For this response, I decided to talk about the topic from chapter 10 which interested me the most – acute effects of marijuana. This subject was the most fascinating for me among the three chapters because it is something that is relatable to many people’s lives. Additionally, marijuana is one of the most complex and controversial topics for discussion because there definitely is a number of strong arguments from those who support its use and from those who do not. Personally, I agree with the point that marijuana has both positive and negative effects – it can both help to relive chronic pain and can make certain people uncontrollable and violent. Therefore, the following response will discuss the effects of marijuana in more details by explaining the intersection between the textbook descriptions and the information from a peer-reviewed academic journal.
In the section about the acute effects of marijuana use, the textbook mentions, such symptoms as a reddening of the eyes, an increase in the heartbeat rate, and dryness of the mouth. What is more, it is briefly mentioned that those individuals who used marijuana at any point in their life reported being extremely hungry and relaxed. In general, it is suggested that most people describe the marijuana experience as pleasurable and relaxing. Talking about the academic article used, it can be stated that it goes deeper into explaining the influences of marijuana. Spindle et al (2018), mentions that the participants of the described study felt a huge number of different effects: “pleasant drug effects, unpleasant drug effects, sick, heart racing, anxious and/or nervous, relaxed, paranoid, alert, irritable, restless, sleepy, hungry, dry mouth, red and/or irritated eyes, throat irritation” (p. 4). The peer-reviewed journal provides more extensive information about the symptoms provoked by marijuana and bases this information on a research conducted earlier. However, both the textbook and the article have similar results and mention the same acute effects of marijuana use.
After reading the textbook reading, the first impression that is being created about marijuana use is that it is not connected to any serious health consequences and, at the same time, associated with pleasurable activities and recreation. On the other hand, the academic article does not include such information. It talks about the subjective effects of drug use experienced by people and different adverse event associated with it. The researchers of the study prevent themselves from making any subjective conclusions and saying whether marijuana can or cannot be used by individuals. Therefore, this is probably the main difference between the two readings.
To summarize, marijuana use remains to be one of the most discussed topics in the contemporary society. While millions of people all around the world believe that it is completely safe to use, others point out the negative effects on health and emotional well-being. Therefore, it seems important to enrich knowledge about the subject by reading information from different sources, such as textbooks, academic articles, and quantitative researches. The main reason for that is that they are able to present individuals with a number of perspectives and encourage them to immerse deeper into the topic and make conclusions that are objective and appropriate. Thus, the presented paper discussed the topic of marijuana use by comparing information provided in the textbook and the academic article.
References
Spindle, T. R., Cone, E. J., Schlienz, N. J., Mitchell, J. M., Bigelow, G. E., Flegel, R.,… & Vandrey,
R. (2018). Acute effects of smoked and vaporized cannabis in healthy adults who infrequently use cannabis: a crossover trial. JAMA network open, 1(7), 1-14. Web.