The Legalization of Marijuana

Legalizing marijuana has been a huge argumentive issue for a long time and over the last few years it has been an even bigger issue. Experts say that the most widely used drug is marijuana and is not considered as dangerous or as addicting as cocaine or heroin. This paper is about the legalization of marijuana. People who want marijuana legal agree that if legalized it will make the drug trafficking go down because the value will be lower. Making it illegal to purchase drugs makes it high priced on the market and a very high paying enterprise for the seller. Those that oppose drug legalization say that if the law is not there, it will increase the number of users and addicts. If there is not anything to stop marijuana from selling, like higher prices or going to jail, it will encourage drug use. It will increase drug addicts, more violent behavior, higher rates of child abuse and spousal abuse. Drug laws keep at bay drug availability and drug abusers. Advocates of medical marijuana say the uses of marijuana include; to control loss of appetite, muscle spasms, nausea, vomiting, and other systems caused by Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS), cancer, and multiple sclerosis. It has also been said to stop epileptic seizures and glaucoma.

The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) has listed marijuana as a Schedule One drug, a designation specifying that marijuana is considered to be without medical benefits and is unsafe even under medical supervision. There are advocates that say it is the only thing that helps people who have not got help from traditional drugs. According to Stephen Betzen, director of the Texas Coalition for Compassionate Care, “Our message is simple; it is time to get the sick and dying off the battle field of war on drugs,” His wife, diagnosed with Lyme disease, started using marijuana as a way to treat her symptoms. Therefore, Betzen founded the group. “The government’s own studies have shown that marijuana has not efficacy,” says Betzen. The government conducted a study in 1994, which they wanted to keep quiet about, where scientist gave rats and mice large amounts of tetrahudaocannabinoid (THC), searching for cancers and toxicities. The THC given to the rodents made the rodents live longer and the rodents had fewer cancers and lived longer, “In a dose-dependent manner (i.e., the more THC they got, the fewer tumors)”. There are several pros and cons in the use of smoking marijuana.

According to Elon (2006), “smoking a marijuana cigarette deposits about three to five times tar in the lungs than one filtered cigarette. If you are smoking three of four joints a day it causes as much harm to the respiratory system as smoking a full pack of cigarettes a day. The smoke from the marijuana contains 50 to 70 percent more carcinogenic hydrocarbons than tobacco”. “The truth of the matter is that scientific studies show that marijuana is not toxic to humans, and the quotation overdose amount is so unrealistic as to be laughable. There are more people that have died from prescription drugs, firearms, alcohol, aspirin, or peanut butter than marijuana. There is no recorded evidence that supports the fact that marijuana having ever caused any medical deaths. Alcohol and tobacco are both more addictive and dangerous than marijuana,” (Hubpages, nd).

There are people which have differences of opinion, “Accident records from one study show that up to 12 percent of none-fatally injured drivers and up to 16 percent of fatally injured drivers had marijuana in their bloodstream, (Elon, (2006))”. The problem with Elon saying this is that marijuana stays within the blood stream for 30 days after a marijuana cigarette is smoked or is medical taken. If a person is stopped and marijuana is found within the bloodstream, it does not been that a joint was just smoked but that one could have been smoked as many as 30 days before. According to Elon (2006), “after marijuana became legal and sold in smoke shops in the Netherlands, consumption nearly tripled among 18 to 20 year olds.” This statement is not true because there is nowhere that it is legal to smoke or sell marijuana. The Netherlands tolerate a small amount of cannabis on a person but there is nowhere it is legal. In closing the claims that were made by Elon’s article are false information, and it was not researched properly or read properly. It seems the author has been trying to sway the audience into voting against legalization of marijuana. It makes some or most of the information in the article by Elon false and invalid.

References

Zoom info Stephen Betzen Retrieve May 25, 2012 from
http://www.zoominfo.com/#!search/profile/person?personId=1433157561&targetid=profile Elon, Election2006, Retrieved May 25, 2012, from http://www.elon.edu/eweb/students/civic_engagement/election_2006/legaliza tionofmarijuanaargumentsagainst.xhtml?m=1

Hubpages, Why Legalize Marijuana? Retrieved May 25, 2012 from http://www.elon.edu/e-
web/students/civic_engagement/election_2006/legalizationofmarijuanaargumentsagainst .xhtml?m=1