Why Marijuana should be legalized?
Cannabis, better known as marijuana, has been in The United States before The United
States was an actual country. Since then, many lawmakers have opposed the plant contrary to scientific as well as statistical findings that point to legalization. Current laws and statutes that criminalize marijuana do not dissuade the general public from using it or adequately punish those who do use it. Marijuana should become decriminalized, regulated, and legalized for recreational use in The United States because it has healing capabilities used to treat diseases, laws governing it overcrowds the prison system, and lastly because it is much safer than already legalized drugs.
Cannabis is already used to treat a number of serious ailments such as cancer, glaucoma, seizure disorders, Crohn’s disease, nausea from cancer chemotherapy, muscle spasms caused by multiple sclerosis, and so on. Many renowned doctors advocate the use of medical marijuana.
According to the New England Journal of Medicine, 78% of doctors have voted in favor of medical marijuana. How can it be that so many doctors believe that cannabis is a medicinal plant, yet it remains illegal in the majority of states? According to a 2010 investigation by the Associated Press, “lawmakers have spent over
$1 trillion dollars enforcing the drug war. Their actions have resulted in a quadrupling of the
U.S. prison population since 1980, but little else. In fact, according to America's present drug czar, Gil Kerlikowske, "in the grand scheme, [the drug war] has not been successful." Compared to every other nation, America has the largest prison population on the planet. Much of that is because of the stringent enforcement of cannabis laws. Legalization of marijuana would not lead to a rise in other crimes, in fact, it may very well lead to a decline in crime. Erin Delmore writes about how marijuana actually led to a decline in crime in Colorado once the plant was legalized,
“But a new report contends that fourteen years later, even after Colorado legalized the sale of small amounts of marijuana for recreational use on Jan. 1 of this year (2014), violent and property crime rates in the city are actually falling.” So aside from generating massive income from taxes on marijuana, Colorado is also benefiting from a decline in crime that may or may not be due to the Amendment 64 and the legalization of recreational marijuana.
The negative stigma surrounding marijuana is more harmful than the drug itself. When compared to either tobacco or alcohol, it is hard to fathom why marijuana is not legal for recreational use too, or at the very least medicinal use. A 2010 study published in the Lancet and reported on by the Economist, “A team of drug experts in the U.K. assessed the combined harms to others and to the user of marijuana as less than the harms posed by alcohol or tobacco use.”
“The negative stigma of pot use has certainly made it seem like it's worse, and since using the drug is still illegal, the fact that only people who are willing to break the law will smoke has inevitably made it associated with a "pothead" culture. These are just the preconceived notions we've been brought up in though. A world where instead of drinking cheap beer, a hopeful political candidate can roll a joint to seem like the "people's choice" doesn't have to seem
