Marijuna: to be legal: or not to be that is the question.

Essay by girrx6High School, 12th gradeA-, November 2003

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There have been lots of views and opinions surrounding the arguments whether marijuana should be legalized and if tobacco should be made illegal. The reasons for marijuana not being legalized are similar to the reasons people want tobacco to become illegal. Only the danger that tobacco provides is more intense than the danger of marijuana.

Marijuana's short-term effects include temporary problem with memory and problems with learning. It also causes temporary distorted perception (sounds, time, touch etc.), trouble thinking and solving problems. For some people smoking marijuana causes loss of motor coordination. But compare it to the short-term effect that tobacco produces.

Tobacco's short-terms effects are a lot more serious health wise. When a person smokes a cigarette, the body responds immediately to the chemical nicotine in the smoke. Nicotine causes a short-term increase in blood pressure, heart rate, and the flow of blood from the heart. It also causes the arteries to narrow.

Carbon monoxide reduces the amount of oxygen the blood can carry. This, combined with the effects produced by nicotine, creates an imbalance in the demand for oxygen by the cells and the amount of oxygen the blood is able to supply.

The comparison of the short-term effects of both drugs obviously shows that tobacco is more dangerous since tobacco has sudden drastic internal health changes.

The long-term effect of marijuana is that marijuana smoke contains some of the same cancer-causing compounds as tobacco. Tobacco has more cancer-causing compounds than marijuana does thus tobacco is more dangerous.

The long-term effects of tobacco are well known, but not in details. It is now well documented that smoking can cause chronic lung disease, coronary heart disease, and stroke, as well as cancer of the lungs, larynx, esophagus, mouth, and bladder. In addition, smoking is known to contribute to cancer...