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that, we, the government, is proud to support the use of medical marijuana as a medical option.
This house would like to propose that medical marijuana is really about regulation and that its
legalization does not affect the current situation of recreational drugs in terms of increasing the rate
of use(it decreases).The cannabis plant contains a number of cannabinoids, two of which are given
more interest. These are THC and CBD and in fact, the United States has already derived medical
sprays from these cannabinoids. Namely, Sativex, Marinol and many other more. Looking into our
body in a biological manner, our body is actually equipped with cannabinoid receptors and these
receptors are actually very crucial in human development as it is through these receptors that
newborns learn how to suck, it is through the activation of these receptors that babies feel the urge
to eat. This is triggered by the cannabinoids found in breast milk. In addition when these
cannabinoid receptors are activated, they protect cells against viruses, harmful bacteria, cancer
and other malignancies. "Search Munchies". Although medical marijuana has the potential to be
the next breakthrough in the pharmaceutical department, this house still believes that constant
regulation and check on the purity of the substance is important. As with the implementation of a
selective-use system which countries that have legalized marijuana usually do. With selective-use,
I am referring to a semi-permissible system which classifies patients who are qualified to medical
marijuana use or not. It doesn't mean that when you are ill, and that you feel that marijuana can
help relieve and satiate the pain or symptoms that you are ratified to the compassionate use of
medical marijuana. All of these of course will still depend on the qualifications and also the
prescriptions of a physician or a medical expert on cannabis use. Again, I would like to stress that
although there are some side effects of marijuana, these effects are very mild as compared to
other drugs that are both legal and illegal. I would like to give 2 arguments supporting our stance
on the usage of medical marijuana. First and foremost I would like to talk on the matter of
misinformation. Marijuana have long been referred to as the go-to drug for teens and also probably
one of the most popular rave drugs. It has been considered as addictive and such. But as to
marijuana is really addictive is still a much debated topic. Although a statistical research have
shown that the dependence on cannabis has an estimated prevalence value of 9. Or to simply put
it, about 9% who use cannabis becomes dependent on it. The 9% value is also much debated
whether this is a large number in terms of the dependence rate but is no where near the border line
of being considered dependent in alcoholic terms. The study I mentioned earlier shown that alcohol
has a prevalence value of 32 which is threefold's that of the cannabis. So addiction is still a very
subjective term to use when there is still no scientific data to back whether this substance is
addictive or not. In addition, addiction refers to behaviors that are compulsive and partially out of
control or even worse. Therefore, those who take marijuana medications for health reasons are not
addicted despite the fact that they are physiologically dependent on these unless he or she is also
physically dependent on the drug or if that drug interferes with his or her life, they do not meet the
clinical definition of addiction. And using addictive on marijuana is very misleading especially to
those vulnerable to this kind of misinformation, which are the hearsay community that contributes
to illogical activism. Another sub-point which is also the infamous excuse that they put out during
arguments is that legalizing or supporting marijuana sends a wrong message to the community,
especially to the youth. In fact, several recent and past studies have shown that despite the
legalization of marijuana, the rates of use of marijuana actually declined which is part of a nationwide trend in the United States. A more interesting shift of trend is during the legalization of
marijuana in the state of California back in 1996. From the year 1990 to 1996, according to The
Providence Journal written by Jocelyn Elders, MD, teen marijuana use has rose steadily. But
immediately after the legalization of marijuana, this trend stopped and began to fall. The Drug Free
America Foundation also stated in their 2005 report that no state with medical marijuana law has
experienced an increase in youth marijuana use since the law's enactment. To give a more recent
data, an article entitled Medical marijuana laws and adolescent marijuana use in the USA from
1991 to 2014 made by Hasin et al will only more support that marijuana legalization does not
directly affect the rates of use as the article also stated that the use of marijuana in adolescents
have not increased in the states that passed the medical marijuana law(8th graders). Very briefly,
my second argument would like to talk on the effects of not supporting medical marijuana. One
effect that this would have is that studies conducted focusing on medical marijuana will be less in
number as no one would spend his time doing a research of something that is not bound to be
legalized anyway. Although there might still be a few passionate researchers, what I am referring
here are the big fishes, like the multi-million drug companies who would invest generously in these
medical researches. We already have a glimpse of the medical benefits of marijuana and not
giving attention to this fact and being delusional is in a way a violation of our right to health. Others
argue that there are alternatives to marijuana. But I would like to point out that there are a lot of
factors to consider before you could strongly suggest that this certain drug is a perfect alternative
for marijuana. Such factors could be one's income, belief, side effects and also how one responds
to the treatment as every body is unique. When you take all of these factors into consideration,
there are times that we need to admit that marijuana is the only choice for the situation. In addition,
not all of these alleged and supposed alternatives are safe. Certain types of antibiotics have
caused nausea..... While morphine is considered to be more dangerous and more addictive than
marijuana. Lastly, anesthesia which is commonly used for surgeries could cause respiratory
depression. We must clearly agree that even the drugs that are legally approved nowadays carry
certain side effects, but it is on the regulation and way of use that they are controlled. To wrap it up,
while medical cannabis is still one of the most debated topics and is also still subject to criticism
following the numerous researches exposing the detriments of marijuana, we must consider that
95% of the researches made are vindicating these detrimental effects of marijuana leaving us only
5% of the researches made focused on studying the beneficial effects of medical marijuana.