*THIS ARTICLE DOES NOT SUPPORT THE USE OF CANNABIS OR OF ANY OTHER HARMFUL SUBSTANCES MENTIONED. THOUGH MARIJUANA SHOULD BE LEGALIZED, A DRUG FREE LIFESTYLE IS STILL THE HEALTHIEST ONE.
Though many people, regardless of their political viewpoint, still feel that marijuana should be kept as an illegal drug, they often do not realize that marijuana is far less harmful than several other legal drugs, such as alcohol. Health classes and other sources of information generally place marijuana in the same category as other far more harmful substances such as heroin, cocaine, or DMT, giving cannabis a false image that leads many people to think that it is much more detrimental than it really is. Cannabis is also extremely effective for a wide range of medical conditions, such as anxiety, epilepsy, and even HIV/AIDS. Despite the fact that marijuana’s side effects are less harmful than those of most other drugs, legal or illicit, it is the most common drug that people are arrested for possessing.
Marijuana is a non-carcinogenic plant that contains a psychoactive chemical commonly called THC in the leaves. It has not been shown to cause mental illnesses, though several poorly designed experiments may claim so. (This is because people with mental illnesses appear to be more attracted to marijuana, meaning that the correlation has no implied causation.) According to an article in the NIDA archives, there is no convincing evidence that long-term marijuana use permanently damages a person’s memory or other brain functions. In addition, there are zero deaths that have been scientifically proven to be caused by marijuana, while there are huge numbers of deaths proven to be caused by alcohol and nicotine, both legal drugs.
Although a great deal of people realize that marijuana is not an extremely harmful drug (compared to alcohol or nicotine), they still claim that cannabis is a “gateway drug,” or one that leads people to try “harder” drugs such as LSD. This, however, is not entirely true. Most marijuana users never use any other illegal drugs, but people who have used the “harder” drugs such as heroin, cocaine, and LSD, are likely to have also used marijuana, dramatically changing the data to make it appear as if marijuana “caused” users to try harder drugs, a very misleading conclusion.
Another concern is that legalization of marijuana will cause huge increases in the number of users. This, however, is not true either. Marijuana use rates in the Netherlands are very similar to those in the U.S. despite radically different policies in the Netherlands that allow citizens over age eighteen to buy regulated amounts of marijuana in coffee shops. This policy has not resulted in increased marijuana use for most age groups, and, for adolescents, rates of marijuana use are in fact lower in the Netherlands than in the United States. It only goes to show that generally, people with no initial intention of using marijuana (including myself) will not decide to do so just because it is legal.
By legalizing marijuana, we could also reap its benefits by taxing its sale and production, generating revenue for the U.S. government. There would be an entirely new industry in the economy that would create thousands of jobs. Because marijuana laws are unfairly targeted and enforced against minorities, legalization would eliminate this racist police practice. Although the usage rates of marijuana are very similar between African-Americans and white Americans, the arrest rates for possession of it are radically different, according to these two charts from The National Survey on Drug Abuse and Health and the FBI Crime Reporting Program Data. These graphs show that there are actually more black Americans who have never used marijuana than white Americans, but the arrest rates for black Americans (for marijuana possession) are absurdly higher than the arrest rates for white Americans.
With this information, it is difficult to see any reasons against marijuana legalization that outweigh its benefits.
