Marijuana, mary jane, pot, reefer, ganja, purple haze, kush, green, tree, dope, cannabis, and dank are all words used to describe the same thing. Consumed by many animals including the deer, marijuana grows naturally in many countries around the world including America. This plant is of the genus cannabis and varies in species between sativa and indica. So why is this plant arguably the most controversial plant in America? When smoked or ingested, marijuana produces a high that many people find to be pleasurable and for others the only drug that can stop the pain of their illness. The active ingredient THC continues to hold the title of the most used, illegal, psychoactive, drug to this day. It is this high that gives reason for law enforcement to pursue the laws of the plant. Other than the few and select states that allow medical marijuana, marijuana is illegal to possess, grow, and sell. I feel that based on factual evidence there is no reason marijuana should be illegal, therefore marijuana should be legalized in all of America. Marijuana has many myths that are associated with this drug, giving it a bad reputation, but almost all of these have been debunked through scientific research. Furthermore, making a drug illegal only opens the underground market that always coexists with violence and criminal activities. I hope that through my research I am able to convince you, the reader, that the benefits of the legalization of marijuana greatly outweigh any negative effects associated with this drug.
One of the biggest problems that I have with people who do not believe in legalizing marijuana is that most of them seem to think that marijuana makes people crazy and or kills brain cells. The 1920’s movie Reefer Madness is a perfect example of this. This movie shows people smoking marijuana and then the effects that the drug has on them. The only problem is that the movie exaggerates the effects far beyond reality, showing the actors acting in a paranoid psychotic state. A state of mind such as the ones depicted in the movie could only be achieved using much more dangerous drugs such as PCP. Smoking marijuana is not going to cause someone to commit murder; in fact, it is a common belief among marijuana users that the drug only makes you more peaceful. So even if it does not make you go crazy; what are the actual long-term effects of the drugs? John Morgan is a retired professor of pharmacology at New York Medical School where he taught for twenty-eight years. John is also the co-author of the book Marijuana Myths, Marijuana Facts. In a YouTube video he said, “…of all the psychoactive drugs that people have taken, I think that marijuana is by far the safest.” He also argues that, “…all drugs have side effects…it would be very unusual to have a drug with no side effects.” If there were anyone to consult about the toxicology of marijuana, John would be the person, but he is not the only medical professional that believes marijuana is a much safer drug than most others are. A study of 700 regular marijuana smokers were compared to 484 non-users in brain functions such as reaction time, language and motor skills, reasoning ability, memory, and the ability to learn new information. The writer of the article, Sid Kirchheimer, interprets the results of the study concluding, “The marijuana users in those studies had smoked marijuana several times a week, or month, or daily. Still, researchers say impairments were less than what is typically found from using alcohol or other drugs.” I find it very juvenile of critics to argue against scientific research, yet there are people to this day who still think that marijuana causes serious problems if used. After exposing false images of marijuana to people in movies such as Reefer Madness or other drug deferring media, it is hard to convince someone otherwise. These false images, in my opinion, are one of the biggest reasons why so many people think that marijuana is a dangerous drug and are scared of its effects. I have known too many recreational users of marijuana that were academically successful and very smart to believe the false reputation that the media places on the drug.
You may be thinking to yourself how the legalization of another recreational and possible medical drug would be a good thing. My answer to you is criminal activities. Throughout history, there has been a direct link between illegal drugs and crimes. When the government passes laws to make a drug illegal, this creates opportunities for criminals to make money from it, lots of money from it. The hard part about this concept for people to understand is that marijuana does not cause the violence; it is the sole fact that the drug is illegal. Juddy Man of the Washington Post writes, “Marijuana itself does not induce violence. People do not simply smoke a joint and decide to shoot somebody. What produces violence is that it is illegal. The same dynamic caused the murderous Capone-style violence during prohibition.” Critics of marijuana need to learn to distinguish between the violence of a drug and the violence of drug trade. If marijuana were legalized the underground drug trade will then become a controlled market just like any other goods that are sold in America. In his video, John Morgan also discusses his reasons for why marijuana should be legalized, “I am a strong advocate of the legalization of marijuana and other drugs not because they’re safe but because they’re dangerous…drugs can be better controllable by a system of regulation, a system that removes criminality.” If the American government were to legalize marijuana, they could also set up a system of regulation. Not only would this regulation rid of the crime but it would also allow our government to make money from taxing the plant. Under a system of legalized and controlled marijuana, a user could safely purchase and use the drug without causing any harm to anyone else. On the contrary, illegal marijuana causes problems not only for users but also for innocent citizens who have nothing to do with the drug. A grim article in the Tahoe Daily Tribune tells a story about a forty-three-year-old-man and his eight-year-old-son who were both shot when they stumbled upon a marijuana field while they were hunting on family property. The article describes the gruesome
