Legalization of Medicinal Marijuana Essay -- medical cannabis should be

In the U.S., cannabis sativa, also known as marijuana, is illegal for medicinal purposes only because the federal law places it in Schedule I, a category for drugs that have been deemed unsafe, highly subject to abuse, and possessing no medicinal value. After much scientific research, and investigations of evidence, this has been proven to be quite inaccurate. First of all, Judge Francis L. Young, concluded not only that marijuana’s medical utility had been adequately demonstrated, but also that marijuana had been shown to be â€Å"one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man† (â€Å"Medical Marijuana Briefing..). He also ruled that marijuana has legitimate medical applications and should be available to doctors.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Only eight people today receive marijuana through a federal â€Å"compassionate use† program which stopped admitting new patients in 1992, after the number of applications, mostly from AIDS patients, increased dramatically. Young also ruled that â€Å"†¦the provisions of the Controlled Substances Act permit and require the transfer of marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule II† (â€Å"Medical Marijuana Briefing†¦). As a Schedule II drug, marijuana would be allowed to be prescribed to patients by physicians, but only under highly regulated conditions.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Marijuana is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known. No one has ever died from an overdose, and it has a wide variety of therapeutic applications s...