How would we define what classifies a drug? What is a drug in the first place? A drug is “a chemical substance used in the treatment, cure, prevention, or diagnosis of disease or used to otherwise enhance physical or mental well-being”. People take drugs to get out of there sober stage and get into this physical state where there’s no worries and everything feels good .If I asked a group of people to name the first drug that comes into their mind, everyone would say marijuana. Marijuana is the “dried leaves, flowers, stems, and seeds from the Cannabis sativa or Cannabis indicia plant” (NIH). Yes marijuana is not a homemade drug, it’s one of the only types of drug that come naturally from Mother Nature. The plant produces THC, which is the chemical in the plant that makes you high. Marijuana is the most commonly used drug in the …show more content…
There’s different ways to consume the drug but the most popular way is smoking it. Smoking the plant is the fastest way to get the effects, which the effects happening either instantly or in a 15 min time span. Marijuana was brought into America in early 1611, where it became a major commercial crop alongside tobacco and was grown as a source of fiber. It wasn’t until 1942 when people started questioning the drug and started to question if it was an addictive and a gateways drug to bigger drugs. It was in the 1970s when the control substance agency classified the drug as a schedule I drug, which includes drugs like heroin. They claimed that marijuana had the highest rate of abuse potential and no medicine to give to users. This is when the government started cracking down on the drug and taking the drug more seriously, but it wasn’t until the 80s until the government started cracking down on American grown cannabis and there “drug on war” act. The use of the drug decreased for that decade but then started to rise again in the 90s