Essay About Robert Randall And Usefulness Of Medical Marijuana

The Usefulness of Medical Marijuana and the U.S. Government
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The Usefulness Of Medical Marijuana and the U.S. Government
Marijuana is often looked at as an awful gateway drug that should
remain illegal. Though it is illegal, marijuana is already a very big part of
American culture. People are going to smoke it anyway, illegal or not.
With its extensive medical capabilities and limited side effects,
marijuana is becoming more accepted around the world. Many people are
misinformed with untrue rumors of marijuana causing brain damage.
Misleading remarks such as these have been proven wrong. Its only a matter of time
before marijuana is legalized on its medical capabilities alone.
Only nine people in the U.S receive government issued marijuana
(Gorman 1). ” The Compassionate Investigational New Drug (IND)
program that supplies the nine people is jointly administrated by the
department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the National Institute of
Drug Abuse (NIDA), and the Public Health Service (PHS): Which shut
down expansion of the program, claiming that it sent a bad signal to the
American public (Gorman1). People are going blind from glaucoma and
suffering needlessly from the wasting syndrome associated with AIDS,
muscular disorders and side effects from cancer chemotherapy” (Gorman 1)
Crawley 2
Robert Randall, one of the nine people in the IND program, was
diagnosed with glaucoma in September 1972 ( Gorman 1). ” Glaucoma is a
degenerative eye disease and the leading cause of blindness in the U.S.
(Gorman 1). Unfortunately, he developed tolerances to drug therapy and his
sight continues to only get worse (Gorman 1). Randall, a former marijuana
smoker who hasnt smoked since his diagnosis, smoked two joints given to
him before going to bed one night (Gorman 1). “When I got done,”
he says, “I looked at a streetlight outside my window and noticed
that there were no tricolor halos like I usually saw when the pressure in my
eyes built up (Gorman 1).” After six months of experimentation, the disease
began to come under control through the frequent use of marijuana.
“Randall began growing his own marijuana to insure a supply, and was
arrested in August 1975 ( Gorman 2). Shortly after his arrest, he discovered
that both the NIDA and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) not only
had information on the use of marijuana in the treatment of glaucoma, but
that the NIDA grew marijuana for research on a farm at the University of
Mississippi at Hattiesburg. ( Gorman 2)”.
In December 1975, to test the efficiency of marijuana in glaucoma
treatment, Randall underwent a 13-day controlled experiment under the
direction of Dr. Robert Hepler ( Gorman 2). The study