Marijuana by Anna Collins

Author:Anna Collins [Collins, Anna]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Greenhaven Publishing LLC

Lilyan said she had smoked marijuana as a teenager, then gave it up. However, when her own children reached their teenage years, Lilyan said she found their stash of marijuana in the home and tried smoking it again herself. She said: “I felt good. I felt that I wanted to talk to somebody, but there was nobody in the house to talk to. So I put on the record player and I started dancing and singing. I was having a great time. And that was it, my first time. I didn’t realize till then that it was the same reefer that we smoked when we were kids.”29

Another couple, Bill and Deb, are in their late 50s and have smoked since they were teenagers. They both enjoy smoking marijuana because they say it takes the edge off of their anxiety and makes them feel calmer. They consider this a health benefit and have no plans to stop smoking.

The Debate Over Medical Marijuana

Not all the marijuana that is either homegrown or smuggled into the country is used for recreational purposes. In fact, many people who smoke marijuana do not do it to get high from the drug, but rather to help ease the painful symptoms they suffer because of debilitating diseases. Indeed, some effects of the drug have been endorsed by health care professionals as acceptable treatments for pain and other ramifications of disease. For example, the dreamy, euphoric high that makes it hard for people to concentrate can also serve as an analgesic, meaning it is an effective painkiller. That can be an enormous benefit to cancer patients and others who suffer from long-term pain. Also, marijuana’s propensity for making people hungry has surfaced as a treatment for the sufferers of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, or AIDS, as well as people undergoing chemotherapy, which is the aggressive use of chemicals to kill cancer cells. In many cases, AIDS and chemotherapy patients lose their appetites and suffer from malnutrition. By smoking marijuana, though, many of them regain the desire to eat.

For years, a significant debate has raged in American society over the rights of ill people to ease their suffering by consuming marijuana. The debate has reached the highest levels of government and the courts. Marijuana is now legal for medical purposes in 25 of the 50 states, but a significant faction continues to dispute this, convinced that the risks of marijuana use outweigh the benefits.

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