Research Journal Assignment #8

1. http://www.spific.com/:

• marijuana and its effect on crime rate
• (boolean operator)
• Oct.19,2009
• estimated at least 100 hits
• 3/5 on relevancy of hits

RJA# 4c:Research Question Check

Link to comment on Matt's research question on Revolution vs. Resolution:

• http://matt8737.blogspot.com/2009/09/rja3c.html#comment-form

Link to comment on Michelle's research question on Early Childhood Education:

• http://michelle-eng122.blogspot.com/2009/09/rja-3c-developing-research-question.html#comments

RJA#4b:Research Strings

• Benefits and consequences of marijuana
• Benefits and not consequences of marijuana
• Marijuana and its medical benefits or health risks
• (Legal+illegal) marijuana
• Medical marijuana (benefits+consequences)
• Laws on marijuana -medical marijuana
• Public use and pot
• legal* of marijuana
• Marijuana+economic risks
• Legalization of marijuana and crime rate

RJA #4a: Keywords

"Should marijuana(cannabis sativa,hemp,THC,ganja,pot,joint) be legalized(legal,constitutional,admissible,protected,accepted,legitimized) for medicinal (pharmaceutical, therapeutic,medical,corrective,healing) and public(communal,general,natioanal,unrestricted,prominet) use(convience,availability,right,value,benefit)?"

RJA #3c: Research Question

"Should marijuana be legalized for medicinal and public use?"
"Is it possible to legalize marijuana and benefit from it?"
"If marijuana is legalized who will benefit and who will be held with the consequences if it all goes wrong?"

RJA #3b: Research Topic Focus

I believe that the topic I have chosen is pretty broad but is manageable. To make the reader understand the concept fully I have to cover the topic as a whole going over everything I possibly can. The goal for my research paper is going to be telling the reader both sides of the story, not just the negative. So to accomplish this I have to explain the negative and the positive points of the subject.In the end I believe that I don't have to narrow my research topic any but I just have to do a lot of explaining so nothing about this subject is left out.

RJA #3a: Research Topic Exploration

While doing a general exploration of my topic I found a few interesting facts about marijuana. I found out on http://www.amsa.org/resource/natlinit/marijuana.cfm that marijuana contains over 400 chemicals and is both a stimulant and also a depressant.On http://wiki.idebate.org/index.php/Debate:_Medical_marijuana#HIV.2FAIDS:_Is_marijuana_good_for_treating_HIV.2FAIDS.3F I I found that one joint will do as much damage to the lungs as a pack of cigarettes.I also found out on http://www.erowid.org/plants/cannabis/cannabis_law.shtml that pot is classified as a hallucinogen and is illegal to give,grow sell or buy.

All in all most of the text I found was more negative for the plant and its uses than the positive aspects. I found that many of the websites I looked at were biased and only told of the negative aspects and mentioned nothing of the benefits of the drug. The most unbiased website I found that seemed to have a lot of positive information on pot was http://www.norml.org. I will use this website as one of the sites to find good credible positive information on pot also known as cannabis sativa.