| Marijuana: An Argument For Legalization Essay, Research Paper
Currently, drugs remain high on the list of concerns of politicians,
and drugs are considered one of the major problems affecting our
country. Stories are on 11:00 news every night about people
being murdered on the streets because of drugs. Many people
think that drugs are only an inner-city problem, but in reality, they
affect all of us; non-users and users. I believe that the negative
effects associated with drugs would be reduced greatly if the
United States adopted a policy towards the total legalization of
marijuana. By this I mean completely legalizing marijuana for
recreational, medicinal, and other uses. The current drug policy
of our government is obviously failing. Drugs are quite present in
our society, and the United States drug policy has not deferred
drug trafficking to the point where it is beneficial. Drug laws have
created corruption, violence, increased street crime, and
disrespect for the criminal justice system. Besides that, the
American people should be allowed to enjoy what they like to do
responsibly and law enforcement could focus their attentions to
other more serious crimes.
Marijuana comes from the hemp plant, which can readily be grown
on fields across the nation and was cultivated heavily in the
colonial period. After 130 years of being able to grow and
consume marijuana, the potential problems of marijuana were
brought into the public eye in 1932. Harry J. Anslingler, the
commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, authored the
book Marijuana: Assassin of Youth (Goldman 88). In his book,
Anslinger portrayed images of Mexican and Negro criminals, as
well as young boys, who became killers while under the influence
of marijuana. With this and other added public pressure from
Anslinger’s book, President Franklin Roosevelt signed into law
the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937. This law made the use and sale of
marijuana federal offenses, and at this point marijuana vanished
from the public eye.
In the mid-1960’s marijuana reappeared and the “Hippy” emerged.
Hippies were viewed as the abnormal people who did not “fit in”
and were often referred to as freaks. Widespread objection to the
use of marijuana remained because of the lifestyles associated
with hippies. Contrary to the belief of the population, the use of
marijuana appeared in colleges and among middle-class youths in
the suburbs. Marijuana became a symbol of a counter-culture,
youthful rebellion, and freedom for the non-hippie users. During
the next ten years marijuana use escalated to a point that it was
literally everywhere. Marijuana could be found in cities, towns,
suburbs, the country, and just about anywhere a person could
think of. People rooting from all different backgrounds were using
it, and consequently, marijuana was becoming more accepted
across the nation. For example, in 1997 a teacher at Pine View
School for the Gifted in Sarasota, Florida was “relocated to a
different school” because it was found that he was growing
marijuana for personal consumption. The users of marijuana, and
the attitudes about the danger of marijuana broke down. In 1970,
the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act
reduced the classification of simple possession and non-profit
distribution of marijuana from felonies to misdemeanors
(Himmelstein 103-104). However, President Richard Nixon
declared a war on drugs in 1973, and over the next 20 years, each
succeeding president continued to escalate the drug war. This
particular “drug war” is not only against marijuana but also against
harder drugs that are more dangerous. This policy has obviously
done nothing to stop the recreational use of marijuana in this
country; on the contrary, it is causing great harm. The policy is
preventing many people who could benefit from marijuana
medicinally and us costing the taxpayers money with little results.
It is time to try something new.
When some people imagine the legalization of marijuana, they
fear a marijuana free-for-all with everybody constantly getting
high and the United States Government being burdened by
legalization. In fact, the process of legalization would include a
law passed by Congress allowing the government to control the
content, quality, and distribution of marijuana. The laws would be
similar to the current laws regulating alcohol and tobacco,
including laws governing age, limits for driving, and distribution.
A thorough investigation of the costs and benefits of legalization
must be examined before any policy is implemented. In reality,
legalization will only make legal what many people do everyday.
There are a number of myths associated with the use of marijuana
which people who are opposed to the legalization of marijuana
repeatedly cite. One of these is that Marijuana causes brain
damage. People who are opposed base their claim on a study by
Dr. Robert Heath of the rhesus monkey in the late 1970’s. Heath’s
work was criticized for its insufficient sample size of only four
monkeys, its failure to control experimental bias, and the
misidentification of normal monkey brain structure as “damaged”
(Hager 1). Actual studies of human populations of marijuana users
have shown no evidence of damage to the brain (Hager 1). In fact,
the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA)
conducted two studies in 1977 and they showed no evidence of
brain damage in heavy users of marijuana (Hager 1). Later that
same year the JAMA came out in favor of the legalization of
marijuana (Hager 1). If marijuana did cause brain damage, would
the JAMA be in favor of legalizing it?
Another myth is that marijuana damages the reproductive system.
This is based on the work of Dr. Gabriel Nahas, who
experimented with tissue cells isolated in petri dishes. The cells
were dosed with near lethal levels of THC
(Delta-9-tetrahydocannabinol). The scientific community rejected
Nahas’s connections between the petri dishes and human beings
because the data was invalid. Studies of actual human
populations have failed to demonstrate that marijuana adversely
affects the reproductive system (Hagar 1). A persistent myth
about marijuana is that it is a gateway drug, which is a softer drug
that leads to the use of harder drugs. The Dutch partially
legalized marijuana in the 1970’s and since then the use of heroin
and cocaine has sharply decreased. The opposite of this gateway
affect is also present the United States. In 1993, a study by the
Rand Corporation compared drug use in states that have
lessened the penalty for marijuana use and those that have not. It
found that in states where marijuana was more available, hard
drug abuse (as measured by emergency room episodes)
decreased. What science and real experience tells us is that
marijuana tends to substitute for much harder drugs like alcohol,
cocaine, and heroin (Hagar 1).
Another common misconception is that marijuana is more
dangerous than alcohol. Extremely high doses of marijuana cause
death. “Extremely high doses” is the essential phrase. Scientists
have concluded that the ratio of THC,
Delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol the chemical that produces a high
(comparable to a ‘buzz’ from alcohol), needed to get a person
intoxicated (stoned) relative to the amount necessary to kill him is
1 to 40,000. That means that to overdose on marijuana a person
would need to consume 40,000 times more THC that a person
normally would to become intoxicated. The ratio of normal alcohol
consumption versus overdose varies between 1 in 4 and 1 in 10.
Over 5000 people die of alcohol overdoses each year, and no one
has ever died from overdosing on marijuana (Hagar 2). Many
would argue that this fact is because marijuana is illegal, but
consider the fact that marijuana is approximately a $46 billion
dollar industry (NORML).
Health care, increased crime and social aspects are the three
general areas which marijuana is not beneficial. One of the
definite proven disadvantages of marijuana is the fact that it is
more dangerous than cigarette smoking. Two marijuana
cigarettes (joints) create more airway impairment than do an
entire pack of cigarette (Miner 44). One joint contains three times
more tar than cigarettes do and marijuana is considered four
times more dangerous (Courtwright 54). Marijuana dramatically
increases the pulse rate and blood pressure during use. Many
politicians and some medical professionals project that lung
cancer cases will increase if marijuana is legalized. (Miner 44).
These are all valid arguments, but cigarette smoking is legal, and
the end result for many years of use is the same as marijuana;
lung cancer.
The American Civil Liberties (ACLU) advocates the full
legalization of the use, possession, manufacture, and distribution
of drugs (ACLU 1). The ACLU believes that marijuana being illegal
is unconstitutional. The following is an excerpt from their policy
on drugs, which was adopted in 1994:
“Criminalizing the use, possession, manufacture, and distribution
of drugs violates the principle that the criminal law may not be
used to protect individuals from the consequences of their own
autonomous choices or to impose upon those individuals a
majoritarian conception of morality and responsibility.
Enforcement of laws criminalizing possession, use, and
manufacture of distribution of drugs engender violations of civil
liberties. Because drug enforcement is aimed at behavior, which
is inherently difficult to detect and does not involve a complaining
“victim,” it necessarily relies on law enforcement techniques.
Such techniques include the use of undercover operations,
arbitrary or invasive testing procedures, random or dragnet
seizures, and similar measures that raise serious civil liberties
concerns. These enforcement techniques lead in practice to
widespread violations of civil liberties guarantees, including
those secured by the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendments” (ACLU
1).
The enforcement of the drug laws criminalizes the possession,
use, manufacture, and distribution of marijuana and this is what is
causing the violent crime. If a “marijuana black market” did not
exist there would not be any reason for illegal activity to be
associated with marijuana. Allen St. Pierre, Assistant National
Director of the National Organization for the Reformation of
Marijuana Laws (NORML), says that legalization will wipe out the
already 60-billion dollar black market by placing marijuana in the
open market. (NORML information pack 3). This war on drugs is
wasting the money, as well as the lives of American people. The
widely recognized opinion maker William F. Buckley, Jr. writes:
“…The time devoted to tracking down, arresting and then trying
marijuana users and then trying marijuana users is perhaps the
greatest exercise in lost time in contemporary activity. In the last
two years, approximately 750,000 arrests were made in our mad,
quixotic effort to stamp out marijuana. What this adds up to is
millions of police hours spent on bootless missions, millions of
hours of court time wasted, and millions of months in jail, using up
space sorely needed to contain people who can’t wait to get out
in order to resume mugging and murdering”
(Politics-Commentaries).
The drug law imprisons a multitude of otherwise law-abiding
people for non-violent acts that are directed at no one but
themselves (ACLU 1). Most small-time drug offenders were
growing marijuana for personal consumption or were posessing
marijuana for personal consumption. There were not driving
intoxicated of imposing a threat on anyone. Instead of eliminating
drugs, the prohibition of them merely fosters an illegal industry
able to inflate prices. This is hauntingly familiar to the prohibition
era of gangsters when alcohol was illegal in the 1920’s. The black
market is obviously the only place where drugs in general can be
sold and because of this fact violence is created, along with
deaths due to no quality regulation, and diseases are spread from
sharing illegal drug paraphernalia (ACLU 1).
The supporters of legalization believe that it will benefit society
in three ways, including revenue enhancement, medical benefits,
and hemp production. The largest and most appealing argument
for marijuana legalization is revenue enhancement for the United
States Government. Much of the money normally spent of law
enforcement, court time, and the cost of incarcerating prisoners
would be saved and used towards something more beneficial
(Schmoek 3). The United States spent roughly one billion dollars
on marijuana enforcement last year and the DEA has proposed a
400% increase in anti-pot spending within the next 10 years, yet
domestic marijuana production has only been reduced by 10%.
Furthermore, in 1989, 314,552 arrests were made for simple
possession (NORML 2). That’s 314,552 people that taxpayers paid
to hold in jail, for just having marijuana or marijuana paraphernalia
in their possession. America’s annual marijuana harvest was
worth $50.7 billion in 1989 and $41.4 billion in 1988. In comparison
to corn, a $31.4 billion harvest, marijuana grosses $28 billion more
and has the potential to become leading agricultural product in
the United States (NORML 2). With trade regulations, industry
regulations, and consumption taxes on marijuana, NORML has
estimated that legalization would produce over $40 billion in
taxable revenue (NORML 3).
Legalization offers Congress a resolution to the national debt
because marijuana sale could provide the needed funds to help
our economy and reduce our debt. In addition, marijuana could
help America’s medical patients. Advocates of legalization
constantly tout the medicinal benefits of marijuana. For cancer
patients, marijuana reduces nausea and increases the appetite
(Cauchon 4A). Marijuana also reduces epileptic seizures and
reduces nerve disorders in multiple sclerosis patients (NORML
3). I believe that if marijuana offers suffering patients extra quality
time from their life then attempts to legalize it needs support.
Legalizing marijuana for medicinal purposes, as California did in
1996 with Proposition 15, could possibly provide cures for
diseases, allow patients to feel relief, and allow research to be
conducted for future purposes.
One area that does not gather too much publicity in the
legalization issue is hemp production. Marijuana comes from the
top leaves and flowers of the female hemp plant. The fiber from
the top is used to make clothing, paper, rope, and methanol fuel.
Methanol is a liquid alcohol fuel that burns much like gasoline. It
is widely used in the manufacture of windshield washer fluid,
gasoline fuel additives, formaldehyde and other chemicals, and
methanol has promise as a transportation fuel. (Methanol Fuel 1)
(Some speculations is that the energy companies that hold a
strong say-so are against legalization because of the fuel that can
be derived from hemp) Hemp is also a versatile plant because it
grows in poor soil, thus not taking up any valuable agricultural
land (NORML 4). Male hemp plants (does not contain THC) now
grow in the U.S. because of its heavy production in the 18th and
19th centuries. Seventy-five to Ninety percent of all paper used
before 1883 was hemp paper, including the first two drafts of the
Declaration of Independence (Young 25). Hemp is also safer for
the environment. Hemp requires 40% fewer chemicals to produce
paper and over a time span of twenty years, one acre of hemp can
produce four times as much pulp versus an acre of trees (NORML
4). Therefore, the production of hemp would save trees, and
saving trees promotes cleaner air, and manufacturing marijuana
plants creates more jobs for people.
The push for legalization of marijuana is making news across
America just as it did in the 1960’s. Marijuana is the only illegal
substance that people can talk about, sing about, make movies
about, wear clothes that display the well-know marijuana leaf, and
basically tell the world “I smoke marijuana.” If a police officer asks
a person if they are intoxicated and a person says, “yes I smoked
marijuana,” and that person is not driving a vehicle the worst that
happens is the person spends a night in jail. Everyone knows
marijuana’s presence and it is totally accepted but if a person is
caught growing it, consuming it, or possessing it; it is only then
illegal. Marijuana use is glorified in movies like Dazed and
Confused and Half Baked and by music groups like Cypress Hill
and Busta Rhymes.
Increasing public support and media attention will slowly force the
legalization issue into the forefront of the political arena. If the
widespread acceptance and consumption continues among the
powerful new voting block, college students, the policy towards
marijuana could change in the near future. Weighing both the
costs and the benefits, the legalization of marijuana seems
inevitable. Many of the purported myths about its harmful effects
have been proven false. The current war on drugs is clearly
failing, and costing too many lives and too much money. There are
many benefits to be gained from the Cannabis plant: increased tax
revenue, safety due to governmental regulation, decreased crime
and use of hard drugs, and the environmental benefits of hemp to
name a few. With all these reasons taken into consideration the
legalization of marijuana seems like the best idea for America.
messageboard
The Legalization of Marijuana
Cauchon, Dennis. “Marijuana: Medical Enigma.” USA Today 1 Oct.
1996, national ed.: 4A.
Courtwright David T. “NO!” American Heritage Feb. – March
1995: 43, 50-56.
Goldman, Albert. Grass Roots. New York: Harper & Row 1979.
Hager, Paul. “Marijuana Myths.” ICLU drug task force literature.
Internet.
http://www.parinoia.com/drugs/mariijuana/facts/marijuana-myths.
(22 Jan. 99)
Himmelstein, Jerome L. The Strange Career of Marijuana.
Westport Connecticut: Greenwood Pres, 1983.
Miner, Brad.”How Sweet is Mary Jane?” National Review 25 June
1996: 44.
National Association for the Reformation of Marijuana Laws
(NORML).
“Marijuana: Facts and Figures.” Information Pack.
Washington, DC: NORML, N.D.
National Association for the Reformation of Marijuana Laws
(NORML). Internet. http://www.norml.org. Copyright 1998, (15
Feb. 99, 24 Mar. 99)
Natural Resources Canada. “Methanol Fuel.” Engergy
Publications (n.d.). Online.
http://energy-publications.nrcan.gc.ca/pub/atf/methanol.cfm (6 Apr.
99).
“Politics-Commentaries by Others.” Online. (Author Unknown)
http://members.iquest.net/ bummer/comments.html (5 Mar. 99).
Rosenfield, Jim. ACLU Drug Policy adopted April 1994:
“Decriminalization of Drugs.” [Board Minutes, April 8-9, 1994]
Internet. http://www.primenet.com/%7Eslackk/wosd/aclu0001.txt.
(25 Jan 99)
Young, Jim. “It’s Time to Reconsider Hemp.” Pulp and Paper
(1994): 25.
|