Part III - Cannabis - Medial Marijuana
* Please keep in mind, Marijuana is a hallucinatory drug that is in fact ilegal in America. HarlemLIVE and its sponsors do not support the use of Marijuana.
An
alternative method for marijuana use has been at the center of a huge
nationwide debate since its criminalization across country in 1937. In
recent years medical marijuana has become the largest alternative method
for people seeking to sidetrack the law. Many argue that marijuana shouldn’t
be illegal at all because it is not in the same category as drugs such
as heroin and crack cocaine. The Federal Government however, wants no
part of this argument and has tried everything to keep marijuana, for
use of any purpose, illegal. Yet the question still remains, can marijuana
have a true benefit to this country? And if so why has the federal government
taken the position it is currently taking.
According to www.norml.org, a non-profit organization that has been fighting for the legalization of marijuana for over 30 years, 80 million Americans have admitted to smoking marijuana in their lifetime. Including current president George W. Bush and former President Bill Clinton although he claims he didn’t inhale. Marijuana commonly referred to as Cannabis, Weed, or Mary Jane, is made from the Cannabis plant. Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), is the active ingredient in the drug, causing psychoactive and medicinal effects when smoked or consumed in any form.
Marijuana has been illegal for only a short time compared to the amount of time the drug has been on the market. In the United States the first law prohibiting the drug came in Utah in 1915 after Mormons went into the Mexican regions and brought the plant back. The Church was a big part in making it illegal in these parts of the country and the first law was quickly followed with doctrines making marijuana illegal in Oregon, Nevada, Arkansas and Montana.
Marijuana officially came under fire across the nation with the enactment of The Marijuana Tax Act of 1937. Many marijuana supporters say the basis of the act was tainted by lies and corruption by big business execs including the head of the Drug Enforcement Agency. They claim, the act was passed based on the belief that the drug caused or had the potential to cause murder, insanity and death, which we now know, marijuana doesn’t. The act itself did not criminalize marijuana, but it did however implement an unreasonable amount of tax on the use of marijuana. It also applied many fines and other punishments for the use and possession on marijuana.
Medicinal marijuana has been used across the world for centuries. China, Greece and India were some of the first countries to use marijuana for its relieving purposes. While marijuana became illegal across the world in the early part of the 20th century, in recent years it has resurfaced across the globe for its medicinal purposes. All across the globe it is used as an herb for various ailments and in the states it has been used to relieve pain in those who suffer from illnesses such as multiple sclerosis, muscle spasticity, and even to relieve and reduce nausea, and other ailments caused by AIDS, and Cancer.
Currently 11 states including, California, Rhode Island, Washington, Maryland, Maine, Hawaii, and Alaska allow for legal medical marijuana use, mainly the smoking of the drug. While that is true for these states, on the federal level, medical marijuana and all other marijuana uses are still illegal.
The fight for marijuana has even gone as far as to the Supreme Court of the United States. The Court decided 6-3 in Gonzalez v. Raich that the federal government can prosecute anyone who is given medical marijuana and anyone-person, facility or clinic-who provides medical marijuana. This was also followed by a 264 to 161 vote by the House of Representatives against a ban of federal governments targeting people in states that have laws on the books that allow medicinal marijuana.
The article “Reefer Madness” published by the New York Times on April 28, 2006 discusses the Food and Drug Administration’s current stance on medical marijuana use. Although the F.D.A. currently has banished any chance that smoked marijuana can have any beneficial affects on people, it has given the go ahead for the proper clinics to test whether other forms of the drug may be able to help patients. The article introduces a drug by the name of Salivex, which the F.D.A. wants to look into as a medicinal form of marijuana. Salitex is an oral spray which can help cure pain and other ailments if taken properly. The drug features the active drug in marijuana, THC. Salitex has already been made legal in Canada among other countries.
Unlike
the United States, other countries such as The Netherlands, Canada and
most recently Mexico have all decriminalized the use of marijuana. The
drug has been proven to not have the same affects as other hallucinatory
drugs and most importantly is not fatal-practically impossible to overdose.
In fact compared to the 270,000 people killed a year through the use of
tobacco and cigarettes and the 430,000 people killed a year through alcohol
use, marijuana is actually safer than the legal hallucinogens available
now and even as this article goes to print, no one has ever been confirmed
dead because of the use of the drug.
The decriminalization of marijuana is a long time coming. According to David Cole’s “Two Systems of Criminal Justice,” the reason it hasn’t been made legal is because of the common market who used the drug. “The history of marijuana laws illustrates what happens when the criminal law begins to affect large numbers of white middle- and upper-class people. The country’s first marijuana users were largely minorities, mostly Mexicans.” Soon after marijuana became illegal, and federal penalties began to take affect, including imprisonment of two to five years, or up to ten to twenty years for your third conviction. As the years passed marijuana became a drug not only used by minorities but it became the preferred drug for college students, hippies and the white middle and upper class. “As marijuana use spread to the white majority, enforcement radically decreased. Police and prosecutors began to leave users alone and instead targeted dealers and sellers…The legislatures amended the laws, sharply reducing penalties for possession.” (Cole, 427). Cole argues that the flow of marijuana use is the main reason for the decriminalization of marijuana in those states. Today as the drug is decriminalized in the predominately white parts of the country, minorities make up “35 percent of all drug arrests, 55 percent of drug convictions and 74 percent of prison sentences for drug convictions.” (Cole, 411).
In a related article by William W. Savage III, in an interview with Honors
College Professor, Ralph Hamerla, Hamerla stated that, “People’'s
lives are 
being
destroyed by this. Not by the actual item itself, but by the policies
we choose to subscribe to in this country regarding its legal status.
You can look at the history of marijuana and see where all these laws
come from. They’re clearly geared to demonizing the substance for
the purpose of someone’s career goals.” The article continued
with the writer urging that the only way medical marijuana would be able
to break the barriers of criminalization is if someone in the health care
industry made the argument that there is an eminent need for the use of
medical marijuana.
Medical Marijuana will continue to be a debate in the United States as
long as the use of it is illegal. While some will argue that big business
has caused the criminalization of the drug others simply say that the
affects of the drug are bad and should not be allowed by the country.
Members of that argument also say that once medical marijuana is allowed
throughout the country it is only a matter of time before the debate for
legal use of the drug for recreational purposes will begin. It seems that
the best move would be for the Food and Drug Administration to take a
strong stance on this debate, but it seems unlikely that they are willing
to end this debate-unless it benefits them or the federal government in
some way or another.
Part I - Cannabis - Perspective
Sources
Cole, David (1998) Two systems of Criminal Justice. “The Politics
of Law” edited by David Kairys. 411, 427-28
Currie, Elliott (1998) Crime and Punishment In The United States: Myths, realities, and possibilities. “The Politics of Law” edited by David Kairys. 386.
Miller, Henry I. (2006). “Reefer Medicine.” The New York Times
Savage, William W. (2006). “Going Up In Smoke.” The OU Daily
www.norml.com, data retrieved May 7, 2006
Taylor, Stuart Jr. The Affirmative Action Decisions.
