis, pot, & grass” is a terrible drug. Allegations are made against marijuana stating that it kills brain cells, is addictive, and that it makes you lose ambition in life. The simple truth is that marijuana is harmless and it can provide us with great resources and products. Marijuana provides us with fuel, food, clothes, medicine and much more so it should be legalized by the government.
First off, pot does not affect your body in a negative way. The only negative side effect is the lung problems you may develop after long term use. You get the same lung problems from cigarettes but you won’t have to be addicted and it provides much more for the body. Weed does not stay in your fat cells and keep you “high” for months. The active ingredient that gets you high is THC (Delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol) and it get stored in your fat cells and then leaks out later so you be intoxicated for a few hours not months.
People also say that marijuana is more potent now than in sixties or that is 10 times more powerful than back then. This is not true but it would be very good if it was because if it’s more potent, it means you need less of it to get you intoxicated. If marijuana was more potent there would be less lung damage. Most of the people who make these claims don’t know what they are saying. Also, people do not die from smoking weed. There is no overdose limit to marijuana. There has never been a recorded incident of a death directly linked to marijuana. In extremely rare cases, people have allergic reactions to it.
According to the Merck Index, the lethal dose for 50% of rats tested by inhalation would be equivalent of a 165 lb man inhaling all the THC in 1 ½ ounces oh highly potent weed at one time, and seeing that u only get abut 15 percent of the THC this would be rather impossible. In other words marijuana is hundreds of times safer than nicotine, alcohol, caffeine and even aspirins. A DEA judge once stated that “marijuana is the safest therapeutically active substance known to mankind.”
The anti-pot people varying from politicians, teachers, or even peers often say that marijuana kills brain cells. The truth is that it doesn’t! The claims that stated this were made during the second Reefer Madness Movements. It tried to show that marijuana smoking causes damage in brain structures in monkeys. This study was very poorly presented and later studies didn’t show any brain damage. Even a more recent study done on Rhesus Monkeys using very sensitive technology showed effects of learning on the brain cells. Many think it causes brain damage because the THC acts on the brain cells. The way it acts is that it “tickles” the brain cells producing the effects. Alcohol acts the same way on the brain cells but will damage them because it produces toxins.
People always jump to the conclusion that weed is addictive. Weed has no withdrawal symptoms even if it is used all the time with no regard to the amount. Out of all the users 7 percent of them are psychologically addicted. This only means they think they want it but will not have any withdrawal symptoms.
Another claim against marijuana is that it is a gateway drug meaning that it will lead you to do more hardcore, worse drugs. Television and advertisement propaganda has been known to say “80 percent of heroin addicts have smoked marijuana. If you smoke marijuana you will become a heroin addict”. Marijuana is such a popular substance among people that at least everybody tries it once in there life. It is almost as common as water or coffee. The phrase should be 80 percent of heroin addicts have drunk coffee. If you drink coffee you will become a heroin addict. The claim that marijuana is a gateway drug is untrue. Rehab officials are looking to use marijuana to help crack, heroin, cocaine (and other addictive drugs) addicts. There are 40 million people in this country who have smoked marijuana, yet the number of drug addicts can’t compare to the millions of people who smoked grass.
It is actually called the gateway theory because it has never been proven. Calling it a gateways drug is a trick used by anti-drug propagandists. The gateway theory is no longer accepted in the medical community. When pot was legalized in Amsterdam both heroin and marijuana use went down. Marijuana is more likely to keep people away from worse drugs than to get them into them.
Marijuana also does not lower the male sperm count. It may lower it by very little if even any at all. It also defiantly does not make you sterile or impotent. In addition to all the false claims, a very used one is that marijuana makes you lose ambition in life and makes you lazy. This may happen unless you are responsible. Many eastern cultures and other societies used weed to make them work harder. Also the U.S. army made a study and it showed no effect in there experimental group. The claim that it makes u unmotivated was a media claim that was aimed at Mexicans because they brought marijuana to America in the beginning of the century. They were portrayed as lazy people who never did work.
A Rastafarian once said that marijuana is a gift from god for all it provides. He said that it marijuana itself provides so much natural resources that are vital to our economy plus medicines and fuel. Marijuana can be used as a food. It has been said that it should be the number one source of food. Hemp is any durable plant that has been used since pre-history for many purposes in this case cannabis sativa for it the most useful of all plants. The hemp seeds provide essentially needed fatty oils and are a great source of high nutrias source of protein. The protein in the hemp seeds can be easily compared to the protein in our human blood. Patients who have had trouble digested food have been prescribed hemp seeds. The oil from the hemp seeds is the only seed that contains essential fatty oils without saturated fat. These oils can easily reduce the risk of a heart attack.
Hemp requires less fertilizer to grow and can grow almost anywhere. It has been proven to be healthier than soy. Hemp can also be used to make fuel. The pulp of the hemp plant can be burned and processed into methanol, methane, charcoal, and gasoline. This can be used to power generators, run cars and run factories. Fuels that are made of plants are called biomasses. Biomasses are clean and almost completely free from metals and sulfur and burning biomass fuels does not increase the total amount of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere. Using hemp as fuel can replace petroleum which has many effects on greenhouse gasses which are destroying our atmosphere.
The bast of the hemp plant can be woven into almost any type of cloth. The first Levis were made out of hemp because they are very durable. Hemp is better than cotton for it doesn’t stretch out, long lasting, and it is stronger. Also half of the pesticides are used on cotton! Those pesticides damage the soil so hemp would be a better source for cloth.
Hemp is also made into paper which should be mass produced for a number of reasons. Hemp is easier to make and is thicker. Also, no chemicals are needed to make hemp paper unlike regular paper. It would be great for hemp to replace paper for it would save so many trees which our earth is running out of. Environmentalists are concerned wit hall the chemicals going into the making of paper because they can harm us in the future. Some environmentalists are trying to legalize marijuana just to save our trees.
Marijuana can also be used in medicine. Marijuana is known to have thousands of possible uses in medicine. Usually the cannabis extract is used as the medicine. It comes in pills call Marinol and is prescribed in many situations. It is usually to control nausea or vomiting. There are over 60 chemicals in marijuana that are beneficial in a medical way. Marijuana is usually ranked among the top medicines and was used in ancient times. Using marijuana for medicine has been know for very long and has been documented by ancient scholars. Marijuana can be used for are multiple sclerosis, cancer treatment, AIDS (and AIDS treatment), glaucoma, depression, epilepsy, migraine headaches, asthma, pruritis, sclerodoma, severe pain, dystonia and many more. You can eat, smoke, or use the pill form to help fight these diseases. The problem with all the prescription drugs we have are that they very expensive, hard to make and can have bad side effects.
Marijuana is the most beneficial plant known to mankind. It is virtually harmless to you and it provides so much. There are no deaths directly linked to marijuana and it does not make you a lazy burn-out. It might just raise your ambition in life and keep you away from hardcore intravenous injections in the future. it can be made into all types of products such as healthy nutrias foods, durable cloths, & safe environmental friendly fuels/paper. Marijuana is such a beneficial plant that the American government should legalize it and do the world some good.
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