Here's the scoop

People around the world are discussing the issue of legalizing marijuana and the popularity of the debate has been immense with Proposition 19 in California. Prop 19  calls for the regulation, control, and taxation of cannabis in the United States. This push for new legislature has ignited passion from the citizens of America and everyone is weighing the pros and cons of legalization. The prominent groups in this debate are the libertarians, medical professionals, economists, law enforcement officers (they’re so two faced!), and concerned constituents.

First I think it’s necessary to give a little background about ole Mary Jane. In colonial America she was grown in abundance and used for basic items such as rope, canvas, lamp oil, and her bountiful seeds were used for soap and birdseed. She harmed no one and only served her purpose as a crop.  She started to be used in “unconventional” ways in Africa and her use spread throughout the world. MJ was prohibited in the United States in the 1930s and it has since emerged as the most popular recreational drug.  Recently, the issue of legalization has become very popular because many individual states in the US have allowed for the medical use of marijuana. There have been multiple court cases regarding the issue on both the federal and state level. In 1978 the government made pot legal for a select few patients that deemed it a “medical necessity” but due to the surge of requests from AIDS patients the government closed the program. In 2005, a Supreme Court ruling gave the government the power to prosecute medical marijuana patients in the United States, regardless of what that states’ policy was on medical marijuana. An amendment was later proposed by New York and California legislators limiting the funding for the federal government to go against state laws regarding the subject of medical marijuana. The amendment was not passed but it received more votes from Congress than ever before. The Food and Drug Administration was sent a proposal to reevaluate the effects of marijuana on the body in 2002 but they have ignored that request. Currently Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington have a state law protecting citizens with medical marijuana licenses.  In addition, ten states and the District of Columbia have symbolic medical marijuana laws; they aren’t actually legally protected under state law though.

In 2005 Angel Raich and four other medical marijuana patients sued the federal government for repeated raids on their house. Raich used marijuana medically because she had a fatal illness and no other medications could help her. The Californian citizens felt that the federal government was unjust with their raids of their marijuana plant because they were using the drug to stay alive and alleviate symptoms. Their practices were legal under the state and local law of California.  She did not win the case against the Supreme Court but it brought the issue into the public eye. The court ruled that it is unlawful to grow marijuana for medical purposes in one’s own home.

Libertarians in the world argue that the government doesn’t have the right to prohibit the growing and using of the drug if it is not sold or dealt at all. The Marijuana Party of the US, founded by Loretta Nall in 2002, has many points for the issue but the two that stood out to me are: “we demand the right to grow marijuana for personal consumption, just as alcohol can be brewed at home legally so long as it is not sold untaxed. We demand that you stop treating us like second class citizens for consuming something that is less dangerous than alcohol and tobacco, both of which are legal and cause numerous deaths each year. Cannabis has never been reported to have caused one.”

Medical doctors around the country are researching the effects marijuana has on humans. The 10 major health benefits of pot propose a compelling argument for the usage of medical marijuana. For patients suffering from a loss of appetite, anorexia, AIDS, or discomfort from chemotherapy, pot boosts their eating habits. One problem for the use of medical marijuana is that medical marijuana is not regulated by the distributors to ensure the quality and purity of the substance. Right now, fourteen states have decriminalized medical marijuana but the whole country is not on the same page. Laws and tickets vary from state to state; some say it is legal for the caregivers of the medical marijuana patients to possess the drug, some states allow the patients to cultivate pot, and some prohibit the drug entirely. Researchers around the world are still trying to determine what marijuana can be used for in the medical field.  

Economists are swooned by the possibility that marijuana could be taxed like alcohol and tobacco and create revenue for our suffering economy.  The amount of money being spent on the prohibition of pot is excessive and wasteful. Economists argue that the money spent patrolling the border, making countless arrests for merely possessing the drug, and housing hundreds of thousands of prisoners for small infractions is  uneconomical and because the people in America are going to smoke pot whether it is legal or not (as demonstrated by the constituents every day) why not make money off of it?!

As I mentioned earlier law enforcement officers are divided on the subject of legalization. A large proportion of former DEA agents and police officers are for the legalization of marijuana because they see the tax dollars first hand being used ineffectively. LEAP stands for Law Enforcement Against Prohibition and their statement is: “LEAP does not promote the use of drugs and is deeply concerned about the extent of drug abuse worldwide. LEAP is also deeply concerned with the destructive impact of violent drug gangs and cartels everywhere in the world. Neither problem is remedied by the current policy of drug prohibition. Indeed, drug abuse and gang violence flourish in a drug prohibition environment, just as they did during alcohol prohibition.” Law enforcement officers recognize that drug cartels have way too much power and money from marijuana trafficking and when alcohol prohibition was stopped it stopped organized crime. Former police officers and DEA agents believe legalizing marijuana will have the same affects. On the other hand, many are adamant about fighting the war on drugs because they feel it keeps our country more safe. Countless numbers of DEA agents argue that marijuana arrests are beneficial for society because most people associated with pot are also involved with other, harder drugs like cocaine. Arresting the people for pot gets them off the streets and it stops them from committing other, more dangerous crimes. Medical marijuana is already legal so there is no need to legalize weed for everyone.

In September 2010, a rally was held at the Cow Palace Arena , outside of San Francisco. The gathering’s purpose was to promote the legalization of pot. A debate was planned but wasn’t executed because everyone in attendance was stoned. People worry that the availability of pot will promote the abuse and usage of marijuana. Constituents worry that marijuana is a gateway drug and that if it were to become legal more people would use it and the use of crack, cocaine, heroin, ecstasy, and other hard will be on the rise. Many citizens of the United States argue that if marijuana were legalized, the people using the drug would not do so responsibly. This would result in the increase of unsafe drivers on roads and increase the number of annual accidents. Citizens against legalizing marijuana (CALM) is a group of concerned constituents and their mission statement is to protect the children of America: “Protect them from the message that smoked marijuana is harmless because it’s legal. Protect them from the crimes related to growing and selling marijuana in your neighborhood. Protect them from an increased number of drugged drivers. Protect our workplaces from workers using marijuana.” Their argument is compelling because no one really knows exactly what will happen if marijuana is legalized. If legalizing pot makes it more accessible to children and the future of the United States abused the drug then we’d be, well…screwed.  This group argues that the negative side effects of pot outweigh the possible benefits of legalization. California’s dropout rate is 24% and that costs American taxpayer a lot of money. Another point CALM makes is that 14% of the money collected from other legal drugs, like alcohol and nicotine, go towards the damages caused by those drugs. Therefore, not that much money could be made from legalizing marijuana. Another strong point they bring up is negative implications of marijuana in the workforce. Personally I think that the policy should be the same as it is for alcohol. Don’t go to work intoxicated and if you do, you are fired. How many people in this day and age show up to work so drunk they can’t function? Not many because the economy is terrible and everyone needs their job more than anything. I can understand where their concern comes from though.  Right now marijuana is a Schedule 1 drug which means that it has no known medical purposes and to possess any amount is illegal. People who smoke marijuana are thirty times more likely to use harder drugs than people who have never used the drug. Parents worry for their children about getting hooked on pot. It has been associated with lower test scores and lethargic lackluster attitudes. Although marijuana is not physiologically addicting it is psychologically addicting. Some people need the drug to feel normal and begin to depend on the drug to function.

          The debate on the legalization of marijuana is a sticky one because it seems as if there is no right or wrong answer. I trust the intellectual ability of my country’s leaders to assess the pros and cons to this argument and implement a plan that is beneficial to all types of citizens. When looking at this issue it is easy to get caught up in a certain section of the debate. Sure, no one wants patients with medical problems to be denied access to their medication of choice but at the same time no one wants to see the future leaders of America dwindle away from excessive pot smoking. Therefore, we should think critically and seriously about this issue and hopefully we can help our government make the best decisions for this country.