Negative Consequences of Legalizing Marijuana for Medical Purposes

A majority of individuals advocate for the legalization of Marijuana for medical purposes, but there are clear oppositions against the arguments that they have developed. I do not advocate for allowing the legalization of Marijuana since it has multiple negative effects, such as its effect on cognitive abilities, smoking damages your lung tissues, creating a higher risk of abuse and addiction, high risk of developing mental illnesses, and under the Controlled Substance Act, it is classified as a schedule 1 drug meaning it currently has no accepted medicinal effects.

The legalization of pot seems to have many positive results, but frequent usage of the drug can allow for slower reaction time due to impairment of your cognitive abilities leading up to serious effects on short-term memory. Being under the influence of the drug causes euphoria and a lower attention span allowing for a decline in your IQ. The long-term effect of it can cause impaired thinking and causes your ability to learn to decline; thus, performing more complex tasks will become much more complicated and harder to do in the future. With impaired thinking and abilities, it makes it harder to control your coordination which affects driving. No matter what you smoke, allowing such substances to enter your body will damage your lungs. It can be affected badly due to the smoke leading up to coughs, wheezing, and even cause asthma to start. We know that smoking can already cause fatal diseases such as lung cancer, pneumonia, and even emphysema.

Chronically obstructive pulmonary diseases and lung cancer are already one of the few leading causes of death universally. Although the effects of it for it has not been proven, we do know that smoking, in general, is terrible for people’s health, and taking a risk at it is inevitable to take back. Even though Cannabis has positive yielding results in medical uses as a controlled substance, it does not mean it is technically good for you. Other schedules I drug, such as opium poppy derivatives, also have many medical uses. It does not simply make drugs such as heroin acceptable. Dope essentially makes you stupid and is extremely addictive.

People end up developing a dependency on the drug over constant usage. This could be either to just feel high or to sleep even. If we legalize it, more people would just consistently use it and abuse it, which would eventually lead to a bunch of addicts. They will start to use it legally and get used to it, which causes cravings leading the brain to believe it is something that they enjoy, so they start depending on it. This will yield the same results as other class-one drugs. Although they might not be on the same level, they will still essentially lead up to one another with similar steps of addiction. By using the soft drug marijuana, you will eventually push for harder ones after the effects feel common to you. Weed is a gateway drug that can essentially push you to go for something stronger possibly. Usage of Marijuana can also even lead to risks of developing mental health issues such as schizophrenia and depression even.

The reason behind it is due to having bad highs. Bad highs can cause severe anxiety, which causes a user to have fears of being followed and watched due to paranoia. You start acting strangely and hearing or seeing things that are actually not there caused by psychosis leading you to panic and have hallucinations. You can possibly even lose your sense of personal identity due to all that. After doing it multiple times and being addicted, you can give yourself mental illnesses since you are essentially forcing your brain to change its perception. There is currently no proof of the effects Marijuana has since there were no long-term studies on its effects. This means that there is no hard scientific evidence of it having medicinal effects essentially because it hasn’t been accepted.

In conclusion, I don’t advocate for marijuana usage due to the essential damages caused by it and the abuse or addiction that it could lead up to.

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