Marijuana is not the life ruining drug that the media seems
to make it out to be. In fact it has been proven to be safer than things like
beer and cigarettes, which are sold legally and in large amounts. Also, there
is no case of anyone actually dying from the drug and only about 9% of all
users become clinically addicted. Some people will argue it is actually helpful
to help relax and cope with medical problems, and one of those people would be
my brother.
My brother has had epilepsy since he was about 4 years old.
It started out as “absent seizures”, which is basically him doing things and
saying things he can’t control for about 10-12 seconds every few days or
so. As he grew up, he was placed on all
kinds of medicines and pills to try to correct the problem doctors said would
either get worse or go away. It got
worse.
Around high school it started to shift from just these
absent seizures to a mix between them and physical seizures. Though the physical seizures only happened
about 4 times and he was medicated well enough to stop any more, he would say
that in his head he was always worrying about a seizure happening while he was
out and it effected things like him going out with friends, getting a job, and
even almost made him not go to the college he wanted too because he didn’t want
anything happening to him, epileptically, while far away from home. He knew it
was all in his head but couldn’t shake the feeling; until he tried smoking pot.
It was later in high school when we started
going out with our friends and occasionally started smoking weed. Neither of us
became pot heads or anything and kept our priorities, but in every social
situation we did, his epilepsy would be the last thing on his mind, you could
just tell. My brother tells me it just
makes him feel calm about things and relaxed.
He also says that it takes everything off his mind that isn’t right in
front of him, happening in the now, but he’s in no way dependent on it. Now this isn’t medical marijuana, just
whatever friends happen to have, but he makes a point in saying that it helps
him because when he’s high, he just doesn’t think about it so he doesn’t worry
which shows him it’s all in his head, helping his confidence with it while he’s
sober.
This is one of many good uses of marijuana. People seem to be so against it for some
reason focusing on so much of the negatives, that they don’t see that it does
good as well! From what I have seen and experienced,
marijuana does more good than bad and I’m glad my brother found it to be
honest, because now he lives his life without letting his epilepsy anxieties
hold him back.
First, I would be interested in your source for the 9% statistic you cite at the beginning.
ReplyDeleteSecond, your brother is self-medicating. While that appears to be working out for him in social situations, it is unlikely to be acceptable once he leaves college and attempts to find employment.
I'm interested to know if your brother is open about his marijuana use with his doctors and what his doctors say about it. I know medical marijuana is used to help people with epilepsy so maybe he could be prescribed. I think it may be worth knowing if your brother is a good candidate.
ReplyDeleteI know plenty of people who have respectable jobs-- specifically managers at large corporations, musicians, athletes, our president-- and the government signed a patent in 2013, US 6630507 B1 stating that cannabis is a neuroprotectant and acts as an antioxidant, which also means it can repair the brain damage caused by alcohol.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0091305713002104
Jordo,
ReplyDeleteYour writing style is so authentic and you have a really strong voice. I admit you defintlely pulled on the emotional strings; obviously I'm on the favorable end of the spectrum but I felt a strong connection to this peice.
Watch your run-on sentences.
While an authentic style, strong voice, and emotional heart string pulling is effective in swaying those already on the favorable end of your spectrum, citations and well-constructed arguments would work better on the rest of us.
ReplyDeleteI just provided citations of research and studies of my own in my last comment.
ReplyDeleteThe Original Post argues that marijuana gets bad press and doesn't provide a citation for his "only 9% get addicted!" statistic. I assume it's coming from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2797098/ , but Jordo would have to confirm. (And frankly, I consider a roughly one in ten chance of getting addicted more than enough reason to not use the stuff recreationally...)
DeleteThe study you link to doesn't say anything at all about whether marijuana ruins lives or is addictive, but instead discusses a medicinal use. If you want your patent cite to be looked at, you should include a URL like https://www.google.com/patents/US6630507 . And while the patent was signed and 2013, it was submitted in 1998.