Marijuana. Legal or Not?

Marijuana

            The legalization article was very interesting. It pointed out many valid points as to why marijuana should be legal. One way it did this was by attacking other drugs that are legal in the U.S. For instance, alcohol and tobacco. Alcohol is the leading cause of death in the nation and yet it is still legal over marijuana which causes no overdose deaths in a year and very little car accidents due to the use of marijuana. As for tobacco, it is the leading cause of annual preventable deaths with about 435,000 people a year. Furthermore, the article takes the legalization of marijuana from a government’s standpoint. Approximately 755,186 arrests were made in 2003 due to marijuana use or possession. Legalizing marijuana would take all of these people out of jail. Or, rather than arresting people for possession of marijuana, the country could choose to decriminalization (instead of getting arrested for possession, one is just fine) would cut down almost half of the drug arrests in America. Decriminalization of marijuana saves California 100 million dollars per year and would make the government millions of dollars the government.

            The article on keeping marijuana illegal was also very interesting. It talked about the N.O.R.M.L. (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.) This organization says that “Hardworking and productive members of society who raise families shouldn’t be treated like criminals when they responsibly engage in occasionally smoking marijuana.” However, the writer of the article says that if they were really productive, functioning members of society, then they would not be breaking the law by smoking marijuana. She says that if marijuana is illegal, then there is no reason why people should engage in smoking it. Good citizens would stay away from the drug and refuse to break the law. Furthermore, marijuana causes short term memory loss, and people who use for a long period of time become very stresses when they aren’t smoking marijuana. They become dependent on smoking. The article also says that even people with tremendous pain shouldn’t be allowed to use marijuana to relieve the pain. She says that other legal drugs should be used to relieve the pain.