My name is Valerie Reyna, I grew up in Dallas; more specifically in the Pleasant Grove area. The neighborhood that I grew up in, it was not strange to see gang members hanging out on the corner of my street and it really wasn’t strange to see people abusing the substance that is marijuana.
In my home we grew up with the mentality that “drugs are bad” “If you do drugs, you’ll end up just like them, and do you want that? NO!” I was always the type of person that I would do what I wanted to do, I wasn’t easily peer pressured, and frankly I didn’t really care what everybody else did “to be cool”. I mention this because, even though I was surrounded by all of this usage of marijuana, I never let it affect me and I never let it alter my parents’ words, because frankly, I did not want to end up “like them”.
Growing up I never really heard of medical marijuana, all I knew, was that it was a drug. As I became older I became aware of all the different ways it could be taken and all the different reasons why it is taken. I have heard and read from both sides on why it should be legalized and why it shouldn’t. Frankly, using weed is no more dangerous or harmful to the body then alcohol is. Marijuana has actually been shown to improve certain pains and aches while, alcohol is used for really nothing.
Amy Nordrum from The International Business Times states, “In some ways, such an arrangement makes a lot of sense — liquor control agencies have decades of experience maintaining tightfisted control over a liquid drug that causes far more deaths per year than marijuana. Many of the public health goals for both marijuana and alcohol are the same — limit the amount that drivers have in their systems, for example, and keep it out of reach of minors. And, of course, the revenue that states stand to collect from hefty taxes on these products is substantial.”
Many people that do use medical marijuana have shown improvement in pains and aches, as stated before, I say if it helps you, go for it! However, there is a thin line between using it as a pain killer and abusing the substance. The only way to control those who cannot control themselves is to keep it illegal. The only way that somebody could use it legally is by a prescription from a doctor. My intake on this particular issue as one can see is not very passionate. If it is legalized or if it isn’t it won’t really affect me personally. This particular issue I see it as, do what you want, if you decide to use it illegally you’ll do jail time. If you truly need it for medical purposes then you’ll go through the right steps to get it prescribed by doctor.
This is a very interesting perspective about only using marijuana for medical purposes. If you decide to use it for thing other than medical then that is your choice and you would have to pay the consequences. Making medical marijuana legal would be a strategy that would help those who really need it.
Yea, that has always been my perspective in this particular situation. I have been around it during my life, however not too close where it affected my life. I feel if it were to be legalized I believe it would be better used if it were only used medically, rather than recreational.
Your post has really made me take a look at my viewpoint about the use of marijuana. I also grew up in Dallas, Oak cliff to be exact and the use of weed was all around me. Yet I still seen people make it out of there and do great things with there life. So I still think that medical and recreational should be legalized.
Hey fellow Dallas-ite !
I grew up in Oak Cliff like Kevin, but I went to school in Pleasant Grove, and I agree with you about the overt usage of marijuana that you see in the “hood”. Like you, my mother was very adamant about me not experimenting with drugs and for that I am thankful. Although I’m pretty laissez-faire about what other people do, I believe that legalizing marijuana will affect all of us whether we want it to or not. I have a stake in this society and so do you, its our duty to uphold it.
Like where you grew up, my hometown is no stranger to gang either as drug is being deal out and in all the time. We even had a group call D.A.R.E lead by local police to inform us about drugs. They also made marijuana and other drugs sound super bad, but through different type of research, marijuana has gain a reputation for curing and slowing down diseases. Therefore I’m all for the legalizing marijuana for the medical purpose.
I really appreciate your perspective on marijuana legalization. Although, your opinion differs from mine, I found this blog very insightful and it made me think. I also agree with you when you said the legalization of marijuana won’t affect you personally because I feel the same way. If weed is legalized or not, it won’t affect me.