It has been aruged that marijuana should be a legal drug. What is your opinion on this issue?

Question

It has been argued that marijuana should be a legal drug like alcohol or tobacco. What is your opinion on this issue?

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

I don't think a little weed should be outlawed because it doesn't cause anymore health hazard than alcohol or tobacco. It's like anything else; it depends on the person smoking it. I can smoke 3-4 cigarettes a week and I have never been hooked on nicotine; I can drink a few drinks and have never binged on alcohol; but I can't eat ONE stinking potato chip! Yes, I think it should be legalized. It also has value for the disease processes like depression, cancer and glaucoma, which I can't say for alcohol and cigarettes. AND that doesn't take into account the fact that if it were legal (of course the government would tax it) and we could empty quite a few cells that hold week-heads and not worry about them selling the stuff as much. Prohibition should have taught us that if people want to use a substance, they will regardless of legality. I certainly think alcohol and tobacco hold a worse health risk than marijuana. Given the choice, I'd take a toke. Godlova for asking this question...pass the bong please. Thanks, Dude....

Answer 3

In order to understand the issue you should first read the short history of the marijuana laws at http://druglibrary.org/schaffer/History/whiteb1.htm

You will find it funny, fascinating, and surprising. In short, marijuana was outlawed because of the worst kind of racism, ignorance, and nonsense. At the time it was outlawed nationally, the American Medical Association testified that they knew of no evidence that would justify making it illegal.

The arguments advanced for making it illegal are so nonsensical that they just provoke laughter today. Like for instance, the US Official Expert on marijuana testified in court, under oath, that marijuana would make your incisors grow six inches long and drip with blood.

The question of whether to legalize marijuana has been studied by numerous government commissions around the world over the last 100 years. They all concluded that the marijuana laws were based on ignorance and nonsense. They all said that there was no justification for criminal penalties against marijuana. They all recommended that marijuana be either legalized or completely decriminalized because the criminal laws do more harm than good.

You can read the full text of these government commission reports at http://druglibrary.org/schaffer under Major Studies of Drugs and Drug Policy.

If anyone ever says that marijuana should remain illegal, ask them a few simple questions:

1) When was marijuana outlawed?

2) Why was it outlawed?

3) In the past 100 years there have been numerous government commissions that have studied the subject and made recommendations for changes in the law. Name any of them and tell me what they said.

You will find that there is NO ONE who supports marijuana prohibition who can answer any of these questions. You can find all of the answers at http://druglibrary.org/schaffer