Drugs, we all have heard about them. There are drugs that
are illegal with medicinal values and drugs that are legal that are used
medically, but some of these legal drugs are more harmful than the illegal ones.
Why can’t the drugs that are currently illegal be used medically for a person’s
illness if it’s safer than the legal drug that they are using? Why can’t
illicit drugs be monitored and regulated for medicinal reasons just like the
drugs we have now that are legal? There are illicit drugs that were made for
good reasons but they were taken away and made illegal, because some other drug
was made that is supposable safer. Well why not bring them back for medicinal
and responsible reasons? If the right people were able to control the drugs and
understand the good and bad about using a drug, what would be so wrong about
that? If there was a way to make the drugs that are illegal now legal, how
would the people controlling these substances keep complete control from the
drug gangs? Here’s a site that shows just few of the drugs that are now illegal
but still have medical values, http://www.oddee.com/item_97276.aspx.
John
17 comments:
It is impossible to know every good and bad that comes with a drug. A matter of fact many illegal drugs were once medication or sold as such. Coca Cola for example originally contained cocaine. LSD was studied as a mental health drug and stimulant were given to soldiers to keep them awake.
Even drugs that are okayed by the FDA turn out to be dangerous. YAZ (a popular birth control) can lead to death. Everyday you see huge lawsuits and settlements on the tv dealing with legal dangerous drugs.
Basically your question could go both ways. the one thin I do know is that the drug trade is a massive worldwide issue that we cannot even begin to try and control or regulate. Rebecca S
This issue has a lot of gray area to it.
Personally, I think that once something becomes legal, people will have no interest in doing it because there is no longer the thrill of breaking the law, which was associated to it when it was illegal. Yet, this drug can have harmful side effects just as all drugs can, such as altering the brain chemicals of the user’s brain which could lead them to commit, or be the victim of, various crimes. Anything that can make you go “loopy” or “crazy” is not something you should want to mess with unless you want to wake up in a jail cell with no recollection as to how you got there. Honestly, I have read an article about this, and it says that long-term abuse of marijuana can cause psychosis. Also, it says that men can become sterile after abusing the drug for years and years.
http://www.drugfreeworld.org/drugfacts/marijuana/the-harmful-effects.html
The above link is something wonderful to look at if you want to know more about the side effects hat marijuana can cause. Even if it may have “good” health benefits, there still is a chance that the mind-altering parts of the drug can lead to abuse of the said drug. So, no I don’t feel it should be legalized for even if people might stop using it because they feel it is no longer fun to do when its legal, the negative health aspects of it, outweigh any good it could potentially do.
Lauren Smith
I believe there is a good and a bad to every drug. The only illegal drug that I can think of that would be better off legal is Marijuana, which is a pretty popular opinion. There aren't many side effects other than perhaps lack of focus, red eyes, cotton mouth, fatigue and of course the effects of the smoke going into your lungs. I think that it does a lot of good for people though, with it's pain relief effect and the fact that it can make you sleepy can help people with insomnia and other sleep related problems. I have pretty blind faith in perscription drugs; I don't really look into them that much even when I have to take them so I don't have much of an opinion on that.
Andi
Hey Lauren,
I know you talked about people wanting to use an illegal drug because it is illegal and yeah, there are a lot of people that do that. What I'm mostly talking about is the use of drugs that just so happen to be illegal for medicinal reasons. The site you got your information from has a lot of its own opinion because it's by these people that abused drugs in a very unsafe way. The website talked about the bad about marijuana a lot and well actually no good about the drug. We can go and talk about how bad meth is but when you get down to the basics, meth is an amphetamine. The medicine that they give to people with ADHD is an amphetamine, so is it bad to give people a drug that could ultimately benefit the way that they live life, if used appropriately? And with the website talking about there being more harmful chemicals in marijuana than a cigarette is kind of ridiculous when you really think about it. It is true that anything you smoke can cause cancer but you don't have to smoke marijuana in order to experience the benefits this plant has to offer. You can consume marijuana by cooking it or you can vaporize it in a vaporizer. http://medicalmarijuana.procon.org/view.answers.php?questionID=000225 A vaporizer does not burn the marijuana it just heats up the plant enough to get the THC chemical out of the plant. When you talk about tobacco, the only ways to consume that is either by chew or smoking it which still has a large ways to cause cancer. Marijuana on the other hand can be consumed with the only negative factors being, that if you ate too much food with THC in it, you can vomit. That can be controlled though by having the proper amount of THC in the food to consume without it having such negative effects. Marijuana also was not going to be the main point of my argument because there are many other drugs that are illegal now that can have great medicinal values if legalized for medicinal purposes.
John
Sorry, but you lost me after the first question. “Why can’t the drugs that are currently illegal be used medically for a person’s illness if it’s safer than the legal drug that they are using?” The legal drug that the patient is using is a drug that is prescribed by a doctor. Keywords are prescribed and doctor, verses illegal drugs and drug dealer. Do you see the difference? I tried to continue reading your questions, but they are all repetitive and similar to the first one. Illicit drugs are illegal for a reason, they cannot be monitored and always fall into the wrong hands. Since when did drug dealers become good guys? I think it’s quite funny how you are talking about people being responsible with illegal drugs. Do you even know why people buy illegal drugs? Because they are irresponsible. It’s also funny how you really want to make illegal drugs legal and then you talk about gangs. It gives them so much more power if it was legal.
-Charlie
There is bad and good effect for every kind of drug. The problem in legalizing these drugs, even for medical purposes, is that people can be addicted and eventually tries other types of others drugs. For example, let’s say that marijuana is legal, and a doctor prescribes marijuana to a cancer patient. After some time cancer is cured, however, as we all know that marijuana is a gateway drug; the guy will eventually try cocaine or other types of drugs. Even if drugs are legalized for medical purposes, the addiction of drugs would be very bad.
-Nilay
Making more illegal drugs legal to use for medically necessary reasons is only going to spark more issues in the world of drugs. There is no way to judge if the “right” people should be issued certain drugs for medical reasons either because over time they may become addicted or care more about money than their health and sell the drugs they have been prescribed. The problems being made by drug gangs would only get more out of control if they legalized more drugs since the prescribers can’t even keep things like Vicodin off the streets and stopped from being sold. Using more drugs for medical use sounds like a good idea in the beginning to but it would only result in an abundance of trouble in the end.
Elizabeth Luke
Making more illegal drugs legal to use for medically necessary reasons is only going to spark more issues in the world of drugs. There is no way to judge if the “right” people should be issued certain drugs for medical reasons either because over time they may become addicted or care more about money than their health and sell the drugs they have been prescribed. The problems being made by drug gangs would only get more out of control if they legalized more drugs since the prescribers can’t even keep things like Vicodin off the streets and stopped from being sold. Using more drugs for medical use sounds like a good idea in the beginning to but it would only result in an abundance of trouble in the end.
Elizabeth Luke
This is a HUGE gray area. Drugs, like alcohol and tobacco are legal and for what reason? How are they any different than marijuana or acid? Alcohol is a major problem in this country, but it's not used at all for medicine anymore except on the outside of wounds to stop infections.
Almost every drug nowadays have those little side effects on the side of the bottle that may include bleeding or death.
Personally, I think if you're going to have one drug legal, than what's the point of stopping other people of doing drugs they like opposed to those they do not?
Katherine Stack
Hey Charlie,
I'm not talking about making all drugs legal for everyone to use, just people that it would benefit. People buy drugs from drug dealers because they want to get high, if a drug was to be prescribed by a doctor it would be used in a mature way. Key words here, mature way, people can get Valium prescribed to them by a doctor but that doesn't mean that they aren't going to abuse it if they really wanted to. The risks of any drug need to be known but people now a days think that if a doctor says its okay for a drug to be taken then there are no harmful side effects. The main idea with any drug needing to be prescribed is the way that it is going to be used. All drugs that have medicinal value should be considered for being prescribed to patients if there absolutely necessary. Also, any kind of drug that is prescribed by a doctor should be used in a mature way, notice that I'm saying prescribed by a doctor, not a drug dealer. Big difference. And if the drug was prescribed by a doctor then it would be legal, not illegal.
John
There is no such thing as a risk-free drug. All drugs have potential risks and benefits. Different people can suffer different side effects from a medication. A medication that benefits some people might harm others. It’s not as simple as legalizing some and banning others. The availability of legal drugs is regulated by the Food and Drug Administration. The FDA is responsible for looking out for society’s best interests by protecting and promoting public health. One aspect of this is the careful testing of medications for safety and effectiveness before allowing them to be distributed to the public. No, this system is not foolproof, but it can prevent people from making claims about any old substance and dangerously pushing it on the public. If you saw Sweeny Todd, you might remember Pirelli’s Magic Elixir, which was actually urine with ink in it. This is what the FDA is trying to prevent, fraud and harm. Both illegal and legal drugs can be highly addictive and harmful, even leading to death. Heroin is an opiate that is recognized as one of the most highly addictive and harmful substances with a high risk of overdose. Opiates also provide pain relief, and can be safe when used with medical supervision. I believe the benefits of regulation outweigh the risks. As for the drug gangs, even if we did legalize these substances, drugs gangs will most likely always be around in some shape or form.
-Sam
Of course it would be a great thing if these drugs could be made available to those who could benefit from them, and those people are surely out there. Most of the illegal drugs are just as dangerous, or more dangerous, as drugs that can already be prescribed or that can be purchased from a store. Better education on these subjects and regulation are the keys, and ignorance is the problem (see Charlie's answer, sorry.)
-Addison
I totally agree with the way this question was asked. I know someone in my family who relies on her medicinal medication everyday. She has a problem with her back, therefore she has to take 2 painkillers a day. On top of the 2 pain killers, she has to take a muscle relaxer at night to keep from waking up in the middle of the night with muscle pain. Some people out here that need the medication, can't receive it because of other people being irresponsible.
-Samantha
it seems as if all your questions are the same, but illicit drugs are prescribe by a doctor for a specific reason and are also monitored. these drugs have no reason to be documented as illegal or unsafe.but on the other hand drugs are illegal because the government has not been able to figure out how to tax it(weed, crack....etc). but these type of drugs can be just as harmful as any other drug if taken at an addiction level.
-Christopher Hodges
Yes marijuana along with all drugs should be legal. It is a testimony to the ignorance of the American people and the corruption of our government the war on drugs continues. It is a waste of money and a complete failure in every sense of the word. Although I think that other harder drugs like meth or crack are terrible the fact is junkies will always exist. By declaring war on drugs all the government waste trillions of dollars (that don't belong to them) and created a prison industrial complex in a nation that claims to be "the land of the free".
Marijuana however is completely different than any other drug that is illegal. Weed has never in the entire recorded history of the earth dating back 10,000 years been responsible for a human death. Additionally it is never been proven to be physically addictive. So why would something not harmful result in thousands being thrown in jail a year? Why is a product like tobacco with will kill 1 billion (1/6 of the current worlds populations) this century, not only legal but is given government subsidies?
Mainly, because they cannot effectively tax marijuana because it can be produced so easily. Also the more police, DEA agents, judges, lawyers the government can hire the more control it can exert over its people, slowly taking away your civil right using laws like the "patriot act", or executive orders to rewrite our constitution to use people as modern slaves.
The government fears marijuana because they are afraid of people using drugs like marijuana because they fear people thinking outside the box; People who can realize what they have done to our country, why they have spit on our past, robbed us blind, and will leave nothing behind.
Quick note the first marijuana law in the United States was actually telling farmer that then need to grow hemp, additionally all the founding father used hemp, and pretty much every recent president has admitted to using weed in the past(which makes them a piece of shit hypocrite with no backbone, a coward, not a real leader, but I think everyone deep down knows that about all presidents in our lifetime).
Schnitzel
Illegal drugs, like pot, are used a lot to help cancer patients numb their pain. I don’t know a lot of the facts, but I’m pretty sure they are used for other types of illnesses too. Therefore, I think they have done some monitoring on these drugs. I don’t know if this is the same drug you were referring to in your questionnaire, if so, then I really am unsure about any other illegal drugs that would help. I’m guessing if it was taken away, there was a reason. Maybe it wasn’t really helping, or it was interfering with the drugs that they were already using. Maybe too many people were using these drugs, and claiming to have these illnesses and getting away with it, when really, they didn’t have these illnesses at all. I really don’t think there is any way to keep control from the drug gangs. Let’s face it, there are already drug gangs now, so what would stop them from continuing if the drugs were legal?
I see the drugs listed now—those are some pretty serious drugs, and they can be pretty addicting. LSD? Mushrooms? There are plenty of other prescription medications that aren’t addicting and that can solve those problems all the same. Plus, you have to stop and think that those drugs have such a bad rap that a lot of people aren't going to want to take them, even if they are legal.
Chelsey
Hey Chelsey,
You say that mushrooms and LSD are addictive and they are not, they are just as addictive as marijuana. There are other drugs out there that can be addictive but also non-addictive. With the drug mushrooms, if someone were to take them for medical reasons they would take it very few times and get the results they need, that would last a lot longer than any other drug.
John
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