Issue date: 11/5/08 Section: Opinion

I've just finished watching a commercial from the advertising campaign Above the Influence. You know, those extremely factual commercials that show legit reasons for not smoking weed. Remember the commercial when the girl goes into the kitchen to grab something to drink and her dog starts talking to her about her habit?

What did I learn from this? If you smoke a little green, dogs will start talking to you. Yes, you will actually be able to speak to animals. Now don't go thinking this is cool or anything. If you spark up a joint, animals will follow you and incessantly comment on why they think you should quit smoking. So don't start.

What do people find so alluring about weed anyway? It will not only destroy your future, but also your bones. Yes, you read that correctly: Marijuana will destroy your bones. I learned this from another Above the Influence commercial I saw awhile back. Apparently, once you start smoking weed, all your bones completely disappear! The commercial doesn't exactly state how they disappear, but the pothead in the commercial is nothing but a saggy sack of human flesh draped onto the couch. So this is what I gather from that: smoking weed = complete bone loss.

Surprisingly, I don't think the real issues with marijuana are the talking dogs or the bone loss. I think it's the fact that people can't seem to agree whether or not the reefer should be considered a legitimate drug that deserves the federal government's stamp of approval.

In March 2004, former U.S. Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders wrote an editorial in Providence Journal stating, "The evidence is overwhelming that marijuana can relieve certain types of pain, nausea, vomiting and other symptoms caused by such illnesses as multiple sclerosis, cancer and AIDS - or by the harsh drugs sometimes used to treat them. And it can do so with remarkable safety. Indeed, marijuana is less toxic than many of the drugs that physicians prescribe every day."

Is it true? Is marijuana really less harmful?

On June 24, 2005 procon.org sent a Freedom of Information Act request to the Food and Drug Administration. The organization wanted information on the number of deaths caused by marijuana versus the number of deaths caused by 17 FDA-approved drugs. Twelve of the 17 drugs are frequently issued in place of medical marijuana and five are just commonly used by society.

Procon.org found that marijuana (otherwise known as Cannabis sativa L), is the primary suspect of zero deaths in the United States and is the contributing suspect to 279 deaths. The other 17 drugs approved by the FDA are the primary suspects of a total of 10,008 deaths and are the contributing suspects to 1, 670 deaths.

So if Mary Jane isn't the primary suspect of any recorded deaths and it has been proven to actually help people, what's the big deal? There are people out there who actually need medical marijuana to alleviate their pain. Those people shouldn't get shunned aside because of the propaganda behind marijuana. Let the doctors do their jobs. If they see medical marijuana as a necessary prescription for their patients, then let those patients have their medicine.



Princess Calabrese can be reached at pcalabrese@statehornet.com

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