Should marijuana be legalized in the United States?

Question

What is your stand on the war on pot?

For those opposed to legalization. Check out www.norml.org and get the facts.

Answer 1

marijuana is the most commonly uses illegal substance in the United States. it is used by many people, most of which aren't your stereotypical "druggie", with no life agead of them. Many of them hapen to be very successful, good people. Think about it almost if not every person who reads this paper will know (even if they don't realize it) at least one if not several regular users of marijuana. Its often made out to be much more harmful htan it really is, unfortunatly not every one realizes this.

What many people don't realize is marijuana is much less harmful than alcohol or tobacco. Yet it's the one of the three that gets a bad rap and is illegal. Marijuana isn't even physicaly addicting. You certanly don't see meetings for marijuana like you do with alcohol and AA. Unfortunatly due to American culture the less harmful of the three is illegal.

The most common reason why marijuana can be harmful is that people can often come across laced marijuana without realizing it. Marijuana can easily be mixed with other more harmful drugs with out the buyer realizing it, until they have already used it. This is a dangerous thing that causes many people to do more harmful, hard core drugs without realizing it. If it were to be legalized the government could provide guide lines, like it does with alchol to insure that people knew what they were putting into their bodies.

Marijuana actually has many helpful benefits toward diseases / sicknesses. Marijuana can reduce nausea, vomiting, and loss of appetite caused by AIDS. It can Reduce interlobular pressure, which alleviates the pain and slowing and sometimes even stopping the progress of glaucoma. Common side effects of chemotherapy are nausea, loss of appetite, and vomiting, all of which marijuana would help. It can limit muscle pain and relieve tremor nad unsteadiness of gait for multiple sclerosis patients. Marijuana can help prevent epileptic seizures in some patients. It can also alleviate chronic, often debilitating pain caused by myriad disorders and injuries. Each one of these applications have been deemed legitimate by at least one United States court, legislature, and/or government agency.

Due to these reasons and many others many people are going to jail/prison on a daily basis due to simply smoking a little pot These aren't dangerous criminals that would kill or rape someone. Many of them are teachers, lawyers and respected members of their communities. But yet we still pay thousands of dollars of tax payers money to lock up non dangerous "criminals" yearly even though most aren't going to stop after they get out of jail. Don't you think the money spent here is a waste? Couldn't it be going to more useful things such as hospitals, disease research, or better schools? These are the things that would benifit the people of this country. Certanily you would rather benefit the people more than throwing a non violent pot head in jail who was only trying to smoke a joint and relax after a long days work in jail. There is up to forty million regular (note thats just the regular not occasional users) drug users in the United states. If we were to throw all of them in jail it would cost $500,000 per million people, plus the cost and space of building many more prisons. Couldm't that money be spent on building hospitals? There's already about 1.5 million people tax payers are paying to keep in jail over drugs. From 1990 to 2003, nearly 5.9 million people had been arrested for smoking marijuana. Thats a greater number than the entire population of Alaska, Delaware, The District of Columbia, Montania, North and South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming combined. This country simply can't afford to put 40 million more in jail.

Marijuana should be legalized. It has many uses such as helping sick patients. People are going to smoke it no matter what the government sais, and with out govenment guidelines this can be dangerous. Not to mention the fact that we have no way we can afford to throw all those people in jail. Its much less harmful than alcohol and tobacco, which are legal, so doesn't it make sense that it would be also?

Answer 2

What I think is likely to happen, and this is over a long period, is that medical use will be allowed more and more even though the value of pot is nothing more than an addictive narcotic.

But once that genie is out of the bottle than there will be pressure as use is more common to just make it legal outright.

I used to be against it -- before I tried it :)

Answer 3

I say legalize it. Marijuana is currently a waste of taxpayer money because we pay cops good money to apprehend users and dealers when they should be chasing after the drugs that actually kill people. In Jamaica they proposed legalizing it because it's just too bothersome for law enforcement. Why not just treat it like alcohol? Regulate it and tax the bejeezus out of it. The biggest issue I see is trying to determine at what level of THC absoption does your average individual become so high that their motor skills are too impaired to drive or operate machinery.

Answer 4

Yes it should. You can do yourself more harm with over the counter meds than pot is ever going to do to you. It could help a lot of people who are ill as well. Just another case of the government making a big deal out of nothing. No, I'm not a pot smoker.

Answer 5

Yes, it should be legal. This is a country based on freedom, liberty, personal responsibility and limited government. If people choose to grow and smoke pot, that's their business. Then we could bring back hemp farming, too. Hemp is an eminently useful fiber.

Remember, 100 years ago, hemp was grown in the US, and Coka-Cola contained cocaine. Some anti-drug do-gooders with their 'Reefer Madness' propaganda were able to seize our liberties from us. We don't need a nanny state. We need liberty.

[and I don't smoke the stuff]

Answer 6

In my opinion monies would be better spent on treatment then law enforcement and correctional centers for ALL DRUGS..

Billions of dollars have been spent over the last hundred years on drug enforcement, if drugs were legalized or decriminalized and prroblem users could get treatment the economic costs associated would be 1/10 of the cost of law enforcement..

Answer 7

Like Daniel Tosh says, "We should legalize pot if for no other reason than to shut-up the pot heads. They need to grow up and use coke like adults."

Answer 8

Legalize it and tax the hell out of it. It could fix the social security problem, the national debt problem, and clear out the jails.

Answer 9

well right now it hardly matters. i know tons of people who do pot, and they're like..16 and 17. its' not addicting, i think, and a raging pothead is probably healthier than a raging drrunk.

Answer 10

hey i say legalize it but the reason it isn't is cause you can't regulate it to tax it and also cause there is no test like a breathalizer to test someone under the influence.