Legalization of Marijuana

My name is Samantha Weikers and I attend Georgia Southern University located in Statesboro, Georgia. This is actually my first blog I have ever published, so I hope you all enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it! As you'll see in my testimony, I'm writing this blog for a few reasons, however overall, its to bring attention to medical patients suffering, just like my mom. As you further into the blog, hopefully you'll understand the importance of this topic. For some background information, I'm from a town called McDonough, Georgia which is located about 30 minutes south of Atlanta. My hobbies include writing, working out, and pretty much anything that has to do with the outdoors. I am an only child, with one dog named Sasha. I am a Public Relations Major and am wanting to go into Pharmaceuical Sales. I am currently apart of the PRSSA club and plan on running for a leadership position amongst the club. Being a Public Relations Major, I always thought the art of commu...

Across the United States, 10 states have removed the felony possession from their law. Some states have stricter and some states have more lenient laws on possession of marijuana. Some of these laws are really extreme as far as the strict factor. So lets get down to it! For those who don't know, "de-criminilized" basically means to stop making something illegal. Now this isn't to say that one wouldn't be charged with a fine for possession, however that beats getting into legal trouble in my book. The top four strictest states with possession laws are Arizona, Florida, Oklahoma, and Tennessee. Even with just a first defense, with any type of amount, these state's punishment's could hurt you for life. Arizona has the strictest laws on possession. It doesn't matter how much you have on you, any amount is an automatic felony. As far as Oklahoma goes, possessing any amount can automatically put you in jail up to one year or it is a direct felony. Now movi...

 Bernard Noble was just like any other average middle aged man, living his life in Louisiana. Bernard has 7 children, and some with disabilities. He had just gotten his trucking license and was in route to start his own Cuban Food Company. He had a very stable home environment, and loved his kids. Unfortunately, in 2010, Bernard was caught with 2.8 grams of marijuana on him. The position he was in was very unfortunate, considering the police really didn't have a true probable cause to stop him. He was on his bike, when he turned a corner and all the sudden blue lights started flashing for a reason that he wasn't aware. Reports say that this was also a racial injustice on the police's part for pulling up on him the way they did. Bernard's first reaction from seeing the blue lights was to run because he wasn't sure what else to do. They were approaching him at a fast speed and Bernard wasn't sure exactly what to do. Bernard was then searched and put in handcuffs. ...

Just turn on any local news station, anyone can see how bad this world is getting. Crimes are getting more severe and more common. Its actually pretty serious if you think about it. My point here is to bring possession brutality to attention. Not meaning to sound vulgar, but there are rape cases, murders, homicides, that happen every single day. Some of these crimes are overlooked due to the obsession of finding marijuana. People are incarcerated everyday for the possession of marijuana. The government is spending millions of dollars in incarceration due to possession. What kind of system is this? Not to say that the law enforcement always overlooks these severe crimes however it seems that there are so many possession charges given out each day, and costs the government millions to in-prison these people who are just carrying a plant. Incrimination should be for those who commit a harsh offense. Nowadays, the the law enforcement seems so consumed with it. Jeffery Miron, Harvard econ...

Economic stability is probably the last thing one would think of when talking and marijuana. A lot of people don't realize that legalization has drastically raised financial income for the decriminalized states. The overall sales totaled in over $996 million dollars in taxes. The overall sales have been raised by 30% nationwide. The production of marijuana would supply many job opportunities for the unemployed. The Marijuana Policy Group, studies the potential statistics in Nevada. Studies estimated that if the government legalized marijuana in the state, it would open up around 40,000 job opportunities and do to this, produce over $1 million dollars in income to the state. In California, marijuana is already legalized. The state produced over 81,000 direct and indirect jobs related to marijuana sales. Due to this, this has created over $3.1 billion dollars in income due to the sales itself.  These are just some examples of how the legalization would help the economy skyrocket. It...

Polls proved that there were LESS fatalities in the states that have legalized Cannabis. The death rate dropped by eleven percent nationwide after over 1.2 million tragedies due to fatal driving accident from 1982- 2014. Studies show that the top 2 "go- to" forms intoxication are either alcohol or marijuana. On average a little over 10,000 people a year are killed by drunk drivers. Specifically in California, the drunk driving rate has already decreased by 16% since the legalization. Law enforcement suggests that in the states that have legalized it, more drivers are turning to marijuana rather than booze, which is dramatically reducing the fatality rate. Since the legalization, it was estimated that fatalities would rise, rather than fall. This came as a shock to the law enforcement and the governors of each state. It is now legal in 28 states and decriminalized in a few other individual counties in other states. Drunk driving has affected the lives of so many, and since the...

My heart has always one out to cancer fighters and survivors. I have always, fortunately, been very healthy all my life. But we tend to forget how severe and damaging, chemo therapy is. Sure, it can be a great thing as far as putting cancer into remission, and reducing inflammation, however the side effects of chemo are probably the worst part. Vomiting, nausea, depression, migraines, and even more; they all are awful, unimaginable side effects to the average human being. With the legalization of marijuana, these side effects would be extremely more tolerable and help with decreasing the pain all around. My heart goes out to people who are undergoing chemotherapy, and I am in full support off anything to lessen the pain and bring them to more at ease. Even though I believe there should be multiple reasons for legalizing marijuana, my main reason goes back to my testimony, which circulates around medical reasons. Here is a few websites of real life patients discussing their desire for c...

Earlier in the blog, I attached a video of a young 9 year old boy who suffer from Leukemia. He was on extremely heavy and intense chemo therapy. Because of medical marijuana, the detremental side effects from chemo therapy decreased due to medical marijuana. This leads me into the conversation about the benefits of cannabis in the medical field. Cannabis can be used to treat multiple disorders, common and uncommon. For some more peculiar examples, diseases such as Glaucoma or even Parkinson's disease, marijuana can be used to tame the effects of the diseases and put them into a type of remission. It helps with the physical effects and puts the patient's mental state at extreme ease.  The Spine Journal preformed a survey at the Colorado Spine Center, proving that one out of five patients were using medical cannabis to relieve their pain and ninety percent of their pain was instantly relieved. Cannabis has also been scientifically proven to promote neuron growth in the brain, w...