Opposition to Medical Marijuana Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Opposition to Medical Marijuana - Essay Example Over the past two decades, however, a growing controversy has arisen regarding the classification of marijuana as having no legitimate medical purpose. There is growing support among the public and the medical community to rewrite the laws currently prohibiting use of marijuana so that its medical benefits can be of use for those with no other outlet. Marijuana has been used for medical purposes in the U.S. since at least the 19th century. Legal at the time, the drug was instantly popular as a treatment for pain ranging form headaches to menstrual cramps. Of course, simply using a drug to treat pain is not the same as evidence that it does treat the pain. Proponents of legalizing marijuana use for medical reasons raise evidence that marijuana has been proven effective in treating everything from glaucoma to cancer. It has even been hailed as being capable of prolonging the life of Aids patients. Closer scrutiny of the available scientific research, however, reveals that marijuana simply falls far short of what is commonly considered a medical treatment. Dr. Lester Grinspoon, an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard, is one of those leading the call for reclassifying marijuana so that it can be used as a medicine. ... on would be unthinkable." Grinspoon is apparently willing to ignore that at one time or another throughout history a large majority of doctors were firm believers in treatments that run directly counter to the overwhelming majority opinion today. Indeed, the very idea that just because a minority of doctors would make a suggestion then that makes strengthens your case is fallacious. After all, if 44% said they would recommend marijuana treatment, doesn't that by definition mean that 56% of doctors would advise against it Grinspoon certainly does not rest his case based solely upon physician surveys, but the fact that puts such stock in the findings does not help his credibility. The credibility of the pro-medicinal marijuana movement cannot help but be considered a large issue. Opponents typically take the argument that the movement to allow legal medicinal use is just the first step in a plan to decriminalize marijuana entirely. This perspective has not been helped by certain facets of the pro-legalization movement. A former director of Director of National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), Keith Stroup, addressed the true motivation of the push to legalize marijuana for medicinal use as far back as 1979 when he gave a speech at Emory University audience that "medicinal marijuana would be used as a red herring to give marijuana a good name" (Souder, and Zimmer). Richard Cowan, a writer for the pro-marijuana High Times Magazine, would be even more explicit, explaining in no uncertain terms how the pro-legalization movement has used "medical model as spearheading a strategy for the legalization of marijuana by 1997" (Souder, and Zimmer). The movement suffered a major setback in 1997 failed to get a ballot initiative passed in