Pieces of Revise

Law is a system of rules, which is usually enforced through a set of institutions. We cannot live without law because it shapes our politics, economy, and society in many ways to guarantee that an entire country is running smoothly. Law affects relations between people. The existence of law is a restriction on behavior, such as we have legal drinking law, legal smoking law, gun carrying law and even medical marijuana law. It is a commonplace that the law should prohibit things that hurt people’s bodies. On the other hand, law’s function is also to protect the public as much as it can. It is widely accepted that people do what the law allows or they will be punished for it. Also, they should not try to do something that will hurt themselves on purposes. But things, sometimes, are not absolutely unchanged. In Arizona, the things may hurt the public, which still can be regulated.

On September 30, 2009, a new Arizona law went into effect that 138,350 people with concealed-weapons permits in Arizona will be allowed to bring their guns into bars and restaurants (Dalenberg 1). This law has violated the commonplace that law should prohibit things that hurt people. Firearms are made for killing, which ought to be prohibited. Some references refer that the new gun law fixed the law, which was made 15 years ago in Arizona. Obviously, a small portion of Arizonans benefit from the new law compared with the entire population in Arizona. Those people who have concealed weapons permits are happy about the new law because they have absolute power over the people around them in public from that day on.

Self-defense is the major reason for the state government of Arizona to pass the law recently. The nature of the law has not been changed, firearms are still legal although regulated, and regulated to protect people from being harmed. The only change for the law is from protecting the majority to the minority in public. People may sense a certain tinge of irony in the law, in that concealed weapons are now allowed in bars and restaurants. Is there any potential danger for anyone who spends some time in bar or restaurant? Yes, danger has increased, adding anymore firearms increase the chance of them being used. They cannot be used if they are not there.

The majority in the community believe the commonplace about what the law should do. They may question the government or lawmakers why they allow that, which will harm people? But when the legislature and government of Arizona passed the new gun law this time, they were concerned with the minority. However, the ignored the protection and safety of the majority in the community, particularly, those people who are working in bars or restaurants, and the people who go to those places. There is no doubt that the law leads to a greater chance of gun fights. People’s worry is reasonable because alcohol impairs judgment.

Usually, this commonplace is true because firearms are not necessities in most of our life. The only ways they can protect themselves efficiently in this situation are, apply concealed weapons permits, go to gun shops and wear bullet-proof vests in bars and restaurant. People cannot stop wondering if our government wants to solve social issues or produces chaos, if it wants to promote gun selling in Arizona or decrease arguments in the community.

It is true that the commonplace is not necessarily true, and the thing that will harm some people’s bodies maybe good to other’s instead. Marijuana is the next following the guns to put on a show on campus these days. A middle-age resident of Arizona is helping an organization, Arizona Medical Marijuana Policy, to collect voters’ signatures on campus to get the proposition of legalizing medical marijuana onto the November 2010 ballot. Actually, the law was passed in 1996, which granted the use of medical marijuana to qualifying patients, meanwhile, the law against personal use as well. But it was overturned eventually by the Arizona Courts because it conflicted with the federal law.

Unlike many other drugs, marijuana is not completely prohibited in the United States, and in many other places all over the world. But few places allow medical marijuana use legally, which means it is still believed that marijuana can cause negative effect on our bodies, especially bad for the teenagers in our community. Statistics show that teenagers are a group of people who are easily abuse marijuana due to lack self-control. Fortunately, it is difficult to become addicted to marijuana, which may also mislead young men to consider smoking marijuana as it may be less harmful as smoking cigarette. They would not realize that frequent use marijuana may cause mental diseases four times greater than those teenagers who do not use or seldom use it.

Can marijuana be a medicine? Experiments claim that the effect of marijuana cannot be replaced by painkillers. Experiments have proved that when used as a medicine, cannabis has a wide margin of safety due to its low toxicity (Mathre 179). Those patients who are suffering pain problems can actually benefit from the medical marijuana. Bill Godfrey, 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. “When I take painkillers, they put me to sleep for 16 hours or make me so groggy I cannot remember to take my insulin,” said Godfrey (Counts 3). He is just one of those few people who turned to marijuana. You can imagine there are thousands of patients in Arizona who need medical marijuana for pain relief. They do not need strong painkillers due to various diseases. Purchasing marijuana is still illegal here in Arizona. Currently, patients have only two choices if they really need it, one is continuing to suffer or go to the black-market to buy illegal marijuana. Of course, if they do that they could also risk criminal conviction at the same time. The state government of Arizona may change the situation someday before long.