Some people around me have been prescribed medical marijuana, but there are other people near me who can not be prescribed marijuana because doctors believe the reason that the patient wants marijuana is invalid. Even though some of these people don’t have valid reasons doesn’t mean that all of their reasons are. Many of these people ask their doctors for medical marijuana in order for them to function in their everyday lives. Whether it be anxiety or stress, I feel that the issue should be addressed for that individual.

Most people, when asked how marijuana can help, say “Marijuana can help with anxiety and stress,” but marijuana has more benefits than you may believe. Marijuana does help with anxiety and stress, but marijuana can also help to treat the symptoms of chemotherapy patients/cancer patients. Chemotherapy can cause a lack of appetite, causing the patient to weaken. Marijuana increases your appetite and can also help with the pain of cancer.

Marijuana has neuroprotective properties. This means that marijuana can actually regenerate and protect the nervous system. Marijuana legalization would also be greatly beneficial because if marijuana is legal, there would be more regulating, causing less people to become injured from laced marijuana. Marijuana can be laced with many dangerous things. For example, other drugs such as cocaine, methamphetamine, and LSD are commonly laced with marijuana. Marijuana is usually laced with something to give the user their desired effect from the drug. Lacing drugs is dangerous to others because you can overdose on drugs such as cocaine, methamphetamine, and LSD, but if someone were to take marijuana by itself, they couldn’t overdose.

On honestmarijuana.com it states “Making medical cannabis products available would mean improved public health and less of a drain on the healthcare system. That would result in more public funds being available for roads, schools, and other public safety initiatives.” This proves that marijuana legalization could create more opportunity to improve upon the school systems and make the public safer. The money currently being drained from public funds for the healthcare system could be used for different things in order for the public to be safer.

In the article As Canada Moves to Legalize Marijuana, Shop Owners Ask: Why Wait? Dan Levin brings up a great point about Canada’s government mainly wanting to legalize  marijuana “to keep marijuana away from minors and the profits out of the hands of organized crime.” This is just further proof that in 2019 we need to open our eyes to the benefits of marijuana and we need to legalize marijuana in America, adding Connecticut to the list of states that have already legalized marijuana would be a major step forward.