Victor Bosselaar
Sarah Etlinger
WRT 105
December 3, 2006
Misconceptions of Marijuana in America Revisited
It’s obvious that Americans have a skewed view of marijuana and its effects. The reason being the misleading information the media gave to the public of marijuana. Americans rely on bias sources to inform them on marijuana instead of research the issue independently to make a clear decision for themselves. This leads to a common misguided assumption people have over marijuana. Anti-marijuana advertisements present bogus images and video on consequences of marijuana that is not back up by any legitimate scientific research proving their claims to be consistent amongst marijuana users. Most people don’t actually know the effects marijuana has on the human body because they assume that what they are told by another person must be correct; only can a person fully hold their opinion on this topic when an individual conclusion has arrived laying out marijuana’s full effects on the body. This essay will extensively examine the effects marijuana has on the human body to clear up any confusion between fabricated myths and actual facts.
The American government started a program, National Institute on Drug Abuse, which would conduct research on all drugs to learn the effects they have on the human body. They’ve conducted a study that compared the deaths caused by popular drugs in America. Tobacco came on top with an average 400,000 deaths per year. Alcohol finished second with 100,000 average deaths a year. The body of the list contained cocaine, heroine, caffeine, and prescription pills. Marijuana came out on the bottom of the list with zero recorded deaths ever.
In 1999, the National Academy of Sciences: Institute of Medicine came out with a review that urged the government to conduct research on smokeless option for taking in THC. Smokeless tobacco is a fairly new method of using marijuana. How it works is, instead of burning the herb at 700° C, the...