Legalize Marijuana

Legalize Marijuana

The myths about marijuana are endless and almost all are, false. Over the years people have come to believe many things about how marijuana affects your body and mind. Many other people believe that marijuana is more harmful then tobacco. People believe that "pot" kills the brain cells in the parietal lobe and the cerebellum. The brain is almost completely unharmed in the smoking of cannabis. Another rumor is about how your body reacts to the cannabis in your system and the harm that it causes. The affects are actually very interesting in that cannabis has been found on multiple occasions to actually strengthen your immune system and help fight off and viruses in your body. The deaths credited to cigarettes are staggering, the deaths attributed to marijuana are non-existent.

"July 1, 2003 -- Long-term and even daily marijuana use doesn't appear to cause permanent brain damage, adding to evidence that it can be a safe and effective treatment for a wide range of diseases, say researchers. The researchers found only a "very small" impairment in memory and learning among long-term marijuana users. Otherwise, scores on thinking tests were similar to those who don't smoke marijuana, according to a new analysis of 15 previous studies. In those studies, some 700 regular marijuana users were compared with 484 non-users on various aspects of brain function -- including reaction time, language and motor skills, reasoning ability, memory, and the ability to learn new information. "We were somewhat surprised by our finding, especially since there's been a controversy for some years on whether long-term cannabis use causes brain damage," says lead researcher and psychiatrist Igor Grant, MD."( WebMD Medical News)

The more studies that doctors do show more of the same, marijuana is a safe and in some cases an affective treatment to some serious illnesses. The majority of people who say that cannabis is a hazard to the brain got that idea from the 1974 study by Dr. Robert Heath. These studies have been highly criticized by the American Medical Association and also Journal of the American Medical Association. They criticized the amount of monkey's used in the study ( four) and also the misidentification of a normal monkey's brain structure. So if marijuana has no harm to the brain, while alcohol which ranges from simple "slips" in memory to permanent and debilitating conditions that require lifetime custodial care. And even moderate drinking leads to shortÐ'-term impairment. So alcohol is perfectly legal and marijuana isn't? Where is the sense in that?

So we have proven that smoking of cannabis is not a hazard to the brain, but the government must have other reasons for the prohibition of cannabis. Rumors that cannabis is horrible to the reproductive system and that it also suppresses the immune system are both the theories of Dr. Gabriel Nahas and his 1980's experimentation. Dr. Nahas experimented with tissue isolated in petri dishes and dosed animals with near-lethal amounts of cannabinoids ( intoxicating part of marijuana). These studies have all been rejected by the scientific community and his study which first showed a shut down in the reproductive systems and immune