Medical Marijuana

Medicinal Marijuana

Deborah Dean

Marijuana

Marijuana use for people who are suffering from cancer, glaucoma or seizures should be legal in all fifty states.

Outline

1. Introduction

A. "Penalties against drug use should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself. Nowhere is this clearer than in the laws against the possession of marijuana in private for personal use."

-President Jimmy Carter: Message to Congress, August 2, 1977

B. Marijuana has been illegal in the United States since 1937.

The main point:

Legal prescription drugs do not always offer relief to patients dealing with serious illnesses.

Natural Cannabis has been proven in many clinical studies to offer relief from nausea, tremors, and chronic pain in sufferers.

The Federal government completely prohibits the use of marijuana in the United States, for sale or for personal use, including medicinal relief.

2nd main point

A. What caused illegalizing marijuana?

The criminalization of marijuana started after its recognition as an intoxicant in the 1920s and 1930s

During this time, exaggerated accounts of violent crimes allegedly committed by immigrants intoxicated by marijuana became popularized by tabloid newspapers and the newly formed Federal Bureau of Narcotics.

Congress approved the "Marihuana Tax Act of 1937" based almost entirely on this propaganda and misinformation.

B. Who is affected?

Patients suffering from cancer, glaucoma, multiple sclerosis, cystic fibrosis, paraplegia, epilepsy, and quadriplegia

C. What are the affects from not legalizing marijuana?

I. The illegalization of natural cannabis forces those suffering from severe diseases to use medications that have only a fraction of the pain-relieving cannabinoids that cannabis has naturally, i.e. Marinol (dronabinol), which is the only US FDA-approved synthetic cannabinoid and is often marketed as a legal pharmaceutical alternative to cannabis

ii. Where did it begin, or where is it most...