Should marijuana be legalized for medical purposes on a federal level? This question is very interesting to me because I have always wondered why certain prescription medication and other drugs were legal while marijuana is not. Some of these examples include tobacco, pain killers, and caffeine. It never made since to me that certain prescription pain killers were legal for medical purposes, yet a drug deriving from the cannabis plant is not. My personal experience with this is witnessing several people whom I have known personally struggle with an addiction to pain medication. It seems very obvious that marijuana is not nearly addictive as these prescription drugs and has much more milder effects on people. Legalizing marijuana has no effect on my morals because it is just another drug that can have positive or negative effects on the people it is used by depending on how it is used or abused. The research that I have done and will do in the future makes me qualified to write about this topic. One very important note about this research is the fact that several states have already legalized marijuana for medical purposes and the outcomes from those states so far is a very good indicator of what will happen on a national level. This fact adds to the credibility a lot. 

My first source is from the Epilepsy Foundation about the use of cannabis in order to treat seizures. Their stance on medical marijuana is that it should be considered for patients if more conventional forms of medicine fail to help their condition. They point out that there is still not much definitive scientific facts to back medical marijuana, but they cite several studies and specific examples of medical marijuana with high ratios of cannabidiol (CBD) to tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) successfully reducing patients' amount of seizures with little to no side effects. This article could be biased because of the source. The Epilepsy Foundation could simply be pointing to marijuana as a way to treat epilepsy because they want to appear more knowledgeable on how to treat seizures. 

My second article is a CNN opinion article written by Jeffrey Miron, who is the director of undergraduate studies and senor lecturer in the economics department at Harvard University.  He claims that the United States has seen horrible consequences from the act of placing marijuana as a schedule one drug, thus making it illegal for doctors to prescribe to patients as a form of treatment. He writes that medical marijuana should be legal on a federal level in order to increase the amount of research and testing that can be done on the drug. Currently, scientists have not been able to do a lot of research on the effects of the drug because, although it is legal in more than twenty states, it is still illegal on a federal level. This article could be biased because the author is a devout libertarian legalization reflects the opinion of his party. 

My third article comes from the American Cancer Society. This article begins by explaining that cannabidiol (CBD) is the cannabinoid that is used to treat pain and vomiting caused by chemotherapy patients and that tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) is the cannabinoid in marijuana that causes the "high" and psychoactive effects of marijuana. It points to studies that have successfully proven that marijuana can reduce the nausea and vomiting associated with chemotherapy. The American Cancer Society's stance is that there is definitely a need for more and better therapies to treat cancer and its' side effects. The organization supports more research and further studying of marijuana for medical purposes and believes that its current schedule one classification is deterring this research process. This article could be biased because there are currently very few methods for treating the side effects of chemotherapy, so the American Cancer Society could just be looking for any method that may or may not actually help. 

My exigence is arguable because there are a lot of disagreements about how scientific effects of marijuana for medical purposes are. Also, there are many factors when considering the question. There are many things to consider when asking whether or not marijuana should be legalized, but whether or not it should be legalized on a federal level is very arguable. The fact that I am asking why it should be legalized for medical purposes and not also recreational is what makes my question answerable within the word limit. There is too much information to put into 2500 words for researching the effects of medical and recreational legalization. 

