The Legalization of Marijuana: for Medical Use

Picture in your mind a young girl that is almost done with her freshman year of high school. These next few years are supposed to be some of the best years of this girl's life. But instead of this young girl worrying about what clothes she is going to wear, or how she is going to style her hair, she has to worry about side effects of chemotherapy. Melinda has been diagnosed with Hodskins Lymphoma, a cancer of the lymph nodes, at age fifteen. When all the other fifteen-year-old girls are busy chasing boys and dealing will all the drama that comes with high school Melinda is in the hospital getting blood transfusions because the chemo has depleted her of necessary cells.

The chemo that Melinda has transfused into her has many side effects that come with it. The chemo basically kills a person in order to kill the cancer cells. These side effects include nausea, intense pain and a loss of appetite. There is only one drug that exists today that has the potential to cure all of the above side effects, and that is marijuana. This drug is currently illegal, and doctors cannot prescribe it to patients.

This issue affects college students because we are the ones that are going to play a role in this debate in the future. Many of us are going to become doctors, FBI agents, or United States Senators. That is why college students need to be informed about this complex issue. We are the ones that are going to be making decisions about this issue later on in our lives.

The debate on legalizing marijuana for medical use is not just a simple pro/con debate. It is a very complex issue that has many different approaches to it, and in each of the approaches there are differences of opinion. Three main sides to this debate are the medical approach, government and enforcement approach, and the lawmaker approach.

The medical approach consists of doctors that treat cancer patients, and cultural beliefs that since marijuana is illegal it should not be used at all. Some doctors and people of the public believe that marijuana should be used to treat side effects of chemotherapy, and other doctors and people of the public believe that it should not be used as a medicine.

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