Dr Oz says, Medical marijuana could be the end to the Opioid crisis
By: Abbie Vincent
Tags: Marijuana

Dr. Oz, a cardio-thoracic television star who makes many appearances on talk shows to discuss controversial medical topics.One of the big topics that is talked about is the legalization of medical marijuana. He believes that legalizing marijuana could be the end of the opioid crisis. As of today, it is not legal under the federal law meaning the government has not put money into researching this because it is a schedule one drug. Schedule one drugs are very powerful drugs that can become very addictive. Some states however have legalized it making things more complicated, because the FDA has not passed legalization for marijuana doctors cannot prescribe the medication to patients. This causes problems because now in states where it is legal, marijuana is being dispensed in a way where you cannot tell if you legally obtained it or not.

Dr. Oz is trying to avoid all these problems and he thinks that all of these problems can be solved by the legalization of marijuana by the FDA. If the drug is legalized then we can put more money into researching it and finding the correct way to prescribe the drug. There will also be official ways to see if you legally obtained the drug. If you were to be pulled over and the police officer caught you with marijuana there would be no correct way to tell if you legally obtained the drug, but if marijuana was legalized Dr. Oz is saying that problems like these would create a fine line in these situations because there would be evidence that you obtained the drug.

Dr. Oz talks a considerable amount about how people are suffering and how we could easily relieve them with this drug but it is not legalized yet. He continues on to say,

“Government agencies like the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) are holding American citizens back from benefiting from marijuana, which has no known lethal complications, while allowing opioids, a very expensive option which is known to be a lethal substance …You see the hypocrisy,” he says. “These decisions are not being made by physicians, but rather are being enforced by law enforcement, the DEA in particular, to do something they really don’t need to do.” (Oz).

Dr. Oz feels extremely strongly that the government needs to step in and make a choice so that the lives of the people in their country can benefit from this drug.

Dr. Oz is very biased in this situation because he is a doctor himself and it is his job to help people with their illness even if that means we are finding new ways to do so. Reading and listening to him talk makes it seem like legalizing marijuana is a no brainer but what we don’t understand is what that will do for the economy. Since it is a schedule one drug that means they would have to rearrange the system and that could be chaos, and this would mean that the tax rate would increase immensely.

Based on the information I read and watched from Dr. Oz’s article on why medical marijuana could be the end to the opioid crisis I would say he presented himself very well in the information he used and his accreditation. It is very important that this view came from a doctor because this is right in his own discourse community. He did not, however, give reasons to back up as to why they should keep marijuana illegal. He gave many good reasons as to why it should be made legal but had trouble when he had to prove the other side of the topic. Dr. Oz convinced me and many others that this is the only solution to ending the opioid crisis and having everyone else benefit from this as well since they can now be correctly prescribed the medication.