Should cannabis be legalised, if yes then why and if no then why?

Answer 1

Of course it should. It never should have been made illegal in the first place. It became illegal in the mid-30's a few years after Prohibition ended. After alcohol was made legal again in the States, the liquor industry didn't skyrocket like they thought it would. There were several factors for that, but the main reason is hemp (my preferred name for it) was being smoked widely. Those people weren't in a big hurry to go back to alcohol. Hemp gives a better high than alcohol, there's virtually no hangover and it mellows the smoker. There's no way of overdosing and dying from it, unlike alcohol. I know that from personal experience.
The hemp plant is the most versatile plant in the world. The stems can make stronger and cheaper paper products. The US Constitution and Declaration of Independence, among other documents, were made rom hemp. It also makes a very strong rope. The US Government lifted the ban on growing it for a short time during WW2 because they needed more rope for the ships. Most clothes were made from hemp thread up until the beginning of the 20th century.

Answer 2

I've grown up around cannabis, with both my parents and their entire social network smoking on a daily basis. I have never chosen to take up using marijuana - in fact, being around it has put me off it, more than anything. It doesn't have a 'cool' factor when the 'grown-ups' are doing it, and you get to hear them hacking and wheezing - you see the effect it has on their health, and their skin. Red eyes, wrinkles around the mouth line, yellow nails and discoloured teeth, accompanied by breath that smells like a turd? No thanks!

HOWEVER, I actually DO think it should be legalised. In my lifetime, I’ve seen a lot of dodgy drug users, and when everything is a bit short in supply, such as after a summer of parties and festivals, or when the government cracks down, I’ve seen the lengths people go to in order to get hold of some of the 'green'. They go to dodgy suppliers, who don't grow their own and whose trade supports much larger, much more severe actions, such as child labour and some of the far more morbid goings-on of the drug underworld.

Both my parents have successful careers, and our family is reasonably stable - mam, dad, 3 daughters and a lodger. We have a 7 bedroom home, funded by honest means, and my mother is a teacher, my father a labourer on a farm. We are, in all honestly, happy. Using cannabis certainly hasn't made them bad people by any means.

I have seen people who have been badly affected by drug use. I knew a guy at the start of this year with a truly horrible habit - he recently died. He wasn't a cannabis user - he was into crystal meth and heroin. Nasty, nasty stuff. Very few of the cannabis users I’ve ever come across have had other drug habits, since very few other drugs produce similar effects to cannabis - most either speed things up or are hallucinogens, while cannabis (from what I understand) mainly relaxes and soothes, and very few strains are potent enough to cause real 'trips' (and even where they are, you'd need to smoke a LOT of the stuff).

I'm seventeen, and I can see the effect cannabis use has had on my parents' health. However, it also has health benefits - for those that suffer from stress or chronic pain, it can provide relief without the side effects of sedatives, anti-depressants or painkillers, which can really put some people 'out of it', as it were, creating an almost robotic state. It is also a known anti-carcinogen, when the right parts of it are smoked. I discovered this through my own research for a school project a few years back - it's health benefits are not hugely well-researched, but almost all of it's effects have been found to be positive!

If the government controlled cannabis sales, say selling it at supermarkets, just like you would buy regular cigarettes, a lot less kids would be tempted to try it, in my opinion - once something is 'allowed', a lot of the drive to try it goes away e.g. once you're old enough to smoke cigarettes, most of the people who started smoking in their teens want to stop! It would bring in extra income for the government, which would be used to improve healthcare, anti-drug education in schools etc. It would also remove the power of many drug lords, whose income is supporting or being supplemented by much worse crimes than selling cannabis, such as dealing harder drugs, child labour, smuggling people into countries without the proper documents, terrorism etc.

Answer 3

No. Cannabis is a mind-altering substance, and it affects a person's ability to rationalize, as well as reducing reaction times while under the influence of it. Some people will either lie, or are totally ignorant of this fact, and claim it doesn’t affect them in this way. Some people say the same thing about alcohol. If it is legalized, it will be more readily available, just like alcohol. No one can argue logically that legalizing the drug will not have a negative effect on accident rates, and accident related deaths. Legalization of the drug will result in more people driving under the influence. While some may argue that legislation will be put in place to help deter this, current legislation for drunk driving has done little to reduce alcohol related accidents. After all, it’s against the law to drive drunk, but there’s still drunk drivers on the road every day. Too many people already put their brain on hold when they get behind the wheel of a car. The last thing we need is for more people driving around feeling happy about how green everything looks, including stop signs and red lights.

Answer 4

Yes. Too many bad guys in the mix when it is illegal. Also, tax revenue rather than a revenue drain when it is legal. Also, legal cannabis will probably cause some users of alcohol to want to switch to the drug. Better to get the munchies and go to sleep than drive drunk. Elasticity should increase usage when legalized, although I have not found a good reason to use it. And it is not for pleasure until after you use it for a long time, so if you like pleasure you should not even start.

Answer 5

There would be many problems. The people that want it legalized find out and admit it would end up costing much more. It takes longer to work out of your system and longer to test. Example: Someone may be smokeing with children in the car and while they are driving,.. it would be more difficult to legally prove they were doing this. Some people have strong negative reactions that smoke includeing paranoia [and ALLERGIES, it does threaten the life of some people with ALLERGIES to it... they get an Anaphalactic reaction... a person's allergic reaction varies just like with every other allergen] and this could lead to car accidents. But since it is more time consumeing to prove someone was under the influence,.. it would take much more time and money.

Now if you are wondering about as material for clotheing and decor,.. it is not as good a material (aka Hemp) as current ones used, it is itchy, splittery, and uncomfortable. There are some uses for it and in Japan there are some special farms that are now allowed to produce this... This is like one or two people/farmers.

For medical use there is an opening there but prices may be outragous.

So as in the same Equality or better then Alcohol & Tobacco I would say NO (they'd just end up sticking stuff in it that would give smokers cancer anyways)

For Hemp and Medical use,.. YES

Added: BuddyandOscar: I have seen many people under the influence of "Cannabis" in my life. Most are on a delay and have accidents (stumbleing, missing something,.. minor accidents with moter skills that don't threaten your life when you indoors... well,... they do start fires alot and have trouble notceing to put them out),... however whatever happens while they are "high" they cannot admit to or believe,.. they will not even recognize their own voice or the conversation that occured if you were to record them. So that seems normal. They cannot admit because they cannot remember. What they remember is different then the events. It is like when people get so drunk they forget things the next day,.. only they feel in the blanks with things and words that did not happen or were not said.

Answer 6

So many bad answers its hard to comprehend. Legalizing cannabis is not going to make millions of dollars for anyone. Its not going to cause more accidents. Right now without it being legal it is still very widely used. If you are under 21 it is easier to get than alcohol almost anywhere in the united states. Anyone who wants to smoke, could get it if they really wanted to. Legalizing it would just take alot of people out of the extremely overcrowded US penal system. The amount of people who smoke may increase slightly, but not anywhere near as dramatically as people say. Its not going to make every go out and get stoned drive around as fast as they can.

Those who are against using marijuana are making there own personal decision not to smoke.

Those who are against legalizing marijuana are attempting to take this decision away from everyone else.
WHAT GIVES YOU THE RIGHT

Answer 7

First of all, you should read the short history of the marijuana laws to understand why it is illegal in the first place.

In short, it was outlawed in the southwestern states because "All Mexicans are crazy and marijuana is what makes them crazy." In the northeastern states it was outlawed because of fears that heroin addiction would lead to the use of marijuana -- exactly the opposite of the modern gateway myth.

When it was outlawed at the national level in 1937, the American Medical Association testified that they knew of no evidence that marijuana was a dangerous drug and, therefore, there was no reason for the law.

In short, the whole thing was absolute lunacy from the very beginning. The US Official Expert on marijuana testified in court, under oath, that marijuana had turned him into a bat. The reasons have not gotten any more sensible since then.

You can read a good short history of the marijuana laws at http://druglibrary.org/schaffer/History/whiteb1.htm Parts of it are hilarious, despite the fact that it is tragically true.

You can find the full transcripts of the hearings for the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 at http://druglibrary.org/schaffer/hemp/taxact/taxact.htm In that, you may note that 1) one of the major reasons for outlawing marijuana was its effect on the "degenerate" races. and 2) that the head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics testifies emphatically that there was no connection between marijuana and heroin.

You can read more about the topic at http://druglibrary.org/schaffer/Library/mj_outlawed.htm

This question has been studied extensively by numerous major government commissions around the world. They all reached similar conclusions. They all found that the reasons given for the marijuana laws were -- and continue to be -- absolute nonsense. It simply is not a major threat to society or health. The laws against it were based on the worst kind of racism, ignorance, and nonsense -- such that those reasons are simply laughable today.

The largest study of the subject ever done was President Nixon's US National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse, concluded in 1973. They said that the real drug problem was the ignorance of public officials who had never bothered to read the most basic research.

You can test this for yourself. Ask anyone who supports marijuana prohibition if they can name any of the major government commission reports and summarize what they said. You won't find anyone who supports marijuana prohibition who is able to even begin to answer the question. Our entire policy is built on urban legend.

If you want to read the government commission reports yourself, you can find them at http://druglibrary.org/schaffer/Library/studies/studies.htm

The evidence is conclusive and overwhelming for anyone who actually reads the evidence. If any of the people who support marijuana prohibition in these answers can name any significant study that reached different conclusions, I would love to hear about it. But you will notice that none will be able to provide any. Their usual tactic is just to claim that all the major research is "biased" even though they can't even tell you the titles or the first word of what it said.

As President Nixon's commission said, the real problem is that the people supporting prohibition really know nothing about the subject.

It should also be noted that just about all of the information posted by others is flatly wrong. There is no evidence that it is a major cause of any kind of health problem. Furthermore, there is no evidence that marijuana is a major cause of accidents or crime. Alcohol wins all the prizes in those areas by several orders of magnitude over all the illegal drugs combined.

We tried outlawing alcohol to address those problems. It was a disaster. As bad as alcohol is, prohibition was the wrong way to try to deal with the problems. You can read about some of the results of that experiment with prohibition at http://druglibrary.org/prohibitionresults.htm

There is no evidence to show that it makes people lazy or drags upon society. In fact, there are several billionaires who are known to be pot smokers.

Re the argument made by others about accidents. First, there is no evidence that marijuana is a significant cause of accidents. Alcohol wins all the prizes for that by several orders of magnitude over all the illegal drugs combined. It isn't even close.

We tried alcohol prohibition to deal with those issues. It only made things worse. Alcohol problems went UP, not down, during alcohol prohibition. In fact, things were so totally out of control that schools had to cancel dances because so many kids showed up drunk and they were sending corrupt cops to prison literally by the trainload. In addition, homicides skyrocketed. You can read about the effects of alcohol prohibition at http://druglibrary.org/prohibitionresults.htm The moral of that story is that just because something is dangerous, that doesn't mean that making it a crime is the best approach to the problem.

Answer 8

Absolutely not. We don't need MORE people impaired when they are working, driving cars, etc.

The people behind the legalize pot campaign (i.e. George Soros) want it legal so they can make zillions of dollars.

-Aztec276