From
a New York Times article, “Washington, D.C., Approves Medical Use of
Marijuana,” Author Ashley Southall reveals that Washington D.C. will
join in with fourteen other states in the approval of the legalization of
marijuana for medical use. In a
unanimous vote, the Council agreed on dispensing medical marijuana to people
with chronic illnesses such as HIV, glaucoma and cancer as well as other long
term chronic diseases. The legislation
would implement measures that regulate dispensaries, cultivators and patients’ use
of the drug. As the debates stirs, we
see the push and pull effect between lawmakers and public supporters of this
great venture. From the congressional
perspective, they have sought to block the progression of such a bill. On the other hand, we see public supporters
on the rise in that an Associated Press-CNBC poll conducted in April; reflect
the high number of supporters of the medical marijuana program.
The
Legalization of marijuana can be seen as an engine of medicalization in that
sooner or later the pharmaceutical industry will begin to market the drug. Why treat the side effects of a treatment
that is supposed to treat the illness in the first place? It appears that there is a market for diseases
and then there is a drug to treat those diseases. Marijuana is the treatment for the side
effects of chemotherapy in cancer patients as well as the treatment for nausea
in HIV patients. Isn’t smoking dangerous
or so it was implied? There is constant
promotion of medical use of drugs but there is no guaranteed improvement in
health as one treatment onset the use of another. We belong to a culture that is market driven
and the effects lead to changing social norms in that a hallucegenic drug that
was once illegal is now acceptable to treat chronic illnesses. As a result, its recent healing properties
will increase the demand for it and pharmaceutical companies will capitalize
their profits while local drug dealers will lose out due to corporatized
boundaries.
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