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10 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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-Attention Getter: Do you know how many people have died from marijuana? None, but yet you hear of people dying from tobacco and alcohol almost every day. Why is alcohol and tobacco legal while marijuana is not? Ironically, marijuana is far less dangerous than both of them.
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-Statement of Purpose: I would like to persuade you on why marijuana should be legal. It has many great purposes, it’s a harmful drug, and how the economy would be a lot better if marijuana was legal.
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-Preview of Main Points:
I. Why marijuana should be legalized for medical use and recreational use. II. How marijuana is a harmless drug and not addicting. III. How lives would be better if marijuana was legal and how the economy would be better if marijuana was legal. |
-Transition: Now, let’s talk about why marijuana should be legal for both medical use and recreational use.
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-Main Point I: Most people in today’s society know what marijuana is, but I bet many judge it based on what has been heard. Well most of the time the things you hear aren’t always true. For instance, everyone has heard marijuana is bad for you and to never do it. Obviously that’s not true because why would 20 states be fighting to make marijuana legal, I’ll tell you.
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-Division A: Marijuana can be used for a lot of medical uses, certain scientific studies have shown that THC, the main ingredient in marijuana, helps prevent an enzyme from forming “Alzheimer Plaques” in the brain better than marketed drugs. Cannabis has been used to treat glaucoma for many decades, if not centuries. The American Academy of Ophthalmology summarizes a number of studies involving the use of marijuana in the treatment of glaucoma. Marijuana can lower intraocular pressure to treat the symptoms of glaucoma. Interestingly, marijuana is effective as a treatment for glaucoma when smoked, inhaled, ingested or administered intravenously, but has no benefits when applied directly to the eyes. The AAO does recognize the therapeutic benefits of cannabis but does explain that a number of other FDA-approved drugs are available by prescription that might be safer and more effective than marijuana. (Chad Stone, Medical Reasons for Marijuana 2010)
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Division B: Many cancer patients use Marijuana as a therapy for symptoms of cancer, including nausea, appetite loss, pain, anxiety and depression. According to the American Cancer Society, marijuana helps eliminate nausea associated with chemotherapy. Cannabis has a number of beneficial effects on the immune system and can help to reduce pain and inflammation. Rheumatoid arthritis occurs when an individual's immune system attacks the tissue in their own joints, leading to pain and inflammation. Americans for Safe Access (ASA) reviews a number of studies that show marijuana can be used to relieve pain and reduce symptoms of arthritis. Most importantly, perhaps, ASA explains that marijuana has far fewer and less dangerous side effects than prescription painkillers typically used to treat arthritis. (Chad Stone, Medical Reasons for Marijuana 2010)
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-(Division C): As recreational activities go, using pot is one of the more civilized. It’s doesn’t promote violence, like alcohol, or the psychoactive drugs, like antidepressants and antipsychotics. It doesn’t pollute the earth, like automobile racing or arctic drilling or tar sands oil extraction. As a recreational drug, it is safe, is not addictive, has never been shown to lead to use of stronger drugs, does not induce violence, and no legitimate reason has ever been documented for making it illegal. (Administration, Alcohol Kills Brain Cells, But Marijuana Doesn’t 2012)
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-Evidence/Supporting Material: So as you can see there are a lot of good reasons for the legalization of marijuana, for both medical use and recreational use.
-Transition/Internal Review: Now let’s talk about how it’s a harmless drug and not addicting in any way. |
-Main Point II: Marijuana is not addictive in any way, but if you look at tobacco and alcohol they are. More people in today’s society over-dose on alcohol and die from the use of tobacco, but no one has ever died or overdosed on marijuana. It would be easier to overdose on water intake then overdose on marijuana, because it’s impossible to over-dose on marijuana. Also marijuana is a harmless drug, and shouldn’t even be classified as a drug; it’s a naturally grown plant. Let’s look at a study that shows us that it’s not a harmless drug.
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-Division A: Now, though, a study, which will be published in April 2013 in the journal Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, has compared brain functioning of teens who drink alcohol, use marijuana, or abstain. Researchers did brain scans on adolescents before and after an 18-month period during which they used alcohol or marijuana, abstained, or consumed them minimally. Those who drank five or more alcoholic drinks two or more times per week lost white matter brain tissue, which is required for memory, attention, and decision-making. This is a permanent loss. These results correlate with another study published in the same journal in 2009 that measured functional effects of drinking on teens. It showed that the more teens consumed alcohol, the poorer their cognitive functions became. On the other hand, no changes in brain scans could be found in teens who used marijuana as much as nine times a week. Not even the heaviest users suffered any brain damage. (Administration, Alcohol Kills Br
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-Division B: Marijuana does not cause people to use hard drugs. Marijuana is the most popular illegal drug in the United States today. Therefore, people who have used less popular drugs such as heroin, cocaine, and LSD, are likely to have also used marijuana. Most marijuana users never use any other illegal drug and the vast majority of those who do try another drug never become addicted or go on to have associated problems. Indeed, for the large majority of people, marijuana is a terminus rather than a so-called gateway drug. (10 Facts About Marijuana 2013)
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-(Division C): Also the short-term effects of marijuana include immediate, temporary changes in thoughts, perceptions, and information processing. The cognitive process most clearly affected by marijuana is short-term memory. In laboratory studies, subjects under the influence of marijuana have no trouble remembering things they learned previously. However, they display diminished capacity to learn and recall new information. This diminishment only lasts for the duration of the intoxication. There is no convincing evidence that heavy long-term marijuana use permanently impairs memory or other cognitive functions (10 Facts About Marijuana 2013)
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-Evidence/Supporting Material: As you can see most of the things you hear about marijuana being bad are usually myths, because it’s been proven by scientist that marijuana is neither physically addicting nor harmful in any way.
-Transition/Internal Review: Last thing I would like to discuss is how lives would be better & how the economy would be better if marijuana was legal. |
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-Main Point III: If marijuana was legal, less people would be getting their lives ruined over this harmless, naturally grown plant. Also the economy would be better because their would be less people in prison which means less money tax payers pay, the U.S. could make and save money at the same time and eventually get out of debt. About 94 million Americans have tried cannabis at some point in their lives. That’s 40 percent of the U.S. population age 12 or older. Estimates suggest that about 25 million Americans are active pot smokers, consuming some 31 million pounds of marijuana a year. I got these numbers from an article called The Economics of Marijuana Legalization from the website. http://www.debt.org/blog/economics-marijuana-legalization/.
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-Division A: Already earning California about $14 billion a year, it has been estimated that legalizing marijuana could generate anywhere between $1.5 and $4 billion (from taxing the drug) in revenue for California, a boost that we most undeniably need. Additionally, our country as a whole spends $68 billion a year on its prisoners, one-third of which are imprisoned for nonviolent drug crimes. Police carried out 749,825 arrests of people for marijuana violations in 2012, half of these criminals are marijuana offenders, which means one-sixth of our country’s prisoners are in jail for marijuana-related charges. Legalizing the drug would mean spending $11.3 billion less a year on prisons. (Wolff, Legalizing marijuana can reduce crime, increase revenue for state 2009)
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-Division B: Marijuana prohibition currently costs taxpayers billions of dollars a year to enforce, and it accomplishes little or nothing beneficial in terms of economic benefits. "Replacing prohibition with a system of taxation and regulation would save $7.7 billion per year in state and federal expenditures on prohibition enforcement and produce tax revenues of at least $2.4 billion annually if marijuana were taxed like most consumer goods," say the economists. "If, however, marijuana were taxed similarly to alcohol or tobacco, it might generate as much as $6.2 billion annually. That’s a total of $13.9 billion in savings and income.". (Binson, Nation of Change, 2013)
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-Evidence/Supporting Material: Legalizing marijuana offers benefits for not only individual patients and doctors, but for society as a whole. Aside from the medical benefits, legalizing would contribute to reduced crime and protection of civil liberties.
-Transition: Now let’s review all of the things I have discussed with you by moving on to the conclusion. |
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-Review Statement of Purpose: I have tried to persuade you on why marijuana should be legal. It has many great purposes, it’s a harmful drug, and how the economy would be a lot better if marijuana was legal.
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-Review Main Points:
I. Why marijuana should be legalized for medical use and recreational use. II. How marijuana is a harmless drug and not addicting. III. How lives would be better if marijuana was legal and how the economy would be better if marijuana was legal. -Closure: Hopefully, after listen to my speech you can now see all the helpful things that would come from marijuana being legal. |
