English 162 - Can Medical Cannabis Break the Painkiller Epidemic?

Alahit Ahmad

Dr. Mary Anne Keefer                                                                             

English 162

March 22, 2018

Bibliography

Hsu, Jeremy. "Can Medical Cannabis Break the Painkiller Epidemic?." Scientific American, vol. 315, no. 3, Sept. 2016, pp. 10-12. EBSCOhost, lorainccc.ohionet.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hxh&AN=118576938&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

In this article the author provides claims to how marijuana is breaking the painkiller epidemic. He includes surveys from the department of health which shows how prescription opioids have killed over 165,000 people since 1999 and continues to rise. The author also included a study published in 2014 by Marcus Bachhuber, assistant professor of medicine at the Montefiore Medical Center in New York City. This study revealed states that had legalized marijuana for medicinal purposes dropped opioid overdose deaths by 25% compared to states where medicinal marijuana was still illegal. The author goes on to list studies that prove how people who use medical marijuana cut their opioid use to treat pain. The point he is trying to make is that marijuana is safer than prescription pills. This has a lot of information as well as sources I could use to prove how medicinal marijuana should be legal to avoid more opioid deaths.

"The Therapeutic Benefits of Marijuana." Lamp, vol. 74, no. 4, May 2017, pp. 18-19. EBSCOhost, lorainccc.ohionet.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?

Even though there are no authors listed, the article still includes opinions and facts from regular people such as ourselves. Hearing from these people helps the readers create an emotional connection since they are telling us their stories. The article includes a word by word quote from Lucy Haslam, a retired nurse and a leading campaigner for medicinal cannabis law reform. Lucy states how her son was diagnosed with cancer. She claims how he would not have an appetite, look pale, and was always nauseous or vomiting. Lucy then argues how marijuana in a instant helped bring his appetite back, and help color return back to his face. This is a mother who is arguing that medicinal marijuana helps her son. The article goes on to include a study from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine conducted since 1999 on the health effects of cannabis and cannabinoids. This study proved marijuana was used to treat medicinal purposes such as chronic pain in adults, sleeping disorders, HIV/AIDS, and a bunch of other illnesses. The purpose of this article is to let readers know the therapeutics of medicinal marijuana and how legalizing it would stop people from going through the black market. This would be a great article to use in terms of how medicinal marijuana helps people and shows proof.

Wagstaff, Audrey and Theresa Knopf. ““Up in Smoke”: Shaping Attitudes Toward Legalizing                                             Marijuana in Ohio.” Ohio Communication Journal, Volume 55, 2017, pp. 64-83

These authors provide an analysis on the benefits, dangers, and the history of marijuana including how it became criminalized. They start by giving information on laws in Ohio about marijuana. They state how Ohio is a medically legal state but not recreationally legal because issue 3 was not passed for concern of it monopolizing. The authors examine public attitudes toward marijuana legalization from educations and media outlets. After including the opinions, they make their hypotheses of who is a supporter and who is not. The authors use the support of theories and findings in which they cite throughout the article. Their main point is to use their findings to help explain why people have the attitudes they have about legalizing marijuana. The authors found that people who support marijuana legalization consist of patients who were recommended by physicians and politically involved people. They also found people who are not in favor of legalizing marijuana consist more of religious people, and internally-controlled individuals who want to remain in control of their actions. In this article I could use the benefits marijuana has for medicinal purposes and how marijuana was not illegal, but how it later became criminalized.