A Legal High

When most people think of marijuana, they imagine a teenager down in his basement getting high while his friends play video games. What people do not know is that the teenager had just got back from chemotherapy and found that smoking marijuana was the only way to stop himself from feeling nauseous. When people hear stories like this they do not know what to think about medical marijuana. It is therefore very important to look in depth at the effects and potential uses for this trending medicine. There is evidence that medical marijuana has been used since 2900 BC, though it and has been shunned for over the past 5000 years. In the late 1960s, marijuana made a comeback in the U.S. as a recreational drug, which gave it the bad reputation it has today. It is due to this reputation that it is illegal today though it has legitimate medical purposes. Medical marijuana has the potential to heal and treat millions of people as well as help out the country’s economy. For these reasons, the United States should collectively legalize medical marijuana to be prescribed to patients whose diseases and illnesses can be cured or treated by the drug.
It has been and still is an exceedingly common misconception that marijuana is bad for the body, is addictive, and is a gateway drug. Before it’s appearance in popular culture as a recreational drug of the 20th century, marijuana was mainly used for medical treatment. The earliest recorded use of medical marijuana was in 2700 BC by the Chinese emperor Shen Nung. He “discovered marijuana 's healing properties as well as those of two other mainstays of Chinese herbal medicine, ginseng and ephedra” (Janet, Mack). Ginseng and ephedra are very common in everyday life; ginseng is used throughout the United States in drinks and in dried form. In 1611 the Jamestown settlers brought the marijuana plant with them and used the plants fibers as an export (Segal). A book written by Robert Burton, an English Clergyman and Oxford scholar, suggests

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