Making Our World A Little Greener
A
man by the name of John Rosevear, a conservative member of the Legislative
Assembly of Ontario, once stated that “Being high is one of the most pleasant sensations available to
mankind. Every day is Saturday. It is to be like a child; to perceive events
with clarity; to look into the gates of paradise; to completely enjoy whatever
you might be doing; to smile so hard that your jaw muscles get tired. Being
high is to laugh at the silliest things; to understand things that have seemed
absurd before; to have the aloofness of a cat; to afford a kinship with god. To
be intoxicated with marijuana makes every superlative seem within your grasp.
Being high makes life seem terribly good. Being high is simply grand”
(Hardwick, 2011). The decision whether
to legalize marijuana or not has been a controversial topic for decades. Many citizens of the United States can be
ignorant to the benefits marijuana has on the body and are, instead, persuaded
by peers into believing false facts about this so-called “drug”. The drug phase in the 60’s is now over, and
it is time that we look at the facts about marijuana and what benefits would be
received by making marijuana legal. Legalizing
marijuana across the United States would greatly benefit the country as a whole
by giving adults a choice, reducing the pain and stress of our citizens, saving
law enforcement costs annually, and gaining tax revenue from legal sales. With our economy as low as it is currently in
2012, legalizing marijuana could possibly be one of the answers to our
country’s financial problems. Our voters
just need to look at the topic with an open mind and forget the facts that are
incorrect, even though their peers have told them otherwise.
Marijuana,
or Cannabis Sativa by scientific name, is a mind-altering substance produced
from a plant, unlike most legal drugs which are manmade. The primary active ingredient in marijuana, Tetrahydrocannabinol
(THC), induces relaxation and heightens the senses. The term marijuana
generally refers to the shredded leaves and buds of the cannabis plant,
resembling tobacco, but is usually green or brown (Nation Drug Intelligence
Center, 2006). Even though marijuana is
illegal, it is not uncommon to come across the recreational users. In fact, 37% of U.S residents aged 12 and
older and 48% of high school seniors claim to have used marijuana at least once
in their lifetime, and 22% of high school seniors claim to have used the drug in
the past month (National Drug Intelligence Center (2006). If Americans were to choose to legalize this
herb, it would be made legal under the same conditions as alcohol. This
includes prohibiting the ability to drive with any amount of the substance in
the car, driving under the influence of “pot”, and being of age 21 or older to
smoke it at all. Marijuana is
essentially harmless if you are comparing it to other legal drugs, but there
are still some effects. By setting the
same age limit of 21 to recreationally use marijuana like alcohol, it still
becomes legal, just not to the minors and young adults of our society, which is
how it should be distributed. Adults should
be given the choice to use marijuana recreationally if the choice to abuse alcohol
and tobacco is condoned. Consenting,
informed adults should be able to decide what they chose to put into their
bodies. From 1983-1986, it became legal
for adults 21+ to consume alcohol around the United States. Even though a person is considered an adult
at the age of 18 in the United States, by law, adults cannot drink until they
turn 21. This may seem confusing because
when you turn into what society defines as an “adult”, it is assumed that you
are given more responsibilities and fewer restrictions on recreational
activities. The reason for the change
from 18-21 for the legal age to drink was a result of the high number of
alcohol related traffic accidents between 18-20 year olds. What is even more confusing is that so many
deaths are the result of alcohol abuse from traffic incidents alone, yet it is
still legal while marijuana is not and it is a proven fact that no one has ever
died in any circumstance resulting in smoking marijuana. The Truth about cannabis’ blog Truth About
Cannabis: Cutting Through The Lies explains perfectly that “The facts are as follows: Tobacco causes
more deaths than all other drugs (legal or not) combined. Alcohol is next,
causing more deaths than all other drugs combined (excluding tobacco). All
illegal drugs combined causes about the same amount of deaths as all
prescription drugs combined” (p.1). The
question is simple, if alcohol and tobacco are so much more harmful to our
bodies than marijuana, but we are still given to choice to consume either if we
choose, why are we not given the same option for marijuana?
After a long, stressful day at work, most people
look forward to coming home, putting their feet up, putting on a movie, and
having a drink or two, or maybe a cigarette or cigar. This is not seen in society’s eyes as deviant
as compared to if you were to light up a joint, even if it is in the privacy of
your own home. This is completely
irrational because there is no true reason why marijuana is illegal. It is actually more sensible to smoke
marijuana as compared to alcohol and tobacco.
Marijuana is, in a sense, better than alcohol because it is not possible
to get physically addicted to marijuana. Becoming addicted to alcohol can put
the body through trauma and can be extremely difficult to stop using as well as
the severe withdrawal symptoms when an alcoholic attempts to stop drinking. Smoking cigarettes usually leads to
emphysema, lung cancer, and other fatal respiratory infections as well, where
as one of the worst effects of marijuana are temporary damage to the short-term
memory. Marijuana is actually a
medicine. Procon, a nonprofit charity
(2012) states that “Proponents
of medical marijuana argue that it can be a safe and effective treatment for
the symptoms of cancer, AIDS, multiple sclerosis, pain, glaucoma, epilepsy, and
other conditions. They cite dozens of peer-reviewed studies, prominent medical
organizations, major government reports, and the use of marijuana as medicine
throughout world history” (p.1).
Marijuana is also a powerful appetite stimulant, sleep aid, and
antidepressant, which can help all people from persons suffering from anorexia
bulimia to insomniacs to manic depressants.
After so many studies have been conducted testing the effects of marijuana
on all different types of people with different types medical conditions, it is
determined that if we were to legalize marijuana, this herb alone could replace
more than half, if not all prescription drugs. There is historical evidence of the use of
medical marijuana in nearly every culture. McMahon states in The Legalization Debate
“Historical evidence suggests that marijuana has been used as a treatment
almost as long as human civilization has existed. Over 3,000 years ago, Egyptians used [marijuana] to
treat sore eyes and Chinese writings from earlier centuries include references
to the plant’s use as a pain reliever” (p.1).
As you can see, marijuana has been medically used almost as far back as
history can tell us. Humans have
changed, but the human body has not. The
effects of marijuana are still the same on humans as they were 3,000 years ago,
except maybe for the factor of potency and how “high” the user may get. One of marijuana’s universal benefits is
stress reduction. Continued use of
marijuana has also proven to exhibit mild stimulation though mood management notes
Psychiatrist Tod Mikuriya, M.D. Cannabis
considered a “go-to” medicine for most psychiatrists when dealing with patients
with severe Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) as well (Stress Reduction,
2008). A study conducted at University of Haifa,
induced stress similar to PTSD on humans, on rats. After these rats began to show the same
symptoms of PTSD in humans, they split the rats into four groups. The first group did not receive any
marijuana, the second group received marijuana injection after the first 2
hours after induced stress, the third group received it after 24 hours, and the
fourth after 48 hours. The results
showed that the first group and the fourth group had shown no improvement and
continued signs of stress while the second and third group lost all signs of
stressful behavior (University of Haifa, 2011).
Before selling a product, most companies will test their product on rats
or other animals to make sure they are safe to sell to the public. This is because some animals have similar
internal systems to humans. The results
of the previously explained experiment showed that the rats that were given the
marijuana injection after the induced PTSD, showed no signs of stress
afterwards, thus proving that marijuana could reduce stress in humans as well.
One of the main reasons marijuana is one of the most used drugs in the world is
because it is one of the world’s best stress reliever.
Despite the fact that marijuana is less harmful
than other legal drugs, it is the most common drug people are arrested for
possessing. It is a fact that more than
800,000 people are arrested for marijuana each year, most of them for simple
possession. According to the Federal
Bureau of Investigation’s annual Uniform Crime Report as stated by Marijuana
Facts in 2011, in 2009 alone, police prosecuted 858,408 persons for marijuana
violations. A decade ago, marijuana arrests
alone compromised 44% of drug arrests.
Today, marijuana arrests more than half (estimated 52%) of all drug
arrests (Drug Policy Alliance). In the
state of Florida, it can cost up to $20,403 per year to incarcerate a
prisoner. Punishment for the offense of
possession of marijuana can result from a slap on the wrist to misdemeanor to a
felony. The punishment of a misdemeanor
and a felony can result from 1-10 years in prison. This means that $20,000 to $200,000 of our
tax payer’s dollars can go to incarcerating a single person for the possession
of an herb less dangerous than tobacco, alcohol, and all prescription
drugs. Legalizing marijuana could
possibly free up resources to fund treatment programs for addicts hooked on
serious, actual hard drugs, and would allow cops and prosecutors to redirect
their focus to more serious criminals (The Nation, 2010). Our American citizens are ignorant to the
fact of how much money is being spent on marijuana arrests when our police
enforcement’s time and the tax payer’s money could go to arresting more serious
and actual dangerous offenses. The state
of California alone spends $8.7 billion on law enforcement costs annually for
marijuana. Morgan (2009) describes, in
response to Obama’s statement that legalizing pot will not grow economy, Jack
Cole, executive director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition refuted with
“Despite the president’s flippant comments today, the grievous harms of
marijuana prohibition are no laughing matter.
Certainly, the 800,000 people arrested last year on marijuana charges
find nothing funny about it, nor do the millions of Americans struggling in
this sluggish economy. It would be an
enormous economic stimulus if we stopped wasting so much money arresting and
locking people up for nonviolent drug offenses and instead brought new tax
revenue from legal sales” (p.1). The
American citizens are spending so much money to keep marijuana illegal and
spending even more money by imprisoning innocent people who chose a joint over
an alcoholic beverage to relax like any other person, when instead, we could be
saving money by legalizing marijuana and taxing it to make a profit to benefit
our economy, whether it be a small or big way.
If the United States were to legalize marijuana
around the country, the citizens and government could gain tax revenue from
legal sales. Legalizing marijuana could
provide jobs for people willing to work in dispensaries, and possibly produce a
big enough profit to help the economy.
It is not a secret that the unemployment rate is increasing
progressively. In California, where
medical marijuana is legal with a prescription signed by a licensed physician,
there are dispensaries all around the area of the large state. Dispensaries, or actual stores that are
licensed to sell certain amounts of marijuana to patients prescribed by their
doctor, would be everywhere across the United States if marijuana was
legalized. This would give the hundreds
of unemployed people more job opportunities. Gravois speaks about meeting John
Schaeffer, a man who opened the store Real Goods in the town of Willits. Schaeffer started out experimenting in the
recreational uses of marijuana and turned an exceptional profit after selling
it. Growing cannabis also helps people
learn basic skills such as carpentry, plumbing, welding, and mechanics
(Gravois, 2010). Moffat writes that the
Budgetary Implications of Marijuana Prohibition’s report shows that “by
legalizing marijuana and replacing prohibition with a system of taxation and
regulation [United States] would save $7.7 billion dollars per year in state
and federal expenditures on prohibition enforcement and produce tax revenues of
at least $2.4 billion annually if marijuana were taxed like most consumer
goods. If however, marijuana were taxed
similarly to alcohol or tobacco, it might generate as much as $6.2 billion
annually” (p.1). Given, these are only
estimates, but because of how high the estimated profit says we can possibly
make for our country, it is worth giving it a chance because whether or not it
is that high of a profit, it will still benefit our country in one way or
another. In 1996, California became the
first state to approve medical marijuana with a doctor’s prescription and
today, the prospect of complete legalization is within reach (Cockburn, 2010). The state of California collects $18 million
annually from medical marijuana alone (Wenner, 2012). Today, the citizens of California are trying
their hardest to pass Prop 19, the Regulate, Control, and Tax Cannabis
Act. This act legalizes various
marijuana-related activities, allowing the local governments to regulate those
activities while imposing and collecting related fees and taxes, and
authorizing various criminal and civil penalties. Koger, G. describes the efforts of multiple
groups of young college students around the United States campaigning for the
passing of Proposition 19. This shows
that this act is becoming closer and closer to being passed with so many
recruits on board (Koger, 1984). After
so many years living with the prohibition of marijuana and not knowing why,
citizens began to educate themselves on the facts of marijuana. The United States is finally realizing that
marijuana is not the dangerous, life threatening drug that the exaggerated
movie Reefer Madness made it out to be. This movie is a big part of why marijuana
was made illegal. Louis Gasnier,
director of Reefer Madness released in 1936,
sent out the message that if a person were to use marijuana, they were
opening themselves up to life containing hit and run accidents, manslaughter,
suicide, attempted rape, and/or descent into madness. This movie when it first came out scared the
citizens of the United States because since they were unknowledgeable about
marijuana and the positive affects it posses.
This led the country into panic and resulting in the prohibition of marijuana. Reefer Madness is well-known as an American
propaganda exploitation film (Nadelmann, 2011). The United States could greatly benefit by
legalizing marijuana especially taking into consideration that it could be
taxed and regulated like everything being sold today.
Many citizens are still hesitant to change their
minds about legalizing marijuana. One of
the biggest reasons is because marijuana is falsely believed to be a “gateway
drug”. According to NORML’s Marijuana
Health Mythology (1994), there is no specific evidence to support this
theory. “The gateway theory took hold in
the sixties, when marijuana became the leading new recreational drug. It was refuted by events in the eighties,
when cocaine abuse exploded at the same time marijuana declined. The one way in which marijuana does lead to
other drugs is through illegality: persons who deal marijuana are likely to
deal in other illicit drugs as well” (p.7).
An analogy to consider would be every person who rides a motorcycle
started out on a bicycle, but not every bicycle rider learns to ride a
motorcycle. Another common misconception
about marijuana is that people believe it to cause long-term cognitive
impairment. The short-term memory is the
most clearly affected cognitive process resulting from marijuana. The truth is, in laboratory studies,
subjects under the influence of marijuana did not have a problem remembering
information they had previously learned.
There is no evidence proving that long-term marijuana use permanently
impairs any cognitive functions or memory.
The short term memory is only impaired as long as the “high” lasts (Drug
Policy Alliance, p.2). The biggest and
probably most controversial reason citizens question marijuana is because
studies have resulted in saying marijuana is not harmful, and the
opposite. NORML’s marijuana health
mythology’s evidence stated that Dr. Christine Hartel, Acting Director of
Research at the National Institute of Drug Abuse (1994), claimed that
“Government experts now admit that pot doesn’t kill brain cells. This myth came from a handful of animal
experiments in which structural changes were observed in brain cells of animals
exposed to high doses of pot” (p.5). She
advises that although no evidence suggests that pot causes permanent brain
damage, reoccurring deficits in short-term memory have been noted in chronic,
heavy use after 6-12 weeks of not smoking marijuana. The United States also questioned if marijuana
increases the risk of cancer, and surprisingly, it does not. Several Longitudinal studies determined that
even long term marijuana smoking is not associated with a higher cancer risk
including tobacco-related cancers, or cancer of the colorectal, lung, cervix,
prostate, breast, or melanoma. A study
done in 2009 actually found that moderate marijuana smoking over a 20-year span
has the ability to reduce head and neck cancer.
Smoking marijuana has also shown to reduce nausea symptoms induced by
chemotherapy, reducing intraocular pressure in glaucoma patients, and to
stimulate the appetite of people with AIDS (Drug Policy Alliance, p.2). So many people go about life falsely
believing anything a friend, co-worker, or anyone who speaks with confidence say. It is a possibility that with citizens in
America today, people do not want to believe marijuana is not as bad as they
thought it was. This would lead to a
change in the economy which some people are not comfortable with. As said before, the United States need to
start looking at other options to improve our economy with an open mind because
we are running out of time to dig
ourselves out of the hole of debt and unemployment our society has dug
us into.
Marijuana is not a drug, it is a medicine. Citizens of the United States are finally
starting to understand what almost half of the country believes. The support to legalize marijuana is growing
every day as more and more people inform themselves on the facts of marijuana. Legalizing marijuana would benefit the United
States in so many ways. It would
greatly benefit the United States by giving adults a choice they did not have
before. It would reduce the pain and stress of our citizens,
save law enforcement costs annually, and gain tax revenue from legal sales. This is a fast paced world where decisions
are made on impulse and an act or law can get passed much quicker than
before. If the United States chose to
legalize marijuana, it would probably be one of the smartest decisions our
citizens have made because it can greatly benefit almost every type of person
from the father working 70 hours a week to keep food on the table to a person
who is unemployed on disability leave because of pain. When it comes to marijuana, Louis Armstrong
states “It really puzzles me to see marijuana
connected with narcotics . . . dope and all that crap. It's a thousand times
better than whiskey - it's an assistant - a friend” (Baked Life, 2008).
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