Data Bases • Custom Term Papers • Free Term Papers • Free Research Papers • Free Essays • Free Book Reports • Plagiarism? Links • Top 100 Term Paper Sites • Top 25 Essay Sites • Top 50 Essay Sites • Search 97,000 Papers @ DirectEssays.com • Search 101,000 Papers @ ExampleEssays.com • Search 90,000 Papers @ MegaEssays.com Free Essays • Term Paper Sites • Chuck III's Free Essays • Free College Essays • TermPaperSites.com • My Term Papers • Get Free Essays • Essay World • Planet Papers	Search Lots of Essays Back to Subjects - Legal Issues Drug Discrimination Drug Discrimination The legalization of marijuana is just as heated as it has been since the 1930s when it was first outlawed(Marijuana). Marijuana is a name given to any drugs made from the hemp plant, Cannabis(Grolier). To legalize or not to legalize is the question that has been plaguing politicians and no one knows the answer. It is a burning issue that just won’t go away like many had wished it would when it started. Nothing has been this heated since the alcohol prohibition in the 1920s. Why should people have the right to use something that is as bad to your health as marijuana? Well if you look at it millions of people smoke cigarettes and drink alcohol and that is legal, so why not marijuana too? Those opposed to the legalization of marijuana do have valid reasons. The harmful consequences of marijuana use include addiction, coordination and perception impairment, and a number of mental disorders including depression, hostility and increased aggressiveness(Say it Straight). There are over 10,000 scientific studies that prove marijuana is a harmful addictive drug with no studies stating that it has any medical value. Therefore marijuana can have withdrawal symptoms such as those listed above. Also marijuana impairs short term memory, legalization of marijuana would cause “carnage on the highways”, and the use of marijuana is a gateway to harder drugs such as cocaine and heroin. The increased campaign awareness to legalize marijuana has shown youths believe marijuana is less harmful than many other drugs out there like cigarettes and alcohol(Say it Straight). This is simply not true, in fact marijuana has 425 unstable chemicals that convert to thousands when smoked by the user(Say it Straight). Which makes it just as harmful as a cigarette is if not more, although not as harmful as alcohol. Those for the legalization of marijuana have different views on the issue. Money that is spent on the War against Drugs is about $75 billion a year for something that has not even come close to stopping the use of marijuana. 50 million people each year still try marijuana at least once with no adverse effects(Marijuana). This money is wasted, whereas the government could produce a revenue with the sale of marijuana. In fact 18 million people use marijuana once a month despite drug laws, and large amounts of people think it is acceptable(Marshall 89). Even with all of the chemicals in marijuana it is still of the safer drugs. In fact alcohol and cigarettes account for 95% of drug related deaths in the United States while marijuana only accounts for about 1%(Marijuana). A person would have to use 40,000 times the amount of marijuana needed to get high to overdose, whereas the amount of alcohol can be as low as 4 to 1(Nagorney). It is true, marijuana does have harmful consequences. As do cigarettes and alcohol but they are legal and kill more people. As for marijuana causing short term memory loss, this is partially true. Only while the person is intoxicated on marijuana is the person’s short term memory effected. After the effects wear off their short term memory will return in full(Marijuana). It is also true that marijuana may effect driving skills while a person is intoxicated but 85% of marijuana users that were involved in auto accidents were also under the influence of alcohol(Marijuana). The statement claiming marijuana as a gate way drug may have some truth in it, but a majority of marijuana users also either smoke cigarettes or drink alcohol, other gate way drugs. To further back this point up, if you compare hard drug use in the United States to hard drug use in Holland, where marijuana is legal, Holland’s hard drug use has declined much more than the United States(Marijuana). If a person were to compare the issue of legalization of marijuana to prohibition in the 1920s, they would see that in some ways it is very similar. Violence related to alcohol sale during prohibition increased dramatically, the same is going on today with violence related to the sale of marijuana. If marijuana was legalized drug dealers would have almost no product to sell because it would be regulated and taxed by the government. The black market for marijuana would disappear almost overnight(Marshall 91). How often do drug dealers sell cigarettes and alcohol, they don’t because these are legal substances. There is still much research to be done on marijuana and it’s effects on humans. My belief is that marijuana should be legalized because there is no conclusive evidence that it is more harmful than cigarettes or alcohol which are already legal. It is also my belief they should place the same restrictions and regulations on marijuana use as they currently have on cigarettes and alcohol consumption. This would make it safer for the average marijuana consumer and also provide needed tax dollars for the government so they can crack down on really harmful drugs such as heroin and cocaine. My view is summed up best by this quote “Adults should be allowed to live as they wish, provided they do not harm others...the government should not outlaw...To do so would be to substitute the government’s tastes and moral judgment for those of the individual, and unjustified violation of personal freedom by the state.”(qtd. in Nagorney) Which is my point exactly. Bibliography: Works Cited Marshall, Eliot. Legalization: A Debate. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1988. "Marijuana." The New Grolier Multimedia Version. 1993 ed. Nagorney, Paul “Marijuana Should be Legalized.” 24 Sept 2000 United States. Department of Justice. Say it Straight: Myths of Marijuana. 24 Sept 2000 Word Count: 890
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