Why Legal Marijuana Will Benefit Society

The legalization of marijuana in Colorado shows a stark turnaround in the way our society views the smelly green Cannabis plant. That just goes to show how far Colorado has fallen from the country’s moral backbone, right? As a country we have always considered marijuana the gateway drug that leads to more hard-core drugs like heroin and meth, but times are changing and people are beginning to see why it is not so bad.
Marijuana is not any worse than  our other legal “vices.”
What makes a substance considered bad for the body is somewhat arbitrary, mostly depending if you care about maintaining flawless health ever day of your life. The majority of people in the United States indulge in alcohol, which is well-known for causing overdose, deaths related to intoxicated people’s actions, and chronic (long term) use related to health problems like liver disease, addiction, and mental illness such as depression and dementia.1 The list goes on.
Smoking cigarettes is another vice that everybody accepts to be bad. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “cigarette smoking is the leading preventable cause of death in the United States, causing more than 480,000 deaths each year in the United States.” This is approximately one in five deaths. We let people smoke because we respect the right to let people do what they want.
Marijuana has long term consequences  is never overdosed, except in extremely rare circumstances. It causes paranoia, anxiety, dizziness and makes you hungry. Long term, it possibly causes mental health issues, but there is no evidence for it. However, it can make pre-existence mental health issues worse.3 It is a misconception that marijuana use causes lung cancer, but there is no known link between the two.4
All three of these things are used because they make people feel good (although marijuana is also used medically). Using an analogy to analyze these three common vices, long term heavy marijuana use is like a dent in a car, while cigarettes and alcohol are head-on collisions.

 

 
 
Cannabinoids, a class of chemicals such as THC, are used medically.
Cannabinoids are chemicals like THC that are also found in Cannabis, which gives these chemicals their name. They have various medical uses such as reducing chemotherapy-induced nausea, chronic pain, and possibly neurological disease treatment.
The discovery of THC and it’s effects on the brain in the past eventually led scientists to hypothesize that there is an analogous chemical naturally found in our bodies that THC mimics to produce its effects. They were right. With further research the discovery of two different endocannabinoids (cannabinoids found in the body) — 2-AG and anandamide — has let to the subsequent description of a complex endocannabinoid system in our brains. The endocannabinoids are signaling chemicals for different cells that are found in the body.
The receptors for these chemicals are known as the CB1 and CB2 receptors. CB1 is found extensively throughout the central nervous system, such as the brain. The CB2 receptors is found throughout the body and is involved in the body’s immune response. Activation of the CB1 receptors by cannabinoids causes neurons to prevent further release of neurotransmitters such as GABA, serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine.Thus, endocannabinoids are being shown to play a significant role in the way our brain functions, which is why the study of different cannabinoids can lead to new medical applications that just haven’t been discovered yet.

THC and Cannabidiol are the two most-used cannabinoids medically. With all of their potential medical uses, they are only two of over 60 cannabinoid chemicals that are found in marijuana. The effects of the others are not as well known, meaning there could be many more uses for isolated compounds within Cannabis that we just haven’t discovered yet. Additionally these compounds can allow us to further understand how the brain functions.
Unfortunately, due to Cannabis being a Schedule 1 drug (defined as drugs with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse), research extremely hard to do for the vast majority of researchers. The long term consequences will be discovered through legalization, ultimately allowing us to make more informed decisions about how Cannabis affects our bodies.