I Decided Upon The Question Should Marijuana Be Medicine Because I Wa

I decided upon the question "Should Marijuana be Medicine?" because I wanted to confirm my strong beliefs of an anti-drug policy, but after research, my attitude towards medical marijuana changed because it seems the benefits far out-weigh the risks. Of the 60 some chemicals unique to the marijuana plant, the main psychoactive ingredient and the one for exploring the physiological as well as the psychological role in the anandamide system is delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol, or more commonly known as THC. The anandamide system is concerned with mood, memory and cognition, perception, movement, coordination, sleep, thermoregulation, appetite, and immune response (a). Cannabis is the term used to describe the dried hemp spike. When burned and inhaled, the cannabis receptors bond to the macrophages in the brain and spine, which control the anandamide system. Macrophages are chemicals in the body, which attack the infected areas in the body and help take away the waste from an injury (a). THC acts as a catalyst in this process. It speeds up the macrophages' disposal of the waste and is why therapeutic relief comes as such a rapid onset to the user (b). Even though the THC bonds with the processes going on inside the brain, there are few THC receptors in the part of the brain that controls the basic life functions therefore making it impossible for cannabis intoxication to lead to death (c). There are strong links to cannabis relieving aches and pains, numbing the symptoms of opiate withdrawal, improving sleep, reducing anxiety, and alleviating the vomiting, anorexia, and depression associated with certain AIDS related disorders, specifically AIDS wasting syndrome(c). Some studies have also shown that cannabis can relieve muscle spasms especially in multiple sclerosis patients' (b). "With smoked marijuana, patients get immediate relief, whereas with the oral drug they get a delayed, big rush of unpleasantness. " Studies on animals have shown it could also quite possibly be an anticonvulsant. Doctors have been able to make a synthetic delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol, which they call Nabilone, that helps relieve nausea and vomiting after chemotherapy and may pose as the strongest evidence that cannabinoids do work (a). I t is a non-psychotropic drug and therefore greater accepted. Researchers have also developed a delta-8 tetrahydrocannabinol, which they call dronabinol (a). This oral drug has proven itself in stimulating the appetite of AIDS patients and has won approval from the American Food and Drug Association; one of only three drugs approved for this treatment. This drug has also been found to have analgesic and anti-inflammatory properties along with possible anxiolytic , hypnotic, and antidepressant properties, which gives this drug a profile unique to other man made drugs, and is compelling enough for further studies (a). The adverse effects have also been studied and there have been no deaths due to cannabis toxicity alone. Some of the most common side effects include sedation, euphoria, anxiety, and paranoia, dry mouth, blurred vision, and incoordination. Dependence can occur but withdrawal symptoms are mild. The smoke is toxic and may increase the risk of cardiovascular and respiratory disease (a). When I began this study, I was greatly opposed to marijuana for whatever reason it was being used, but now that I have found more information on the subject, my opinion has definitely swayed. I have attained a greater understanding for how this drug interacts with the body and why it has the effects on pain that it does. I think that if I were to compile more research, especially now that medical marijuana is actually a respected topic and no longer a joke, I think that I would find even more reasons as to why this drug should be seriously considered for therapeutic reasons. One of the reasons that this drug is so frowned upon is that society has taken for granted and abused a very unique and possibly beneficial drug therefore almost permanently attaching a bad name and delaying the necessary research which could be putting millions to ease. (a) British medical journal Cannabis as a medicine The major point that this article brought out was that delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol, the active ingredient in marijuana more commonly known as THC, does ease a wide variety of various symptoms from aches and pains to AIDS related disorders. They described how patients told

The Life And Studies Of W.E.B. Du Bios Essays - American Studies

The Life And Studies Of W.E.B. Du Bios Essays - American Studies The Life And Studies Of W.E.B. Du Bios Theoretical Analysis Paper The Life and Studies of W.E.B. Du Bois Phillip Stayton Social Theory Prof. Wilcox 11/13/2000 William Edward Burghardt Du Bois entered the world on February 23, 1868. This was less than three years after slavery was outlawed. However, his family had been out of slavery for several generations. He was born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, a small village with only a handful of black families. His teachers quickly made him a favorite, and most of his playmates were white. At the age of fifteen he became a local correspondent for the New York Globe. Du Bois moved to Nashville, Tennessee where he received a scholarship and attended Fisk University. This was the first time that he discovered that being black was a big part of his identity. He spent his summers in Tennessee teaching in rural schools. It was there that he met the real seat of slavery. He had never seen such poverty in his entire life. I touched intimately the lives of the commonest of mankindpeople who ranged from barefooted dwellers on dirt floors, with patched rags for clothes, to rough hard-working farmers, wi th plain clean plenty. (Hamilton, Her Stories). Unlike Massachusetts, Nashville was a southern town that exposed Du Bois to the everyday bigotry he had escaped growing up. While he was there he came in contact with some people that did not think of him as a normal human being. There is a story of one woman that called him a nigger after she accidentally bumped into her. By the end of his college years Du Bois had begun to take pride in his heritage. Du Bois graduated from Fisk and entered Harvard where he received his A.B., M.A. and Ph.D. degrees. He was the first African-American to receive a doctorate from that university. He also spent two years studying at the University of Berlin, which was at the time the world's most distinguished center for advanced research in history. His doctoral dissertation was a study of the efforts to suppress the African slave trade. He accepted a position teaching at Wilberforce University, a college for black students in Ohio. After an unhappy year , he left to be a researcher at the University in Pennsylvania. There he studied the African-American immigrants to Philadelphia. He published The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study in 1899, the first serious sociological study of the emerging black urban population. In 1897 Du Bois accepted a new position at Atlanta University. It was there that he began to enter the realm of political activism that would dominate the rest of his life. He began to help black people devise a strategy for confronting the growing pattern of discrimination that they were facing.(Microsoft, Encarta Encyclopedia). In 1897 Du Bois accepted a new position at Atlanta University. It was there that he began to enter the realm of political activism that would take control of the rest of his life. He began to help black people come up with a strategy for confronting the growing pattern of discrimination that they were facing. He came up with a ten-year-cycle study. This was to find statistics on morality, busin ess, education, art. environment, religion, and crime in black societys. After WWI broke out Du Bois planned another study. This covered the demographics, biology, socialization according to the family, groups, and class. This was a much larger study. He made this a study program that lasted one-hundred-years. . During the 1890s and early 1900s southern states passed Jim Crow Laws which required black people to stay out of public places that served whites. Separate restaurants, hotels, railroad cars, toilets, drinking fountains, etc. began to appear. Southern states passed laws that required voters to take confusing tests to qualify to vote. African-Americans responded to these conditions in a variety of ways. One response was to leave the South for a more desirable environment, where their rights would be respected and where there was economic opportunity. A second response was to seek some kind of accommodation within the limited opportunities whites were offering. Du Bois propose d a third alternative. He attacked Washington's claim that with freedom, Negro leadership should have begun at the plow and not in