What is Cannabis?

The first 200 words of this essay...

Cannabis

Cannabis has many different names, pot, hemp, marijuana and marihuana but its affects are all the identical. Firstly I would like to show where Marijuana stands compared to other legal and illegal drugs.

Over 70 million Americans have smoked marijuana at some time in their lives. Of these, 18 million have smoked marijuana within the last year, and ten million are regular marijuana smokers.

The French National Health and Medical Research Institute, INSERM, consulted with experts from other countries and rated drugs by their danger in 1998 at government request. They established 3 groups:

* "Most dangerous" - heroin, alcohol, and cocaine

* "Next most dangerous" - tobacco, amphetamines.

* "Least dangerous" - Marijuana, since it has "low toxicity, little addictive power and poses only a minor threat to social behavior," [annual drug related deaths in the U.S. are about 400,000 for tobacco, 100,000 for alcohol, 10,000 for all illegal drugs, and zero for marijuana]

Marijuana is Much less dangerous than heroin, alcohol, and cocaine. It is not a "gateway" that leads the use of any other drug, but making marijuana illegal does establish a "gateway."