The Cons of Medical Marijuana
The debate on whether medical marijuana should be legalized or not is ongoing and maybe for a while. This topic has a lot of strong supporters on both sides either being pro or con. Even though marijuana can help and be put to good use most of us know that won’t necessarily always be the case. For example, those who don’t need it and just abuse of it, they are just making it harder for those who need it to get it. There may be a lot of pros as to why it should be legalized but there are also cons as to why it shouldn’t.
Memory
Two of the most serious effects that you get from smoking marijuana is that it affects your short-term memory and it also impairs your cognitive ability. When using marijuana it impairs your short-term memory causing you to have trouble remembering certain things but is only a temporary change to your memory and not a permanent one. It also causes a change in mood, making you feel happy, relaxed, sleepy, or anxious. Even when taking large doses of it can cause some people to have hallucinations, delusions, and paranoia. This can even cause loss of sense of personal identity, because of how much they overuse it.
High Risk of Accidents
When using marijuana it can impair your judgment, motor coordination, ability to concentrate and slow down your reaction time. The use of marijuana can affect a driver’s concentration and ability to perceive time and distance, not only that but could also lead to poor speed control, drowsiness, distraction and the ability for them to read road signs accurately. This doesn’t necessarily affect everybody who’s using marijuana, it mainly affects those who use it just for fun. For those who use it for medical reasons, it wouldn’t affect them as much because they would be using it responsibly and only a certain douse or amount of it, as opposed to those who don’t use it for medical purposes.
Health Risks
Just because you aren’t smoking tobacco doesn’t mean that there are risks to smoking marijuana. There really is no difference in smoking marijuana or smoking tobacco, because they both have the same effects may be even worse when smoking marijuana. Some of the risks to smoking marijuana are that it can irritate the throat causing a heavy cough, it also contains toxic gases and particles that can damage our lungs. Marijuana is associated with a large airways inflammation, increased airway resistance, and lung hyperinflation, but for those who use it on a regular base are more likely to have the symptoms of chronic bronchitis than those who don’t use it. Using marijuana may also reduce the respiratory system’s immune response, and more likely increase the user acquiring respiratory infections, for example, pneumonia. In the end, what all of this is trying to tell us is that if you smoke marijuana or use marijuana you are more likely to have some type of respiratory illness then for someone who doesn’t use it.
Abuse and Addiction
When using any type of drug whether it being medical or not there is always the risk of the person who is using it becoming addicted to it or abusing it. Marijuana is said to be considered a “gateway drug” to use other drugs. A gateway drug is a habit-forming drug that it’s not addictive itself but may lead a person to want to use other addictive drugs. This doesn’t mean that everyone who uses marijuana will transition into using heroin or any other drugs but, it does mean that people who use marijuana consume more if not less legal or illegal drugs than those who don’t use marijuana. For those who use and are addicted to marijuana are three times more likely to be addicted to heroin or any other drug. Legalizing marijuana would increase the availability of the drug and the use of it, it is bad for public health and safety because of increasing the risk of heroin use. Approximately 9 percent of people who experiment with marijuana will become addicted to it. There is a recognition of a bona fide cannabis withdrawal syndrome with symptoms being irritability, sleeping difficulties, dysphoria, craving, and anxiety making it difficult to process things. Early and regular use of marijuana predicts an increased risk of addiction and the risk of using other illicit drugs. For those who begin using it in adolescence are 2 to 4 times more likely to have symptoms of cannabis dependence within 2 years after the first use.
Illegal under Federal Law
Even though medical marijuana is legal in some states it’s still illegal under Federal Law. The federal government regulates drugs through the Controlled Substance Act which doesn’t recognize the difference between medical or recreational marijuana or any other drug. Most of these laws are applied only against people who possess, cultivate, or distribute large quantities of it. Under federal law, marijuana is treated like any other controlled substance like cocaine and heroin. Every controlled substance is in a schedule, according to its potential for abuse and medicinal value. In the CSA marijuana is scheduled a 1 drug, meaning it’s viewed as a very highly addictive drug and not having any medical value to it. Therefore doctors can’t “prescribe” it for medical use, but can “recommend” it under the First Amendment. Under federal law, marijuana is still considered a dangerous drug with no acceptance of medical use to it. The federal laws regarding marijuana are very serious and the punishment for those who are found guilty is frequently very steep. In some cases, some use the excuses that it was for medical purposes but since it is illegal under federal law and doctors can’t prescribe it judges have ruled that medical issues cannot be used as a defense. In the end, the legalization of medical marijuana won’t be any time soon.
Sources
https://www.verywellhealth.com/what-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-medical-marijuana-1132484
https://www.livestrong.com/article/162451-the-effects-of-long-term-pot-smoking/
https://medicalmarijuana.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=000141
