Medical Marijuana :: Medicine Drugs Essays

Medical Marijuana Marijuana has been hailed as a prescription for many ills and physicians once used it to stimulate appetite, relieve chronic pain, and treat asthma attack and migraines. But is marihuana really a medical checkup miracle? If so, do its clinical benefits outweigh its drawbacks? Should we legalize marijuana? Is medical marijuana really worth the risks? These argon the issues one needs to think about before making the decision to legalize marijuana. Marijuana is a drug that is derived from the dried and cut leaves of the hemp whole works known as cannabis sativa. Marijuana has a variety of street names such as grass, Mary Jane, pot, smoke, marijuana cigarette, herb, and weed. The active ingredient in marijuana is delta tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) (3). . Marijuana has been used throughout history and in many different cultures to trade mood, perception, and consciousness (to get high). Its effects range from increasing creativity to provoking mystical exper iences, to heightening the capacity to feel, sense and share. After alcohol, it is the most hot of what are called recreational drugs. It has been used around the world for other purposes. In some primitive tribes of South America, Africa, and India, cannabis is used in religious ceremonies and for medical purposes. African mine workers have used it to ease the drudgery of their work and many Jamaicans use it at the end of the day to relieve fatigue. It has been used as an intoxicant in various parts of the world for centuries and in the United States, for the most part the 20th century. Marijuana was first described in imprint in a Chinese book ofmedicine, Herbal, in the 2nd century B.C., and was used in China as an anesthetic 5,000 years ago. The ancient Assyrians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, and eastbound Indians used the drug to control muscle spasms, reduce pain, and to treat indigestion. It was commonly used in folk medicines in Africa and Asia. As early as 1611, marijuana wa s cultivated for its fiber in Jamestown, Virginia. In 19th century America, marijuana was used by the medical profession for treating spastic conditions, headaches, labor pains, insomnia, and menstrual cramps. It is noneffervescent used as a medicine in the Middle East and in Asia (9). The controversy dealing with marijuana stems from the legalization of the drug for medical use.