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Legalizing Medicinal Marijuana

Legalizing Medicinal Marijuana
Marijuana is the common name for Cannabis sativa and its use in the United States has been a national concern since the early twentieth century. Although there have been many studies conducted proving the benefits of the THC in marijuana for certain conditions, Congress removed it from the U.S. Pharmacopoeia in 1942 because the government discovered marijuana to be a harmful and addictive drug. Later on in 1971, Congress passed the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act, which divided drugs into five schedules. Marijuana is in Schedule I, the category for drugs with high potential for abuse and no accepted medical use. Since then 12 states have removed state-level criminal penalties on the use, possession and cultivation of marijuana by patients with valid documentation from their physicians. Due to the many possible uses and benefits of marijuana in the medical field, along with very few side effects, Congress should reconsider the schedule level of marijuana in order to legalize its medical uses.
Currently in the United States, medicinal marijuana is not legal on a federal level. Although this is true, 10 states permit the legal use of marijuana with proper medical documentation. Among these states are Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington (http://www.drugpolicy.org/marijuana/medical/). Washington removed the state-level criminal penalties from patients with valid documentation from their physician confirming that the "potential benefits of the medical use of marijuana would likely outweigh the health risks" with their particular condition (http://www.norml.org/). In some states such as Connecticut, physicians can possess and prescribe marijuana for patients suffering from glaucoma or cancer chemotherapy (http://www.tc.columbia.edu/centers/cifas/drugsandsociety/background/MedMarijUSLaws.html). Unfortunately, in 2005, the Supreme Court...