Should Marijuana Be Legalized For Medical Purposes?

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Term Paper Title	Should Marijuana Be Legalized For Medical Purposes?
# of Words	2228
# of Pages (250 words per page double spaced)	8.91

Should Marijuana be Legalized for Medical Purposes?

Should Marijuana be Legalized for Medical Purposes?

        Marijuana has been used extensively as a medical remedy for more than
five thousand years.  In the early 1900s, medical usage of marijuana began to
decline with the advent of alternative drugs. Injectable opiates and synthetic
drugs such as aspirin and barbiturates began to replace marijuana as the
physician's drug of choice in the twentieth-century, as their results proved to
be more consistent than the sometimes erratic effects of the hard-to-dose
potencies of marijuana (Grinspoon).  The Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 made cannabis
so expensive to obtain that its usage as a medical remedy in the U.S. came to a
halt.  Although now illegal in the U.S., marijuana continues to be used for both
medical and recreational purposes by many Americans.  There are a variety of
opinions both for and against the re-legalization of marijuana today. Perhaps
the most controversial aspect of the legalization debate is whether marijuana
should be legalized for medical purposes.
        All drugs, both prescription and non-prescription, are federally
'Scheduled' by the DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency). A drug's scheduling under
Federal law is determined “according to [its] effects, medical uses, and
potential for abuse” (Claim V).  In this classification system, marijuana is a
Schedule I drug, grouped with heroin, LSD, hashish, methaqualone, and designer
drugs. These are drugs having “unpredictable effects, and [causing] severe
psychological or physical dependence, or death” (Claim V).
        A closer analysis of the DEA's Federal Scheduling system reveals that,
according to various studies by physicians on both sides of the legalization
debate, marijuana does not  meet the requirements of a Schedule I drug, but not
those of Schedule II.   The difference between the two classes is that Schedule
I drugs may lead to death, while those on Schedule II are less likely to do so.
Proponents of legalization cite information that indicates marijuana is a
relatively “safe” drug. “There is no known case of overdose; on the basis of
animal models, the ratio of lethal to effective dose is 40,000 to 1” (Grinspoon).
Even some opponents of marijuana legalization support reclassification. Two
physicians, in a widely distributed opinions piece entitled “Marijuana Smoking
as Medicine: A Cruel Hoax”, wrote;  “While the reclassification of THC to
Schedule II might be understandable, this ...

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