MARIJUANA

Name: Michaela Pocock

Speech Title: Marijuana Informative Speech
General Purpose: To inform
Specific Purpose Statement: My specific purpose is to inform my COMM1100 audience about marijuana.
Central Idea Statement: Marijuana is a substance I drug that has sparked debates all over the country on
whether or not it should be legalized due to its supposed effect on the brain.

Introduction

I. Attention Getter: “Crush a bit, little bit, roll it up, and take a hit.”
II. Thesis Statement: Marijuana is a substance I drug that has sparked debates all over the
country on whether or not it should be legalized due to its supposed short and long term
effects.
III. Credibility Statement: After reading and studying marijuana and everything about it, I have
come to know a lot about the subject or substance.
IV. Preview of Main Points: Today I will first talk about what exactly marijuana is and how it is
used, secondly the debate on whether or not it affects the brain, and thirdly the national
debate on whether or not it should be legalized.

Body

I. Main Point #1: What is marijuana?

a. Marijuana refers to the dried leaves, flowers, stems, and seeds from the hemp plant,
Cannabis sativa, which contains the mind-altering chemical delta-9-
tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and other related compounds (National Institute on Drug
Abuse).
b. Cannabis is a schedule one drug.
i. Drugs, substances, and certain chemicals used to make drugs are
classified into five distinct categories or schedules depending upon the
drug’s acceptable medical use and the drug’s abuse or dependency
potential (National Institute on Drug Abuse).
ii. The abuse rate is a determinate factor in the scheduling of the drug; for
example, Schedule I drugs have a high potential for abuse and the
potential to create severe psychological and/or physical dependence
(National Institute on Drug Abuse).
c. How it is used.
i. People smoke marijuana in hand-rolled cigarettes (joints) or in pipes or
water pipes (bongs).
ii. They also smoke it in blunts—emptied cigars that have been partly or
completely refilled with marijuana.
iii. More people are using vaporizers, to avoid inhaling smoke.
1. These devices pull the active ingredients (including THC) from the
marijuana and collect their vapor in a storage unit.
MARIJUANA

2. A person then inhales the vapor, not the smoke.

iv. Users can also mix marijuana in food (edibles), such as brownies, cookies,
or candy, or brew it as a tea.
v. A more common practice nowadays is called “dabbing” (National Institute
on Drug Abuse).
1. This is smoking THC –rich resins extracted from the marijuana plant.
2. These extracts can deliver extremely large amounts of THC to users, and
their use has sent some people to the emergency room.
II. Main Point #2: Does marijuana have an effect on the brain?
a. One long-term study in New Zealand compared the IQs of people at age 13 and then
through adolescence and adulthood to age 38 (Bebinger).
i. Those who used pot heavily from adolescence onward showed an average
8 percent drop in IQ. People who never smoked, by contrast, showed
slightly increased IQ.
ii. Critics pounced on the study, because it didn't adjust for many other
things that affect IQ such as home life or family income and there's no
proof the IQ differences are due to pot.
iii. One of those critics, Nicholas Jackson, now a senior statistician at the
University of California, Los Angeles, wondered what would happen if he
could rule out some of those elements by comparing twins.
iv. He stated, "Individuals that share the same genes, grew up in the same
household, where the difference between them was that one of the twins
was using marijuana and one was not," Jackson says.
b. Jackson and Joshua Isen, conducted a study comparing IQ tests of twins age nine to
twelve, before either had smoked marijuana, and then seven to ten years later, after
one had started (Bebinger).
i. "If marijuana was causing IQ decline, what we would expect to see is that
the twin who goes on and uses marijuana should have IQ deficits… We
don't find that" (Bebinger)
ii. IQ scores for both twins varied slightly over time. And for twins who
smoked marijuana, there was no significant difference in effect between
daily and occasional use.
iii. Marijuana seems to affect a particular kind of intelligence, like short term
retention of vocabulary words and other information that you might learn
in school, says Mitch Earleywine, a professor of psychology at the
University of Albany.
1. "They haven't learned a whole lot of vocabulary words or they never
learned the capital of Maine because they were high at school that
day," he says.
2. "But when it comes to things that are more liquid intelligence, more
fluid intelligence, they're usually pretty good at those because it
requires just intelligence in the moment, so to speak."
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iv. Some studies that compare brain scans of teenagers who use marijuana
to those who don't show thinner, less dense connections between lobes
(Bebinger).
1. Some studies that compare brain scans of teenagers who use marijuana
to those who don't show thinner, less dense connections between
lobes.
2. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, says
brains with less connectivity don't work as well as they should.
3. "You could expect that that will decrease your capacity to memorize
things and to learn them which is necessary to you to actually further
develop your cognitive abilities," she says.
III. Main Point #3: The debate on making it legal.
a. Five states are voting this fall on whether marijuana should be legal, like alcohol, for
recreational use.
b. Voskow states that people who regularly smoked marijuana as teens, "are achieving
much less both in their education as well as their profession as well as their economic
earnings… They also tend to be much more dissatisfied with life. Many studies have
shown that" (Bebinger).
c. As of now, the research suggests if you don't start young and don't use marijuana often,
there's not much evidence of permanent harm to the brain (Bebinger).
i. That has led some experts in marijuana brain science to say it might be OK
to make pot legal, with strong oversight.
ii. That includes Kevin Hill, an assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard
Medical School.
iii. "I'm not sure how I would vote [on the Massachusetts ballot question] at
this point. I want to see sensible marijuana policy that works, that gives
people what they want while limiting risk," says Hill.
d. Massachusetts is one of five states, including Arizona, California, Maine and Nevada,
that will vote in November on legalizing recreational marijuana (Bebinger).
e. If Massachusetts approves marijuana for recreational use, it would not be legal for
anyone under age 21, when most, but not all, brain development occurs.

Conclusion

I. Restate Thesis: Marijuana is a substance I drug that has sparked debates all over the country
on whether or not it should be legalized due to its supposed short and long term effects.
II. Review Main Points: Today I talked about what exactly marijuana is and how it is used,
secondly the debate on whether or not it affects the brain, and thirdly some of the
arguments made on whether or not it should be legalized.
III. Concluding Device: My question is do you think pot will be legalized throughout all fifty
states in the next five years?
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References

Bebinger, M. (2016, September 13). As More States Consider Legalizing, Questions About Pot And The
Brain. Retrieved September 16, 2016, from http://www.npr.org/sections/health-
shots/2016/09/13/492814117/as-more-states-consider-legalizing-questions-about-pot-and-the-brain
National Institute on Drug Abuse. Marijuana Retrieved from
https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/marijuana on September 16, 2016
[Recorded by K. Cudi]. (2010). Pursuit of Happiness [MP3]. Ratatat.