Legalize It or Not

We have learned something about commonplaces and ideology in English 306 this week. And I found that there are plenty of social issues and controversial topics we can talk about in our life. The Arizona Daily Wildcat published two major issues came up this week at the same time in town. One is the government passed the law of conceal weapons are allowed in bars and the supporters of medical marijuana of Arizona Medical Marijuana Policy Project is trying to get proposition on 2010 ballot.

A middle-age resident of Arizona caught students` sight around campus this week with the purpose of trying to get registered voters to sign a petition to legalize medical marijuana. He is helping the organization of Arizona Medical Marijuana Policy to collect 23,000 signatures out of 153,000 voter signatures to get the proposition onto the November 2010 ballot. Legalize medical marijuana is always a controversial issue in the communities of Arizona since 1996. There are 13 states legalized medical marijuana in various years, and the state of Arizona is not one of them.

There are approximately half and half supporters and opponents holding different opinions about passing the law of legalize marijuana according to the article on newspaper. I guess the supporters are dominating the major portion because their claim is reasonable enough to persuade people to stand by them. The organization estimates there are thousands of patients in Arizona need medical marijuana for pain relief. Currently, they have only two choice to deal with their pain, one is suffer it, and the other one is go to the black-market to buy marijuana since purchase marijuana is still illegal in Arizona.

We may question them if they are looking for an excuse for legalization of recreational marijuana use. We have such an advanced medicine, and there are plenty of alternative solutions can solve the pain relief problem. First of all, the organization claims that the aims to allow patients in Arizona with qualifying ailments to receive limited amounts of medical marijuana from dispensaries regulated by the state. Secondly, the effect of marijuana can`t be replaced by the painkillers.

Bill, a medical marijuana user who recently received an amputation surgery of part of his foot due to diabetes, uses the drug as prescribed by his California doctor. He said he is experiencing the benefits from taking medical marijuana, “when I take painkillers, they put me to sleep for 16 hours or make me feeling so weak that I usually forget to take my insulin,” said Bill. “Medical marijuana just relieves the pain and relaxes me.”

I don`t want to judge if legalize the medical marijuana is right or not. I still worry about it more or less because taking medical marijuana is the same as smoke it. I just can`t stop associating people abuse using marijuana someday in thinking by any chance. Legalize it for those people who actually need it for medical use is still essential I believe. The government should perfect the law in the upcoming days so that some people take the advantage of it to go into illegal activities.