Marijuana Should Be Legalized
Introduction
Generally, throughout the globe there exists wide ranging varieties of rules, laws and guidelines in relation to both the medical marijuana and marijuana in general. Accordingly, some states around the world have lenient laws when handling matter relating to medical marijuana and marijuana. For instance, countries such as the England and Australia, encourages the use of medical marijuana and have been noted to accord exemption of pursuing criminal charges to its suppliers. On the other hand, Holland, allows full legalization of all types of marijuana. Thus, Holland reassures and supports many small business entrepreneurs with an aim of encouraging its smoking and eating. Finally, in Portugal, the government has no laws prohibiting any type of drugs thus; all drugs ranging from marijuana to cocaine, to heroine are legal in Portugal. Therefore on this paper the objective is to seek reason and sufficient evidence in support of legalizing marijuana.
Literature review
There many parts where the use of marijuana best known by its scientific name ‘cannabis sativa’ is illegal. However, there have been numerous calls for its legalization because of many reasons that seem to justify its legalization. These points also seem to show that marijuana is even better off than other drugs that have been legalized in the society (Caulkins et al, 2012). That is with alcohol being one of the legalized drugs in the society, yet it is believed to cause more effects that cannabis sativa itself or even other drugs like cocaine and heroin. In fact, according to a research done recently by an the infamous Gallup polls in 2013, it showed that alcohol topped the list of all the drugs with harmful effects in the society followed by Heroin, Crack Cocaine, Methamphetamine Cocaine and Tobacco closed the list. Therefore, this leads the people to wonder, if marijuana is not even among the first three or even five of the drugs with most devastating effects, why should it not be legalized? Besides, alcohol is legalized all over the world, and still tops the list of the drugs with the most devastating effects in the world (Caulkins et al, 2012).
According to the Gallup poll of 2013 on drugs with most devastating effects on the world, marijuana came in at number eight meaning, it was beaten by a substance like tobacco which came in at number six in terms of having the most devastating effects on human life (William & Dionne, 2013). This begs the question, if tobacco and alcohol are legal in every independent state of the world and they have more devastating effects, why then should marijuana, which is way below them in the list, be treated any different? Besides, marijuana could be of so much value in any state that legalized it in the world. This is in terms of collecting revenue, gang money and benefit in its richness in medicinal value among others. Therefore, there are so many reasons why marijuana should be legalized.
Discussion
Over less than a decade in America, the public opinion on the consumption of marijuana has affectedly shifted toward support for it’s the legalization. In has been observed that for reasonable period in the past, attitude on this issue remained quite stable, however, the turn of the millennium disturbed this long-standing compromise. As such, emotions in favor of marijuana legalization have risen by nearly twenty points fairly over a decade (Harold, 2012). Thus, the same statistics indicates that the section of Americans who perceive the consumption of marijuana to be immoral has equally decreased thirty two percent up from fifty percent in just seven years. Similarly, a current national survey presented a very narrow national majority in favor of legalization- the supporters of this position translated this sentiment squarely on the ballot initiative victories in both Colorado and Washington State in the year 2012.
This is after these two states deliberated on the issue and figured out that indeed marijuana is safer than many other drugs that we have legalized in the world. For instance, there is the fact that other legalized drugs in the world take away human life in large numbers where there is no known case where any human life is recorded to have been lost from marijuana overdose. In fact, in 2010 there were so many lives that were lost due to drugs overdose. A total of 38, 329 perished due to drugs that have been legalized by our governments, while there is no single life which was associated with marijuana (HighTimes, 2012). In all the above cases, 25, 692 people were proven to have had perished from the drugs which we assumed was right to legalize, and ban marijuana, alcohol. Many people die from alcohol related cases all over the world every year and yet it is the drug we chose to legalize over so many others in the world, including marijuana (HighTimes, 2012). Therefore, I feel that the american people nowadays are starting to feel safer knowing that their spouses, friends or even children are out there and the only big thing they can do is pot, other than when they think they might drink end drive.
Furthermore, a good reason as to why marijuana should be legalized is that over the past few generations, Americans have come to understand that the standoff has always created a gateway to harder drugs. In fact most Americans have started a debate on which drug is worse between marijuana and alcohol. On this light, several surveys have established that a slight majority now believes that alcohol is more damaging than marijuana to both individuals and society as a whole (Harold, 2012). Thus, from a sociologist point of view, the inducement is to deduce that the inclination in favor of marijuana legalization is unstoppable, just like the present flow of opinions favoring same-sex marriage. This is bearing in mind that the drug has no known addiction; not even close to coffee cravings. In fact, in all the rehabilitations facilities in the world, there are no known addicts of the addict who feel that they cannot perform their duties anymore or be in control of their daily activities because of the drug.
However, there are so many liquor addicts in the same facilities and people yet do not see why the drug should not be banned anymore. In fact, Americans are turning into using marijuana more and more since they feel safer, other than when they go for the bottle. In fact, according to the 2010 Gallup Polls, 40% of Americans admitted to have had smoked marijuana. This is compared to a mere 16% of people who admitted to have had tasted a drug like cocaine (William & Dionne, 2013). Looking at this percentage, it is obvious that many Americans now feel safe with the drug more than any other. Therefore, this poses the question, if the people feel that the use of marijuana is much safer than other legalized drugs, they why not give them what they want? To make matters worse there was a group of scientists from the United Kingdom who published an article on ‘The Lancet’ on the use of marijuana. This publication was later posted on ‘The Economist’ and it argued that compared to other legalized drugs like tobacco and alcohol, marijuana had little to no harm at all to human beings (William & Dionne, 2013). Therefore, the perception that marijuana is a bad drug has only been brought about by its illegalization. This perception means that only a risk taker would be willing to use the drug. However, this means not that the drug has any known form of addiction or side effects.
Moreover, globally medical marijuana has never been fully acknowledged for its assistances especially to the sick for the simple reason that many people write off marijuana as a bad drug. However, when paralleled to modern medications, marijuana is regarded to be a far-reaching medicine for the reason that it is natural and holds exceptional chemical compounds. Indeed, research has shown that marijuana contains stimulants that act as hunger enhancers. As such, its consumption by either smoking or taking a pill version of marijuana, it then causes hunger ( munchies), people with diabetes and anorexia can smoke marijuana to stimulate hunger resulting to more eating, consequently making these patients to recover from their conditions. Therefore, by the legalization of medical marijuana and marijuana will then result to an extraordinary amount of goodness (Caulkins et al, 2012).
Likewise, there are several medical cases where marijuana has been attributed to being helpful to people in severe pain. For instance, cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy are known to experience and feel extreme pain and this makes doctors to prescribe medical marijuana with an aim of helping them to dull the pain. additionally, cancer patients are prescribed medicinal marijuana to control nausea that they experience especially during when they are undergoing chemotherapy. As if that was not enough, there is also the fact that medicinal marijuana is also prescribed to patients suffering from Hiv/Aids. This is because the drug is believed to have some appetite boost something that patients suffering from this disease among others seem to lack. Marijuana is also believed to relieve chronic pains as well as relaxing spasms and muscle tension.
Therefore, it is high time that people looked at the how different marijuana is from other drugs that we have already legalized and what they have already done to the society. People should also stop have false arguments on the drugs and base everything on facts. For instance, there are rumors that people have been spreading around that use of marijuana leads to use of other drugs. Well; is not true and even scientists have confirmed that marijuana is not an addictive drug, or a substance that can be used as a gateway drug (Harold, 2012). In fact, scientists have based marijuana use before moving on to other substances as correlation and not causation. In fact scientists argue that people who move on to other hard drugs start by using substances like alcohol and tobacco and once they are addicted, ythey feel the need to go for something a little bit stronger. That is when they go for drugs like heroine and cocaine. However, since marijuana has no known addiction effects, then there is no way the drug could push a person to doing hard drugs. Therefore, we can say that the above perception among many others that lead to its prohibition are all based on disinformation and lies that cannot even be proven scientifically (Harold, 2012). Ever since the world discovered the feeling that comes with marijuana, there have been numerous misguided ideologies about the drugs.
Most of these hysterical and misguided concerns date back to the 20th century when the field of science and technology had not developed to the level that it is today. Modern researches have shown that most of all these perceptions were based on misguided believes as well as inadequate study on the substance just because it was a drug. However, everyone agrees that drugs should not for children other than for responsible adults. This includes alcohol and tobacco which have many devastating effects to humans who use them. However, marijuana should not be discriminated from legalization especially when it has been scientifically proven to be of less harmful effects than legal drugs like alcohol and tobacco (Caulkins et al, 2012). Besides, people have been using it for the longest time now. This is especially in the few past decades even when it is illegal, and it has proven that people can use it moderately without endangering the life of an individual, or showing any other harmful effects to the society.
Additionally, legalizing medical Marijuana will defiantly help the government raise more money to finance its budget. This would be brought about by the fact that the federal and statutory governments would get to generate more revenue for its economy simply by legalizing marijuana. For instance, through the imposition of high tax rates on the sale of marijuana, but then sell the high taxed herb to the public through its agencies. This method has previously worked on drugs such as tobacco products. On this notion, the government should help remove the negative perception that marijuana earns from the public since as it has already been observed numbers keep increasing year after year as to the section of people that believe marijuana should just be legalized (HighTimes, 2012). Thus, if the government modestly legalizes marijuana and consequently raises the taxes on it, people will defiantly buy and consume it. The legalization of this substance also means that since there are gang groups who act as middle men and smuggle it in the country, if the substance was legalized here they would not receive any profit for smuggling it in the country. This is because there are many gangs who make a lot of money just from getting the drug from where it is grown, and through the borders of United States of America (William & Dionne, 2013). Therefore, legalizing this drug would reduce cash flow to the many number of gangs we have in the streets.
Other than reduction of money flowing into the gangs, the government would also be in a position to control the ages of those people who access the substance. As we speak, teenagers and even kids who are below 10 years of age can access this substance illegally in the streets just as long as they have money to buy the same (William & Dionne, 2013). However, if this substance was legalized, it would mean that there would be specific places to purchase the substance and illegal on-street sales would come to a halt. Just look at alcohol for example: there is no known corner where a seller hides in the streets or in an alley in the dark waiting to sell alcohol to teenagers. The same case would happen if this substance would be legalized since no person would be able to make profit out of selling the drug in an alley. The government would also be able to collect revenue from imports of marijuana in the country, money that the gangs have been charging just for smuggling the substance in the country.
As if that was not enough, we must not forget that there are kids who make a lot of profit from marijuana just for selling it to their friends at school and other facilities. Therefore, if this substance was made legal, then there would be no much profit coming from selling the substance discouraging these sellers from their business. Therefore, I feel that what America needs is to legalize the drug, but setup a well regulated market that would reduce marijuana sales to underage kids. This legalization would also bring the governments (both state and federal) a lot of revenue generated from importation duty as well as taxation on the sales.
In addition, it is a fact that the government is spending a lot of tax payers’ money just to feed and maintain prisoners, and a good fraction of these prisoners are convicts of either buying or selling marijuana. According to Harold (2012) the legalization of marijuana will result to decreased criminal activities. Further Harold establishes that the present day cost of maintaining a convict in a US jail is approximately 8% of the total tax dollars. Therefore, if marijuana is made legal, then lots of the ‘prisoners’ would be released and would in turn save the government millions of dollars.
Accordingly, there are other observable facts for instance that law has been unable to contain the consumption of marijuana. As such, over decades, the government is spending more and more trying to contain and prohibit the planting and use of marijuana whereas it still remains to be a fact the very many people in the country are its consumers (Caulkins et al, 2012). On this light then, these funds being wasted on unfruitful law enforcement practices ought to be channeled to other sectors. On the same platform, existing laws on marijuana seems to be biased against the blacks and the Hispanic minority groups. Really will a native white be prosecuted or suspected to be consumers. According to the High-times magazine, in the US 25% of marijuana convicts are blacks. Nonetheless, of all its consumers the whites have equal probability of committing the crime. Thus to eliminate the biasness then marijuana ought to be legalized (HighTimes, 2012).
Similarly, by legalizing the sale and consumption of marijuana, black markets would be eliminated thus reducing the chances of teenage or underage consumption. In fact, it is true to state that the value of marijuana arises from its illegality (William & Dionne, 2013). Therefore, similar to alcohol and tobacco legalizing it will make it more manageable. In conclusion, there are many misconception and distortion of facts about marijuana. As such, the drug has remained criminalized are consequently it has resulted to worse effects than it would if it was legal. On this light, it is only fair to legalize the drug and monitor it in a similar manner to alcohol and tobacco.
References
Caulkins, J. P., Hawken, A., Kilmer, B., & Kleiman, M. (2012). Marijuana legalization: What everyone needs to know.
Harold C, E. (2012) “Legalizing Medical Marijuana.” US Pharm;35(1) (2012): 4. http://www.uspharmacist.com/content/d/straight%20talk/c/18901/.
HighTimes. (2012) “10 Reasons Marijuana Should Be Legal.” High Times: n.p. http://www.hightimes.com/read/10-reasons-marijuana-should-be-legal.
William, G.A. & Dionne, E.J. (2013) . “The New Politics of Marijuana Legalization: Why Opinion is Changing.” . http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2013/05/29%20politics%20marijuana%20legalization%20galston%20dionne/dionne%20galston_newpoliticsofmjleg_final.pdf.
