Medical Marijuana

3 Pages 710 Words

One of the most controversial issues in the United States is over medical marijuana. Not just a political debate but as often happens in politics it’s a moral debate as well. The idea of a street drug being used for anything else than a picture of a junkie high on the street is something most people today find hard to imagine. However, times do change and when it comes to medicine new discoveries are made every day.
Many experiments test the validity of the drug as a medicine, and results of these experiments receive much praise but also some critique. The DEA and the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) are battling over the issue. The underlying matter that cannot be ignored is that marijuana proves to be a useful medication for many patients, especially those with wasting diseases. This battle dates back to about the 1970’s after the drug culture was extremely high in America.
In 1970, Congress passed the Controlled Substances Act. This law assigned psychoactive drugs to five schedules and placed cannabis in Schedule I, the most restrictive. According to the legal definition, Schedule I drugs have no medical use, are a high potential for abuse, and cannot be used safely even under a doctor's supervision. Two years later, in 1972, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) petitioned the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (formerly the Federal Bureau of Narcotics) to transfer marijuana to Schedule II, so that physicians could legally prescribe it. The chemical in marijuana that is known to make the affect on these diseases and on the person using the drug is called THC. THC is the active ingredient in marijuana. The course of action they chose took place in 1985 when the government reclassified synthetic THC as a Schedule II drug but kept marijuana itself - and THC derived from marijuana - in Schedule I. With t his action it was clear that the government knew of the medi...