Sonia Gutierrez

HLTH 1050
Discussion 2: Legalizing marijuana for medical reasons
I asked one friend what she thought about legalizing medical marijuana and the first thing
she said was that she didnt really know enough about it. She wasnt against the use of
recreational marijuana though and thought that it being criminalized did more harm than good.
She didnt know enough about the medical side of marijuana and its benefits to make an opinion
though.
I asked another friend how he felt about legalizing medical marijuana and he also said
that he didnt know enough about it to make an accurate opinion. After I had explained the
difference between recreational and medical marijuana, as well as how medical marijuana is used
to treat certain illnesses, he said a bit more. He thought that the lack of information is a huge
problem for the medical and political communities and that this problem and barrier is the cause
of about 90% of the controversy over legalizing marijuana. He said that the average American
isnt very informed about the topic so many just jump to conclusions and make misinformed
decisions or decide to ignore the issue and do nothing about it. He also thought that the way
drugs are talked about in school, by saying that all drugs are bad and not really go into how its
bad for you or the chemical makeup of drugs, doesnt help solve this issue because some people
just hear, marijuana is a drug and then think drugs are bad so they only consider it as a bad
thing.