Why Marijuana Should Be Legalized

Marijuana is one the most widely used illegal substance in the USA today. Everyday millions of people partake in these supposed harmful substance, even though there are high penalties for its possession and use. An estimated 76 million Americans have tried Marijuana. That being said, Marijuana should be legalized for many reasons. It is a lot safer than other legal substances, it can be utilized to help the economy, and it has medical uses that could help cure or lessen the pain of many suffering patients.

Illegal drugs are normally made illegal for the fact that they cause many health risks to the user of that drug, and are therefore considered a threat to society as a whole. Using that logic alcohol and cigarettes should be considered illegal and have much harsher punishments than Marijuana. Marijuana is classified as a Schedule I drug, which is the same class as heroine and worse than PCP, but with few known health risks. “Marijuana does not cause brain damage, genetic damage, or damage the immune system.” Also, unlike other drugs Marijuana has other alternatives to inhaling smoke, which reduces health risks even further. Marijuana can be ingested in baked food, having no known health risks. Finally, there has never been a recorded death from Marijuana alone.

Compare this to a legal drug, alcohol, a drug in which adults all across the country partake in everyday. In one year 100,000 people died from alcohol related deaths. That alone makes alcohol more of a danger than weed. Then on top of that add on all of the health risks connected with drinking alcohol on a regular basis. “These risks include damage to the heart, liver, and brain.” There is also slowed reflexes, impaired vision, and loss of responsible thought to be considered. Yet with all of these dangers alcohol is still legal and a very accepted part of society.

Another substance that causes major health risks that people use every day without thought is aspirin. Every year 500 people die from taking aspirin. Some of the known side-effects related with aspirin are damage to stomach lining, bleeding, wheezing, nausea, vomiting, ulcers, rash, and sometimes Reye’s syndrome. Reye’s Syndrome is when fat begins to form around the liver and organs, increasing the pressure of the brain. With this disease death can come within a few days, making it very dangerous to contract. There is also no known cure to Reye’s Syndrome, again, making it a very dangerous and deadly disease. Again there are a lot more dangers to taking this simple, every day off the shelf medicine than there is to smoking a considered Schedule I drug. These statistics seem to prove themselves, but still Marijuana is considered a threat to society. This is mostly because of the many myths that circulate about Marijuana.

There are a lot of myths that circulate everyday about Marijuana. These myths are generally incorrect and can be written off by the true facts of Marijuana. The biggest of these myths is the “Gateway Drug Theory”. Every day in health classes across the country children are led to believe that Marijuana use leads to the use of more harmful drugs. “The U.S. government's own statistics show that over 75 percent of all Americans who use marijuana never use harder drugs.” More heroin and cocaine addicts started out drinking alcohol than smoking marijuana, so by that logic alcohol is more of a gateway drug than weed. On that note, is marijuana can be considered a gateway drug that would only be because of the prohibition of marijuana. As stated in The Official High Times Pot Smoker’s Handbook “It’s marijuana prohibition that exposes pot smokers to the wider black market and its other illicit offerings.” If marijuana wasn’t illegal then people, mostly young adults, would not be exposed to drug dealers who possess harder drugs to pass onto these customers looking to buy marijuana.

Another one of these myths is that marijuana is addicting, this also is false. “Medical studies rank marijuana as less habit forming than caffeine.” In fact it is one of the least addicting substances known to man. This is compared to alcohol and tobacco which have very many withdrawal symptoms. It can take years and years for a person to quit smoking, and the government pays for AA classes to help alcoholics get over their addiction. A substance with a very low addiction should not be considered more dangerous than these other substances.

From a medical standpoint, on myth that circulates about Marijuana is that it has a dangerously high number of chemicals in it, this number being 400. Compare this to the number of chemicals in coffee which stands at 1,500, and the number of chemicals in rat poison which is 30. Even vegetables have chemicals in them that can cause cancer, but does that make them anymore illegal? As stated on legalizationofmarijuana.com, “There is no correlation between the number of chemicals a substance contains and its toxicity.” Therefore making out Marijuana to be more harmful because of the number of chemicals inside of it is flawed-logic and cannot be supported.

Also the use of pot is also being connected with Amotivational Syndrome, which is the lack of motivation and being unproductive. “In laboratory studies, subjects given high doses of marijuana for several days or even several weeks exhibit no decrease in work motivation or productivity.” It has also been proven that Marijuana users in the adult world, tend to make more money than non-users.

Other than comparing the effects to of Marijuana to other, legal substances there is also the point that Marijuana could bring in a substantial amount of money into the ever failing economy. As stated by Dr. Jeffrey Miron in his 2005 report, “Replacing marijuana prohibition with a system of taxation and regulation similar to that used for alcoholic beverages would produce combined savings and tax revenues of between $10 billion and $14 billion per year.” How is the possible? Well in today’s market a farmer could sell a bushel of corn for a few dollars, and that same farmer could also sell a good bushel of pot for around $70,000. Add on a government tax to that, comparable to that on alcohol, and a lot of revenue is coming into the economy which could be used for schools and other such needs. Besides while being illegal it is one of America’s biggest cash crops.

Not only would legalizing Marijuana make the economy a lot of money it would also help improve safety and reduce crimes rates. As stated by Joe Messerli, “Legalization of marijuana would free up those people to concentrate on more important things like terrorism, harder drugs, rape, murder, and so on. In addition, an already overloaded civil court docket would be improved; thus, the wait time for other legitimate court cases would be reduced.” Instead of focusing on busting every person who happens to be carrying or smoking Marijuana, the police force could be out making sure real criminals are caught. Plus it’s on the tax payers dollar that these cops are wasting their times on non-violent meaningless crimes instead of more important issues.

The final reason Marijuana should be legalized is that it has many medical values that patients suffering all across the country could have use for. Marijuana can be used to help patients who have just recently gone under chemotherapy, and some say it is helpful in the treatment of depression. Also as most people know, even those who do not smoke pot, one of the side effects of using Marijuana is that it gives the person the “munchies”. “Munchies” is when the person becomes extremely hungry until the drug wears off. This side effect could be used to help Anorexia patients, because it stimulates their body so they can eat and put weight back on. Other synthetic forms of THC, the active ingredient in Marijuana, such as Marinol are ineffective because the normally put the patient to sleep before they get to eat which ruins the entire point.

As stated in The Official High Times Pot Smoker’s Handbook “As of 2008, twelve states have approves laws allowing their citizens access to marijuana for medicinal purposes.” This however does not matter if the federal government decides to step in, because they do not recognize any of these state laws. The leader of legalizing medical Marijuana is the state of California, who in 1996 passed Proposition 215 to legalize medical Marijuana with certain restrictions. The state must issue a medical Marijuana card to any patient wishing to use the substance, and they must also issue a card to legal medical growers with a regulated amount they are allowed to grow. The state also pushed for independent dispensaries, that way to the substance could be distributed to patients in need.

As shown Marijuana, if legalized, could not only help our economy but is safer than a lot of accepted drugs into today’s society. The government needs to get their priorities in order, and just legalize Marijuana. People are still going to use it whether or not its legal, and by making it illegal they are stopping patients from receiving a good medical treatment. They need to focus more on the real dangers to society, such as alcohol and cigarettes, rather than waste their time and the tax payers money chasing something that presents no real harm to anyone.