If the only way you could live through a sickness was by smoking weed, would you? What if you said yes, but it is illegal in your state? Are you just out of luck? Marijuana, also known as cannabis and weed, is a psychoactive drug from the cannabis plant intended for medical or recreational use. Marijuana should be legal for both recreational and medical use in all fifty states because it is less harming than cigarettes and alcohol, decreases depression and suicidal rates, and can also cure and soothe sicknesses.
Marijuana has been in the United States as early as 1619. According to “Why is Marijuana Illegal? A Look at the History of MJ in America”, an article written by Eve Ripley, she states “In the 1850’s, marijuana was medically prepared and made available through public American pharmacies” (Ripley). Marijuana became illegal in the 1900’s after the Mexican Revolution because Mexican immigrants were using marijuana disruptively.
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In the article “Weed Smoke VS. Cigarette Smoke: Which Is Worse?” written by Anna Wilcox, Wilcox “Studies have failed to find a correlation between moderate cannabis use and lung cancer, nor head and neck cancers” (Wilcox). Cigarettes, unlike weed, contains nicotine, which may harden arteries and cause heart diseases. In “Weed Smoke VS. Cannabis Smoke: Which is Worse?”, “80 to 90% of lung cancer cases are caused by tobacco smoke. Further, tobacco is associated with over 400,000 annual deaths in the United States alone. Cannabis consumption has yet to be conclusively associated with a single death” (Wilcox). It seems absurd that cigarettes which cause over 400,000 deaths per year, are legal but marijuana is not. The legalization of marijuana is important because smoking weed rather than cigarettes can stop deaths from