A hot “burning” topic in todays political world is the legalization of Marijuana. it is a topic that everyone in this class probably hears several times a week. The legalization seems like a safe move because there are no deaths linked with Marijuana as the cause. This is a stark difference from the already legal substances of alcohol and tobacco which have hundreds of thousands of linked deaths. So this got me thinking, “even if there are no linked deaths with this ever so desired illegal herb, what are the long term and/or hindering effects of it?”

The obvious short term effects that cause the “high” are clearly listed here. The long term effects are not what i am interested in however. But, before getting into the details of the effects let me explain how marijuana causes its high. The way it works is chemically after the substance is smoked or ingested the chemical THC enters the blood stream and to the brain. This chemical THC is similar to another in the brain which the THC then takes the receptors of the brain of the similar molecule. The details of this process are all written in this article.

The article talks about the long term effects of Marijuana use on kids who started at a young age. The effects that could be sustained from heavy use at a young age could range from lung damage all the way to brain damage. All of these effects however are reported from users who got into using at an age where their bodies were still developing. So what happens if people start smoking at an age where they are already developed or they do not smoke heavily? My assumption would be that no serious long term injuries would be sustained but this is still a hotly debated topic and something that experiments need to be preformed to prove, whether or not weed is truly bad.