Marijuana and its Legalization
The legality of marijuana has been a hot topic debated upon for years. However, upon close inspection of studies and articles, it is clear that it is in the better interest of the government to lift the ban on marijuana. The first thing I learned from the inquiry into this issue was that prohibition fails to control the use and production of marijuana. On the contrary, the illegal aspect tickles the curiosity of teenagers, resulting in opportunists seizing this chance to sell marijuana to them.
The marijuana is distributed in schools by student dealers who learn to make easy money, and these students may be lead into the crime industries. The problem exists in the ubiquitous nature of marijuana and it not being the highest priority of the police. The distribution is not being controlled and neither are sources of the marijuana, which misses the reason of existence for prohibition.
In fact, through legalizing marijuana usage, the government can earn a plethora of money through taxing, the price can be controlled to be of proper value instead of the underground pricing, and the number of illegal dealers would decrease due to marijuana not being as profitable. In a survey conducted by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, they reported that “teens could more readily access pot than beer or prescription drugs. What makes alcohol different from marijuana is that alcohol is legal, regulated through age restrictions, and taught in public education about its awareness. For instance, in high school, there are no such things as alcohol dealers or tobacco dealers, which leads to the need of a middle-man who is of age to buy such products. That middle man is often an older student who has to go out of his way to buy alcohol or tobacco which is a great hassle, whereas marijuana is easily found within the student population.
People may argue that it is the pure danger of marijuana that led to its prohibition, but contrary to popular belief, it is said that marijuana was made illegal in the US for population control of Mexicans and Black people. Harry J. Anslinger, the director of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics remarked that the reason for the ban of marijuana was “its effect on the degenerate races. ” There is no scientific evidence that such known side effects as schizophrenia, heart attacks or cancer are actually caused by marijuana and therefore the danger of the drug cannot be the reason being illegal.
However, due to marijuana smokers being disoriented and having loss of coordination and logical thought, it would be more reasonable to make certain activities or actions illegal when influenced by marijuana instead, similarly to alcohol. Lastly, the research showed that keeping marijuana illegal is more expensive than lobbying it. Apparently the government’s “War on Drugs” results in millions of dollars in losses when locking people related to marijuana in prison, paying for their food, housing, health care, attorney fees, and court costs.
All this is paid by taxpayer money which are meant for and could be used for other things concerning the country. Also, as stated in the above, the government is missing out on tax opportunities that could be in turn used for more effective drug education programs. If marijuana were legal the government would have much more money to spend on important problems. Even in our neighbourhoods, hundreds of students are smoking cannabis. Instead of having a large portion of our population having to smoke illegally, it would be more advisable to free the ban and profit from the perks of legalizing marijuana.
