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The Advantages Of Being Legal

TitleThe Advantages Of Being Legal
# of Words905
# of Pages (250 words per page double spaced)3.62

The Advantages of Being Legal




The Advantages of Being Legal

Matt Streett English 102~D

     There are many arguments on the question of whether or not to legalize
marijuana. The benefits of legalizing marijuana include its medicinal value and
its many uses to produce commercial products like paper, rope, oil, textiles,
and canvas.  Another good reason to legalize marijuana is that hundreds of
thousands of non-violent drug offenders are overpopulating prisons, costing
taxpayers millions of dollars.  Legalization would also put marijuana dealers
out of business and it would bring revenue to the government like alcohol and
tobacco does.  Some opposition to legalizing marijuana is that traffic
fatalities would increase, and that more people like school teachers and bus
drivers would be smoking legally purchased marijuana.  They also believe that
more young people would smoke more marijuana.
     Marijuana is medicine and has been used as medicine for thousands of
years to treat a wide variety of ailments.  It is one of the safest
therapeutically active substances known.  Marijuana is often useful in the
treatment of cancer, AIDS, glaucoma, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy and chronic
pain. For cancer patients, marijuana alleviates the nausea, vomiting, and loss
of appetite caused by chemotherapy treatment.  It does the same for people with
AIDS.  By reducing intraocular pressure, marijuana helps slow or halt the
gradual increasing eye pressure suffered by glaucoma patients. Marijuana reduces
the muscle pain and spastically caused by multiple sclerosis. It also helps some
patients control their bladders. With some epileptic patients, marijuana
prevents seizures. Marijuana is also a very effective pain reliever.
     Hemp, a plant mainly grown for its use as a fiber source, is from the
same plant that produces marijuana. It is different because industrial hemp is
grown with minute amounts of delta-9 and tetrahydrocannibinol, abbreviated as
THC, which is the element in marijuana that gives the ‘high sensation'.
Industrial hemp is one of nature's strongest and most versatile agricultural
crops. It can be used to produce various things such as textiles, paper,
clothing, plastics, cosmetics, food stuffs, insulation, and animal feed. Hemp
seeds can be used to make high protein foods and the oil can be used to produce
non-toxic paint, varnish, detergent, diesel fuel, ink, and lubricating oil.
     One acre of hemp produces as much fiber as two to three acres of cotton
and one acre also produces as much paper as two to four acres of trees. The
advantage of using paper products produced by hemp is that hemp's growing cycle
is around one hundred days, while it takes trees years to grow to produce the
same amount of paper. Hemp was cultivated in the U. S. until 1937, when the
Marijuana Tax Act outlawed marijuana. In 1942 the government encouraged American
farmers to cultivate hemp for the war effort, but then in 1955 prohibitionists
had reasserted a total ban on p...This is ONLY a preview of the article. If you would like to view the entire document, you must subscribe to Electronic References. Please register below now!

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