Smoked in cigarettes or pipes, mixed with food and beverages is marijuana, a Schedule one drug. Ever since the early 1900’s, the possession or intoxication of marijuana is prohibited in the United States. The popularity of marijuana began in the 1960’s. Marijuana’s usage declined in the mid 1970’s, although its usage has been rising since the mid 1990’s. Marinol, a capsule containing THC, was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 1985. Marinol helps people with serious medical conditions, such as AIDS and cancer. Some states have passed laws allowing the usage of marijuana for medical purposes. The usage of medical marijuana is illegal in the United States. People in the states who use medical marijuana legally, are still illegal drug offenders in the U.S.
Even though illegal, one out of three American adults admits to smoking marijuana (Hightimes 73). Made from dried leaves and flowering hemp plant tops, marijuana’s usage is widespread in the U.S. Grass, weed, pot, Mary Jane, hash, dope and reefer all refer to the drug marijuana. Pot creates a different type of high for every user. A person high from pot experiences a type of dreamy relaxed state, in which the user is more aware of senses. A high created from pot neither affects a person’s life nor lasts long, but the numerous uses for marijuana change people’s lives and will continue on forever. Marijuana should be legalized.
Admittedly, smoking marijuana long term is unhealthy. Marijuana decreases a person’s concentration and short-term memory. A study, researched by The Canadian Medical Association, proved dope lowers IQ scores by an average of 4.1 points (Branswell 2). Stoners face loss of motivation and interest in activities that used to appeal to them, because pot affects emotions. In extreme cases, pot usage before the age of eighteen increases the risk of developing schizophrenia (Choi 1). Possibly marijuana in cases of heavy users, can indirectly lead to death. Receptors for marijuana are found within immune cells, causing the smoking of marijuana to stone immune cells (Cloud). The negative effects marijuana involves all are from long-term usage. Long-term use of all drugs has negative effects. Drugs similar to nicotine, caffeine and alcohol are all highly addictive, but they are all legal and accepted by the public. The difference between marijuana and legal drugs is marijuana is not addictive.
The majority of people who smoked marijuana in the past did not become addicted because the use of weed is temporary. In 1996, 5% of people still smoked marijuana out of 68.6 million people who smoked pot in the past (Lowry 2). As users of marijuana grow up, the appeal of getting high grows also by decreasing the usage. Today, the fifty to sixty year old adults were the young adults using marijuana in the 1960’s at the start of pot’s popularity. Are problems arising related to marijuana with the adults who smoked pot forty years ago? Do the adults regret smoking pot during young adulthood? No, because the people who used to smoke pot do not feel that it intervened with the life they practice now. A former president aid, Lyn Nofziger states, “There are an awful lot of people in their 50s and younger who smoked pot when they were younger and don’t look on it as something that destroyed their lives” (Stein 60). A person, who helped aid the past presidents, admitted that marijuana did not affect the young adult’s long-term future. Marijuana lingers in a user’s body up to a month depending on the amount of pot the user smokes. Marijuana does not leave traces behind in the body once the substance leaves the body.
Potheads appear as stupid people, but after the traces of pot leave the user’s intelligence is not affected. Decline of IQ does not affect former heavy users. People grow out of dumbness created from pot after weed is out of them for at least three months. A study on how marijuana affects IQ performed in Toronto proved, “Marijuana does not have a long-term negative impact of global intelligence” (Branswell 1). Dumbness caused from pot ends when the pot smoker stops smoking pot. Tests of current users who wanted to quit smoking pot showed that the longer a person smoked pot, the affects of memory and attention span worsened. The certainty of the tests is unknown as Dr. Harrison Pope notes, “These long-term users may have been worse off in the first place, before they ever smoked marijuana” (Cloud 64). The possibility of long term damage to a marijuana user’s brain is slim to none.
Can marijuana shut a person’s brain down? Marijuana can not turn people brain dead after smoking continuously. Every year, thousands of people die from an overdose of alcohol, but it is still legal. Is it possible for a person to die from smoking too much pot? “NO ONE HAS EVER DIED FROM THE POISONING, mostly because a 160-lb. person would have to smoke roughly 900 joints in a sitting to reach a lethal dose” (Cloud 63). A pothead could try to overdose on marijuana, but he would fail because it is physically impossible to overdose. Alcohol is legal and kills people within a day, but pot is illegal and does not have the strength to kill a person. Throughout history, young adults drank alcohol, smoked cigarettes, and smoked marijuana. Cigarettes and alcohol both kill people and both are legal, but people shun marijuana although it does not kill people.
Adults using drugs like the feelings the drugs create, adults do not use drugs for a thrill to break the law. Picturing an adult sitting at home without kids around drinking alcoholic drinks to help unwind the day does not place a distasteful thought in a person’s mind. Although, if he is unwinding at home by smoking a joint without kids around, the pot smoker is thought of morally wrong because smoking pot is bad. Why is that adult who smokes pot less of a person compared to the adult who drinks alcohol? Neither of the adults cause harm to other people while at home without kids around. The drinker would cause more damage to his own body by drinking vs. the pot smoker. Lewis, a former CEO of Progressive, and one of the main backers of the Nevada proposal of legalizing marijuana, says, “The absurdity of its illegality has been clear to me for some time. I learned about pot from my kids and realized it was a lot better than Scotch, and I loved the Scotch. Then I went to my doctor, and he said, ‘I’m thrilled. You’re drinking too much. You’re much better off doing the pot than drinking’” (Stein 59). Research studies on the addictiveness of caffeine, nicotine, alcohol, heroin, cocaine and marijuana proves marijuana and caffeine are the least addictive. Ranking marijuana slightly less addictive than caffeine proves marijuana is not a bad drug. Children use caffeine, but adults using marijuana is forbidden.
Forbidding the usage of marijuana is falsely backed up by the fact that marijuana leads to other drugs- otherwise known as the “gateway theory.” Using heroin starts with the usage of marijuana, but marijuana does not cause the use of heroin. Abusing drugs starts with marijuana because of its easy availability, and it is the least dangerous illegal drug. Problems relating to drug misuse begin with the person, not the substance. The authors of the book Marijuana Myths/Marijuana Facts, Lynn Zimmer and John Morgan, cite the rareness of marijuana smokers using hasher drugs, “In 1994 only fourteen percent of the people using marijuana went on to use cocaine” (Lowry 2). Drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes also comes before using heroin, but people are not accusing Marlboro and Budweiser for creating drug addicts (Lowry 2). Weed does not lead to other drug usage problems.
Problems with crime undoubtedly, result from pot. Growing, selling, and purchasing marijuana results in stealing, lying, and cheating. Dealers cheat people interested in buying pot with lies, falsely advising them about the amount and quality of the priced weed. Smoking marijuana impairs judgment resulting with bad decision making. A commercial geared toward influencing teenagers about the dangers of marijuana “shows two teens getting stoned in their father’s study, talking apathetically about a bunch of stuff. One pulls out a gun from his dad’s drawer, the other asks lazily if it’s loaded, and the gun-toting teen shrugs and shoots the other kid” (Stein 60). The purpose of the commercial tries to show how marijuana decreases judgment in teenagers. People with decreased judgment are more inclined to steal, cheat, and lie. Police spend endless hours on cases related to marijuana, resulting with jails filling up with pot heads.
Police spend endless hours prosecuting people with possession of or intoxication from marijuana. Most of the time a person charged with marijuana goes to jail. The person can spend a very long time in jail, but someday will be released from jail. After staying in jail, options for a normal life are diminished. People who hire employees for jobs discriminate people who spend time in jail because the people once were criminals. People charged with possession of or intoxication from pot are hardly criminals, most of them are just people using a nonaddicting drug to have a good time. John Curtin explains what happens to people when released from jail, “Many of them will get into trouble again because there is nothing for them when they are outside” (2). Legalizing marijuana would stop the courts from sending innocent people sent to jail for smoking a harmless joint.
In the United States, the jails are full of people serving time due to marijuana charges, causing criminals to be released from overcrowding. Taxpayers’ money funds the operation of jails. Offenses involving marijuana are some of the highest in the country, filling up jails, using up taxpayers’ money: More than five million Americans were arrested for marijuana offenses in the 1990s, making it the fifth most common criminal offense in the United States. Over 700,000 individuals were arrested on marijuana charges in 1999—more than the total number arrested for all violent crimes combined, including murder, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. At least 60,000 individuals are behind bars for marijuana offenses, at a cost to tax payers of $1.2 billion a year. Of the 150,000 federal prisoners […] 58 percent are inside for drug offenses. (Bethell 3)
Police focus on ending the drug war, putting many drug offenders in jail. Police spend enormous amounts of time on marijuana crimes, causing other crimes to become neglected. People want to help solve crimes related to robberies and murders, but people do not want to help solve crimes related to marijuana. People want to smoke marijuana so they do not clue cops into drug transitions related to pot. Police are causing more damage than solving crimes by trying to stop the transactions of marijuana. A forest fire that burned down 37 homes and 56,500 acres of land was caused by an “antipot copter” searching for weed. Putting out the fire took 2,700 firefighters, 17 helicopters and 10 air tankers costing about $21 million (Peet 13). Without spending time on marijuana, police would have more time to spend time on solving crimes such as rapes, robberies, killings, and gang wars.
The prohibition of alcohol was a mistake for the government in the 1920s. The government learned people still drank alcohol regardless of the legality of it. During the prohibition of alcohol, the crime rates increased; criminal gangs were supported and respect for the law weakened. The citizens of the U.S. can remember the history when alcohol regained legality. Money was taken away from the black market, violence was reduced. The black market relies on violence for enforcing contacts, protecting drug dealers, and preventing arrests. Instead of prosecuting sex offenders and wife beaters, the police chase potheads (Duke 2). The government has mixed up its priorities on what is harming the country as a whole. Neglecting to look at the positive effects of marijuana, the government is tied up with wrong impression on how to solve the drug war. When the government disturbs the black market, the country prospers.
Legalizing marijuana not only reduces violence, but it also helps the economy. Marijuana, grown as hemp, creates a fiber and stalk crop which is used as a rotation crop to supplement wheat, corn and soybeans (Cowan 5). Grown as fiber, hemp’s uses vary from clothing, bags, carpeting, upholstery and rope to paper, teabags, construction materials, fiberglass and plastic. Seeds from hemp marijuana create food products such as bagels, salad dressing and dietary supplements. Skin-lotion and shampoo also created from hemp seeds make environmentally safe products. As the nation is experiencing a shortage of jobs, the production of hemp could create new jobs. Producing hemp creates 717 full time jobs in the state of Kentucky, bringing in about $605 per each acre of hemp. Industrial hemp rates the most profitable crop in the state except two kinds of tobacco (Cowan 5). Hemp is an important crop about which manufactures have forgotten.
The United States hemp history was an important aspect of the country’s economy. In a period after the American Revolution, the colonial farmers choose to pay taxes with hemp. Hemp fueled automobiles during the period when they were first introduced. Telephones and car parts made of plastic in the late 1930’s came from the hemp plant. Regarded as the “most profitable and desirable crop that can be grown,” in 1937 by Mechanical Engineering helped the popularity of hemp (Cowan 6). The influence of the “Hemp for Victory” campaign during World War II encouraged farmers to grow hemp as a source of rope for ships (Cowan 6). The government used to support the growth of marijuana, so why does the government prohibit people for using marijuana?
It is true, in fact that studies can prove marijuana leads to other drugs. As drug warriors say, “Marijuana acts on the brain in a way vaguely similar to cocaine and heroin–plugging into the same receptors—proves that it somehow ‘primes’ the brain for harder drugs” (Lowry 2). Another study done at the Research Institute in La Jolla claimes, “Their study therefore support for the ‘gateway’ theory, which says smoking marijuana leads to the use of cocaine and heroin” (Morgan 1). Both of the studies prove the gateway theory, but the studies neglect the prior research involving both animals and humans. The studies with rats and THC leading to the use of cocaine and heroin are not relevant to humans. “The government is not letting studies be conducted,” says a DEA official about the effects marijuana has positively on the body and mind (Cloud 66). The government forgets the medical purposes of marijuana which helps people who are dieing and suffering.
Drugs produce a sense of euphoria, relief of stress and distraction from pain, which helps sick people cope with illness. Suffering people become criminals to enjoy benefits received from smoking marijuana (Duke 2). AIDS and cancer patients benefit from smoking marijuana. Marijuana is less addictive than a placebo or opioid that AIDS and cancer patients regularly take. AIDS patients have a loss of appetite and unhealthily lose extreme amounts of weight, but weed helps increase appetite. Smoking pot also reduces nausea for AIDS and cancer patients significantly, keeping food in the body, allowing the food to release nutrients. AIDS and cancer patients can have an increased life-span with the help of smoking pot instead of taking a placebo.
Medical Marijuana helps reduce pain associated with injuries and diseases. Algie Mazeeker, a medical marijuana user, increased her quality and length of life by smoking marijuana. She has glaucoma, and marijuana helps with her eyesight (Cargo 70). Marijuana reduces the intraocular pressure within the eyes, helping those diagnosed with glaucoma. The eyeball pressure is reduced about twenty-five percent while under the intoxication of marijuana. Marijuana also reduces spasticity, extreme muscle tension, caused by MS, epilepsy and other spinal cord injuries. People do become addicted to prescription drugs, but people benefiting from marijuana do not become addicted to the drug after the use is not necessary.
Jim Bestes, a man confined to a wheelchair, happily tells people of his life changing experience. He broke his neck in a motorcycle accident when he was eight-teen years old. He is a quadriplegic that who paralyzed from the neck down for two entire years. Doctors drugged him up with addictive pills. At the time he did not know any better, so he took them. Jim went though extreme emotional ups and downs. Jim used to be a soccer player, but he could not eat or sleep. After two long agonizing years, he put a gun in his mouth. Jim was ready to give in and give up on life, until a Vietnam Vet suggested smoking pot. Jim tried because he felt he had nothing to loose. Marijuana changed Jim’s life; he was able to eat, sleep and relax. Jim stopped taking all of the pills that depressed him. He said, “Have you even seen a bag of twelve pills a day? Have you ever seen a bag of marijuana? You’re going to choose marijuana over pills.” Jim later learned how misconscription of pills is the fourth leading killer in America. He took everything from Morphine, to Demerol and Vallium. Jim believes if he would have never tried smoking pot, the pills would have killed him. Jim says weed is the best pain medicine he has ever had, and he does not feel any physical or emotional pains anymore. Jim tells people, “I feel like saying I’m sorry. I’m sorry it works” (Cargo 71).
Legalizing marijuana creates numerous positive aspects for the American people. Marijuana would help the entire country prospered by boosting the economy, helping the sick, and reducing violence. The illegal money used to buy pot illegally goes through many peoples’ hands. The money for drugs climbs though a ladder of drug dealers resulting up the in hands of the men funding terrorism. Controlling money used for marijuana largely would affect the people controlling the money now. People buy weed regardless if it is legal or illegal. The government can help stop funding toward terrorism if marijuana is legalized. The government has the ability to take the illegal money trade out of the people’s hands. Why support terrorism instead of supporting sick people getting better and supporting the economy?
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