JUST LEGALIZE IT
California, a State currently marred by the economic recession, is facing a major budget deficit and is deliberating a controversial way to reduce some of the massive debt: legalizing marijuana.
Time magazine reports “The state's tax collectors estimate the bill would bring in about $1.3 billion a year in much needed revenue, offsetting some of the billions of dollars in service cuts and spending reductions outlined in the recently approved state budget.”
California was one of the first US States to legalize medical marijuana, and over the last few years there has been an explosion of legal producers and dispensaries. While the FDA has approved and recognized the scientific medical research of the drug Marinol, an isolated form of the active ingredient in marijuana, they have not recognized any medical benefits from smoking marijuana.
Living in America with legal marijuana wouldn’t be much different than it is today. Because marijuana is illegal, Americans are suffering far greater damage do to the violence that surrounds the illegal drug trade. By simply legalizing the plant, evidence from prohibition suggests we would eliminate most, if not all, of the violence.
NORML’s website claims that “enforcing marijuana prohibition costs US Taxpayers 10 billion dollars annually and results in the arrest of 872,000 individuals per year—far more than the total arrests for all violent crimes including, murder, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault.”
Legalization advocates don’t condone marijuana use by kids, nor believe that people should go to work or school stoned. They don’t believe that it should be legal to drive under the influence of marijuana or that being under the influence of marijuana will, in any way, enhance ones ability to be productive in society. They are simply advocating the medical or recreational use by responsible adults.
Currently, marijuana comes from several different types of suppliers but mainly unsuspicious grow houses operating in rural, suburban, and urban neighborhoods. Marijuanabusinessnews.com claims that a ten by ten room with 10 lights can generate up to $230,000 worth of marijuana per year.
There are outdoor marijuana operations in rural areas in every state. In Florida these outdoor gardens thrive in the everglades or in other areas where there is little chance of being found. In California there have even been outdoor operations discovered in State parks. Some of the marijuana that Americans use comes from Mexico, where it is grown by cartels and then smuggled across the border for sale.
Statistics from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Data Archive estimate that 95 million Americans have smoke weed at least once. The data also estimates that over 22 million American adults have used cannabis in the past year. Twenty eight percent of Americans aged 18-25 have used in the last year. It’s interesting that in the next age group 26-34 year olds only 13.7% have used Marijuana within the last year. Only 8.1% of Americans ages 35-49 have used Marijuana in the last year.
The data shows that marijuana use is more prevalent in young adults and that most of them tend to outgrow the practice as they get older. What most likely occurs is that as users mature, have children, and get involved with a career, marijuana is something that doesn’t fit into their lives anymore.
American Presidents admit to smoking marijuana. President Clinton had the famous quote that he smoked pot but he never inhaled. Numerous actors and musicians have admitted to or been photographed or filmed smoking weed. There are popular television shows like “Entourage” and “Weeds” in which characters frequently are shown using marijuana. It’s hard to go to a convenience store that doesn’t sell some type of marijuana accessory like rolling papers, glass pipes, weed grinders, blunt wraps, or even joint rolling machines.
In these and many other ways, the marijuana culture has already entered our society.
If half of all Americans under the age of 50 have tried pot at least once and if 22 million Americans are using marijuana frequently, there are few good arguments for perpetuating a policy that makes so many people criminals in the eyes of the law.
Some claim that we have fought the war on drugs and made so much progress that we cannot give up now, or that marijuana is a gateway drug that leads kids to get hooked on other dangerous drugs, or that by making marijuana legal, it will be much easier for kids to get a hold of.
The National Household Survey on Drug Abuse in 1998 reported that 50% of 13 year olds surveyed said they could buy marijuana if they wanted to, even though it is illegal.
While there are large busts that take drugs including marijuana off the streets, the argument for the success of the war on drugs is weak at best. These busts represent only a small percentage of the amount of marijuana in circulation. As long as there is a demand for marijuana there will always be a supply.
Is the War on Drugs working for people in Mexico, who are dealing with some of the worst violence in recent history from drug cartels? Legalizing pot might not eliminate the Mexican cartels, but it would put them out of the pot business, which is a step in the right direction.
By declaring war on marijuana the US is choosing to use violence to fight against it. If we legalized marijuana and regulated it like alcohol, we would eliminate all of the violence that surrounds the illegal marijuana trade. After prohibition, there were no armed Budweiser delivery truck drivers or winery’s using armed guards to protect their fields.
The fact that smoking marijuana is harmful to people’s health cannot be disputed. Breathing smoke cannot be safe. Currently smoking marijuana is the preferred method of delivery because it is efficient and creates an instant high.
But, technology has led to new ways to ingest marijuana that don’t involve smoking harmful carcinogens. Vaporizers are battery powered devices that heat up a small amount of marijuana to the point where the active ingredient, THC, is released into a steam or vapor. This vapor is captured and then breathed in by the user. This method gives users the same high as smoking but eliminates the harmful side effects of breathing in smoke. It also allows a user to get many more doses from an equal size amount of pot because it is more efficient, and it doesn’t cause cancer or lung disease.
In his article in Time Magazine, “Why I would vote No on Pot”, Dr. Sanjay Gupta argues that marijuana should remain illegal because it isn’t good for you. He notes that “Frequent marijuana use can seriously affect your short-term memory. It can impair your cognitive ability (why do you think people call it dope?) and lead to long-lasting depression or anxiety. While many people smoke marijuana to relax, it can have the opposite effect on frequent users. And smoking anything, whether it's tobacco or marijuana, can seriously damage your lung tissue.”
If we use this same rationale then we also have to criminalize fast food, jelly donuts, and an entire list of other things that Americans consume every day. We have loads of different choices of soda in the grocery store. Almost all of these options contain enormous amounts of sugar and caffeine which we know are dangerous, especially to a country that is plagued by obesity. Personal responsibility should be the burden of the individual, not the government.
The argument that marijuana is a gateway drug has never been proven to be more than a myth. Nearly half of all Americans under the age of 50 have tried pot. If it is a gateway drug then we would see a much higher percentage of drug addicted adults in this age group. NORML’s website claims that only 15% of adults have tried cocaine and only 2% of adult have tried heroin in their lifetimes.
If we taught the truth about marijuana to our young people instead of perpetuating myths, lies, and exaggerations then there is reason to believe that our children would wait longer to try marijuana or decide altogether that they do not want to use it.
In the end, legal or illegal, the parents have the most impact on determining which choices a child will make when faced with the temptation to try marijuana.
California estimates that 1.3 billion in tax revenue is being lost each year just on the marijuana that is currently being grown within the state. This supply could be produced by tax paying, law abiding American citizens who are going to use the drug anyway.
The US can find much better uses for our law enforcement agencies than wasting money on helicopters with expensive infrared cameras that fly over our neighborhoods looking for heat signals to locate grow houses, or flying over our forests looking for outdoor marijuana gardens, or using our street police to track down citizens selling $10 bags on the street. We can use these same resources to make our neighborhoods safer from burglars, murders, molesters, and rapists.
The State and Federal budgets are already spread very thin because of the economy. Legalizing marijuana would create an extra income source and eliminate huge enforcement costs. The burden of education and treatment costs should be placed on marijuana enterprises, which would eliminate even more costs to the government.
The US wastes money and perpetuates violence by keeping marijuana illegal. Since almost every American has access to it under the current system, there should not be any more users of marijuana were it legal. Making it legal will put money back into the government coffers. Parents will still bare the same responsibility to educate their children about the dangers of using pot and children will still, at some point in their lives, be faced with the temptation to try it.
Nothing is going to stop the use of marijuana in the US. The only reasonable action would be to legalize it, tax it, and regulate it. When you look at the facts, legalization is a no brainer.