The dangers of using smoked marijuana for medical purposes are often overlooked. The threats are not only physical, but also social and psychological. Although much research has been done, no conclusive evidence has been found to support the push for legalization of medical marijuana.
If anything, more research has resulted in showing the physical and psychological harms that stem from using marijuana. With advances in science, there are more reliable and less harmful alternatives.Due to the dangers brought upon by the use of marijuana, it should not be considered as a medical option. Though the argument for legalizing medical marijuana is a strong and valid argument, the dangers of usage highly outweigh the benefits.
Agencies such as the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) and the IOM (Institute of Medicine) have run many studies that have concluded that marijuana is an ineffective and dangerous form of medication. There is no consensus of medical evidence that smoking marijuana helps patients.The FDA has noted that "there is currently sound evidence that smoked marijuana is harmful," and "that no sound scientific studies supported medical use of marijuana for treatment in the United States, and no animal or human data supported the safety or efficacy of marijuana for general medical use. "(Merino 2011). With advances in science, there are more reliable and less harmful synthetic alternatives.
These new findings promote a safer, drug-free environment that doesn’t teach children that marijuana is a safe drug nor does it encourage teens to use cannabis. They promote an environment that keeps neighborhoods crime free.Medical marijuana laws encourage teens to use cannabis. According to a Karen Tandy, an employee of the U. S.
Drug Enforcement Administration, teenage students believe that “if marijuana is medicine, it must also be safe for recreational use” (Tandy 2006). Misinformed teens will often overlook the harmful side-effects of marijuana. Use of the drug has adverse health, safety, social, academic, and behavioral consequences; and children are the most vulnerable to its damaging effects. Compounding the problem is that the marijuana of today is not the marijuana of the baby boomers 30 years ago.Average THC levels rose from less than 1 percent in the mid-1970s to more than 8 percent in 2004 (Merino 2011).
Smoking a marijuana cigarette deposits about three to five times more tar into the lungs than one filtered tobacco cigarette. Consequently, regular marijuana smokers suffer from many of the same health problems as tobacco smokers, such as a chronic coughing and wheezing, chest colds, and chronic bronchitis. In Addition, smoking marijuana can lead to increased anxiety, panic attacks, depression, social withdrawal, and other mental health problems, particularly for teens.Research shows that kids aged 12 to 17 who smoke marijuana weekly are three times more likely the nonusers to have suicidal thoughts. Marijuana use also can cause cognitive impairment, to include such short-term effects as distorted perception, memory loss, and trouble with thinking and problem solving.
Students with an average grade of D or below were found to be more than four times as likely to have used marijuana in the past year as youths who reported an average grade of A. For young people, whose brains are still developing, these effects are particularly problematic and jeopardize their ability to achieve their full potential.The most disturbing new studies about early teenage use of marijuana showed that young adults who started smoking pot regularly before they were 16 years old performed significantly worse on cognitive tests of brain function than those who had started smoking later in adolescence. They performed particularly poorly on tests assessing executive function, which is responsible for planning and abstract thinking, as well as understanding rules inhibiting inappropriate responses. Recently, the states of Colorado and Washington restricted marijuana use to adults age 21 and over when they legalized recreational use in the November 2012 elections.
Experts worry that “the perception of marijuana is changing because its stigma as an outlawed drug has eroded”. “When people go to a ‘clinic’ or ‘cafe’ and buy pot, that creates the perception that it’s safe,” said Dr. A. Eden Evins, director of the Center for Addiction Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. “Before we unleash the powers of the marketplace to woo people to use this addictive substance, we need to better understand who is at risk” (Rabin 2013). Teenagers are more vulnerable to addiction.
Approximately one in six will become addicted, saidDr. Nora D. Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Young adults who start smoking marijuana at earlier ages also tend to smoke much more, and more often, than those who start in their late teens. Marijuana has many health risks that people are unaware of.
According to Donald P. Tashkin, M. D. , Effects of Marijuana on the Lung and Its Immune Defenses, "Regular smoking has been shown to materially affect the overall ability of the smoker’s body to defend itself against infection by weakening various natural immune mechanisms, including macrophages (a. .
a. "killer cells") and the all-important T-cells. Students ranging from junior high to high school to college are using marijuana more often now than ever before unaware of the damage their brain is taking a toll on. According to Dr. Evans, “People who started smoking marijuana as teenagers and used it heavily for decades lost IQ points over time, while those who started smoking as adults did not”(Rabin 2013). Studies about how harmful tobacco is to the body have been proven over the years and many people are well aware of this.
Studies on how harmful marijuana is to our lungs are an ongoing thing. People don’t smoke packs a marijuana like they do cigarettes but it still does damage to the lungs. According to a study by Rajib Singha, “Marijuana smoke and cigarette smoke contain many of the same toxins, including one which has been identified as a key factor in the promotion of lung cancer. This toxin is found in the tar phase of both, and it should be noted that one joint has four times more tar than a cigarette, which means that the lungs are exposed four-fold to this toxin and others in the tar.It has been concretely established that smoking cigarettes promotes lung cancer (which causes more than 125,000 deaths in the US every year), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (chronic bronchitis and emphysema) and increased incidence of respiratory tract infections” (Singha 2012). While marijuana is becoming a legal drug and no longer an illegal drug to smoke in some states, questions about the damage on our brains remain the same.
The marijuana is stronger than those smoked years ago.The human brain’s cannabinoid receptors are typically activated by naturally occurring chemicals in the body called endocannabinoids, which are similar to THC. There is a high density of concentration. Some research suggests that these areas continue to be affected by marijuana use even after the “high” dissipates. The human brain is being damaged by marijuana and the people smoking it can careless as long the feel the high.
What about the people around them who are not under the influence? Should these people suffer along with them?Being around people who are feeling paranoia, delusional, hallucinating, and thinking irrational may bring harm to innocent people or even children. Legalizing marijuana is a bad idea in so many ways. For those who plan on having children better think twice about smoking marijuana. According to Rajib Singha, “Regular users of pot risk themselves to develop medical conditions such as decrease libido, poor sperm quality, male hypogonadism (low testosterone levels), and infertility.
This drug that is quickly becoming an illegal drug is looking to become more of a problem to the nation than they want to admit to. Singha 2012) According to the FDA (Food and Drug Administration), "no animal or human data supports the safety or efficacy of marijuana for general medical use" (DEA 2011). Experts rejected the idea that crude herbal (usually smoked) cannabis had been shown to be a safe and effective medication for various medical conditions, concluded that there is "little future in smoked cannabis as a medically approved medication," and emphasized that smoked plant material is a crude drug delivery system that exposes patients to a significant number of harmful substances.They recommended smoked cannabis only for short-term use (less than 6 months), and only for patients who suffer from debilitating conditions like intractable pain or vomiting, who have failed on all other therapies, and who are under the close supervision of a physician and an institutional review board-type process. They predicted that "if there is any future of marijuana as a medicine, it lies in its isolated components, the cannabinoids and their synthetic derivatives," (DEA 2011) and called for clinical trials to develop "rapid-onset, reliable and safe delivery systems. This call for clinical trials provides an answer to the question posed by those who are for medical use of Marijuana.
"If the synthetic versions are so good, why hasn't the FDA embraced the natural version? " Research has shown that the synthetic versions are not, in fact, all that good. Both smoked marijuana and the synthetic versions of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) are poorly tolerated by many patients for chronic use.In 2006, the FDA approved an Investigational New Drug submission for a product called Sativex, a cannabis-derived drug that has been approved in Canada for the treatment of neuropathic pain in multiple sclerosis and that, although not yet fully licensed, is available by prescription in both Spain and the United Kingdom. More than 1,500 patients are currently using it for a variety of serious conditions under the supervision of their physicians (DEA 2011).After reviewing the data, the FDA agreed to pivotal late-stage (Phase III) clinical trials of Sativex in the United States. The product has been standardized and tested in accordance with modern pharmaceutical standards.
It is composed of a fixed ratio of cannabinoids (tetrahydrocannabinol and cannabidiol, a non-psychoactive cannabinoid, in a 1:1 ratio) and is administered by means of an oral spray that delivers the drug through the mucuos membranes of the mouth.These elements appear to enlarge the "therapeutic window," better enabling patients to seek symptomatic relief without experiencing the kind of "high" that many view as an undesirable side effect. Although it may be the presence of cannabidiol in Sativex that improves the risk/benefit profile, that compound is almost entirely absent from most herbal cannabis in the United States, which has been selected and bred to enhance the levels of tetrahydrocannabinol, THC, for recreational use.Another possible explanation for the minimal psychoactive effects is the spray delivery method, which prevents THC blood levels from rising too rapidly. The availability of drugs like Sativex should (but won't) end the bitter debate over medical marijuana in a way that would both benefit patients and satisfy the legal requirement that marketed medicines must be proven safe and effective.
Even if it did, the issue of whether marijuana should be legalized as a recreational drug would remain.Meanwhile, FDA officials must ensure that the testing and potential approvals of cannabinoid-containing drugs are not hindered by political agendas or other nonscientific considerations, inside or outside the agency. For the benefit of patients in need, this is something about which the FDA, the "war on drugs" components of the government and other interested parties should strive to agree.It is inconceivable that in this era, humanity’s best effort to deliver effective pain relief, or to treat chemotherapy-induced nausea or vomiting, or to treat HIV/AIDS wasting syndrome would consist of prescribing smokable marijuana. There are more pharmacologically advanced drugs that have passed the rigors of scientific investigation and demonstrate significant efficacy in treating pain, nausea and vomiting.
Marijuana, though unfortunate, has not passed the rigors of scientific investigation. It has not demonstrated significant effectiveness in symptom relief. And, it causes physical and physiological harm.Proposing to use smoked marijuana as a medicine conveys a mixed message to children, adolescents, and teens, These messages weaken the many years invested by public health to prevent pre- and adolescent use of tobacco, marijuana, and other drugs. Young people are often misinformed and misled to believe that the use of marijuana is harmless and that you cannot become addicted.
Unfortunately, there is clear evidence that the use of marijuana can result in dependency. To lower the level of current control of marijuana would only serve to worsen an already grave societal and medical problem.
