The Debate Over Marijuana Essay, Research Paper
Case for Legalizing Marijuana
What Is Marijuana?
Marijuana, a drug obtained from dried and crumpled parts of
the ubiquitous hemp plant Canabis sativa (or Cannabis indica). Smoked
by rolling in tobacco paper or placing in a pipe. It is also otherwise
consumed worldwide by an estimated 200,000,000 persons for pleasure,
an escape from reality, or relaxation. Marijuana is known by a variety
of names such as kif (Morocco), dagga (South Africa), and bhang
(India). Common in the United States, marijuana is called pot, grass,
weed, Mary Jane, bones, etc. The main active principle of cannabis is
tetrahydrocannabinol. The potency of its various forms ranges from a
weak drink consumed in India to the highly potent hashish. The
following consists of pure cannabis resin. Marijuana is not a narcotic
and is not mentally or physically addicting drug. One can use mild
cannabis preparations such as marijuana in small amounts for years
without physical or mental deterioration. Marijuana serves to diminish
inhibitions and acts as an euphoriant. Only once in a while will it
produce actual hallucinations. More potent preparations of cannabis
such as hashish can induce psychedelic experiences identical to those
observed after ingestion of potent hallucinogens such as LSD. Some who
smoke marijuana feel no effects; others feel relaxed and sociable,
tend to laugh a great deal, and have a profound loss of the sense of
time. Characteristically, those under the influence of marijuana show
incoordination and impaired ability to perform skilled acts. Still
others experience a wide range of emotions including feelings of
perception, fear, insanity, happiness, love and anger. Although
marijuana is not addicting, it may be habituating. The individual may
become psychologically rather than physically dependent on the drug.
Legalization Of Marijuana
Those who urge the legalization of marijuana maintain the drug
is entirely safe. The available data suggested, this is not so,
Marijuana occasionally produces acute panic reactions or even
transient psychoses. Furthermore, a person driving under the influence
of marijuana is a danger to themselves and others. If smoked heavily
and a great deal of consistency, its use has been clearly associated
with mental breakdown. In many persons who smoke chronically, the drug
reinforces passivity and reduces goal-directed, constructive activity.
The chronic use of pure resin (hashish) has been associated both with
mental deterioration and criminality. One of the major complications
of marijuana use is the tendency on the part of some users to progress
to more dangerous drugs. Users in economically deprived areas usually
go on to heroin, whereas more affluent individuals tend to move from
marijuana to more potent hallucinogens such as LSD. There is no
established medical use for marijuana or any other cannabis
preparation. In the United States, its use is a crime and the laws
governing marijuana are similar to those regulating heroin. Many
authorities now urge that the laws be modified to mitigate the
penalties relating to conviction on marijuana possession charges.
The Case For Legalizing Marijuana Use
The United States stands apart from many nations in its deep
respect for the individual. The strong belief in personal freedom
appears early in the nation’s history. The Declaration of Independence
speaks of every citizen’s right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness.” The Constitution and Bill of Rights go further, making
specific guarantees. They forbid the government to make unwarranted
entry into dwelling places. They forbid seizure of personal property,
except when very clear reasons are approved by the courts. They allow
every citizen to remain silent in court when accused of a crime. Legal
decisions have extended these rights, so that every citizen may feel
safe, secure, and sheltered from public view in the privacy of his or
her home.
The Right To Privacy
In recent years, Americans have referred to privacy as one of
the basic human rights, something to be claimed by anyone, anywhere.
United States citizens feel strongly about this and often tell other
countries that they must honor their people’s claims to privacy and
personal freedom. Foreign leaders often disagree. They resent what
they deem arrogant meddling by the United States. Leaders of the
Soviet Union, for example, regard individual privacy as trivial when
compared to the needs of the state. If the United States is to be
persuasive in promoting freedom in other parts of the world, it must
respect the privacy of its own citizens. Sometimes it is hard to do
this because what goes on in people’s private lives may seem
offensive. But, according to U.S. traditions, there is a strong case
to be made against legislating the private behavior of adults, so long
as that behavior does not in turn violate the rights of others. Some
people feel that this reasoning should hold also for marijuana. A
person who smokes at home is not doing injury. The marijuana user is
indulging in a minor pleasure over which that government should have
no jurisdiction. It is quite clear from survey data that most people
do not become physically dependent on marijuana. The majority use it
as others use alcohol – to relax occasionally and to indulge a festive
mood. How can a mild intoxicant, taken less than once a day by most
users, be seen as a public threat? Even those who are “hooked”, or
psychologically dependent upon their habit, should not be penalized by
the law. Some people find any compulsive and unproductive behavior
disgusting. But that is not a reason for outlawing it. Consider
eating, many people develop compulsive habits about food. They talk
about it frequently. They spend many of their waking hours
anticipating, planning, obtaining, and consuming food. This may be
unattractive. It certainly is not productive and it can be harmful if
the “food addict” is over weight. But there are no laws to prevent
food addiction. If Congress tried to forbid the eating of ice cream
sundaes or cotton candy, many people would be outraged, others would
simply laugh. The same sort of argument is raised by some people with
respect to marijuana. Even compulsive marijuana smoking by an adult is
not so offensive that it injured neighbors or requires government
intervention. The attempt to use the law to tell people what they may
and may not consume at home is an arrogant invasion of personal
privacy. Protecting the Drug User’s Physical Health Sometimes it is
said that the law must protect the drug user from himself. The
argument takes two forms. One has to do with the damage a drug may do
to a person’s health and the other with the individual’s power of
self-control or freedom. First consider the health effects. By any
reasonable standard, marijuana is a mild drug and as for overdosing,
there is no scientifically valid evidence of anyone dying of an
overdose of marijuana smoke. Of course, it is possible to commit
suicide by consuming large amounts of marijuana. But it is possible to
die by eating too much salt. Salt is not illegal. Aspirin kills by
overdose and that’s legal. Many people die by drinking too much
alcohol, an addictive drug. It too is legal. Why is marijuana
considered more dangerous?
Protecting Society from Marijuana
One argument made against the legalization of marijuana is
that it damages not only the user but innocent bystanders. This
argument, like the one about protecting the user, has two parts. The
first deals with physical injury and the second with spiritual health.
The main physical threat to society is that users under the influence
of a drug with crash a car or airplane, or lose control in some way
and do harm. People who have recently smoked marijuana do show signs
of clumsiness and disorientation. They should not operate machinery in
this condition. One study estimates that alcohol plays a part in 55%
of all fatal highway crashes. Marijuana may present similar risks, but
at present there are no reliable data on its importance in accidents.
According to John Stuart Mill’s writings, the government should try to
control only the aspects of drug use that injure society. In this
vein, it makes sense to have laws against driving under the influence
of marijuana similar to those governing driving under the influence of
alcohol. In other words, driving while on marijuana should be outlawed
by not the use of marijuana itself. Some people believe that marijuana
threatens society in a more insidious way. They argue that it drains
workers’ energy and makes them less productive. This in turn lowers
the vitality of the economy, depressing the overall quality of life.
In addition, drug use- including marijuana smoking- is seen as a
plague on society that must be isolated. This disease theory holds
that legalizing marijuana would make it more widely available and that
this would tend to increase its use as well as the use of all kinds of
drugs. One of the detriments of tolerating drug use, according to this
theory, is that is encourages the use of more and different drugs. The
National Institute on Drug Abuses 1984 report to Congress cited no
evidence to support the idea that drug use is hurting economic
productivity. It said: “The fact is, very little is known about the
complex relationship which undoubtedly exists between drug abuse,
worker performance, and productivity, or the lack thereof…. Simply
put, the number of unanswered questions currently far outnumbers the
available answers.” Nor is there any strong evidence that legalizing
marijuana would increase use of the drug. In fact, there is some
evidence suggesting that drug use under a relaxed legal system might
not increase at all. Many states have removed the penalties for
marijuana possession that were on the books in the 1950s and 1960s.
The change occurred during a reform movement that swept the nation in
the mid 1970s. Yet in spite of the less stringent laws, studies show
that the use of marijuana in the affected states has, after an initial
increase, declined. Although marijuana became easier to use (from a
legal standpoint), it also became less popular.
The Failure of Prohibition
Examining the U.S. policy on marijuana on the basis of
performance, one must judge it a miserable failure. The number of
people who have smoked the drug at least once has grown from an
uncounted few in the 1950s, when some of the strictest antimarijuana
laws were imposed, to nearly 50 million today. During this period the
federal government has made steadily increasing efforts to stop its
production and importation, and seizures of marijuana in the ports has
grown steadily. Elaborate and costly international police campaigns
have been launched, and the number of drug arrests in the United
States has increased. The federal budget for drug enforcement
reflected in several agencies has gone above $1 billion a year. And
yet the illegal trade in marijuana continues. Supplies are so
plentiful that the price has actually come down. The response has been
to redouble police efforts and hope that things will change. The
result is that more money is spent on a failed policy, creating an
ever-growing army of drug enforcers dedicated to keeping the policy
alive. The illegal market for marijuana grows even faster than the
police force, however, because the drug users are willing to pay more
to get what they want than taxpayers are willing to pay to stop it.
The drug police enjoy their work and are not going to quit. And why
should they as long as their salaries are paid? The admission that the
marijuana laws have failed will have to come from someone else- not
from the police. Marijuana is a common weed, easier to produce than
the bathtub gin of the Prohibition years. It is not surprising that
thousands of “dealers” have been drawn into the marijuana business.
Despite the great risks they face, including bullying by other dealers
and the threat of arrest, they are attracted by the profits. The law
cannot change the economics of this market because it operates outside
the law. All the police can do is to make it risky to get into the
marijuana business. This is supposed to drive out the less courageous
dealers, reduce the amount of marijuana available, and inflate prices.
But even by this measure, the police effort has failed. As mentioned
earlier, the price of marijuana is declining. There are several ways
in which the policy on marijuana imposed a burden on society. The
obvious one is the cost of supporting the federal enforcement effort.
Aside from this, there is a hard-to-measure but significant impact on
society because the law creates a huge criminal class. It includes not
just dealers who are out for profit but a much larger group of users.
Consider three major penalties for having such a large criminal class.
Some Benefits of Legalizing Marijuana
By lifting the ban on marijuana use and treating it like other
drugs such as tobacco and alcohol, the nation would gain immediate and
long-term benefits. This change in the law would greatly improve the
quality of life for many people. Victims of glaucoma and those needing
antinausea treatment, for example, would find marijuana easily
available. If the medical advantages that are claimed for marijuana
are real, many more patients would benefit. Research, which has been
slowed in the past by the government’s reluctance to frant exemptions
to the marijuana laws, would be easier to conduct. The cloud of
suspicion would disappear, and doctors could get on with investigating
marijuana’s medical uses with out fear of controversy. It might become
possible to discuss the dangers of marijuana use without getting
caught up in a policy debate. Meanwhile, the black market would
disappear overnight. Some arrangement would be made to license the
production of marijuana cigarettes. Thousands of dealers would be put
out of business, and a secret part of the economy would come into the
open. It is difficult to say whether this change would reduce crime
because criminals would probably continue to sell other drugs. But it
would have an impact on the amount of money flowing through criminal
channels, and this might weaken organized crime. Lastly, the federal
budget would benefit in two ways, Federal revenues would increase,
because marijuana cigarettes would be taxed at the point of sale. The
companies that make the cigarettes would also pay income taxes, adding
to the federal coffers. Second, there would be a reduction in the
amount spent on law enforcement efforts to apprehend and prosecute
users and sellers of marijuana. The drug enforcement authorities might
reduce their budget requests, or, more likely, focus more intensely on
hard drugs and violent crimes. The courts would be relieved of hearing
some drug cases, as well. The most important gain would be in the
quality of government. The sorts of temptations and opportunities that
lead to corruption would be significantly minimized. The illogical
pattern of law enforcement, which now treats marijuana as more
dangerous than alcohol, would end. It would set more achievable goals
for law enforcement, and this would lend strength and credibility to
the government.
—
Alcohol vs. Marijuana 1: Over 100 thousand deaths annually are
directly linked to acute alcohol poisoning. 2: In 4,000 years of
recorded history, no one has ever died from a pot overdose. 3: Alcohol
causes Server physical and psychology dependence. 4:
Alcohol is reported to cause temporary and permanent damage to all
major organs of the body. 5: Cannabis is a much less
violent provoking substance then alcohol. * With over 60 million
people using cannabis in the U.S. Today our laws and law
makers should view it under the same light. As they do alcohol.
Marijuana Status 1970: 11% of high school seniors said they were using
marijuana every day. 1975: About 27% said they had
used marijuana sometime in the previous month. 1978: The monthly users
grew up to 37% then in 1986 dropped to 23%.
1979: 12 to 17 year olds reported using it within the last month has
dropped from a high point of 17% and in 1987 dropped to
12%.
Bibliography
1. Adams, Leon; “Marijuana”. Encyclopedia International. Vol 11.
p365-347. LEXICON PUBLICATIONS. Philippines, 1979
2. Lorimer, Lawrence; “Marijuana” Encyclopedia Year Book 1993.
p214-215.
GROLIER INCORPORATED. Canada, 1993
3. Snyder, Solomon. The Encyclopedia of Psychoactive Drugs. Series 2.
LEGALIZATION: A DEBATE. CHELSEA HOUSE PUBLISHERS. New York, 1988
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