Final Draft: Marijuana: Schedule 1 Drug or Medical Miracle

Marijuana: Schedule 1 Drug or Medical Miracle

Educate Yourself

Heroin! LSD! Ecstasy! Quaalude! Peyote! Marijuana. All these drugs are in the same category as a schedule 1 drug. That’s right; Marijuana is in the same category as heroin. The same category as LSD. According to the DEA, a Schedule I controlled substance has “no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.” No medical use? Are you serious? Where do I begin?

Pharmaceutical Monopoly

Scientists are in a catch 22 situation. With the lack of research, the government has not been willing to re-categorize marijuana to a schedule 2 or schedule 3 drug. Because it is still a schedule 1 drug, scientists are unable to test the drug on humans and this makes it extremely difficult to provide medical evidence of this miraculous plant to help re-categorize it from a schedule 1 drug.

Sanjay Gupta, MD is a medical Correspondent for CNN. He wrote an article called, It’s Time for a Medical Marijuana Revolution and stated, “ There is now promising research into the use of marijuana that could impact tens of thousands of children and adults, including treatment for cancer, epilepsy, and Alzheimer’s, to name a few.” This is a well-respected and prominent Doctor telling us there is hope from this plant. He goes on to say, “with regard to pain alone, marijuana could greatly reduce the demand for narcotics and simultaneously decrease the number of accidental painkiller overdoses, which are the greatest cause of preventable death in this country… Marijuana is a medicine that should be studied and treated like any other medicine.”

OK, wait a minute, this miracle plant can not only help prevent pain from diseases, but it can help prevent the number one accidental overdose in the whole country. Not one death from Marijuana has ever been recorded. The proof is in the pudding ladies and gentlemen.

From a Doctors Point of View; A "Higher" Educated Opinion

The ACP also known as American College of Physicians, wrote an article titled, Supporting Research into the Therapeutic Role of Marijuana, and in this article the ACP urges the government to review marijuana’s classification as a schedule 1 controlled substance and put it in a more appropriate schedule since all the new scientific evidence has been exposed. “The ACP strongly supports exemption from federal criminal prosecution; civil liability; or professional sanctioning, such as loss of licensure or credentialing,  for physicians who prescribe or dispense medical marijuana in accordance with state law,” is a statement from the ACP according to the article. This is a great point they are making. This will further help more physicians discover more medical purposes as well as help patients from suffering or facing penalties such as fines or prison time just for trying to feel better, or protecting their loved ones from pain.

I don’t know about you, but I’m starting to see a pattern here. A pattern showing how medical marijuana will replace a lot of prescribed medication which will then take money from pharmaceutical companies. Who has a lot to lose if this happens? Well, besides the pharmaceutical companies, politicians will lose a lot of donations to their campaigns. This is very obvious, at least to me, corruption at its finest.

Pro Pot President

In fact, on April 20, 2015, President Barack Obama went on the record stating “not only do I think carefully prescribed medical use of marijuana may in fact be appropriate and we should follow the science as opposed to ideology on this issue, but I’m also on record saying that the more we treat some of these health issues related to drug abuse from a public health model and just from an incarceration model, the better off we’re going to be,” according to Weed 3: The Marijuana Revolution, CNN.

The president of the United States stated clearly his stance on Marijuana. Most people realize Marijuana is not as dangerous as Reefer Madness made it out to be which had quite a few of the older generation convinced that this plant will kill people and/or make people go crazy. Quite the contrary, it helps more people than actual doctor prescribed medication with none of the side effects. Well, except the munchies.

Curing Our Kids

Kate Pickert wrote an article called Pot Kids, which explains how medical marijuana helps children with epileptic seizures, causing children to have up to two hundred seizures a day. These kids have been prescribed so many different drugs but none of them seem to help. Dr. Orrin Devinsky, head of the comprehensive Epilepsy Center at New York University said, “We’ve introduced a dozen new drugs in the past twenty years, but it’s not clear we’ve made significant advance in the treatment of drug-resistant epilepsy.” He believes they have failed as a scientific and as a medical community.

One squirt, 2.5 milliliters, of marijuana oil 3 times a day, reduced a little girls’ seizures from approximately 200 a day down to 30 a day. Medical Miracle!

Wrap it up

I feel most people will have their opinion on this plant, and I'll be the first to admit it is not for everybody but I'm just saying, given the facts, it serves a medical purpose for some people. Now maybe not for all, but if it serves a medical purpose for even just a few people, then it has a medical use and therefor is reason alone not be classified as a schedule 1 drug. There are prescription drugs out on the market that don't help everybody but does help those few people, giving it a medical reason to be on the market.

 Please do yourself a favor and educate yourself before passing judgment. I mean come on; people’s lives are at stake.

Works Cited

   1.) American College of Physicians. Supporting Research into the Therapeutic Role of
        Marijuana. Philadelphia: American College of Physicians; 2008: Position Paper
   3.) Correll, M. “Fight Crime Not Medical Marijuana.” Dcweedworld, 15 Jan. 2017.
   4.) “Drug Scheduling.” U.S. Department of Justice, Accessed 15 Sept. 2017.

   4.) Gupta, Dr. Sanjay. “Weed 3: The Marijuana Revolution.” 20 Apr. 2015.

   5.) Pickert, Kate. “Pot Kids.” Time , time.com/pot-kids/. Accessed 15 Sept. 2017. 
   6.) Vance, Mary. “CBD Oil: Nature's Miracle Cure.” Mary Vance NC Holistic Nutrition &       Wellness Coaching, 29 Sept. 2015.
     

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