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

Student Strip Search Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Student Strip Search - Term Paper Example The missing thing according to Justice David H. Souter "was any indication of danger to the students from the power of the drugs or their quantity, and any reason to suppose that Savana was carrying pills in her underwear. (Barnes)." In a dissenting note, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that Judges are not qualified to second-guess the best manner for maintaining quiet and order in the school environment (Barnes). He said that the school officials were logical in searching the school girl. The issue in this case was whether a 13-year-old student's Fourth Amendment right was violated when she was subjected to a search of her bra and underpants by school officials acting on reasonable suspicion that she had brought forbidden prescription and over-the-counter drugs to school. It was held that the search did violate the constitution because there were no reasons to suspect the drugs presented a danger or were concealed in her underwear. The official who ordered the search was also granted immunity from liability because the constitutional position of the Fourth Amendment was not clear at the time of the search. Facts of the case The case began when Marissa, another student was found with prescription-strength ibuprofen and said she received it from Savana. The facts of the case occurred in one October day in 2003 at 13-year-old Savana Redding’s math class at Safford Middle School. The assistant principal of the School, Kerry Wilson, came into the room and asked Savana to go to his office. Wilson then showed Savana four white prescription-strength ibuprofen 400-mg pills, and one over-the-counter blue naproxen 200-mg pill, all used for pain and inflammation but banned under school rules without advance permission (Safford Unified School Dist. No. 1 v. Redding, 129 S. Ct. 2633 - Supreme Court 2009). He then asked whether Savana knew anything about the pills. She said that she had no idea about it. Then Wilson told Savana that he had received a report that she was giving ibuprofen pills to fellow students. Savana said she didn’t. She also agreed to let Wilson search her belongings. An administrative assistant also came into the office, and together with Wilson they searched Savana's backpack. They did not find any ibuprofen pills. Wilson then asked the administrative assistant to take Savana to the school nurse's office to search her clothes for pills. Helen Romero, the administrative assistant and the nurse, Peggy Schwallier, asked Savana to remove her jacket, socks, and shoes, leaving her in stretch pants and a T-shirt (both without pockets), which she was then asked to remove. Finally, Savana was told to pull her bra out and to the side and shake it, and to pull out the elastic on her underpants, thus exposing her breasts and pelvic area to some degree (Safford Unified School Dist. No. 1 v. Redding, 129 S. Ct. 2633 - Supreme Court 2009). But no pills were found. Savana’s mother argued that strip search is in violation of Sav ana's Fourth Amendment rights. Savana's mother filed suit against Safford Unified School District 1, Wilson, Romero, and Schwallier for conducting strip search. The school officials raised the defence of qualified immunity. The District Court for the district of Arizona granted the motion on the ground that there was no Fourth Amendment violation, and a panel of the Ninth

Motivating Employees and Self-Managed Teams Essay

Motivating Employees and Self-Managed Teams - Essay Example As a state of mind, Bruce and Pepitone described this as the attitudes and perceptions of individuals manifesting in the willingness to contribute greater effort towards the achievement of organizational goals with the willingness conditioned by expectation of satisfying individual objectives (2). State of mind depends on various factors. Nickels and McHugh identified these factors as scientific management (260) in organizations, the Hawthorne effect with perceptions of organizational concern towards employees linked to positive outcomes (262), a work environment meeting an individual's hierarchy of needs (263), existence of positive incentives and challenges (269), and intrinsic and extrinsic factors influencing job satisfaction (265). As a process, Bruce and Pepitone described motivation as the process of arousing, directing and maintaining attitudes, behavior and perceptions towards the attainment of organizational goals (2). Nickels and McHugh discussed motivation as the facilitation of the interaction between individual and organizational goals (273) in a manner that ensures the achievement of individual and organizational expectations (274) and perceived as fair (275). ... Motivating individual employees is important to the business environment because this creates a number of benefits. First benefit is job satisfaction (Nickels and McHugh 260), which refers to the positive emotional condition of employees that comes from their personal appraisal and/or organizational performance assessment of accomplished tasks. Job satisfaction means employees feeling better about the value of their work contribution to the organization, going beyond minimum expectations, and positive response to task completion. This is important in the contemporary business environment because of its link to customer service and satisfaction. Satisfied employees are likely to do better in their work. This spills over to their treatment of customers. Customers then receive better service and improved experience of the products and services of the firm (Nickels and McHugh 260). This could lead to repeat purchases and even loyalty. Second benefit is improved individual performance, which when combined translates into improved organizational performance (Bruce and Pepitone 38). This links employee performance and organizational performance. Employee performance refers to both work outcomes and task completion processes. Measurement of work outcomes could include task completion based on quotas or other standards applied by the organization. Efficiency in task completion by working with errors at a minimum level, targeting more than the minimum expectations, and better disposition towards work also reflect the performance of motivated employees. Improved individual performance is important to the contemporary business environment because

Comparison of Social and Medical Models of Health

Comparison of Social and Medical Models of Health The ways in which health, illness and disease are defined depends on different factors and models, For instance the way the practitioner defines health is different from the way other people in the society defines it. There has always been diversity in the theoretical of health and illness in the western culture. Though the models of health may vary, these models play a defining role, signifying what should be or not be the object of public health concern. This essay will define and compare the medical and social model of health and also discuss their key components. The social model of health places importance on the changes that needs to be made by society, empowering people to be in charge of their own health and lifestyles, in order to make the population healthier. The medical model defines health as absence of disease, it informs the most powerful and influential discourse about health. The medical model is the most main system of medical knowledge within the western world, its activity is the treatment of disease in individuals. Its the model that quite defines health narrowly. Social model of health key components involves health being determined by a broad range of social, environmental and economic factors as not just biomedical risk factors, it also act to reduce inequalities that has to do with age, gender, race, culture, socioeconomic status and location because equity is the main point for health service delivery. The key component of the medical model of health involves the standard analytical format process: Underlying the model is the implicit assumption that the illness described by the person, now called patient, indicate a disordered part, or pathology, called the disease or disorder which is the cause of the illness. The social model of health differences when compared to the medical model of health are as follows:-:- The social model of health is focus more on the environment, social, and environmental determinants of health, not just biomedical determinants. While, the medical model is centred on individual as a patient. The medical model has a core structure of analysis by which symptoms and physical signs known as illness are reduced to more specific disordered part while the social determinant of health is the social and environmental condition people work and live. Medical model deals with a specific disease with specific therapy while social model of health is based on the understanding that in order for health gains to be present we need to meet the peoples basic needs. In addition to the comparison, the social model of health takes into recognition the environmental and social factors that affect health and produce inequities whereas the medical model serves well for illness caused primarily by organic diseases albeit with serious limitation when no specific cause or cure is known. In conclusion, Human kind is believed to be the only one that does not allow nature to be just nature. The most commonly accepted vision of healthcare is that improvements result from advancements in medical science. It is widely accepted that the medical model of health focuses primarily on the eradication of illness through diagnosis and effective treatment. In comparison the social model of health emphasis on changes in the society and in peoples way of life to make the population healthier. Taking into consideration these models of health allows us to have a better knowledge of why some people take care of their health easily than others.

Why I do it

It was a freezing cold morning in Farnham. I thought to myself ‘Why am I out of bed at this time on a Saturday morning?' My question was answered merely two minutes later as I managed the trick which I have been trying for the last week, a ‘topside sunny day.' ‘Nice man, nice,' was the call from the bench as I looked over at my friend Mark who was giving me the thumbs-up as I came swiftly out of the trick. I skated over to the bench lazily and took a seat next to Sam, Mark and Henri. ‘What time is the comp tomorrow?' I asked them. ‘Nine am bright and early,' replied Sam whilst getting up to skate over to the grindbox and attempt another amazing trick. ‘I know I need practice for the competition but skating at eight o'clock on a Saturday morning in the freezing cold is a bit too much,' I moaned as I put on another jumper. ‘You wanna go street for a bit?' asked Mark as he took off his skate and started fiddling with the laces. ‘Where are we gonna go? The sixth form college is too far, we're not allowed in Lidls and Redgrave rail is still wet from that rain during the night,' I complained. As I said this I was mostly thinking of my stomach, as I hadn't any breakfast yet. ‘You fancy going to Wimpy?' ‘I'm still banned,' said Sam almost proudly as he glided back to the bench having just done a perfect ‘topsoul.' Henri was being strangely quiet and he suddenly stood up, picked up his bag and said ‘well you can wait outside then.' Mark stood up sharply ‘as long as I can get some hot food I'm not bothered where it is.' On the way to Wimpy I thought constantly of the upcoming competition that was getting ever closer. As I imagined what it would be like to have about thirty or forty people stare at me for ten minutes butterflies suddenly came to my stomach and made me feel nervous and uncomfortable. I gripped my bag a little tighter with my freezing fingers and wished I had had the sense to bring the gloves I bought the day before. As I entered Wimpy I could feel the warmth of the deep-fat fryers and hear the voices of the Turkish men who worked there. We took a seat in the smoking section and looked at the menu. ‘Man I hate being able to see pictures of the food on the menu. It just makes it look pathetic when it arrives because it never looks the same,' said Mark miserably. ‘Just decide what you want and order I'm starving,' I told him as I had already decided on a large Wimpy breakfast consisting of sausage, bacon, eggs, tomatoes, beans and toast. ‘Can you add a toasted teacake to that?' I asked the waiter as I gave my order. I wolfed down the breakfast, even though I don't like tomatoes, and lit a cigarette. ‘Is anyone else nervous about the competition tomorrow?' I asked trying to hide the fact that I still had butterflies in my stomach despite having finished my breakfast. ‘No it's not big deal just think of it as another game of IYMTA. It's only really us, Ben, Carl and James that are entering anyway so there's not a lot of competition.' As Mark said this he was lazily puffing on a cigarette and leaning back on his chair. IMYTA is a game that we play where we skate against each other. It stands for I Match Your Trick Association. It is an annual competition involving professional skaters from around the world where one person does a trick and then everyone else has to do the same trick or they are given a letter. When you have all five letters you are out of the game. We played this regularly and hearing Mark put it like that I felt more relaxed about the competition. ‘Yeah I guess,' I replied as I leant back on my chair feeling relaxed for the first time since I heard about the competition. ‘I' m off home to get some sleep, I might come out later on,' I said as I left the restaurant. I skated to the bus stop feeling good and made it just in time to catch the 9:40 bus. When I arrived home I went straight upstairs, undressed and fell into bed. I fell asleep almost instantly as I hadn't had any sleep the previous night and was still tired from school on Friday. I dreamt of the competition. It was a warm, sunny day and it had just started. I smiled as I dropped in on the big ramp to go for my first big trick. I jumped, and as I was flying through the air I grabbed my feet and pulled them behind me then released them and landed perfectly to go up the other ramp and do a perfect 540 degree spin. The crowd was cheering and the judges were going wild. I skated round the entire park and did a 900-degree spin on the biggest ramp. I was about 9 feet in the air and I leant forward too much. My front wheels hit the ramp and I landed on my face. It hurt so much. I heard an ambulance somewhere in the distance but it was distorted somehow. It sounded more and more like a phone ringing. ‘Ian. Ian wake up you have a phone call!' I woke with a start. My heart leapt. It was a dream I realized. I stood up and put on my dressing gown trying to tell myself it was just a dream and that that wouldn't happen. My stomach had butterflies again. I took the phone from my mum. ‘Hello?' I said groggily. ‘What are you still doing in bed? The competition is half an hour away!' said Mark urgently. ‘What?! It's tomorrow stop joking around,' I said as I checked my watch. 3Sun it said. Oh my God I thought. I slept right through. ‘I will be there don't worry,' I mumbled quickly and hung up. I ran upstairs, threw my clothes on and picked my bag up. I half-fell down the stairs in my haste and put my skates on. As I flew down the hill towards Farnham skatepark I had the feeling I had forgotten something important. It was as cold as the previous day but I had no time to be cold. I skated faster. I arrived at the skatepark five minutes later out of breath and threw my bag down. ‘Where have you been?' asked Sam. ‘In bed,' I answered quickly and I went straight to the biggest ramp and started warming up. I was skating quite well, I managed to spin a 540 and land but then I tried to ‘Truespin topside pornstar' and my feet missed the right spot and before I knew what happened I was lying on the floor. I got straight back up and thought to myself ‘this is not going to beat me.' I skated hard for another 15 minutes before the announcer had finished setting up his equipment and announced that the competition was about to start. It was the BMX'S category first so I had a twenty-minute break before I had to skate again. I rolled lazily over to the bench where my friends were sitting, sat down and lit a cigarette. ‘Why do they have to have a BMXers competition anyway?' asked Mark indignantly. ‘There's only five of them.' ‘Because it gives us something to laugh at,' retorted Henri. I couldn't join in their jokes and laughter. I was too busy thinking about the trick I had been working on for two weeks. A bio flip. To do it I had to do sort of a front flip but instead of going over my head and landing forwards, I had to throw myself over my right shoulder and land backwards. I had only tried it twice and never landed it. None of the others knew I had been trying it or that I even planned to attempt it. The BMX competition was cut short because of an injury and the announcer told all the rollerbladers to make their way to the ramps. I hastily threw my cigarette to the floor and skated up the ramp. As I stood at the top of the ramp I looked around at the people in the crowd. There were so many. ‘You have 15 minutes,' came the voice over the speaker. ‘Go!' I jumped into the ramp and immediately went into a four foot high ‘mute grab' over the funbox and neatly stalled on the other ramp. My heart jumped as I went back down the ramp backwards and did a 360 spin over the funbox. I was skating better than I had skated in a long time and I had a moment where my butterflies and doubts had gone and I was just confident. This was it. I dropped in on the smaller ramp and did a 180 spin over the funbox so I could go backwards into the trick. I could see a photographer in the front of the crowd aim his camera at me. I went up the ramp backwards and threw myself as hard as I could over my shoulder. For a second it was like time stood still. I had pulled my legs in so that I was like a ball in the air. I brought my legs back round so I could land near the bottom of the ramp. Suddenly it felt like I was going to spin too much and land on my knees. But somehow I managed to lean back a tiny bit and land on my feet and roll away. The crowd were shouting and the photographer was going mad. I could hear the announcer shouting ‘He's done it, he's done it.' Mark and the others had stopped skating to watch my bio flip but Mark had come over and shook my hand and said ‘nice one.' The others were standing with their mouths open as if they had never seen a bio flip before. Henri skated up to me and said ‘I never thought you would do that.' It suddenly occurred to me as the speakers told me that I had come first that this is why I do it.

Letter of Motivation Essay

Today’s world is like an open book. We people now have information at our fingertips and that has helped us in drastically improving the way we live. This change in our world, into one huge global entity can be attributed to the communication revolution that our world underwent. From the radio to the computer, the developments in the field of electronics have intrigued me since childhood. My interests became my passion and motivated me to pursue my Bachelor degree in Electronics and Communication. My quest for hands-on experience motivated me in making a radio receiver in my third semester of Bachelors. But after finishing my B-Tech, I realized that I had mastered only the basics and that there is still a lot more to learn to truly comprehend the nuances of the subject. This led to my decision to pursue a Master degree and broaden my knowledge base. I believe that being able to pursue a Master Degree program in Hochschule Darmstadt will also be a motivation for me to further study and research in a field that has interested me for so long. My decision of applying to Hochschule Darmstadt, for Electrical Engineering and Information Technologies is based mainly on the course structure and the various research opportunities that I will encounter there. The eminent panel of experts handling the various topics and the resources of the university assures me of the studying experience that I hope to have. As part of my Bachelors project I did a MATLAB based project named â€Å"Copter Eyes† with introduction of a new Video Mosaicing technique. My project brought forth a comprehensive technique of real time color Video Mosaicing which invited the attention and funding of two major Institutions namely â€Å"Center for Engineering Research and Development (CERD)† and â€Å"Kerala State Council for Science Technology and Environment (KSCSTE)†. As part of the mini project of my Bachelors course, I have also worked on a microcontroller based device that works on various modes and functioned as ASCII transmitter and receiver, Pulse Width Modulator, IR Tester, Capacitance and Frequency Meter, Signal Generator, Voltage meter and Logic Probe . This small endeavor of mine was greatly appreciated by my lecturers and has been adopted by the Communication Laboratory of my college. My initial idea for the Bachelor project was a communication based project, but due to the lack of technical knowhow I was not able to go through with my project. I believe that with the knowledge pool in Hochschule Darmstadt I would be able to work on this project and also hopefully on other new ideas. I have an interest in teaching and I am currently helping many Electronics and Communication students with their MATLAB based Engineering projects at the â€Å"Institute of Human Resource Development†. I am a firm believer that knowledge grows with spreading and my teaching helps me enrich myself and the young minds of India. I am also an active member of an international organization called ICPF (Inter Collegiate Prayer Fellowship) whose vision is to impact the new generation with the Lord’s Word. I was also the coordinator of â€Å"Electrino Association† of my college responsible for organization of seminars, project expos and technical fest in the field of electronics and communication. I have won many prizes in technical fests and technical quiz competitions. I am also a sport enthusiast and have won many prizes in athletics, especially in long jump. I believe that my involvement in extracurricular activities helped me to become a dynamic and responsible person. It is my greatest desire as a student, to pursue Masters Studies in a course that would help me stand out in a crowd, from a university that can offer an enriching and exciting academic life, so that I can propel my career with an excellent start. I sincerely hope that considering my academic record and my interests, I would be able to associate with your prestigious university in successfully pursuing a Masters degree in Electrical Engineering and Information Technologies. I also hope to contribute to the research work being conducted in Hochschule Darmstadt and thereby gain significantly from the expertise that the university has in this prospective field.