Do you think Marijuana should be decrimminalized?

Question

The Prison system is over populated with these people . I have never heard of a person getting violent because they used it. I think it is the one remedy for several illnesses. More people use it than you think for a varity of reasons. Women use it for PMS thank God for weed.

Answer 1

I've always thought it should be legal, at least if you use it in the privicy of your own home..best stress reliever ever..and food taste better too..hahaha

Answer 2

Personally, I go back and forth on this issue. I don't partake of the stuff myself, but I'm familiar with the culture.

I've heard the argument 'decriminalize it, then tax it heavily like everything else.'
I'm all for taking the criminal element out of certain vices. Getting bootleggers out of the alcohol business has definitely had some positive effects. If marijuana possession were legal, there would be few dealers out there playing gangster. All you'd have to do is go to a neighborhood liquor store and pick up a pack of Mary Jane 100s. You may have an increase in first-time users for a little while, which can be problematic, but they may not decide to stick with it over the long haul. People smoke regular cigarettes and decide not to make it a habit, so we wouldn't necessarily be overrun by thousands of new pot smokers.

On the other hand, marijuana does have a significant amounts of unknowns, medically speaking. I'd hate to have another situation like tobacco and cancer again. If we decriminalize marijuana, we're accepting its flaws and warts as well. I'd rather err on the side of safety and keep it out of the hands of the most vulnerable.

All this to say this. I believe the 'personal use' level of marijuana should be raised enough to be the equivalent of a pack or two of tobacco cigarettes. That amount should be exempt from prosecution. Anything above the new personal consumption weight should be considered a misdemeanor, with no jail time. Dealers and distributors caught with harder drugs or weapons along with marijuana should do the real time. Using it can be a personal choice, but selling it for a living demonstrates a criminal mindset.

Answer 3

I have maintained for many years that it should be legal for all (and required for some). It's a natural medicine and should not be contraband. It would be far better to allow ti to be used for medical purposes at the very least but as for harmful effects, studies tend to show whatever the people doing the studies thought in the first place. I don't think there has ever been a truly objective one. Some say it's good for this or that and others say it's harmful.

I know it's harder on the lungs than tobacco but there's more than one way to use the stuff. Nuff said.

Answer 4

Free the weed!
You shouldnt have to go to a dealer to get some.
Dealers want to sell other drugs that get you addicted and that give a higher profit.
Free weed would cause dealers to lose a great deal of customers and lower the selling of other drugs.
Leagally bought weed is of better quality, the state could raise tax on it and they could control how much is used.
Leagal weed doesnt cause any problems in any society -unlike alcohol.
There are countries where its free and people there only have problems with "tourists" storming the shops.

So yeah!
Free the weed!

Answer 5

Well, the person who invented it wasn't trying to do anything illegal, but trying to make a remedy for pain. Over the years, it has been studied and tested. Now, instead of using marijuana, people in extreme pain are (under their acceptance during conciousness) given a formula similar to it, but with less unecessary ingredients. Nonetheless, its key ingredient is still addictive, and still dangerous. I believe that people using this formula/marijuana, or distributing it in any manner illegally, should be criminalized immediatly. Always remember, CRACK IS WHACK!!!!!

Answer 6

you people are so stupid. if you arent informed, dont answer the question. no, it doesnt have toxins in it. yes, there are countless medicinal uses for it. and let me ask you a question, have you ever heard of someone smoking a joint and then going home and beating their wife? NO! you hear about it all the time with alcohol. there has never been a recorded case of marijuana killing anyone and alcohol has killed thousands, but yet all we do is tax it and put an age barrier. i would love to see it decriminalized for all people over 21, sound fair? it sure as hell does to me

Answer 7

Study Finds No Cancer-Marijuana Connection

By Marc Kaufman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 26, 2006; Page A03

The largest study of its kind has unexpectedly concluded that smoking marijuana, even regularly and heavily, does not lead to lung cancer.

The new findings "were against our expectations," said Donald Tashkin of the University of California at Los Angeles, a pulmonologist who has studied marijuana for 30 years.


"We hypothesized that there would be a positive association between marijuana use and lung cancer, and that the association would be more positive with heavier use," he said. "What we found instead was no association at all, and even a suggestion of some protective effect."

Federal health and drug enforcement officials have widely used Tashkin's previous work on marijuana to make the case that the drug is dangerous. Tashkin said that while he still believes marijuana is potentially harmful, its cancer-causing effects appear to be of less concern than previously thought.

Earlier work established that marijuana does contain cancer-causing chemicals as potentially harmful as those in tobacco, he said. However, marijuana also contains the chemical THC, which he said may kill aging cells and keep them from becoming cancerous.

Tashkin's study, funded by the National Institutes of Health's National Institute on Drug Abuse, involved 1,200 people in Los Angeles who had lung, neck or head cancer and an additional 1,040 people without cancer matched by age, sex and neighborhood.

They were all asked about their lifetime use of marijuana, tobacco and alcohol. The heaviest marijuana smokers had lighted up more than 22,000 times, while moderately heavy usage was defined as smoking 11,000 to 22,000 marijuana cigarettes. Tashkin found that even the very heavy marijuana smokers showed no increased incidence of the three cancers studied.

"This is the largest case-control study ever done, and everyone had to fill out a very extensive questionnaire about marijuana use," he said. "Bias can creep into any research, but we controlled for as many confounding factors as we could, and so I believe these results have real meaning."

Tashkin's group at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA had hypothesized that marijuana would raise the risk of cancer on the basis of earlier small human studies, lab studies of animals, and the fact that marijuana users inhale more deeply and generally hold smoke in their lungs longer than tobacco smokers -- exposing them to the dangerous chemicals for a longer time. In addition, Tashkin said, previous studies found that marijuana tar has 50 percent higher concentrations of chemicals linked to cancer than tobacco cigarette tar.

While no association between marijuana smoking and cancer was found, the study findings, presented to the American Thoracic Society International Conference this week, did find a 20-fold increase in lung cancer among people who smoked two or more packs of cigarettes a day.

The study was limited to people younger than 60 because those older than that were generally not exposed to marijuana in their youth, when it is most often tried.

Answer 8

Yes.It is a herb that has had medicinal value for thousand's of years until a stupid movie came out in the sixties and since then hundreds of thousands of people have been jailed and multiple billion's of dollars have been spent on the "war on drug's"
As Dr Phil would say"so how's that working out for you"?

Answer 9

yes totally agree...it should be decriminalized...it would stop the theifs and violence by alot even here in australia...we have 2 states where its decriminalized...and lo and behold it happens to be the ACT where parliment house is, and the other state is S.A... where u can grow 2 plants per person per household...yet here in NSW and other states its highly illegal...its double standards and should be fixed...is why the crime rate is lower in ACT and S.A., when the government make so much money on busting ppl for it and fine payments etc... they arent going to decriminalize it ...they suck... if they did the price would go down and the fun would go outta selling and growing it for distribution...go figure!!!

Answer 10

Not only is it a narcotic that affects your perceptions and thus makes it dangerous in any amount, it is a gateway drug to things like cocaine, crack, and heroin.

Hell, as a society we are steadily approaching the adding of tobacco to banned narcotics, so I don't see the point in legalizing something that is worse.

Answer 11

If we are going to crimminalize marijuana, why not do so with other drugs like tabacco? I think it all boils down to profit not really morality. So why not? As long as you aren't forcing it on others especially naive children, what's the big deal?