There are many reasons to why marijuana should be legalized. Firstly, marijuana offers a sufficient amount of relief to patience suffering from many diseases. Next, marijuana has been proven to cause no severe mental or physical damage when used acutely. Also belonging to this magical plant is hemp, one of the greatest and most durable materials on earth. Some states have already begun the quest to legalize marijuana for medicinal purposes, and in places like Amsterdam, marijuana is already legal. .
The medical benefits of this drug are amazing. It is considered the safest known therapeutically active substance known to humanity in its natural form (Grinspoon, 13). Marijuana is often used to aid in the relief of glaucoma, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, paraplegia, quadriplegia, AIDS, chronic pain, migraines, purities, menstrual cramps and labor pains, depression and other disorders. For people with cancer, marijuana can even be life saving. This is because through chemotherapy, many patience experience loss of appetite and extreme vomiting to the point of where there esophagus can collapse due to erosion. When marijuana is smoked, a patient will experience a lesser effect of pain, an increased appetite, and a less frequent need to vomit (Bakalar 274).
There are many myths to the drug marijuana, but these were based mainly on bringing fear to the population so that marijuana would stay illegal. The truth is that the state does in fact want to keep marijuana illegal because of its past history in getting in the way of the government. During the 60's and 70's, patriotism was at an all time low, with people more concerned with peace than with the war in Vietnam. The government thought that this was due to the "horrible" side affects of marijuana, which left people in a dazed state, not knowing what they were really talking about (Cantil 78). So, the government decided to enforce the drug laws more strictly.
