1. (1) Numerous cancer patients on chemotherapy suffer from constant nausea, loss of appetite, and inability to sleep. (2) For many of these patients, inhaled marijuana is the only medicine that provides relief. (3) Also, it causes no harmful side effects. (4) For these reasons, medical marijuana should be legalized and made available to these patients. (5) This is not a law and order issue; it is a medical and human-rights issue.
2. (1) The United States is currently experiencing the greatest economic inequality since the 1920s, and (2) this inequality is depressing the economy. (3) The true sustainers of the economy are the bottom 99 percent of households, but (4) the top 1 percent takes in 93 percent of the growth in income. Also, (5) economic inequality is undercutting tax receipts, which are vital for infrastructure, education, and research. This is because (6) income earned by the rich is taxed at a far lower rate than income earned by the middle class.
3. (1) Programs to develop clean energy have seen some early notable successes. (2) The price of solar and wind power have both fallen sharply in recent years. (3) The nation's largest wind farm, sprawling across eastern Oregon, is now open and running, and (4) there is even good news from the natural gas front. (5) The use of natural gas, which is far cleaner than coal, to generate electricity has jumped substantially in the last few years, and (6) thanks to government-sponsored research, energy companies are now able to extract much more gas from a tract of land than once seemed possible.
The following arguments were abstracted from newspaper articles, editorials, and letters to the editor. Use the method presented in this section to construct argument patterns. If a statement is redundant or plays no role in the argument, do not include it in the pattern.