Marijuana Legalization

Cannabis Sativa, or more commonly referred to as Marijuana, is a naturally growing plant that is illegal to cultivate, sell, smoke, eat, and even posses in the United States of America. Consequences of being caught with the substance result in major fines or even jail time, in some cases for life. With such dire consequences one would assume that the cannabis plant ruins lives, destroys families, and slaughters baby kittens. However, none of this is the case, in fact the cannabis plant has countless uses: medicine, an easy to grow nutritious food source, and it can even be converted into petrol, methanol, and methane gases. Despite the positive impact the cannabis plant would have on society if it were legal, the government still spends billions of dollars every year to rid the country of the substance and incarcerate all those who posses it. The current laws against cannabis cause more problems than the drug itself; they break up families, wastes funding that could go towards education, and even provokes gang violence to hustle the drug. A new law needs to be created in the United States that will put an end to the violence, home wrecking, and injustice associated with the illegality of the plant. Cannabis should be regulated in the same way as alcohol. Because of its intoxicating effects when used recreationally, a legal age limit as well as DUI guidelines would be set. The most important step to ridding the evils associated with marijuana is to legalize it.

Alcohol, tobacco, and caffeine are the three most commonly abused legal drugs in American society. All three are habit forming, detrimental to health, and deadly in high doses. "At an average of 75,000 Americans deaths each year, excessive alcohol consumption is the third leading cause of preventable death in the United States after tobacco use and poor eating and exercise habits."Marijuana on the other hand is not accountable for a single death in the entire world. "According to the US Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN) records... Marijuana alone has not been shown to cause a single overdose death."Despite marijuana's non-toxicity it still remains a Schedule I drug. Schedule I drugs are classified as having a high potential for abuse, no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States, and a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug or other substance under medical supervision. This classification could not be any more false. Marijuana has been proven as a viable treatment for numerous medical ailments. "THC (the active ingredient in marijuana) reduces muscle spasticity from spinal cord injuries and multiple scleroses, and diminishes tremors in multiple sclerosis patients. Patients and physicians have also reported that smoked marijuana provides relief from migraine headaches, depression, seizures, insomnia and chronic pain, among other conditions." California, as well as 13 other states, have recognized Marijuana's medical benefits and decriminalized it on a state level for the patients who use it. Marijuana needs to be recognized as the virtually harmless drug that it is and accepted into our culture.

The current War on Marijuana is more harmful to society than the drug itself. Medical patients are having their possessions seized by the federal government and houses repossessed for growing personal quantities of their medicine. Most of these people are harmless law abiding citizens with no previous convictions, yet the government still views them as a threat. Furthermore, by convicting the marijuana users it diverts the time of law enforcement officers, clogs the court systems, and fills the already crowded federal prison systems. In a survey of fifty Casa Grande High School Students, thirty-six felt marijuana offences should not be punishable by jail time. "Since 1992, approximately six million Americans have been arrested on marijuana charges, a greater number than the entire populations of Alaska, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont and Wyoming combined. Annual marijuana arrests have more than doubled in that time."If all these people had not been put in prison for these marijuana related "crimes" we would not have the issue of prison over-crowding. There would also be an extreme decrease in teen and gang related marijuana drug dealing. The reason teens and gangs sell marijuana is because of the excessive profits to be made from the market. If the drug were legalized and sold on a controlled market there would no longer be the incentive to sell to one another. Another threat illegal marijuana poses to society is the lack of quality control. "Because marijuana is not regulated, there are no safeguards against contamination by pesticides, herbicides, and other toxic chemicals. In this sense, it is actually the fact that marijuana is illegal that causes the health danger." The United States government is doing the exact opposite of what is best for our country.In order to protect the citizens from the evils of marijuana it needs to be legalized.

The United States has spent over a trillion dollars on the war on drugs, yet the government is still loosing the battle. People still continue to smoke marijuana despite its illegality. In fact, Marijuana is the most commonly used illicit drug in the United States, used by more than 80 million Americans. "Enforcing marijuana prohibition costs taxpayers an estimated $10 billion annually", Instead of wasting billions of dollars on a loosing battle the United States has the potential to earn billions of dollars through legalization and taxation. In fact, "the state of California saved nearly $1 billion dollars from 1976 to 1985 by decriminalizing the personal possession of one ounce of marijuana, according to a study of the state justice department budget." If the entire state could follow this example money would be flowing in. This money along with the money saved from not waging war on marijuana could go to areas that lack funding such as education and healthcare. All of the money from the legal marijuana would remain in the country, boosting the economy. Currently much of the marijuana being consumed in the United States is imported from South America and Canada. If the crop were grown and distributed domestically, the money would remain in our country, in turn maintaining the economy. Economically, legalizing marijuana is one of the smartest decisions the United States could make.

Hemp, a non-psychoactive cousin of marijuana, is an extremely valuable natural resource. Hemp can be used to make food, feed livestock, make fabrics for clothes, turned into plastics, cosmetics, as well as a cornucopia of other products. Most importantly however, hemp can be converted into a viable fuel source. In a world where oil is expected to run out by the year 2018, alternate fuel sources such as petrol, methanol, and methane gases are a necessity to look into. Because of hemps ability to grow in practically any climate with little preparation it makes it an ideal agricultural investment. "The hemp plant is a valuable natural resource. Legalizing marijuana would eliminate the confusion surrounding hemp and allow us to take advantage of hemp's agricultural and industrial uses." Although hemp is not illegal to grow many strains still contain trace amounts of THC. "Each year, approximately 98% of all the marijuana eliminated by the DEA's "Domestic Cannabis Eradication/Suppression Program" is actually hemp."

The ironic part of this debate is that both sides of the controversy are arguing for essentially the same thing: alleviation of the drug problem in the United States. However, the United States Government's attempts at alleviating the problem are only making it worse. The pros of legalizing marijuana greatly outnumber the cons. Some say that marijuana is illegal because it keeps the drug out of the hands of children, keeps impaired drivers off the road, and protects people from health issues like bronchitis. Despite the illegality, people will continue to smoke the reefer. If marijuana were legalized these issues would still be at hand, however, or economy would grow, it would free up jail space, remove incentive for teens to sell to each other, create new energy sources, reduce drug dealing violence, and it would put an end to a the costly, loosing battle of marijuana prohibition. Legalize It.