Whenever children today here the word "drugs", they immediately and incorrectly think of addiction, suicide, and death, because our society programmed them to think that. While there is nothing wrong with that belief, it blinds us to the answers right in front of us. The thing we think will kill us, is the thing that could save us. As a world, we are leaf-blocked. To explain, leaf-blocked is when you hold a tiny leaf up to the sun, and it blocks the sun, even though the leaf is much smaller. In our case we are holding up the lie that drugs only kill, and it is blocking the fact that certain drugs can also save. Marijuana is a drug that could save us, but that fact is hidden by the monster we have created. We should legalize medical marijuana; we should save lives, not destroy them; we should do the right thing, not the irresponsible things.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta/Neurosurgeon, said, "It is irresponsible not to provide the best care we can as a medical community, care that could involve Marijuana. We have been terribly and systematically misled for nearly 70 years in the United States, and I apologize for my own role in that.” Dr. Sanjay Gupta is saying that if we have the resources and the ability to solve a problem, then nothing should hold us back from fixing the issue. So, why don't we fully support the use of medical marijuana? Are we scared? Are we too set in our ways? Or, are we turning a blind eye, and saying someone else will take care of it? Every time we push the issue away, the worse it gets, and then the next time we look at the problem we see how bad it is and we push it away again. We are stuck in a cycle we know we are in, so who is going to break it? 

The ongoing argument that is continually used in this case, is addictiveness. As citizens, we are taught that drugs are addictive. This may be true in some cases, but we need to realize the same principle does not apply for everything. Philip Denney, MD / Physician said, “I have found in my study of these patients that Cannabis (marijuana) is really a safe, effective and non-toxic alternative to many standard medications. There is no such thing as an overdose. We have seen very minimal problems with abuse or dependence, which at worst are equivalent to dependence on caffeine." Philip Denney is arguing that America allows caffeine addiction (for example, addiction to Pepsi), but we won't all allow medical marijuana. We don't have a problem with Pepsi, a potentially "addictive" drink, but we won't allow a life changing drug that could have the same minor effects? Now, many people would ask how the two topics are they related. Well, they both have the same "withdraw symptoms" such as headache and nausea, but there is no specific "overdose" point. Medical marijuana is not addictive in most cases, and people tend to blow things out of proportion.

Medical marijuana is such a hot topic right now because it can be used as a treatment for a disease like cancer, or a long-term condition such as nerve pain or glaucoma. Some may say that medical marijuana is not all that it is cracked up to be, but that is not true. The following website says, "This medication, known as dronabinol in the medical world, has been shown to reduce nausea, increase appetite, and help patients gain weight." People dream of curing cancer, but in the meantime, we must be open to other ideas. This quote means that cancer patients that did not respond to other treatments, have an opportunity to get the results they need during chemotherapy. Are we going to let old ideas keep us from making new advances?

This is our chance to break out of those bad habits. In this case, we need to prove the normal assumption about drugs are wrong in some cases. Medical marijuana is one of the least addictive drugs out there, and it has no risk of lethal overdose. What people don't realize is that addiction is a mental condition associated with physiological need. So, the argument that marijuana is addictive is flawed because anything can be addictive. We need to get passed the idea of the addictiveness and medical marijuana. While we ponder things already proven, people are suffering. Will you fight to help those in need, or will you turn a blind eye and let it pass by?