Hamilton Hewitt

Professor D. Jizi
UWRT 1103-013
Sunday, November 29th 2015
Should Medicinal Marijuana be Legalized?
The times we as a society live in today are quickly changing. A very controversial topic that its
reputation precedes it is marijuana. Marijuana is used as a medicine for a wide variety of things.
Marijuana is illegal as far as the national government is concerned. The feelings about marijuana
begin to change once the government is viewed on a state level. There have been 23 states that
have legalized marijuana to be used medicinally. The first two states to push this movement was
California and Colorado. Medicinal marijuana is very new and under-studied. Because it is
illegal on a national level, it makes it hard to study. There have been numerous studies that say
different things which made me start to question it. I became intrigued on this extremely
controversial topic. I would hear one source say that marijuana can be used to help the symptoms
of many different diseases. On the other hand, marijuana is a drug and is illegal. My quest for
this paper is to find out for myself what my stance is on marijuana being used for medicinal
purposes.
There are roughly 8 billion in the world today. According to Marijuana Legalization, anywhere
from 125 million to 200 million people have used or currently are using marijuana which means
roughly 4% of the world is affected by marijuana. In the US, marijuana use is about 3 times
higher than the global average. One of the main uses for medicinal marijuana is for cancer
patients. Chemotherapy is used to help stop and kill cancer cells in the body, but it is also very

taxing on the body. Medicinal marijuana is used where it is legal, to help ease the pain from
chemo. The Center for Disease Control reported this year that roughly 650,000 people have to go
through chemo each year. If medical marijuana was legalized, all of the patients would not have
to suffer as much from the chemo. There are many disorders and diseases that people could have
their symptoms reduced if medical cannabis were to be legalized.