blog 2

The two articles that I have chosen are competing narratives one, against the legalizing of marijuana, and the other is the benefits of legalizing marijuana. The first article is called “3 Reasons Why Medical Cannabis Should Be Legalized” and the second is called “5 Reasons Marijuana Should Remain Illegal”. They both are trying to reach out and spread the awareness of the facts, myths, and statistics that these professionals around the world have found. These articles provide a closer look on the health aspect of marijuana and not so much the other pros and cons of marijuana. They are very one sided on the health aspect and provide a better look on the importance of medicinal marijuana and the cons of using marijuana.

The first article, “3 Reasons Why Medical Cannabis Should Be Legalized”, is mainly talking about health benefits and how marijuana can be more safe than other medicines used today. For instance they talk about how marijuana has helped many different types of chronic pain illnesses. Some of these illnesses include AIDS, cancer and glaucoma and for some circumstances medical marijuana is the only drug that can help their illness. “Pain killers can be severely addictive and ruin patient’s lives, while other mainstream drugs can cause gastrointestinal issues, allergic reactions, blindness, internal bleeding, organ failure, and even death from complications or overdose”(3 Reasons). This explains that medicinal marijuana can cause less side effects and be more beneficial to society then other drugs. They focus on the health aspect of marijuana because the main issue with marijuana is the health issues it may bring. Health benefits are the reason for why a substance like marijuana is legalized or used, if the substance is a benefit to society then it should be legalized. When the audience is exposed to the benefits spoke about in this article it leaves them thinking, legalizing something with known health benefits shouldn’t be a hard issue to fix, right?

The second article, “5 Reasons Marijuana Should Remain Illegal”, is about the problems associated with marijuana’s health benefits. They talk about the addictive side to the drug, stated by Dr. Drew “Of the 7.3 million persons aged 12 or older classified with illicit drug dependence or abuse in 2012, 4.3 million persons had marijuana dependence or abuse” (Hawkins). Being constantly exposed to the drug could increase the use of the drug like in, Amsterdam. Here they are using examples of places in which it hasn’t worked out where marijuana has been legalized as a recreational and medical aspect as in Amsterdam. The health risks that they talk about in this article is dependence, mental health and physical health. It causes memory loss and the earlier you start smoking marijuana the worse the effects could be on someone. They feel that marijuana causes more issues than it solves because at the end of the article they talk about how you would not want your child to live in a place where constant marijuana smoking is present.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Works cited

Administrator. "Blog." 3 Reasons Why Medical Cannabis Should Be Legalized. Medical Marijuana Association, Web. 14 Apr. 2017.

Hawkins, John. "John Hawkins - 5 Reasons Marijuana Should Remain Illegal." Townhall. Townhall.com, 21 Jan. 2014. Web. 14 Apr. 2017.

Blog #1

There are many interpretations on whether or not marijuana should be legalized. The two articles that I chose depict the struggle between just that. The first article is called, “Why We Should Not Legalize Marijuana” by CNBC, which clearly talks about why marijuana should not be legalized. The second article is called “This Is Why Marijuana Should Be Legal”, by Renee Jacques that implies marijuana should now be legalized. Each has similar evidence and points but are trying to convince different demographics.

In the article from CNBC “Why We Should Not Legalize Marijuana”, they are talking to all demographics. They are attempting to sway people who are old, young, have smoked, or haven’t smoked that marijuana is bad and that it correlates with crime. In the article, they use surveys and polls to show that the illegalization of marijuana has caused less to use this drug. Everybody wants to be healthy, so they state, “Reducing marijuana use is essential to improving the nation’s health, education, and productivity.” They even compare marijuana to the same bad name category as cigarettes, alcohol, and gambling. They bring up how some think if marijuana was legalized, illegal trade of marijuana would stop, but like legal and illegal gambling this isn’t the case. Also, they target parents by saying, marijuana is addictive and if marijuana was legalized it would be easier for children to get it. This next article would argue most of all of these points but also touch on some similar aspects in different approaches.

The competing article “This Is Why Marijuana Should Be Legal”, by Renee Jacques explains why marijuana should be legalized and completely discounts the first article. The demographic being reached out to in this narrative is politicians, parents, and citizens against marijuana. They start off by saying how safe marijuana is and that you cannot overdoses from it. This starts to get the audience thinking about marijuana as being harmless.  It is also compared to alcohol as in the first article but in a different manner. Now Renee is saying, “In the same year as no overdoses from marijuana, 38,329 people died from pill overdoses and 25,692 people have died from alcoholic incidents. This is Renee trying to point out why drugs are different than marijuana. She focuses on promoting how safe and harmless marijuana is so people feel safer when around or talking about marijuana. She adds to this effort by talking about health too, like in the first article on why we shouldn’t legalize marijuana. Except that Renee explains about how marijuana benefits your health. She explains how it helps you sleep, can relieve nausea, loss of appetite, and chronic pain which would make anyone who has any of these problems jump on the “pot” bandwagon. As much as these articles contradict one another how do we decide which one is right and which one is wrong?

Works Cited

Cnbc. "Why We Should Not Legalize Marijuana." CNBC. CNBC, 20 Apr. 2011. Web. 24 Feb. 2017.

Jacques, Renee. "This Is Why Marijuana Should Be Legal Everywhere." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 24 Oct. 2013. Web. 24 Feb. 2017.