yoman3

OK, so some of you might remember an essay I posted here a week ago. I completely re did it. What I'd like now is criticism (or complements ^.^) on how well it is. NOTE: Disregard any spelling or grammatical errors unless they are extremely significant, and especially disregard the fact that I don't have citations or parentheticals: Those will be added in later (I have all of my sources, I Just never added them in yet, but don't worry, this information is factual to the best of my knowledge)

Also, warning on length:

edit: I cleaned it up a bit and added parentheticals when needed (though I'm not 100% sure when parentheticals are needed in the first place....) so hopefully it's better than my first draft. I still didn't add my citations sheet, but if anyone wants it I'll be glad to post it.

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Marijuana legalization has been a very controversial topic during the 20th century and beginning of the 21st century. During which time, despite the prohibition, millions of Americans continued to use marijuana. Despite spending billions of tax dollars, wasting human resources (such as policemen) and using propaganda to over-exaggerate the health risks of marijuana, the prohibition of the drug has not stopped anyone from using it. In fact, ending prohibition would help America, and it wouldn’t just help those individuals who smoke marijuana, it would help America economically as well by legalizing it, taxing it, and regulating. In short, Legalizing pot would be good for everybody.

Though, marijuana smokers would benefit the most from legalizing marijuana. As obvious as that sounds, it does have a lot of depth to it. For one, all smokers wouldn’t have to be paranoid about getting caught; while not as a productive upside to legalization as, say, saving billions of tax dollars, it would still be a major relief on everyone. The more important result of legalization is that people’s lives won’t be ruined after getting caught. Most marijuana arrests don’t occur because of violence related to marijuana or busting of large drug cartels, but simple possession of marijuana. People have lost jobs simply because they had marijuana. Teenagers have ruined their college careers just because they were caught on marijuana possession. Out of the 872,000 marijuana arrests in 2007, 775,000 of them were possession arrests ("Drug War Facts"). That means in 2007, 775,000 people had their lives ruined to some degree, all because of a marijuana possession. Every forty-five seconds, someone is arrested for marijuana possession (Merritt ). Every forty-five seconds, someone can be losing their scholarship, their job, their family, and their lives just because of a harmless drug.

The reason why marijuana shouldn’t be taken as seriously as those other drugs is because marijuana isn’t nearly as dangerous as those other drugs. Francis Young, a judge of the DEA, once said “eating ten raw potatoes can result in a toxic response. By comparison, it is physically impossible to eat enough marijuana to induce death.” Unlike many of the government propaganda sites stressing the ‘dangers of marijuana,’ the real truth is that marijuana is relatively harmless. It’s impossible to get physically dependent (In fact, it’s less addictive than caffeine)(Nakaya 34), there’s no possible way to get lung cancer or any of the diseases tobacco creates (Salynn), and marijuana does not destroy brain cells (a common myth) (Gieringer). Actually, recent studies theorize that marijuana stimulate brain cells – completely opposite from that old “fact.” (Kleiner) Throughout the years of prohibition there’s been study after study on how marijuana does not harm the body or mind in any way, shape or form. Only in recent years have more and more people started to realize that marijuana isn’t that dangerous.

The one reason the public may think marijuana is dangerous is because to some people, it can be. Unfortunately, the two things anti-marijuana groups seem to think that all marijuana smokers lack are common sense and self-control. With recreational use, marijuana is a completely safe drug, but with abuse, it could be harmful. A television ad, called “Pete’s Couch,” sponsored by the Office of National Drug Control Policy, shows three kids just sitting on a couch. One of the kids talks about how nothing bad happened to him after smoking marijuana (“nobody died, I didn’t get into a car accident or O.D. on heroine the next day”), and how he’d rather be safe instead of spending his time “ice skating with a girl” or “going to the movies.” If he wants to be safe, all he needs to do is “sit on Pete’s couch for 86 years.” Not only does this commercial undermine the entire previous campaign of the ONDCP and other anti-marijuana groups (their previous campaign was trying to show how physically harmful marijuana could be to people), but also leaves out some key information about their current argument (this one is about how marijuana makes you completely unmotivated to do anything). They left out the words “repeated use” and “abuse” in their commercial. Chances are if people abuse marijuana they will end up as an unmotivated ‘couch potato.’ Herein lies the problem with this argument: Any abuse of anything will make anybody completely unmotivated to do anything but their addiction. Video games, alcohol, Tylenol, heroine, reading books, surfing the internet, etcetera, etcetera – if somebody abuses something they’d only want to do that one thing. Now obviously some of those things are more addictive than others, but someone sitting on their couch smoking pot continuously throughout the day is the same as someone reading magazines or watching TV all day: they’re not going to do anything productive. Luckily for pro-legalization groups, the people who are affected negatively by marijuana are the minority.

This all leads back to one underlying point: recreational users do not go through this “a motivational syndrome.” Since all of the research on how marijuana is physically harmless put a dent on the ONDCP’s old anti-marijuana campaign, I searched for research on how to debunk their newer, “marijuana causes people to lose motivation” campaign. It turns out I didn’t have to look that far. Several sources have noted no difference in motivation in marijuana smokers and non-smokers, and some notable ones include studies from 1969 and 1978, that showed that “users and nonusers were indistinguishable on grades, athletics, other college activities, and career plans.” Also, a study conducted by Dr. John Morgan concluded that “subjects given high doses of marijuana for several days or even several weeks exhibit no decrease in work motivation or productivity.”

The next two reasons on why marijuana should be legalized are probably the two most important reasons: The economic value of regulating marijuana, and the medical value of marijuana. The economic value of marijuana is obvious: it would save billions upon billions of dollars. The Budgetary Implications of Marijuana Prohibition, a report by Professor Jeffrey A. Miron, showed that taxing and regulating marijuana “would save $7.7 billion per year in state and federal expenditures on prohibition enforcement and produce tax revenues of at least $2.4 billion annually,” and goes on to say that it might generate up to $6.2 billion if it were taxed similarly to tobacco or alcohol. A different but equally important economic improvement is that the police will try to catch real criminals, (rapists, murderers, and thieves) instead of spending their time putting people in jail for marijuana possession. The overcrowded jails, I might add, would be less crowded were marijuana legalized (Medindia). Let’s also not forget that if marijuana were regulated by the government, drug cartels that rely mostly on marijuana sales would be put out of business (Ventura).

The final reason marijuana should be legalized is the medical value of marijuana, and once again this reason is concise and to the point: there are over a dozen therapeutic uses for marijuana, including (but not limited to): nausea, chronic pain, arthritis, ALS, and multiple sclerosis (NORML). In fact, up until the start of prohibition in 1937, marijuana was listed as medicine by Pharmaceutical companies (Nakaya 88-89). Many people with illnesses that use medical marijuana (which is already legal in over a dozen states) are looked upon as criminals; if all marijuana was legalized, these people won’t have to be afraid of the law.

In conclusion, the legalization of marijuana would only help the public, not hurt them. It’s not dangerous to one’s health if used responsibly, it can be extremely helpful to one’s health if they have a disease, and it would improve our economy tremendously. Prohibition is doing nothing good for our society, and it isn’t even doing the one thing it was meant to do: stop people from using marijuana. Over 90% of twelfth graders say that marijuana is easy to get, over 42% of Americans say they have tried marijuana in their life time, and to further prove the fact that legalizing marijuana wouldn’t harm people: only 15% of twelfth graders say that their marijuana use would increase if it were legalized, compared to the 60% that said they still wouldn’t use it if it were legal or not. Prohibition has wasted America’s time, money, and effort: it is time for a change.



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