Thanks to the COM352 students for contributing a bunch of new pages! I'll be moving these pages into the main area of the wiki soon.

From UMassWiki

To: The Congress of the United States of America

As you know the recreational use of marijuana is illegal in the United States, but medicinally legal in some states. Medicinal purposes of the cannabis plant are being increasingly used to treat certain illnesses and have been proven to give positive effects for the person using it. In American history there is no real reason stating why recreational use was banned other than the fact that this country was scared. Government officials had this feeling of fear because there was supposedly an increase of violent acts while under the influence of marijuana. To my knowledge there are eight states where medicinal marijuana is allowed. If this substance was legal the government would be able to tax the substance. Taxes are where the government receives its money and would prove to be a huge benefit on the economy of this country. Even though marijuana has some dangerous effects and can cause health complications, compared to legal substances such as tobacco or alcohol, there is hardly a difference. Also related accidents and deaths are much higher in alcohol and tobacco than that of marijuana. The first known introduction of marijuana to the United States was in 1611 when Jamestown settlers brought the plant to Virginia for use in hemp production. Marijuana cultivation remained a significant industry in the United States until the end of the Civil War in 1865. During this time period, marijuana was widely distributed by physicians and pharmacists for many illnesses such as neuralgia, gout, rheumatism, tetanus, convulsions, and uterine hemorrhage. (1, 415) Then in the beginning of the twentieth century in the United States ushered in an era of societal reform focused on reducing the recreational use and abuse of many substances, including alcohol and opium. The 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act, the 1917 Harrison Act and the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment and Volstead Act in 1920 were all indications of such efforts to decrease use of these drugs. From 1910 to 1920, it became apparent that the recreational use of marijuana was also increasing. By the late 1920s, many reports of violence resulting from recreational marijuana use were common in the media. Motivated by fear, numerous local jurisdictions began passing laws against any sale or possession of marijuana, and by 1931, another fourteen states passed similar bans on non-medical sale and use. (1, 415) By the time the federal government passed the Marijuana Tax Act in 1937, every state had already enacted laws criminalizing the possession and sale of marijuana. The federal law, which was structured in a fashion similar to the 1914 Harrison Act, maintained the right to use marijuana for medicinal purposes but required physicians and pharmacists who prescribed or dispensed marijuana to register with federal authorities and pay an annual tax or license fee. Even though the Act maintained a physician’s right to prescribe marijuana, the law was opposed by the American Medical Association on the grounds that it would limit a physician’s ability to truly control the non-medical use of marijuana. This caused the prescriptions of marijuana to decline because the doctors generally decided it was easier not to prescribe marijuana than to deal with the extra work imposed by the new law. The dramatic reduction in doctors’ willingness to prescribe marijuana for medicinal purposes is perhaps the best example of the removal of the cannabis plant from standard pharmaceutical reference texts by 1942. (1, 415-16) Physicians were able to legally prescribe marijuana until the 1970 Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act, also known as the Federal Controlled Substance Act of 1970. This Act replaced both the Harrison Act and the Marijuana tax act and placed all controlled substances into five categories, or schedules, based on their potential for abuse as well as recognized medical usefulness. The result of this act caused marijuana to be categorized as a Schedule 1 drug, which implies that it had no accepted medical use in the United States making illegal for doctors to medically prescribe it. (1, 416) During the 60s and 70s the recreational use of marijuana resurged with millions of middle and upper class Americans whose use was associated with apparently little or no harm. This caused several state and federal government officials to question the wisdom of harsh laws against marijuana sale, possession, and medicinal use. The fight for legalization was on again. In 1972, a petition was submitted to what is now known as the DEA to see if marijuana can be rescheduled to a Schedule II drug instead, allowing it to be legally prescribed by a physician. Many court battles were fought pertaining to this petition for the next twenty two years. That same year the petition was submitted, the National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse published their final report on the harmfulness of marijuana. In this report, the Commission stated that their review of the medical and scientific research suggested that previous beliefs regarding the harmfulness of marijuana were exaggerated, and that the incidence of dependence and psychosis among users was rare. (1, 416-17) If this was the case, then why was it originally banned in the United States if marijuana does not cause violent acts? I have made a calculation on how much money the government can potentially make if marijuana was legal and taxed. If the approximate United States population of 301,701,135 people (7), and around thirty five percent, which would be 105,595,397, were habitual marijuana users, and if on average each of them would spent approximately forty dollars a week. In one whole year each person would be spending two thousand and eighty dollars without taxes, and with a five percent tax on each dollar the tax total on each person would be one hundred and four dollars more. One hundred and four dollars multiplied by thirty five percent of the United States population would be 1,098,192,121,314 dollars. That is a great amount of money would be very beneficial to the United States. Comparing health affects of marijuana to that of the legal drugs: tobacco and alcohol, there is hardly a difference. The chemical in marijuana, tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, which allows the body to receive a “high” feeling, nicotine, the addictive chemical found in tobacco, and alcohol content in beverages, affects almost ever system in the body. THC affects particularly the cardiovascular, respiratory, and immune system. (2) It is true that marijuana users generally have poorer health than non-users of marijuana, with an increased risk of dental caries or periodontal disease (2), but if one looks at the affects of tobacco it is much worse. Studies have shown that in a group of seven hundred and five individuals ranging from age twenty-one and ninety-two, seventeen to eighteen percent of current or former tobacco users had moderate to severe periodontitis, and averaged around four missing teeth. (3) THC is frequently detected in blood from apprehended drivers suspected for drugged driving. Both experimental and epidemiological studies have demonstrated the negative effects of THC upon cognitive functions and psychomotor skills. These effects could last longer than a measurable concentration of THC in blood. Culpability studies have recently demonstrated an increased risk of becoming responsible in fatal or injurious traffic accidents, even with low blood concentrations of THC. It has also been demonstrated that there is a correlation between the degree of impairment, the drug dose and the THC blood concentration. (4) It is very important to focus on the negative effect of cannabis and of alcohol on fitness to drive in order to prevent injuries and loss of human life and to avoid large economic consequences to the society, but it is found that alcohol related accidents are much more frequent. There were 16,885 alcohol-related fatalities in 2005 – thirty nine percent of the total traffic fatalities for the year. The 16,885 fatalities in alcohol-related crashes during 2005 represent an average of one alcohol-related fatality every thirty one minutes. (5) Being under the influence of alcohol while operating a motor vehicle has always been a problem, imagine how many more deaths are alcohol related and not while operating a vehicle, from overdose or suicide. An exhaustive search of the literature finds no credible reports of deaths induced by marijuana. The US Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN) records instances of drug mentions in medical examiners' reports, and though marijuana is mentioned, it is usually in combination with alcohol or other drugs. Marijuana alone has not been shown to cause an overdose death. (6) The only reason marijuana was really criminalized was because of the belief that it caused people to become violent or that it was a gateway drug for more harmful drugs. This so called drug which derives naturally from the cannabis sativa plant is a substance made by nature and has been used for centuries. Recreational use has always been looked down at because of its effects, but the truth is that marijuana’s effects are so harmful at all. It can cause slowed reactions, paranoia, tiredness, and hunger, and studies have shown that when people smoke marijuana their auditory senses and reaction time through hearing are altered and a lot slower, but shows little or no change in the attention focused on the task that was presented to test the sense (8). Unlike other drugs it is almost impossible to over dose on marijuana. To do so one must smoke more than their body weight in a period of 24 hours, this is practically impossible. Marijuana has been criminalized for many years but the American people have shown how it can have positive use, as a medical remedy that can decrease nausea, which saves many lives when acquiring certain diseases. Marijuana is a recreational drug a lot less harmful than alcohol, tobacco, and any other drug, and should be legalized.

Sincerely, Nicholas Escoto