Here's my take on it, coming from someone who's never even tried marijuana:
Alcohol, by far, is the cause of more deaths per year than all other drugs combined. Yet, alcohol is a drug that is totally socially acceptable and readily available on practically every other street corner for everyone over the age of twenty-one (and by underhanded means, alot of kids under the age of twenty-one). On the other hand, there are no reported cases of anyone dying directly from the use of marijuana, but the drug is illegal almost everywhere in the western world. The risks that accompany the use of alcohol have been proven by scientists and its victims, while any solid proof on the adverse effects of the use of marijuana basically remains uncertain.
It can be safely assumed, though, that the health risks with marijuana are far less severe than they are with alcohol. Keep in mind that I do not, in any way, want to endorse the use of any type of drugs, but I do want to point out the pointlessness of keeping marijuana illegal while a drug of much higher risk like alcohol remains so readily available and keeps making victims every single day.
A good reason for bringing marijuana out of its illegality is that it would enable law enforcement resources to focus more on serious and violent crime. In the past decade, more than five million Americans have been arrested for marijuana offenses. In almost 90 percent of the cases the arrests were made for simple possession, not trafficking or sale. If marijuana were to be made legal, it should be strictly regulated by amount and minimum age just like with alcohol. Along with that, problematic use of both alcohol and marijuana should be tackled. The way it is now, heavy abusers of alcohol can basically do as they please, they can form a danger to themselves and the people that surround them, plus they can unnecessarily become a financial load on society. Non-problematic marijuana users, on the other hand, are dealt with simply because the law says so, not because they cause problems or danger to themselves or society. As President Jimmy Carter said in a speech to congress in 1977, “Penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself; and where they are, they should be changed. Nowhere is this more clear to me than in the laws against possession of marijuana in private for personal use…” I think he was on to something.
The main reason why the laws against marijuana still stand is because the drug is always accompanied by its myths, which are mainly spread by government through public service announcements and the like. Not only is there no scientific proof for most (if not all) of these myths, research results actually tend to imply exactly the opposite with most of them. One of the myths is that marijuana is a gateway drug that leads to hard drugs. While this might be true for some, statistics actually show the opposite. In the 1970’s, the use of marijuana became tolerated, not legal, in the Netherlands. Since that time, hard drug use has declined substantially. If marijuana actually is a gateway drug, the statistics would have shown an increase in hard drug (including alcohol) use, not a decrease. I believe that because marijuana was brought out of its illegal context in the Netherlands, and basically separated from the illegal milieu of hard drugs, the step to hard drugs is not made as quickly. Another myth is that marijuana is much more dangerous than tobacco, which is based on the assumption that marijuana is always smoked. Even if the myth were true, there are numerous other ways of using marijuana that are harmless, which cannot be said about alcohol.
Basically, marijuana is not as dangerous as it is made out to be and certainly not as dangerous as alcohol. With both alcohol and marijuana there are major concerns about the influence it has on someone’s ability to drive a vehicle. Thought the impairment on driving performance caused by marijuana is similar to that of alcohol, studies show that the actual hazard caused by marijuana is less than that of alcohol. The number of accidents caused by drivers who had only used marijuana are far lower than those caused by drivers who had only used alcohol. If you add to this the fact that marijuana can be a substitute for alcohol, as shown by studies from places where marijuana was decriminalized like in the Netherlands, legal marijuana might actually save lives.
Another factor is that marijuana is not nearly as destructive on the human body as alcohol can be. Some of the short-term effects of marijuana include faster heart-beat and pulse rate, temporarily impaired short-term memory, and panic reactions among naive users. Short-term effects of alcohol, on the other hand, can range from a feeling of increased self-confidence and loss of self-restraint to severe respiratory depression and even coma and death. As far a long-term effects go, marijuana can cause a decline in the respiratory system when it is smoked and psychological dependency can develop. Alcohol, in the long run, will affect all the major organs and create a physical dependency that can be very dangerous. Basically, the chemical balance of the body is changed completely and sudden cessation of the use of alcohol can be fatal without the correct treatment to go along with it.
Though I am not an advocate of the legalization of marijuana, the comparison between myths that support its illegal status and the facts that contradict them makes me wonder if it is actually worth it for law enforcement resources to spend so much time, energy, and tax-payer’s money on enforcing a law that might not be very useful. Compare that to a legal drug like alcohol, which has a much greater potential risk, and kills more people than all other drugs combined. Though all we can do is speculate and make assumptions about the effects it would have if marijuana were to be legalized, I believe it certainly would not worsen drug-related problems if the legalization was accompanied by strict regulations.
That got me an A in English 1. :cool: Feel free to comment.
