Should Marijuana Be Legalized Essay: For And Against
There are so many questions about marijuana today. Is it harmful or not? Does it cause addiction? Does it damage the health? Should it be legalized? and many many others. Also there are so many myths and false arguments about cannabis which we will try to explain or even dispel in this marijuana argumentative essay.
Should certain types of drugs be legalized?
This issue remains very urgent for several years already. Cannabis is one of the most discuss kinds of drugs. Mostly such debates are led by the most ardent consumers of the drug market: those who get earnings from sales, and those who believe it is a freedom of choice. So is cannabis really harmless plant?
Today many young people believe that cannabis is natural substance that grows from the ground as a plant absolutely harmless. Also marijuana is used in medicine (look for medical marijuana essay to get more information). Today numerous studies are conducted in the field of ophthalmology, oncology, and many others. With the help of cannabis they try to cure eye diseases (glaucoma), sclerosis spasms, nausea effects of chemotherapy, and also stimulate the appetite of the patients who suffer from exhaustion. However any study has not been finished yet. Cannabis has useful qualities for sure and maybe there is no harm.
Besides it was proved that physical addiction of cannabis develops very seldom, regular users are more psychologically addicted than physically. Everyone knows that forbidden fruit is the sweetest, and that probably cannabis attracts young people because it is forbidden. But is cannabis is legalized, then the youngsters may choose other, harder drugs, for example amphetamine. So it this the way out?
Nowadays we face very serious problem of alcohol abuse among the young people. What will happen if there is added cannabis? How it will be spread? In the stores and supermarkets as cigarettes and alcohol? If it becomes easily available, the range of consumers will expand. Also where will we get that huge amount of cannabis? Marijuana planting will displace other crops cultivation or we will have to import it. Again very dubious path.
What will happen to young men education if they constantly use cannabis? It is scientifically proved that drugs influence negatively the long-term motivation and short-term memory. The legalization of cannabis will lead to attraction of the tourists, the country will turn into the epicenter of drug tourism. For example Holland: no one remembers that it is the country of tulips, wooden shoes and windmills. The word “Amsterdam” provokes only the association of drugs.
We should not make experiments with the cannabis legalization, because there will not be way back.
The most popular arguments of the legalization opponents
About 80 years ago in America a low-budget educational film called «Reefer Madness» was released. Propaganda of marijuana harm presented in this film was frankly false. Today in the era of legal medical and recreational cannabis a lot of people just make fun of the movie. However the “fighters against drug” do not give up and often mention the same hysterical arguments as the authors of this educational film.
Changed public opinion is the main proof of the fact that “the fight against drugs” is lost. Do you need examples? Recreational marijuana is legally sold in Colorado, soon Washington will join it. More than a dozen states are developing measures aimed at the legalization of cannabis in the near future. The laws that allow the use of cannabis derivatives for medical purposes were adopted in 20 states of the USA and some European countries. For the first time in the history most citizens of the United States support marijuana legalization. It is already legalized in Uruguay. It is obvious that today the conditions for the changing of the legal status of cannabis are very favorable.
However the more countries decide to implement reforms, the harder the fight of the legalization opponents becomes. Unfortunately most of the “marijuana fighters” use the same out-of-date arguments. Probably, strong arguments against legalization really exist. But further we are going to present you arguments against marijuana that proved to be false.
Marijuana causes drug addiction
Just like the rest of the allowed substances people can abuse marijuana. Too frequent use of cannabis in big amounts may cause addiction. But if this is the only reason why marijuana should be banned, in this case many other things should be forbidden as well.
Research of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (United States) show that cannabis does not cause addiction that easily as, for example, nicotine, alcohol or even caffeine. It is believed that only from 4% to 9% of regular marijuana smokers experiencing discomfort connected with addiction. It is noteworthy that the majority of ganja consumers in the United States ask for medical help (and get it) after the fist signs of addiction. In 2012 for example 957 thousand people got professional treatment. The marijuana fighters used this fact as an argument against legalization saying it was “drug addiction epidemic”.
Besides abuse and addiction can manifest themselves in different ways. The authors of the publication “Marijuana legalization: everyone should know” notice: some heavy smokers of cannabis really experience the symptoms of clinical addiction and feel discomfort because of drug withdrawal when they try to quit. However the intensity of their feelings and the danger of such a state can not be compared with what an alcoholic, smoker or heroin addict feel.
Marijuana is as dangerous as heroin or LSD
Not so many people use this argument verbatim. Even Barack Obama had to admit that there was no conclusive evidence to prove this argument. Nevertheless, cannabis is really equated to such dangerous substances as heroin or LSD. Moreover, the policy of prohibitionists in many countries is based on this argument.
In the United State the Category 1 prohibited substances are defined as the most dangerous drugs that can cause strong psychological and physical addiction and that are not used in medicine. Marijuana is also in this category of substances. Here we can see obvious contradiction.
The key argument of the legalization opponents was always cannabis comparison with hard drugs. However there are a lot of cases when officials simply refused to answer questions “what is more dangerous: crack (cocaine) or cannabis?”, “what causes stronger addiction: meth (methamphetamine) or marijuana?” and other questions of this kind.
The “gateway” theory
According to this theory cannabis is a gateway for more dangerous drugs. In other words, a man who uses cannabis sooner or later will start using more “serious” drugs. During many years they try to convince the whole population of the planet that this statement is true.
Nevertheless the “gateway” theory has no scientific basis at all. Looking at the statistics of drug use (by the way, most of people do not take it into consideration at all), it is important to understand that correlation and causal relationship are two different things. Most drug addicts who use heavy drugs (cocaine, heroin and others) really used to smoke marijuana earlier. But it would be wrong to make any conclusion basing on these facts. A lot of marijuana users smoke it for many years without having desire to switch to heroin. More often it happens vise versa – at some point people realize that can live without ganja and refuse taking it again.
Once “Time” magazine published a very interesting analogy: most bikers loved to ride bicycle in the childhood, but it does not mean that each child on a bike is a future biker. The statement that drug addicts often begin with ganja has some sense. It is more available than most of other drugs, you do not need to do injections or suffer from nose bleeds to “change your consciousness”. But the use of the weed itself is not the reason to switch too heavy drugs.
The cannabis smoking is as harmful as tobacco smoking
Millions of people die annually because of cigarettes. So it would seem logical to suppose that if marijuana is also smoked, it influence negatively the health in the same way (in particular it damages the respiratory system). However the science has refuted this hypothesis. Studies showed that cannabis and tobacco smoke has the same carcinogens, although the cigarettes that contain nicotine make much more harm to the health than marijuana, which contains cannabinoids.
Unpleasant side effects of the cannabis use, cough or dyspnea, in fact are noticed at some heavy smokers only. As different studies prove marijuana itself does not influence the lungs functions at all. Furthermore, some cannabinoids are able to suppress the vital activity of cancer cells. It means that with the help of cannabis probably it will become possible to cure lung cancer caused by cigarettes.
Smoking is the most popular way of marijuana use. However there are many other ways that make impossible the occurrence of hazardous combustion products: vaporizer, sprays, oil extracts and so on.
Marijuana makes people crazy
“Reefer Madness” is a story about teenagers whom cannabis smoking made crazy, and they ended with violence and even murder. Some people are still sure that cannabis users tend to aggressive conduct, mental disorders and violent crimes.
Meanwhile, scientists have discovered that the patients who suffered from different forms of psychosis and used marijuana at the same time had a predisposition to mental disorders earlier. After about 3 years of regular marijuana smoking they experienced exacerbations. However even this supposition was not proved. Other research did not show any causal relationship between the use of ganja and schizophrenia, aggression, propensity for violence.
When it comes to domestic violence, murders resulting from domestic violence, ungrounded aggression, likely we deal with alcohol. According to some reports, 25-30% of all the crimes in the United States connected with violence are committed under the influence of alcohol. In 2003 in «Addictive Behaviors» magazine was published an article, in which was noticed that propensity for violence is directly related to alcohol intoxication. Later the US National Academy of Sciences carried out research on the behavior of marijuana smokers and discovered that THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) was able to reduce aggression.
In spite of the fact that connection between mental disorders and destructive behavior with cannabis use is not proved, the myths about harmful influence of marijuana on our mind are very widespread.
After legalization cannabis will become available to kids
The fears about marijuana legalization are often connected with the worries of parents. Naturally, prohibitionists use this. In fact illegal marijuana harms children more that regulated by the state cannabis.
Statistics show that teenagers do not trust the authorities' policy on marijuana. The reason is lack of real facts and scientific information. Instead of explaining the children the necessity of responsible approach to ganja use, they are said one short word “forbidden”. There is nothing strange that eventually youthful maximalism, youth curiosity and the principle of “forbidden fruit” make children “cross the line”.
It would be immoral to make propaganda, persuade someone (an adult or a child) to smoke marijuana, or advertize it. But let’s do not think that these actions are the same with legalization that provides the establishment of effective regulation and monitoring mechanisms. If the marijuana opponents want to be taken seriously, they should discard outdated arguments and develop new argumentative base that corresponds to the requirements of the new century.
So as far as you can see marijuana issue is very debatable and heated today. This is not just essay on marijuana, but legalization of marijuana pros and cons essay, in which facts, myths and arguments (from the both sides) about cannabis are gathered and explained. Anyway I hope now you are more aware of this issue and can form your own valid opinion. If you need more essays on marijuana or any other topic, use our writing service Livecustomwriting.com. This is one of the best essay writing services available to you at any time!