Jake Nolan

Mrs. McBeth-Smith
English 1010-66
12-7-15
Position Synthesis: Cannabis
The United States has always been in the forefront of progressive ideas, and is
always thought of as the land of the free where the people have the power to make
changes. This is true in most cases, but the government still has enormous control over
public opinion and can sway the public to believe whatever they want them to believe. I
believe this has happened with Cannabis. Cannabis has been used for many purposes in
our country before the Nixon administration started in 1971. The government put a war
on drugs in 1971 and moved marijuana to a Schedule One drug, the most restrictive class.
The government influenced the publics opinion to believe that cannabis was extremely
dangerous, with media such as Refer Madness. Ever since prohibition the topic of
cannabis has been a hot topic, and it will continue to be one as legalization surges through
the nation. Statewide legalization movements have been successful in 23 states, but the
question of a full scale legalization still looms over the U.S. Has marijuanas misguided
history effected legalization and when will social taboo be gone?

In 1971 president Richard Nixon introduced the American public to his largescale effort to end the drug boom that was going on in the United States. Nixon came out
with the War on Drugs, a new offensive to end public enemy number one in the
United States, which was drug abuse. This would mean that marijuana would be listed
as a Schedule One drug, and drug propaganda would soon be influencing the countries

mind, this was the start of the social taboo that would come to be around marijuana.
Decriminalization was recommended to Nixon when he was running for office but was
declined; Jimmy Carter would use this to his advantage by basing his campaign off of
marijuana decriminalization. Although this would be a good idea, it never happened, the
public was completely swayed by the media and backlashed on Carters decriminalization
plan. Reagan picked up right where Nixon left off; he even expanded on Nixons war on
drugs by skyrocketing the prosecution of non-violent drug crimes. The number of people
incarcerated for non-violent crimes went from 50,000 in 1980 to 400,000 in 1997 and it
continued to increase. In 2012 there were 2,228,400 Americans in prison for nonviolent
drug crimes, which is the highest incarceration rate in the world. This offensive would go
on for forty years and would cost our country over a trillion dollars. This War on Drugs
has had serious implications on the legalization process over recent years.
We are approaching a turning point within our country, with more minds
open to different ideas, marijuana is being revisited and this time around, people want to
make sure the government isnt doing the deciding and persuading for them. Research is
in demand for the topic of legal cannabis but that is an issue, since marijuana is a
Schedule One drug. Marijuana being under the Schedule One drug class makes the
substance a dangerous substance that has no recognized medical use and that has a high
potential for abuse. Even just the description of a schedule one drug immediately should
rule cannabis out, it doesnt fit, as it has been proven and proven again marijuana is not
addicting and has clear medical uses. There is a problem with the legal work in making
drugs Schedule One, its a trap; to be considered Schedule One there is no recognized
medicinal use but once a drug is considered to be Schedule One research of the drug is

prohibited. In Dr. Sanjay Guptas documentary Weed he shows us the struggle that
researchers have getting their hands on cannabis to research. Gupta explains to us that if
you want to do a legal study on cannabis you have to get it from the sanctioned marijuana
farm at the center of Ole Miss University, this is the only federally grown marijuana for
research. This means less research due to the difficulty of studying the plant, the false
information that the public saw in reefer madness has proved to have more implications
than just making the public think marijuana is bad, it has created a restricted world
around something that grows naturally, which has effected the road to legalization
exponentially.
After forty years of prohibition and lies, the public is beginning to
open their eyes to the truth about cannabis. The first step to legal
cannabis is being entered, and that is changing the publics views on
marijuana and its effects. This is a difficult thing to do, after people
have been programed to believe one view for forty years its hard to
change that; but there is a new generation moving in. This new
generation has brought new ideas and found new truths about
marijuana. More and more research is put out about marijuana but
what should you really believe? For every marijuana benefits article
there is one disputing all of the information in it. It is hard to know
what is right and what is wrong but you have to hear both sides and
make your own personal decision. The rise of legal cannabis will affect
all of us and it is good to have a solid understanding of the topic.
Medical marijuana is now legal in 23 states and DC, and

recreational marijuana has recently expanded to three with the passing

of initiative 91 in Oregon. The benefits of cannabis are being explored
and have been proven to be plentiful. Our bodies actually are directly
connected to cannabis, we have cannabinoid receptors all over our
body, and in our brains they are more abundant than any other
receptor. These receptors work directly with the intake of cannabis;
they make you have the effect such as euphoria. The cannabinoid
receptors in our brain works as the regulators, they regulate the
production of chemicals, by making sure chemicals arent over or
under-produced. You have an endocannabinoid system that regulates
everything in your body, your nervous system, immune system, cardiovascular system, digestive, and endocrine system; everything in our
bodies are homeostatically regulated by this endocannabinoid system.
Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD) are the main
chemicals in cannabis, and when they enter the brain they fit like a key
in a lock in your cannabinoid receptors, causing the receptors to
activate and regulate your immune system, blood sugar, energy, and
metabolism. These receptors are broken down into two different groups
that we know of, CB1 and CB2, CB1 is the most plentiful G grouped
receptors in the brain, yet none are found in the brain stem, which is
the reason why you cant overdose. The benefits are endless for
cannabis, with the abundance of cannabinoid receptors in the body,
there is no telling what kind of connections can be made between

those receptors and human diseases and problems. There has been
proven connections between cannabis and cancer, seizures, anxiety,
food disorders, pain, and many more disorders. An important one is
cannabiss ability to kill cancer cells while leaving healthy cells
untouched, THC and CBD trigger apoptosis, stop cancer cells from
being invasive and metastasizing, and also stops angiogenesis.
Marijuana is limitless in medical properties, from helping with normal
everyday pain and inflammation, to life taking diseases marijuana has
been proven to help and as more research is done more applications
for the plant will show.
Cannabis is not all good and some propaganda has some truth
tied to it, popular propaganda would use phrases such as she shoulda
said no and stay up or stay dumb inferring that marijuana would
hurt your intelligence. The correlation between adolescent brain
deterioration and cannabis intake has been explored and is not all-just
propaganda. A study done by PNAS (one of the world's most-cited and
comprehensive multidisciplinary scientific journals) has documented the
neuropsychological decline of adolescence that have a persistent
pattern of cannabis use. The participants in this study were part of the
Dunedin study where 1,037 individuals were followed from birth, while
being interviewed and tested before the use of cannabis and continued
through their life to the age of 38. The results of this study show a
pattern, the subjects who consistently used cannabis had a

neuropsychological decline and also reported was the increased

cognitive difficulties for marijuana users. This study is very credible
due to the time they took on the research and experiment.
The full-scale legalization of marijuana has a long way to go, but
it is on its way state-by-state. For the success of legalization there has
to be more reliable facts that have been studied on a large scale. With
more reliable information to base your opinion off of the social taboo
attached to marijuana will fade and so will the prohibition.

Work cited
"Persistent Cannabis Users Show Neuropsychological Decline from Childhood to
Midlife." Persistent Cannabis Users Show Neuropsychological Decline from
Childhood to Midlife. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Nov. 2015.

"Short- & Long-Term Effects of Marijuana - Negative Side Effects of Weed - DrugFree World." Short- & Long-Term Effects of Marijuana - Negative Side Effects of
Weed - Drug-Free World. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Nov. 2014.
"The History of Hemp." The History of Hemp. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Nov. 2015.
"The History of Marijuana." Legalize Marijuana Legal Weed Marijuana Facts. N.p.,
n.d. Web. 13 Oct. 2015.
"Marijuana: Uses, Side Effects, Interactions and Warnings - WebMD." WebMD.
WebMD, n.d. Web. 14 Nov. 2015.

Gupta, Sanjay, Dr. "Dr. Sanjay Gupta: Why I Changed My Mind on Weed." CNN. Cable
News Network, 8 Aug. 2013. Web. 25 Nov. 2015.
Scott, Sherman. "Wild Weed a 1949 Anti Cannabis Propaganda Film She Shoulda Said
NO!" Montana BioTech. United States Treasury, 05 Jan. 2012. Web. 28 Nov. 2015.