Rhetoric & Writing

Marcus, Ruth. “Ruth Marcus: The perils of legalized pot” washingtonpost.com. The Washington Post, 02 Jan. 2014, Web. 15 Jul. 2015.

Ruth Marcus is an American journalist and editorial writer for The Post, specializing in American politics and domestic policy. She studied at Yale University where she wrote for the college newspaper. Later she wrote for the National Law Journal,before attending Harvard Law School. Marcus uses this article to not argue about how marijuana is the worst legal substance but her main concern about teenagers obtaining marijuana. She discusses how easily it is for teenagers to gain illegal substance disorders.

Marcus starts by addressing other basic reasons about why it is not a good idea to legalize marijuana but does not go into detail. She uses a conclusion of the American Medical Association about how cannabis is commonly involved in drugged driving with drivers being under the age 21. Marcus states, “…our kids will not be better off with another legal mind-altering substance.”  In other words, Marcus believes that legal marijuana should not be something teenagers have their hands on.

According to Marcus, a 2012 study of more than 1,000 New Zealanders from birth to age 38 found that cannabis use was associated with neuropsychological decline broadly across domains of functioning.  Proving as she herself writes that,” the decrease in IQ was linked only to those with adolescent marijuana use, not those who started in adulthood.”  She then reflects on how even though those who “started as teens, stopping didn’t fully restore functioning.” Particularly aiming for the effects of marijuana on an adolescent brain.

As a mother herself, Marcus claims “minors will use it.” Referring the legalization of marijuana would be “more widely available” for the youth.  Her bias is clear when she mentions about a majority of Americans supporting legalization the previous year and disagrees when she writes, “If this doesn’t make you nervous, you are smoking something. Maybe even legally.”

This article gives an input of teenagers which was interesting because marijuana is mostly used in that age group. It is contended that the danger of legalized marijuana will greatly effect the adolescent in a negative way. This controversy will remain ” a trend that reveals itself in the course of the year obvious and inexorable.”

Gupta, Sanjay Dr. ” Why I changed my mind on weed”. CNN.com. CNN, 08 Aug. 2013. Web. 15 Jul. 2015

CNN.com http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/08/health/gupta-changed-mind-marijuana/

Dr. Sanjay Gupta is CNN’s Chief Medical Correspondent and author of “Why I changed my mind on weed”, published by CNN. com August 2013.  In his article Dr. Gupta expresses how a more in-depth look into pot, changed his perspective on the topic . Having went along with the narrative that marijuana deserves to be on the DEA’s schedule one substance list, Gupta was surprised and  disappointed that pots’ benefits have been kept in the dark.

According to Gupta, the way that marijuana is perceived in this country is  unfairly skewed, partly because of the lack of studies proving its benefits. During his research into the topic, Gupta found that only 6% of marijuana studies conducted within the United States investigate its pros, making a “highly distorted picture” when looking at weed.  Even if someone wants to study marijuana in a scholarly fashion, you need weed and approval from the government; which is extremely hard to come by, Gupta states. The National Institute on Drug Abuse is the reigning champ when it comes to drug studies, and more often than not they only focus on the negative effects. This blatant disregard for what  marijuana can offer is what has shaped the anti-marijuana mind in America.

Furthering his research, Gupta came across a young child, that since birth has been riddled with horrible seizures. Colorado native Charlotte Figi, was up to 300 seizures a week until marijuana came into the picture and reduced that to just a few a month.  The automatic criminalization of marijuana makes it difficult for success stories like this to be heard. For the medical community to turn a deaf  ear on the pros of pot is, “irresponsible”, in Gupta’s opinion. More over, Gupta writes, the potentiality of abuse is very limited, making marijuana what it is intended to be; harmless.

Going deeper into the history of marijuana in the U.S., Dr. Gupta comes to the startling realization that marijuana was only to be a schedule one substance until more in depth research had been conducted. Dr. Roger Egeberg, the Assistant Health Secretary during the 70s, was the person who deemed marijuana addictive. As Gupta dug deeper he came to the conclusion that science had absolutely nothing to do with the decision, but the “absence of science”.  Considering that its been 40+ years since that report, Gupta believes that it is past time for the reevaluation of marijuana.

Because of Dr. Gupta’s own due diligence with the subject marijuana, this makes him the perfect candidate as a back bone for my own research into the topic. The fact that he reached out of his comfort zone and allowed himself to turn away from conventional thinking, is what drew me to him. I believe my classmates would find his outlook on pot useful, because he is an academic, a doctor, someone who knows their stuff, but isn’t too knowing to not learn any more.

Rivero, Daniel. “Pot Legalization in Oregon May Come with a Big Perk.” Fusion.net. Fusion Media Network, 14 July 2015. Web. 15 July 2015.

Daniel Rivero produces and reports written articles online over topics on general legal and justice related issues in America, while also the author of “Pot Legalization in Oregon May Come with a Big Perk” article. Mainly, the article refers to a new bill which will change marijuana regulations by erasing any marijuana-related criminal charges of citizens living in the state of Oregon and give America a chance to see the effects of the people within this state to determine if the implementation of this measure should occur beyond Oregon.

The state of Oregon wishes to enact a bill that, eventually, will eliminate the past marijuana-related charges. This, in turn argued by Rivero, would free up the citizens of Oregon, mainly African American males, whose record remains tainted as a result of a marijuana-related charges, to pursue jobs that they could not pursue otherwise, stated by Rivero. As stated by Rep. Lew Frederick, a Democrat who initially created this bill idea, ”When you have a number of people, especially young black men, who are not eligible to get jobs – young black men, young black women – that affects everyone. If we can address that then we can begin to address a lot of other social issues,” Rivero addresses the suppression of African Americans in Oregon, specifically males, because of marijuana-related charges, since they get caught carrying this drug the most (pg. 11). The author admits that this one issue takes up too much time today with “social issues”, thus, we must focus on solving this one out as soon as possible to utilize our effectiveness as a society. A woman who actively researches at the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation, Alison Marqusee, speaks of various ways that the “petty” charges affect the African American community, spoken by Marqusee,  “[The bill is] important because having a criminal record is extremely harmful to someone’s ability to find employment, to their ability to access public benefits, and sometimes for their ability to find affordable housing,” many in this community agree, as well as the author, that these charges most negatively affect people’s lifestyles in Oregon (pg. 7). If the bill were to pass, Oregon officials would liberate the lives of many people affected by marijuana charges in the past.

Along with the liberation of citizens’ lifestyles, Oregon jails will no longer contain people who dealt with marijuana, but people who committed non-”petty” crimes, such as theft. Rivero argues, “Several hundreds were sitting in state jails for doing something that was now considered legal,” again reinforcing this idea of liberating the citizens of this state. Since “recreational marijuana became legal on the first of this month”, changes seem to speed up rapidly in this state in comparison to others, as implied by Rivero. The suppression of African Americans in this state continues to emphasize itself “Black Oregonians are more than twice as likely to get arrested for marijuana than their white counterparts, found a American Civil Liberties Union study released in 2013,” a fairly recent study in which exploits the truth about race in relation to marijuana arrests (pg. 10). Once this bill passes, this trend of blacks getting incarcerated for menial charges would not continue, thus giving the African American community a chance to thrive in Oregon.

I found this article very useful, because I never realized the impact that legalizing marijuana in one state would place on the African American community. A drug viewed as restricting and dangerous by some, actually poses an opportunity for a community of citizens to liberate themselves and contain the opportunity to create their own lives and carry on the lifestyles they desire. Evidence points to other state officials within the United States finding this article the most useful. Within the text, Rivero points out a comment made by Marqusee, ‘“We hope that once this law goes into effect, it will help other states start from a better position when they are drafting legislation,”’ she said. ‘“It should be standard,”’ marijuana placed an astounding impact on this state’s community and laws. If the bill gets passed, the outcomes occurring in this state will be observed to see if these type of laws should exist beyond Oregon.

– RS 1 written by Ashley Bedford

Berman, Douglas A. “How medical marijuana could literally save lives” Lawprofessors.typepad.com, 14 July 2015 Web. 15 July 2015.

http://lawprofessors.typepad.com

Douglas B, who is a professor at the Moritz college of law and is an editor for the website lawprofessors.typepad.com. For his college experience he attended Princeton University as well as Harvard Law School, while in law school he was editor of the Harvard Law Review. In this article he talks about how the use of medicinal marijuana can save lives from illnesses. He also gives us insight on the other side of the perspective from medical marijuana opponents and their views.

To start the author begins the post with views from medical marijuana opponents jumping on an analysis by the Journal of American Medical Association(JAMA) displaying that there isn’t enough solid evidence that marijuana is helping the conditions of glaucoma, anxiety or parkinson disease which it is usually prescribed for. He then states that “the study did not say that pot wasn’t helpful for people suffering from those ailments; it said there was no evidence to that effect” meaning that medical marijuana is still helping the cases just in a different way. It also means that you can’t mark out the use of medical marijuana just yet.

He then goes on to say “Importantly, however, the JAMA study found solid evidence that marijuana is effective at treating one big condition: chronic pain. The JAMA review found “30 % or greater improvement in pain with camabinoid compared with placebo,” across the 79 studies it surveyed. Proving that with the use of pot patients can lose the feeling of chronic pain. Which also can increase the health and happiness of the patient. This is very effective because the use of alternative medicines like pain killers are a high risk factor for overdosing. Douglas B, then says “Prescription painkillers are highly addictive and deadly — they killed more than 16,000 people in 2013, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s’s latest numbers. In the U.S., drug overdoses kill more people than suicide, guns or car crashes. The CDC now calls prescription painkiller abuse an “epidemic.”” Which reinstates the opinion of pot being the more healthier choice medicine to take when patients are having chronic pain conditions.

In the end, Douglas wraps it up with evidence that shows “that access to state-sanctioned medical marijuana dispensaries is linked to a significant decrease in both prescription painkiller abuse, and in overdose deaths from prescription painkillers.” This part of the article really helps with the legalization of marijuana because it shows that with marijuana being a healthier alternate drug to pain killers. More than 10,000 of patients lives are being saved from pain killer abuse and overdose.

This source  is treasured to my research because I believe in the medicinal and recreational use of marijuana. I learned a few things from stake holders from both sides because of the insight Douglas B had on this controversy. This post really helps me believe that marijuana can help many types of conditions as long as we as a country try to pass the legalization of weed. My fellow students can find this article helpful if they have any doubts of the use of medicinal marijuana or if they just want to learn more about the subject.

Wenzel, John. “High Scores: Do Pot and Video Games Feed Each Others’ Addictive Qualities?” The Cannabist. The Cannabist, 3 Feb. 2015. Web. 15 July 2015.

There are pretty much two things in this world that John Wenzel believes that go together perfectly; weed and videogames. John Wenzel is a reporter for the website “the Cannabis”, and is the author of both the nonfiction book “Mock Star”, and the article “High Scores: Do pot and videogames feed each others’ addictive qualities?” This article was posted on February 3, 2015; in it John comments how marijuana and videogames are almost made for one another because of their ability to pretty much waste your time and mellow you out whenever you want. However it is known that both weed and video games can be very addictive to certain types of people, so Wenzel asks the question; is there a higher danger of addiction when we combine the two.

Wenzel reported that the combination of both weed and videogames addiction rate is actually relatively smaller than the addiction rate of cigarettes, saying that “video games and weed, even combined, still less habit forming that a pack of Marlboros.”  He goes on to say that there have been reports that say that young adults who play videogames constantly everyday tend to smoke twice as much as casual players. However according to Wenzel; there have been reports saying that any substance use while gaming actually intertwines with the virtual experience. So he argues that there still isn’t any real scientific evidence that suggest that marijuana and gaming combined can be bad. According to Wenzel “[His] experience tells [him] that they’re more of a complementary duo.”

Wenzel suggestion when people tend to combine the two, it isn’t because of their addictive traits. It’s essentially because of the same reason why anyone actually does anything, which in Wenzel words, it’s “a uniquely satisfying form of relaxation, escape and entertainment.” So according to Wenzel, studies have shown that people that are most likely at risk of addiction to video games tend to feel alienation and a lack of accomplishment in society. Some might say that they are just weird people and outcast of society, but actually it can be anyone. Wenzel then goes and explains his own experiences with the combination saying that the experience is similar to drinking a few beers and just lounging around playing games that award you for playing compulsively. Which could to lead to more serious scenarios such as emptying your bank account or neglecting your family. However Wenzel goes on says that all these actions and traits can be categorized as “Addictive”, but also can be written down as just “Lazy.”

All-in-all with the absence of actual hard research on the topic, we can’t really reach a fair conclusion. But as Wenzel puts it “these things are supposed to be fun, so do we really want to explore how bad they can get?” Like any indulgence, Wenzel argues that video games and weed are appealing because they’re a break from the real world, not a daily replacement.